Government Extortion

by: brendanod

Tue Aug 03, 2010 at 10:28:41 PM EDT

Although I am not a fan or even casual reader of The Trentonian, I happened to catch an article today

http://www.trentonian.com/arti...

about how the Ewing Township PBA have filed a lawsuit against Ewing Township for extortion.

I applaud the Ewing PBA for the action. Christie has made it fashionable to threaten public employees with layoffs in order to extort concessions from contract obligations.

Here is how it works. A municipality will have a multi-million dollar shortfall because Christie stole all of our income and sales tax money that should have been legally redistributed to municipalites for tax relief. A lot of mayors take this opportunity to extort concessions from union contracts by threatening mass layoffs. Instead of being honest and moral, the mayor will threaten to layoff dozens of cops (reducing labor costs by hundreds of thousands), but will accept a wage freeze or change in benefits only reducing labor costs by tens of thousands. It is another case of being intellectually dishonest, which is Christie's forte. A lot of mayor's now enjoy the accepted practice of being intellectually dishonest and immoral.

I enjoyed Senator Weinberg's diary about the governor being a hypocrite. This is another example. Can one imagine if the governor entered into a contract with a carpenter to have his kitchen remodeled, only to have the carpenter come back half way through the job with a bunch of excuses or hardball maneuvers as to why he now wanted more money or otherwise change the contract?

Christie is advocating union busting as a means to an end. Instead of tackling the main problem which is an overpopulation of municipalities and taxing authorities, he chooses to continue the class warfare and anti-labor theme. He is just hurting the citizenry.

brendanod :: Government Extortion

Tags: police, Christie, layoffs, extortion, Ewing Township, (All Tags)

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Government Extortion | 5 comments

Privatization with no Respect for the Contract? (0.00 / 0)

I was wondering how any private business entity would even sign a contract with the Christie Administration to privatize public services. How can you trust any contract they would sign?

He does not honor contracts. He doesn't even re-open or renegotiate, he doesn't honor.

Regarding state workers, he is trying to avoid some aspects of our contract. (PLB days to have indefinite carryover per the MOA--he declared PLB days to expire in one year.)

The stuff that doesn't make it to the news.

He is hurting the citizenry--whether union or business owner. There is no trust anymore.

by: EmployeeFreeChoice @ Sun Aug 08, 2010 at 15:20:13 PM UTC

by: you @ soon

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Hmm... (0.00 / 0)

What did he do with all the 'stolen' money?

"Where ever you go, there you are." - Buckaroo Bonzai

by: William Weber (WjcW) @ Mon Aug 09, 2010 at 13:13:07 PM UTC

by: you @ soon

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Whatever term you choose (0.00 / 0)

Some use raid, I like stole.

I can't tell how flippant you are being. I know your are well informed and could answer your own question.

I chose stole because taxes that were collected on electric bills for the real estate on transmission lines or clean energy funds were never meant for the general fund to be spent on a personal ideology.

"Only a fool would follow a bully"

by: brendanod @ Mon Aug 09, 2010 at 19:20:56 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

My only point... (0.00 / 0)

is that the raided funds are independent of income and sales tax money meant for property tax relief.

If there was a different set of priorities for the 1 penny of sales tax and income tax revenue, the legislature didn't present it.

"Where ever you go, there you are." - Buckaroo Bonzai

by: William Weber (WjcW) @ Mon Aug 09, 2010 at 20:03:53 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Personal Ideology (0.00 / 0)

is the governor's perogative. I agree, dems in the legislature (with the exception of women's health) put up little resistance towards the gov's budget.

We will see if the plan to let the cuts and looming property tax increases hurt the GOP will work. Pay more, get less. Balancing the budget via property taxes. I wonder how many will figure it out?

"Only a fool would follow a bully"

by: brendanod @ Tue Aug 10, 2010 at 00:10:20 AM UTC

[ Parent ]