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Entitlement Raises Irk the Fuck out of me!
Posted by Raven on December 20th, 2008
Since the Lemoncrats took over NH’s state legislation branch, we have seen a huge deficit in the state budget. Lemoncrats and budgets problems go hand in hand, we all know.
Governor Lynch has asked state employees to forgo their scheduled, non-merit-based raises this coming January. The State Employee Union is balking of course. The employees themselves are claiming they deserve such raises simply because their contract says so.
One such fellow, writes a letter to the Concord Monitor:
First, if anybody in the private sector had a legally binding contract to receive a 5.5 percent pay raise and their employer did not honor that obligation, there would be hell to pay.
Correct. But see in the private sector, unions don’t rule nearly as much. The private sector stays relatively competitive, whereas state employees and their jobs simply drain state budgets every year.
In the private sector, real world, NO ONE GETS 5.5 % raises, Mr. CHRISTIE. Be grateful for what you have, not what you believe you are entitled to.
Second, I am a corporal at the state prison. For anyone to suggest that I “could never hold a real job,” my reply to them would be to come to work with me for a day. My correctional brothers and sisters and I work with convicted criminals nights, holidays and weekends.
Thank you for doing what you do for work. We all appreciate your effort and, yes, career choice. Note that word, Mr. CHRISTIE. I work in nursing. My line of work requires millions in my field be on duty 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 375 days a year. Regardless of how deep the snow is. Or how many iced up trees are falling into ice covered dangerous roads. Prison guards and the like are not the only workers in the world who have such demanding jobs. Puleeze get over yourself. And I certainly invite you to work a day in my shoes. I’ve done your job and it was a piece of cake compared.
In exchange for that sacrifice we are given health benefits and pensions that almost everyone scrutinizes.
No. Sacrifice? Hardly. Choice- yes. An honorable and valiant choice. But in no way does your job fall under the definition of sacrifice. No one forced you to do this job; no one keeps you employed with the state except YOU. It’s your choice. And yes, since the taxpayer PAYS you, we have every right, in fact we have a responsibility, to scrutinize where every penny goes. It’s how we manage our household budgets. Most people drop unnecessary expenses, and SACRIFICE certain items in order to pay the absolutely necessary bills.
Maybe “Mr. Private-Sector” should express his opinion to a state trooper who risks his life every day to protect people going to and from their jobs (private and public).
Again, I hold police officers in the highest regards. But no more so than the RN, or LNA, or candle factory worker. It’s CHOICE. Cops make a choice, too, when it comes to career. So stop using this risk-of-life factor. It matters little to me. In my mind there is no special class of employee. We’re all the same. Cause we’re all free to make the choice of what our careers will be.
It is not the state employees’ fault that the state budget is $250 million off. An easy solution is to take the $7 million the state needs to honor our contract out of the $79 million in its “slush fund.” Gov. John Lynch needs to look at the real problem: The bureaucrats who wrote the state budget based it on projected revenue instead of actual revenue.
Well if they followed this logic, actual revenue Mr Christie might not have a job. So he should shut up now: The deficit is horrible. In the private sector, jobs would be axed without a second thought.
People like Mr Christie are what I call entitlement specialists. They believe they are entitled to these wasteful raises that are never based upon work ethic, teamwork, attitude. attendance, job knowledge, skill, education level…among several other indicators of real and true merit and performance. Nope. The raises here are just automatically handed out with no strings attached. I’d be ashamed to get a raise based on nothing. I’d also figure out real fast that those work ethics and other performance goals mean nothing. Pfft.
When the tax payers demand that this practice be reviewed in times of economic trouble, the state workers need to stand up and do their part in all this. First, be grateful they each have a job. In the private sector Mr Christie likes to emulate so often, millions of people have been laid off. Millions more have had their work-week hours reduced and lost their benefits because of that.
Mr Christie and his spoiled band of brothers and sisters, perhaps, should spend a yr in the shoes of a private sector worker and see how much greener their grass really is. The state workers should do the right thing: Give up their coveted raise for a year. Most state peons, citizens, will agree that most state workers HAVE IT MADE when it comes to these things. Let’s not piss off the peons more with high and mighty ‘tudes such as Mr. Christie’s.
December 20th, 2008 at 4:24 pm
maybe they should try the soda tax like us in ny.
December 21st, 2008 at 9:42 am
The automatic raises here in the local regions around D.C. are about to come to a screeching halt, I think. Interestingly, there is no bitching. Those who still have jobs are willing to negotiate to keep those jobs. The exception — federal government employees.
December 21st, 2008 at 10:11 am
HEY! I’m a federal government employee!!
:bigrant:
Actually, I am hoping that I make my next pay raise before there is a freeze. Because I am out for my own self-interest, house payments and all. The only difference is I don’t have a union that I am a part of. And I’ll be fine, not happy, if my pay is frozen. Them’s the breaks in a government pissing away money…
December 21st, 2008 at 9:03 pm
If they had real, productive jobs they would be in the private sector. The government produces absolutely nothing, zilch, nada.
If the government morons whose decisions affect every one of our lives daily had to see the misery they put producers through, I mean really SEE the misery, I wonder how many of those socialists would be convinced their theories are more important than reality? That’s what their decisions are all based upon, theory.
It makes me puke. And I, too, used to be one of them. I couldn’t stand it any more so quit. Not as financially well off now as I would have been, but I’m much more satisfied with my contributions to real society.
December 22nd, 2008 at 4:18 am
I read an article and about 100 comments that were posted in the Monitor last week about the raises, Raven. The workers all crying, “You promised us a raise. Honor the contract.” Wah, wah, wah. A few of the letters made very valid points that perhaps if half of the middle management or upper level management positions were completely cut – not to be filled, ever again – that there would be plenty of money.
I worked for the State for a while in the early 90′s as a Youth Counselor and I can state with first-hand knowledge that there are an awful lot of desk jockey’s that could have their positions completely and totally eliminated and no one would ever know. The old saying used to be that “you couldn’t get fired working for the State unless you pissed on the Governor’s desk and he was sitting there.” Even then, I’m not sure you’d have gotten fired.
NH is surely not the only state with an enormous amount of waste with self-appointed “officials” who think that they are irreplaceable and so important that the State couldn’t function without them. Eliminate them and see how well the State functions.
Happy to NOT be paying astronomical property taxes anymore!
December 23rd, 2008 at 11:44 pm
Well said Raven. I agree.
Seems many think they are indispensible because they work in important jobs or heroes because their jobs involve danger. A very good point—they are in those jobs by choice.
They should thank the taxpayers that they have a job and the taxpayers again that this country is free enough that they can make a choice of what job they wish to do.
There wouldn’t be any prison guards, or police, or military, or firefighters, or teachers, or governors or congressmen or presidents or janitors, etc, etc. if it were not for the ¼ of Americans who pay all the personal income taxes.