Last Thursday, the same day that City Councilman Scott Malsin made news in Culver City, the most exciting and charismatic male Republican in America, Gov. Chris Christie once again hewed to his tough word and made New Jersey’s vast army of government workers march to his melody of union givebacks.
Republican leaders appear to be winning the countrywide war against runaway union costs, and Mr. Christie’s huge success should buoy the spirits of any marginal thinkers.
In one of the bluest states, the New Jersey Assembly joined the state Senate in heavily increasing state and local workers’ contributions to their health insurance and pensions, cost-of-living increases to retirees’ pension checks will be suspended, the retirement age is being raised and that old bugaboo, bargaining rights, will be trimmed back substantially, eliminated on health insurance
Wisconsin and Ohio, over the cacophony of bellyaching union members spoiled by decades of freebie treatment, have approved similar legislation.
Not because of a Republican statehouse revolution as much as Democrat leadership in certain states is finally realizing that the days of holding up their bosses are gone. They must learn to live leaner or adapt to living on unemployment checks.
Connecticut, which is so blue I have heard Republicans are shot and then arrested at the border, the brilliant government workers rejected pleas for fiscal sanity from the Democrat governor. Over the weekend, he was threatening to lay off 7,500 workers.
May I Call You a Name?
The most left-wing big daily in America, The New York Times, stunned by the further weakening of unions, reacted with impressive maturity, a model for macho types. The crybaby and angrily partisan Democrat Times curled its quite wrinkled bod into the fetal position on Saturday and took smarminess to one story below the gutter. They hate Mr. Christie, and so they called him names. How adult.
“The New Jersey way may produce short-term financial benefits,” the Times sniveled, “but it is not a path toward long-term labor peace or effective state managing.”
Oh, yeah? Sez who? So’s yer ol’ man.
What a complexly reasoned, typically Democrat, response.
Reality is wearing a slightly different face in Culver City.
From the moment Councilman Malsin completed his perceived groundbreaking speech to the board of the Chamber of Commerce last Thursday until world reached City Manager John Nachbar’s burning ears, you would not have had time to sneeze or cough.
Mr. Malsin fretted over losing the creamy layer of police and fire leadership.
A veteran cop of my acquaintance speculated that both departments may need to go chief-shopping and by the end of the year.
You would be well-advised to tuck the opening phrase of this essay into your wallet, leaving it there for the summer season. The “me-too” clause secured by the largest city union, the Employees’ Assn., could turn out to be the boffo reading hit of the summer.
