Over a decade ago CLT began
warning about "The
Ticking Time Bomb - Public Employee Benefits" but the
politicians kept playing the game, kissing up to public employee
unions for their own benefit with the cost coming out of our
pockets, kicking the can down the road. The end of that road is now
in sight.
Back then, when we first waved the
warning flag, we wrote:
As economic cycles rise and
fall, only public employee benefits always increase.
As the private sector cuts costs and employee benefits to
survive, public employee benefits only increase.
Whether property values rise or fall, public employee benefits
always climb.
Nationally, public employee salaries and benefits now exceed
those of the private sector by 50 percent, according to the U.S.
Bureau of Labor Statistics.
These overly-generous entitlements have for too long been
falsely termed "fixed costs." They are "fixed" by politicians
negotiating with public employee unions. "Fixed" is the right
word only as in "the fix is in."
The only way to continue supporting public employee unions'
ceaseless demands and their steadily escalating salaries and
benefits is through higher taxes or with drastically reduced
core government services year after year. Every cent that goes
to their luxuries comes directly from strapped tax-paying family
budgets. Taxpayers are receiving fewer and less basic government
services as public employees get fatter at the trough.
The end of this continuum is arriving, one way or the other.
Taxpayers have run out of money . . . and patience. The bill is
coming due, and the politically promised money just isn't there
-- by a long shot.
We're tired of this taxpayer-funded double standard. We're fed
up with working harder and longer and being taxed more for less
just to support the grand lifestyle to which public employees
have become accustomed.
This system of abuse and its unconscionable sense of entitlement
is about to crash and burn if it isn't very quickly reformed.
When under its own weight it inevitably does, there simply won't
be enough taxpayers to further victimize to pay for its
unimaginable cost. We will have been tapped dry, bankrupted. All
of us. And with us, so too will be the greedy public employees
with their unfunded promises -- all victims of political
expedience.
This end is not far off, and the juggernaut plods steadily
toward us. It will arrive sooner or later. If nothing is done to
correct past largesse at taxpayers' expense, it will arrive
sooner. In some places it already has.
As I expect you know, Wisconsin
Gov. Scott Walker has taken his state's public employee unions
head-on. His state's Democrat senators -- now in the minority -- are
in exile to avoid a vote, hiding out in Illinois to prevent a quorum
and a vote they cannot win. Public employees statewide have launched
a "sick-out" and have been assaulting the state capital in Madison,
WI for days.
The Greater-Boston Tea Party is
sponsoring a rally today to support Gov. Walker and his principled
stand against endless public employee union extortion. If you'd like
to express your support by attending, the details follow.
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Chip Ford |
