OK, Specialist, I hear you. You are right, most parents cannot afford private schools. So according to you then, since teachers have the parents over a barrel, teachers are justified in using their unions to extort unreasonable benefits from the taxpayers? Because they have a perfect monopoly, you are fine with teachers demanding benefits that woudl NEVER be accepted if there was competition?

[QUOTE=RIROCKHOUND;838622]
In CT, I pay $8,000 a year in property taxes for a 3 bedroom colonial on half an acre. In my town, about 60% of property taxes is for education. Give that money back to EVERYBODY, including people who don't have kids in school, and we couild build some nice non-union schools with that monety.

"because they get a bargain now,"

Here in CT, most people would not say that property taxes are a "bargain". How can it be a "bargian" when the teachers get such insane benefits?

In WI, the governor and GOP legislature were elected specifically because people are realizing thatthese unions are nothing close to a "bargain".

Sorry, elections have consequences.

[QUOTE=Jim in CT;838629]So you could send three kids to private school for $4800? Would you really like the quality of education in that school?
Or is this more of the same; lets make cuts and deal with the consequences later

give me a break. The teachers in WI conceeded to the costs. They want to keep some union rights and the Gov cracks down. that seems to have been the Gov's plan all along.

"No one in their right mind would want that job"

I could annihilate everything you said, but let's stick to this one inane point.

Teachers in Wisconsin get a salary that is 32% higher than the average salary for that state. On top of that, they only pay 0.2% of pension osts, and 6% of healthcare costs. They get tons of days off. They have a lifetime jog guarantee called tenure, which make it just about impossible to get fired for incompetence. They get guaranteed pensions for life. They are spared from social security, which is ripping everyone else off.

No one in their right mind would want that job? Why do so many people apply for every teaching vacancy that opens up?

[QUOTE=RIROCKHOUND;838631]"So you could send three kids to private school for $4800? "

Do you think through anything before regurgitating the liberal talking points? I pay property taxes for LIFE, not just the years that my kids are in school. And it's not just property taxes. A good chunk of my state income tax goes to education, as well as a god chunk of my federal income tax. Gimme all that money back, and there's a great chance it would cover the cost of a great, Catholic education.

If those lifetime tax cuts didn't cover private tuition, it would be close. I'd be willing to kick in the difference. So would most people. And the school would be 10 times better, and I'd know for damn sure that the folks teaching there ain't doing it for the money, because they don't get paid nearly as much as the union counterpartys in public schools.

"The teachers in WI conceeded to the costs."

For now. And then next year, the union would start demanding more and more, and then we're back in the same boat.

The gov proposed that public employees would get annual cost-of-living increases automatically (better than what the private sector offers). If public employees wanted increases bigger than COLA, they'd have to get public approval, which is obviously reasonable, since it's the public's money. But the union REFUSED. Why refuse that?

If the jobs are so good why don't you put your money where your mouth is. Take one in CT. at a lower wage than the status quo, pay more for your health insurance, and pension, then see how long you last.

JUst out of curiosity, you say you have the highest property taxes in the nation, what is your house assessed at?

Mine is assessed at 353,000. , what do you think I pay in property taxes?

Some people would rather lump all of you in one pile, and make guesses about figures.

Seems Connecticut is not in the top 30 on Forbes list....
Table: Who Pays America's Highest Property Taxes? - Forbes.com

"Take one in CT. at a lower wage than the status quo"

The wages are NOT lower than the status quo. Can you stop making stuff up?

"pay more for your health insurance, and pension,"

Everyone pays more than they did a few years ago. The WI proposal didn't ask the unionized employees to pay anywhere near as much as what they'd have to pay in the private sector. Do you understand that? Do you get that 13% is less than 30%?

"you say you have the highest property taxes in the nation, what is your house assessed at?"

First of all, I never said I have the highest property taxes in the nation, no idea where you got that. I'm not sure what my "assessed" value is. Market value is around $450,000, and I pay $8200 in property taxes.

"what do you think I pay in property taxes?"

No idea. But you need to consider all taxes, not just property taxes.

I have said that CT has one of the highest total tax rates in teh nation...

The Tax Foundation - State and Local Tax Burdens: All Years, One State, 1977-2008

In the drop down box that says "select your state", if you pick CT, you can see my state's tax rank (1 is highest). Since 1995, CT's tax rank has always been in the top 3. As high as those tax rates are, it's not NEARLY enough to pay for what the unions demanded, as we have massive unfunded liabilities for healthcare and retirement benefits to public employees.

Seems to me that if we have high tax rates, and still not nearly enough to pay for those benefits, that the benefits must have been very rich indeed. Please tell me where I'm wrong?

Umm all you talk about is property taxes, if you want to talk about all taxes, then spill it. We pay excise taxes on our vehicles that we paid sales tax on.

What is the status quo for a teacher in Connecticut?

Fair question...I looked it up..

In CT, the average teacher salary is $59,304.

In CT, the average salary overall is $51,000.

When you throw in benefits (particularly healthcare and retirement), that difference widens considerably.

Public servents should not make that much more than everyone else. If the benefits are so rich that current tax levels fall far short of fubnding them, then the benefits are not reasonable.

All this talk of taxes...

Interesting, that in Wisconsin the corperate tax cuts recently enacted is in the same order of magnitude as the budget shortfall that predecated these cuts...

just saying....
have a good debate guys, I've wasted enough time on it. :smash:

http://epi.3cdn.net/9e237c56096a8e4904_rkm6b9hn1.pdf

Take a look at chart 2 and 3 anyone with a High School diploma or better working in the public sector makes less money than in the private sector in Wisconsin. This includes all total compensation( Paid Day's off, vacation, benefits etc.)

Rockhound/Specialist, could one of you fill in the blank to my statement below? To me, this is all that matters in this issue...

Nationally, people pay on average 30% of their health insurance premiums. The governor of Wisconsin is askingh unionized mployees to pay 13% of that cost, which is less than half of the national average. I think that what the governor is asking is unfair because _____________________________.

I'm a very reasonable guy. Please tell us why you think the governor is being unreasonable...

Specialist, I can provide 100 studies that show that public employees make more than average private scetor employees. WHo knows what's in those numbers. Here is one study...

Government Workers Make 45 Percent More Than Private Sector Employees | OrthodoxNet.com Blog

So how do we know which to believe? I don't know. I do know that a couple on my streeat are in their mid 40's, both are public teachers, combined salary is about $150,000, with benefits that dwarf anything available in the private sector.

I do know that in CT, cops can retire after 20 years with no age minimum, my cousin retired at 43. His pension reflects his best 3 years including overtime. I know that is completely insane and indefensible.

I also know that just about every city and state in the country has massive unfunded liabilities to public employees, and those liabilities are NOT UNFUNDED because the government forgot to collect the taxes. They are unfunded bacause as high as taxes are, they aren't nearly enough to pay for the benefits demanded. That tells me that the benefits promised were very, very rich.

What do you think?

I think that what the governor is asking is unfair because he has recieved these terms and is moving forward with trying to end the teachers union.

You didn't see me say it was unfair to ask them to pay a share, although IMHO the combination of corp. tax cuts and the sudden increase to the teachers could have been handled better...

If he had proposed that that 13% be stepped up over 3 or 4 years, I would say it was pretty fair. but right now, one of the teachers I saw on the news said it was a sudden, $500/mo decrease in his paycheck.

thanks for illustrating why collective bargaining should be eliminated...

one has no effect on the other as Rachel Maddow and others have been trumpeting

Politifact :Our conclusion: Maddow and the others are wrong.

There is, indeed, a projected deficit that required attention, and Walker and GOP lawmakers did not create it.

More on that second point in a bit.

The confusion, it appears, stems from a section in Lang’s memo that -- read on its own -- does project a $121 million surplus in the state’s general fund as of June 30, 2011.

But the remainder of the routine memo -- consider it the fine print -- outlines $258 million in unpaid bills or expected shortfalls in programs such as Medicaid services for the needy ($174 million alone), the public defender’s office and corrections. Additionally, the state owes Minnesota $58.7 million under a discontinued tax reciprocity deal.

The result, by our math and Lang’s, is the $137 million shortfall.

It would be closer to the $340 million figure if the figure included the $200 million owed to the state’s patient compensation fund, a debt courts have declared resulted from an illegal raid on the fund under former Gov. Jim Doyle.

A court ruling is pending in that matter, so the money might not have to be transferred until next budget year.

To be sure, the projected shortfall is a modest one by the standards of the last decade, which saw a $600 million repair bill one year as the economy and national tax collections slumped.

But ignoring it would have meant turning away eligible Medicaid clients, which was not an option, Lang said.

This same situation has happened in the past, including during the tenure of Doyle, a Democrat. In January 2005, a fiscal bureau memo showed a similar surplus, but lawmakers approved a major fix of a Medicaid shortfall that would have eaten up that projected surplus.

Reporters who cover the Capitol are used to doing the math to come up with the bottom-line surplus or deficit, but average readers are not. (The Journal Sentinel’s Stein addressed these and other budget questions in a follow-up story.)

So why does Lang write his biennial memo in a way that invites confusion?

Lang, a veteran and respected civil servant working in a nonpartisan job, told us he does not want to presume what legislative or other action will be taken to address the potential shortfalls he lists.

Admittedly, the approach this time created the opportunity for a snappy -- and powerful -- political attack.

But it is an inaccurate one.

Meanwhile, what about Maddow’s claim -- also repeated across the liberal blogosphere -- that Walker’s tax-cut bills approved in January are responsible for the $137 million deficit?

Lang’s fiscal bureau report and news accounts addressed that issue as well.

The tax cuts will cost the state a projected $140 million in tax revenue -- but not until the next two-year budget, from July 2011 to June 2013. The cuts are not even in effect yet, so they cannot be part of the current problem.

Here’s the bottom line:

There is fierce debate over the approach Walker took to address the short-term budget deficit. But there should be no debate on whether or not there is a shortfall. While not historically large, the shortfall in the current budget needed to be addressed in some fashion. Walker’s tax cuts will boost the size of the projected deficit in the next budget, but they’re not part of this problem and did not create it.

We rate Maddow’s take False.

Fair enough. I like politifact as a source.

So, for this year, it doesn't matter.

Next year, if and when the Gov proposes another 185mil in teacher/police/fire cuts, then the point might be valid.

UNBELIEVEABLE :doh:

Unbelievable?

So next year when the Gov decides, healthcare goes to 26% for the teachers, AND his corporate tax cuts go into effect, it wouldn't be a valid discussion that the tax cuts were not a good idea... ?

But isn't there at least a possibility that those tax cuts will be stimulative? What I mean is, just because corporate tax rates are cut, does not mean that corporate tax dollars collected will decrease. If you cut the corporate tax rate by x%, but corporate profits grow by more than X%, then tax dollars collected will be higher, even though the rate is lower.

Put another way. If I own a Honda dealership, would I be correct in assuming that if I charge $1 zillion for a Honda Accord, I'll be rich? No, because I won't sell any. Because there is something called the "demand" curve, which despite what liberals hold so dear, is not a flat line. Demand moves inversely with price. I don't think liberals understand this, which is why they see no ramifications with perpetual tax increases. The problem with that is, like the guy charging $1 zillion for an Accord, eventually, you stifle demand...

Walker cuts the corporate tax rate, maybe some corporations move to Wisconsin from states with higher tax rates...

If and when healthcare goes to 26% for teachers, they STILL HAVE IT BETTER THAN THE REST OF US WHO PAY 30%.

Geez...

Teachers need to stop framing this debate in terms of "what did I get last year", and ask themselves "what would I get anywhere else working 80% of a full-time job?"

if, when, might.......nothing to do with you initial contention or the current discussion

I'm forced to deal with multiple different unions throughout the country. Every single encounter I have with them reaffirms the stereotype. They take longer to do the job and have stifling restrictions on clients. If we are working with a Union, the labor budget needs to be increased by 50% - consistently.

I have clients that have stopped hosting conferences in places like NYC, Chicago and San Francisco because the Unions are more expense, provide poor service and do a bad job.

The "well, we have to get paid too" mentality is the problem. The managers aren't the problem, the Union philosophy of Entitlement is the problem.

It used to be that state and municipal jobs were coveted because of the security and better benefits they provided, even though the pay was less than in the private sector. The slightly less than average salaries, at the time, were more than compensated by the lifetime job security, better pensions, and superior health care packages.

Unionization was discouraged, and strikes were illegal. The payoff was a stable, secure, source of income and life style.

At about the 1960s unionization and strikes by state and municipal employees began to be accepted by some states. Union leaders know how to bargain hard and understand incremental gains. Backed by the liberalized thinking of the era, there was a view that the public sector required more preparation for entry, and was so much more responsible for the well-being of society, that comparative wage scales needed to be more equalized. It made no sense that factory laborers made more than teachers (never mind that it took lots of overtime or seniority to make it so). And if you wanted better teachers, and police, and firefighters, and administrators, you, obviously, had to pay them more. The hue and cry at the time was that the falling quality of educational outcome, for example, was mostly due to the poor pay of teachers. If we wanted the best and brightest to teach our kids, we must be willing to attract those "best" away from the private sector by paying them more. Overlooking the obvious irony that those wanting the pay increase were admitting that they were not the "best and brightest" and, according to their logic, must be the problem, what actually happened was the private sector outbid them in the ensuing wage war for talent. So the existing pool of, apparently not the "best and brightest," wound up getting the better wages, and nothing changed except for the price of the ticket--which steadily rose with every ensuing three year negotiation.

The same results occurred throughout the rest of the public sector. Now we have unionized public workers bargaining under the premise that they not only deserve the better pensions and bennies than the private sector that pays for it which they used to get but also the better pay. All the discussion of whether they deserve it or not is dwarfed by whether that premise can be afforded.

Seems about right:
http://img220.imageshack.us/img220/7500/202sm1.jpg

Any rational person, unless they get their money from labor unions, will say the same thing.

And why do these labor unions get to force people to join them? If I want to be a public schoolteacher, why am I forced to join a damn union? Why do I have to pay dues to an uber-liberal organization, which gives zillions of dollars to liberal politicians (the more liberal, the better) and liberal causes like Planned Parenthood?

Anyone want to tell me how that's fair?