Saturday, January 03, 2009
Corzine freezes wages
Necessity being the mother of controversial political moves, New Jersey Governor Jon Corzine yesterday announced a package of spending cuts and other moves to bridge the state's cavernous budget gap, one of which includes an 18-month freeze on the salaries and wages of state government employees. Yes, he also joined the Democratic governors who petitioned their fellow travelers in Washington to transfer money from more prudently managed states, but at least Corzine was willing to irritate a powerful Garden State constituency as part of the package. Let's see if the rest of Trenton goes along.
Naturally, I have two separate reactions to this.
My first reaction is, sadly, a pipe dream: That there should be no federal aid to states that do not meet certain standards of efficiency, and which do not deal with "long tail" liability issues that threaten to crush their budgets in years hence. For all that politicians complain about bailing out poorly run businesses (as they should do), government accounts for a huge proportion of GDP. Since you cannot let governments fail, you need to starve them until they reform. There are few states more in need of this than New Jersey, although New York and Massachusetts cannot be far behind.
My second reaction is that this makes it easier for businesses to freeze wages, too. I suspect that wage growth will slow to a crawl in the coming year, as it should.
12 Comments:
By 
JPMcT, at
Sat Jan 03, 08:40:00 AM:
By 
, at
Sat Jan 03, 08:53:00 AM:
" Is he also freezing bribes??? "...Get ahold of yourself man !! The situation can never be that bad. But, I bet the going rate to "buy" a politition will be down substantially this year. Might even be some 2 for 1 sales. In light of the inefficiency of government, layoffs should be made, permanent layoffs. But that would require some kind of miracle level event.
By , at
Sat Jan 03, 10:04:00 AM:
New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, California, Most of Western Europe, continue to be excellent examples of how a Democratic run/Pseudo-Socialist Governments are bound to fail. Typically when I debate my liberal friends this is when the discussion typically ends when they can not explain or defend the stark examples of failed government.
By , at
Sat Jan 03, 10:15:00 AM:
Those of you in Jersey are in for a treat. I lived in California when Prop. 13 was passed. The biggest impact of passage was the ability it gave public employees to blame any ineptitude on Prop. 13.
New Jersey public employees will blame every failure past, present and future on the "wage freeze." They will say after a loooong wait at the DMV, for example, "well, what do you expect with a wage freeze."
Note also, that few public employees will actually fail to earn more in '09 than in '08. Their rate per hour or month amounts will not increase but they will get overtime hours or minimum b;ocks of overtime hours. Thus, they might get a block of a minimum ("minnie") of two hours pay for working an actual 18 minutes overtime. Once a month and gross incomes goes up 6% (est).
By , at
Sat Jan 03, 10:48:00 AM:
I recall Corzine attacking the " Bush Tax Cuts" for the Rich. So why doesn't he simply raise taxes on the RICH and solve all his problems?
By John Theotonio, at
Sat Jan 03, 10:54:00 AM:
I lived in Calif before moving to NJ - yes we need a Prop 13 here in NJ for sure.
By Preparedwarrior, at
Sat Jan 03, 01:21:00 PM:
When are these dumb leaders, be they city, county, state or Federal), going to learn that taxation in whatever form is not going to be the answer? Ya tax my gasoline, I'm going to drive less = less tax revenue. Ya tax my mileage, I'm going to drive less = less tax revenue. The less I drive, the less shopping I am likely to do and this means less sales taxes, less store profits, less need for employees, and so forth.
How about they just try spending less money? Oh, gee, I don't know, maybe try less government-paid-for cell phones, less fancy-flushing toilets (ala City of Atlanta), just less fancy crap!!
The leadership of the United States as whole has one crazy idea of how to budget and spend our tax money.
By , at
Sat Jan 03, 02:24:00 PM:
Suppose the states get their trillion, TH, and it gets built into the budget. What happens next year, and then the year after that?
By Dawnfire82, at
Sat Jan 03, 03:49:00 PM:
The final collapse will be worse.
By , at
Sat Jan 03, 03:57:00 PM:
Since you cannot let governments fail, you need to starve them until they reform.
What is the taxpayer's responsibility in this regard?
By , at
Sat Jan 03, 04:12:00 PM:
I'm guessing Corzine was frantically trying to contact Obama, but His Majesty-Elect was too busy lowering the seas, bringing peace in our time, and vacationing in Hawaii to attend to such a mundane matter, huh?
By , at
Sat Jan 03, 04:52:00 PM:
As a retired public sector employee, I have watched with dismay over the past few decades as public sector employees have driven their wages and benefit costs up to a point where they make more than the average member of the public sector they serve. And still they want more money and more time off. Pretty soon, the public sector unions will lead their membership to the edge of disaster has have labor unions in other sectors such as the automobile industry. Greed is running this country off a cliff.
