CWA: cut political appointees first

Excellent. (4.00 / 1)

Carla is on the right side of this one.
The governor has to jettison these appointees first to show he is serious before we approachs the public with painful cuts.

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

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by: William Weber (WjcW) @ Mon Apr 14, 2008 at 21:00:40 PM UTC

no, she isn't (0.00 / 0)

The governor already slashed the number of political appointees by 50% when he took office.

The political appointees are the blood of the state agencies, and the civil servants are the organs. The appointees circulate throughout state government to ensure that the civil servants carry out the Governor's policies.

Otherwise, it would be darn near impossible to reign in the entrenched bureaucracy to get them to carry out the Governor's policies.

Plus, many of the political appointees are actually civil servants who serve in positions as political appointees. If you cut them, they'd just bump back into their civil service positions, just at a lower pay scale.

A better solution would be to pass a bill requiring that all out-of-state state workers move back to NJ in six months or be terminated.

There are thousands and thousands who cross over from Pennsylvania to work in NJ. They don't pay property taxes and do nothing for our economy. Why should our tax dollars support Bucks County's economy?  

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by: Anzana @ Mon Apr 14, 2008 at 22:42:53 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Silliness (4.00 / 3)

"Politically appointed" doesn't mean "no show job."  People who have "politically appointed" jobs still have to show up and most have very important positions.  Cut no show jobs first?  Fine and dandy.  They shouldn't exist.  But don't pretend that people are teat-sucking weenies just because they were appointed directly by the Gov.

And it's absolutely disingenuous for Katz or any other union head to pretend that these union jobs don't get handed out due to politics.  How many cousins, kids, friends, donors, spouses, nephews, precinct captains, etc. have union jobs with civil service protections, five weeks vacation, $50,000 plus paychecks and got the job only because they are related to or know a legislator or county chair?

There are two reasons why these folks have such high salaries -- 1) they have NO job security, as they work at the pleasure of the Governor.  If the Gov changes, out they go; 2) they do high-level jobs that would go for even more in the private sector.  The pay is a tradeoff for senior management work and uncertain job prospects.  Union workers trade off the high salary for more job security, union negotiated contracts, a better shot at a pension, etc.

I like unions.  I think they should have more protections and be better able to organize.  I want to see union-busting companies crushed by good federal regulators for their bullshit.  I've been a member of a union, and have walked the picket lines with the carpenters, SEIU, pipefitters and teamsters.

But I don't like disingenuous attacks like these ones that appeal to the worst in people, twisting what's going on in order to inflame passions.  That's what 101.5 and the GOP is for.

You want to fix the system?  Good.  So do I.  Reduce the number of political appointments?  Well, actually Corzine already has done that in the first month he was in office, and many of the high-level people at the departments being cut are political appointees, too.

But the idea that there's no politics or no-shows or crooks in the union ranks, and that all political appointees are wastrels is just idiotic.  It's no better than claiming that the entire problem with state government is lazy union workers who are just getting fat on their pensions by doing no work.

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by: huntsu @ Mon Apr 14, 2008 at 22:53:05 PM UTC

Slaughter Sacred Cows (0.00 / 0)

Everything should be discussed. State Departments have too much overhead.

I differentiate between what I call " point of service workers" who service the taxpaying public and the Higher paid bureaucrat in the back room.

The bureaucrat must go first when cutting back.

Katz is on the right track.  

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by: firstamend07 @ Mon Apr 14, 2008 at 23:11:54 PM UTC

Swatting the gnats (0.00 / 0)

We're talking about BILLIONS in cuts and Katz is talking about a maximum of $22 MILLION???

Who's kidding whom?

If the jobs are unneeded, then of course they should be eliminated.  However, this isn't even 1% of the solution.

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by: Creed Pogue @ Tue Apr 15, 2008 at 02:55:16 AM UTC

I think (4.00 / 2)

we need a list of jobs that "have no job description" before we can decide if it's a fair criticism or not.

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by: Thurman Hart @ Tue Apr 15, 2008 at 03:02:29 AM UTC