By Jerry McConnell
A few days ago on Real Clear Politics online, one of my and the country’s favorite journalists, Thomas Sowell, wrote about the subject that I covered in my last column, Labor Unions. He titled his column, “Union Myths” and in this column I touch on some of their ‘myth-stakes’.
Sowell stated in his article, “the biggest myth about labor unions is that unions are for the workers.” And in my column I remarked that labor unions created, in their own minds, a “to be there” scenario for the worker. Both of us are correct in our assumptions. If either the myth or the mind scenario were true then union membership numbers in business and industry would be in vastly greater numbers than is the case currently.
This then is one of the labor union leaders big “myth-stakes” as union membership totals nationwide are falling off each year as opposed to growing as they would like and like you to believe. These same leaders also have this distorted belief that the workers, their members, absolutely love their unions because they get so much in benefits and financial advantages.
If that is true than why is it that U. S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics in their January 21, 2011 Current Population Survey of Union Members show the rate of union membership of wage and salary workers for 2010 to be only 11.9 percent, down from 12.3 the previous year? Another “myth-stake” perhaps? The actual number shown by the Labor Department of “workers belonging to unions declined by 612,000.”
Commenting on his ‘biggest myth’ remark that unions are for the workers, Sowell added that “unions are for unions, just as corporations are for corporations and politicians are for politicians.”
And I might have even added, “and union members are for union members.” We’ve just recently witnessed that in Wisconsin where the teachers abandoned the pupils in the schools to take to the streets to loudly and boisterously demonstrate against any loss of pay to help the state with staggering deficits in their budgeting processes. Their ugly aggressiveness, as captured by the television cameras, was not warmly received by a majority of the viewing public which most certainly will spill over into the other states of Indiana, Ohio and Pennsylvania, to name a few.
Governor Walker’s crafty victory over the union’s hand-maidens, the Democratic Senators of the Wisconsin Legislature who may have been part of the “myth-stakes,” out-foxed themselves by being cowardly and running for cover in a neighboring state, where their kind of politics is daily routine. Had they shown a bit of intestinal fortitude and fought it out with the fiscally prudent Republicans they may have at least registered some degree of respect from their constituents instead of the scorn and derision they deserved.
Some of the Wisconsin public openly called for the political Recall of Governor Walker and the Republican legislators; they would be wise to switch those calls to the cowardly Democrats that didn’t have the courage to stay at home to defend their cause.
They might also choose to study the causes for the serious budgetary problems in Wisconsin; certainly not from any initiatives put forth by the Republicans, but surely a lot of blame to be assessed to the public employee unions and their insatiable demands for more of anything that costs money. A Washington Examiner article by Phillip Suderman on March 10, 2011 stated in its headline that “One-third of U. S. wages are provided by the government.”
Where was it in our Founding Fathers’ notes and records where it called for a full one-third of all the employees wages in the total fifty states would be paid out to government sources? I would wager a farthing or two that those exact and frugal planners of the middle seventeen hundreds never would have believed that government employee wages would ever exceed probably five to ten percent of the country’s overall outlays for employees of all kinds. Now they capture THIRTY-THREE PERCENT of the employee payouts.
And it all leads back to just one thing: Labor Unions. And not content with such an overly large share of total employee payouts these ‘out-for-themselves’ gangsters still want their Congressional pawns and Obama the ‘giver of goods to labor unions’ to get the fallaciously named legislation, “Employee Free Choice Act” which is exactly the opposite in reality.
As Thomas Sowell said in his column and as you have read several times right here in mine, it actually would remove the free choice that workers now enjoy with the secret ballot and force the workers to bow even further down to their union parasites by having to declare openly whether or not they want to be represented by the union.
This deceptive misconstrue is another “myth-stakes” that these ugly and selfishly motivated thugs called labor unions have and continue to make, taking the rest of us for fools.
We have to stop this farce of freedom taking from the workers and all their other ‘myth-stakes’.
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3.12.2011
3.07.2011
Priced out of jobs!!
By Senator Jeb Bradley
Several weeks ago I wrote a blog: “The New Hampshire Retirement System’s (NHRS) Day of Reckoning" which has elicited a lot of response. Opinions run the gamut. Virtually everyone agrees promises made to present retirees must be kept. Many believe reform is long overdue and that avoiding today’s tough choices increases future problems. Unions contend retirement benefits are locked in the instant someone completes their probationary period and no changes can be made. Lastly, some feel this legislation is “alarmist”.
Regardless of one’s views, what no one can escape are the implications of the numbers and what they mean. Consider the following facts:
1. The current unfunded pension liability is $3.72 billion.
2. The current unfunded medical subsidy liability (a pension adjunct) is $976 million -- leaving a total unfunded liability of $4.69 billion.
3. Only 58.5% of the assets needed to fund future pension commitments are available. 80% funding is considered healthy.
4. According to a September 2010 Bloomberg survey, NHRS’s 58.5% funding ranks fourth worst in the nation.
Furthermore, pension systems rely heavily on investment earnings to pay benefits. The NHRS assumes an 8.5% return, but the NHRS average for the last 20 years has been 7.8% and, more alarmingly, only 2.3% for the past 10 years. Under-performing investments didn’t overcome two terribly shortsighted public policy choices made by previous Legislatures that went unchallenged for years by the NHRS Board. An accounting methodology understated employer costs for over a decade and $900 million was skimmed from the pension plan to pay higher employee benefits than required.
These shortsighted choices, combined with recent stock market losses, have dropped the NHRS funding level from 90% in 2000 to today’s precarious 58.5%. If the NHRS board accepts actuary recommendations on investment assumptions, the unfunded liability would grow -- dropping NH’s rank to second worst in the nation.
While those claiming the NHRS is solvent are correct, what they ignore is that taxpayers, primarily property taxpayers, are getting walloped with the bills.
Here’s how the unfunded liability will clobber taxpayers. Employees such as teachers and municipal workers pay 5% of their salary to the NHRS. Police and firefighters pay 9.3%. Employers / taxpayers -- making up for past mistakes – now pay 10.7% of salary for teachers, 19.51% for police and 24.69% for firefighters. In 2014 those costs are projected to escalate to 13.61% for teachers, 29.20% for police, and 33.90% for firefighters. When investment assumptions are lowered to reflect reality, the costs to property taxpayers will explode again and stay high for a long time.
Meanwhile, retirement benefits paid are growing by $40 million in 2010 alone. Much is made of the average pension for every retiree in the system being $18,650. That’s accurate but doesn’t portend the future. For teachers who retired in 2010 their pensions averaged $29,800, for police $49,200 and firefighters $59,100.
Teachers must work 30 years, police and firefighters 20 years. Just using 2010 snapshots for the average salary, employee pension contributions and pension benefits; a teacher should recoup their 8% compounded contribution in about 10 years and police officers and firefighters in about 5 years.
Perhaps that’s why the two sides are at loggerheads with taxpayers demanding reform and employees threatening to go to court to prevent any reform. That’s why I filed SB-3: to equitably share this $4.69 billion unfunded liability.
Under SB-3, public safety employees with less than 10 years of service would be expected to work 25 years rather than 20, be eligible to retire at 50 not 45, have pensions determined by the highest 5 years of pay rather than 3, and could not count unused sick time, vacation, or career buyouts to increase their pension. For employees like teachers, 30 years of service would remain but the other provisions would apply. No one would be able to supplement pensions through special details outside the scope of their jobs. Newly hired employees would contribute more to the NHRS. The Legislature will study implementing a defined contribution plan for new employees and the NHRS board would be balanced between employers and employees. SB-3 reforms will not impact current retirees!
These changes are equitable to employees and taxpayers and are long overdue. These reforms will reduce the unfunded liability and the crushing property tax burdens, and for employees ensure a viable retirement system.
Only with compromise and each side walking in the other’s shoes will this result be possible. Postponing the day of reckoning only makes the medicine much worse.
Taxpayers are on the hook for the entire unfunded liability right now and those costs are unsustainable. Employees can claim unfairness and threaten litigation all the way to the court house door – but they miss the bigger point --- they will have priced themselves out of jobs.
Several weeks ago I wrote a blog: “The New Hampshire Retirement System’s (NHRS) Day of Reckoning" which has elicited a lot of response. Opinions run the gamut. Virtually everyone agrees promises made to present retirees must be kept. Many believe reform is long overdue and that avoiding today’s tough choices increases future problems. Unions contend retirement benefits are locked in the instant someone completes their probationary period and no changes can be made. Lastly, some feel this legislation is “alarmist”.
Regardless of one’s views, what no one can escape are the implications of the numbers and what they mean. Consider the following facts:
1. The current unfunded pension liability is $3.72 billion.
2. The current unfunded medical subsidy liability (a pension adjunct) is $976 million -- leaving a total unfunded liability of $4.69 billion.
3. Only 58.5% of the assets needed to fund future pension commitments are available. 80% funding is considered healthy.
4. According to a September 2010 Bloomberg survey, NHRS’s 58.5% funding ranks fourth worst in the nation.
Furthermore, pension systems rely heavily on investment earnings to pay benefits. The NHRS assumes an 8.5% return, but the NHRS average for the last 20 years has been 7.8% and, more alarmingly, only 2.3% for the past 10 years. Under-performing investments didn’t overcome two terribly shortsighted public policy choices made by previous Legislatures that went unchallenged for years by the NHRS Board. An accounting methodology understated employer costs for over a decade and $900 million was skimmed from the pension plan to pay higher employee benefits than required.
These shortsighted choices, combined with recent stock market losses, have dropped the NHRS funding level from 90% in 2000 to today’s precarious 58.5%. If the NHRS board accepts actuary recommendations on investment assumptions, the unfunded liability would grow -- dropping NH’s rank to second worst in the nation.
While those claiming the NHRS is solvent are correct, what they ignore is that taxpayers, primarily property taxpayers, are getting walloped with the bills.
Here’s how the unfunded liability will clobber taxpayers. Employees such as teachers and municipal workers pay 5% of their salary to the NHRS. Police and firefighters pay 9.3%. Employers / taxpayers -- making up for past mistakes – now pay 10.7% of salary for teachers, 19.51% for police and 24.69% for firefighters. In 2014 those costs are projected to escalate to 13.61% for teachers, 29.20% for police, and 33.90% for firefighters. When investment assumptions are lowered to reflect reality, the costs to property taxpayers will explode again and stay high for a long time.
Meanwhile, retirement benefits paid are growing by $40 million in 2010 alone. Much is made of the average pension for every retiree in the system being $18,650. That’s accurate but doesn’t portend the future. For teachers who retired in 2010 their pensions averaged $29,800, for police $49,200 and firefighters $59,100.
Teachers must work 30 years, police and firefighters 20 years. Just using 2010 snapshots for the average salary, employee pension contributions and pension benefits; a teacher should recoup their 8% compounded contribution in about 10 years and police officers and firefighters in about 5 years.
Perhaps that’s why the two sides are at loggerheads with taxpayers demanding reform and employees threatening to go to court to prevent any reform. That’s why I filed SB-3: to equitably share this $4.69 billion unfunded liability.
Under SB-3, public safety employees with less than 10 years of service would be expected to work 25 years rather than 20, be eligible to retire at 50 not 45, have pensions determined by the highest 5 years of pay rather than 3, and could not count unused sick time, vacation, or career buyouts to increase their pension. For employees like teachers, 30 years of service would remain but the other provisions would apply. No one would be able to supplement pensions through special details outside the scope of their jobs. Newly hired employees would contribute more to the NHRS. The Legislature will study implementing a defined contribution plan for new employees and the NHRS board would be balanced between employers and employees. SB-3 reforms will not impact current retirees!
These changes are equitable to employees and taxpayers and are long overdue. These reforms will reduce the unfunded liability and the crushing property tax burdens, and for employees ensure a viable retirement system.
Only with compromise and each side walking in the other’s shoes will this result be possible. Postponing the day of reckoning only makes the medicine much worse.
Taxpayers are on the hook for the entire unfunded liability right now and those costs are unsustainable. Employees can claim unfairness and threaten litigation all the way to the court house door – but they miss the bigger point --- they will have priced themselves out of jobs.
2.27.2011
Right to work
By David Scott
“Right to work” bill passed by the New Hampshire House (HB 474) with a large majority will be advantageous to the people of our state. It will make New Hampshire a more attractive location for both domestic and international manufacturing companies which will bring more jobs to our state.
It will also benefit residents because it will provide working men and women with freedom of choice in the work place. In “Right-to-work” states individuals are free to join or not join a union. It is illegal in “right-to-work” states for union membership to be a condition of employment.
Large international companies like Honda, Toyota, Mercedes, and BMW have made large investments in right to work states in the US where they have created thousands of new jobs. These companies have made their investments in the states that have right to work laws and have avoided states like Michigan, Illinois, New Jersey and Massachusetts.
Governor Lynch, has indicated that he will veto “Right to work” legislation when it reaches his desk. When that happens, Republicans who do not vote to override his veto will be held accountable for their part in keeping good jobs out of New Hampshire.
David Scott is a lifetime Dover New Hampshire resident and a former State Representative
“Right to work” bill passed by the New Hampshire House (HB 474) with a large majority will be advantageous to the people of our state. It will make New Hampshire a more attractive location for both domestic and international manufacturing companies which will bring more jobs to our state.
It will also benefit residents because it will provide working men and women with freedom of choice in the work place. In “Right-to-work” states individuals are free to join or not join a union. It is illegal in “right-to-work” states for union membership to be a condition of employment.
Large international companies like Honda, Toyota, Mercedes, and BMW have made large investments in right to work states in the US where they have created thousands of new jobs. These companies have made their investments in the states that have right to work laws and have avoided states like Michigan, Illinois, New Jersey and Massachusetts.
Governor Lynch, has indicated that he will veto “Right to work” legislation when it reaches his desk. When that happens, Republicans who do not vote to override his veto will be held accountable for their part in keeping good jobs out of New Hampshire.
David Scott is a lifetime Dover New Hampshire resident and a former State Representative
2.25.2011
Some thoughts
By Jerry McConnell
The old Establishment GOP, mostly silent in recent weeks since the new upstart conservative rookies have been making good on their promises to cut big spending, suddenly found their voices and as usual, sided with the liberal big-spending Democrats on February 16, 2011.
POLITICO’s reporter, David Rogers stated on the above date that House Democrats and, in his words, “centrist Republicans, joined forces in a series of spending votes scoring quick wins and sending the clearest sign yet of second thoughts in the GOP over the depth of reductions demanded by the party’s new tea party supporters.”
That was a mis-characterization of the events which saw some old GOP RINOs coming back to the types of actions that were primarily responsible for the evolution of the TEA Party, TEA an acronym for Taxed Enough Already. It was apparent that the TEA Partiers didn’t go far enough last November, but there will be another chance in November of 2012.
The people of America spoke in November 2010 and they said they were tired of seeing big government and big spending which always results in big taxes. By electing dozens of fresh-faced and eager to do the bidding of the conservative electorate a message was sent to the Democrats who are traditionally slow learners (if at all) and to the Establishment RINO
Republicans who cave too easily to the tax-and-spend socialist-liberal Democrats that enough was already too much.
The large number of non-conservative RINO Republicans that humbled themselves to the heavy handed lib-Dems siding to stop some very much needed spending reductions put the bull’s eye on their backs as the prime target for 2012. If they thought the TEA Party man-handled the RINOs in 2010, stick around and watch the faces change in 2012.
The White House-backed spending program to save at least some of the funding for legal aid to the poor was supported by sixty-eight Establishment RINOs to go against the wishes of their own party. Minutes later, Rogers added, “seventy Republicans joined 158 Democrats on a 228 - 203 vote that restored $280 million on the Joe Biden favorite initiative of Community Oriented Policing Services. And the firefighter lobby prevailed on 132 Republicans to back a Democrat amendment to restore $510 million for Homeland Security grants for first responders.”
Keep in mind that the House now has 243 Republicans to 193 Democrats a sizeable majority of fifty votes and they lost those and other measures because of RINOs who just can’t seem to remember what party elected them. I don’t think the voters will forget that come November 2012. The moral here is don’t trust an Establishment (long time) RINO Republican to cut or stop spending.
This is not to say that the new conservative rookies elected last November all stayed the course and voted for the funding cuts; no, there were some of the newbies who joined the liberal Democrats to spend more of our tax dollars, including in at least one vote for the restoration of $510 million for Homeland Security grants for first responders; both of my own state Representatives also collaborated with the lib-Dems. But the lure and righteousness of being for first responders probably overcame good fiscal sense.
Another factor that may have played a role in rushing to judgment on these spending bills was that it was done on Wednesday, February 16 the evening before the day of the President’s Day recess; yes, already they got a recess. For the newcomers it was a needed respite as they had put in many long hour days in their new and totally different from normal ‘back home’ living routines. A few days to go back home and chat with their neighbors and friends as well as to listen to many complaints, suggestions and long stories I’m sure has put them in a better frame of mind to come back and do some of our country’s work.
Now that you’re back and all rested up and looking forward to the next vacation, flexibly called a recess to disguise its proper status, how about you old timers looking at your crystal balls and seeing where working with the very productive young conservatives will pay off better for you in 2012 than pursuing a career-ending RINO course of trying to please the liberal
The old Establishment GOP, mostly silent in recent weeks since the new upstart conservative rookies have been making good on their promises to cut big spending, suddenly found their voices and as usual, sided with the liberal big-spending Democrats on February 16, 2011.
POLITICO’s reporter, David Rogers stated on the above date that House Democrats and, in his words, “centrist Republicans, joined forces in a series of spending votes scoring quick wins and sending the clearest sign yet of second thoughts in the GOP over the depth of reductions demanded by the party’s new tea party supporters.”
That was a mis-characterization of the events which saw some old GOP RINOs coming back to the types of actions that were primarily responsible for the evolution of the TEA Party, TEA an acronym for Taxed Enough Already. It was apparent that the TEA Partiers didn’t go far enough last November, but there will be another chance in November of 2012.
The people of America spoke in November 2010 and they said they were tired of seeing big government and big spending which always results in big taxes. By electing dozens of fresh-faced and eager to do the bidding of the conservative electorate a message was sent to the Democrats who are traditionally slow learners (if at all) and to the Establishment RINO
Republicans who cave too easily to the tax-and-spend socialist-liberal Democrats that enough was already too much.
The large number of non-conservative RINO Republicans that humbled themselves to the heavy handed lib-Dems siding to stop some very much needed spending reductions put the bull’s eye on their backs as the prime target for 2012. If they thought the TEA Party man-handled the RINOs in 2010, stick around and watch the faces change in 2012.
The White House-backed spending program to save at least some of the funding for legal aid to the poor was supported by sixty-eight Establishment RINOs to go against the wishes of their own party. Minutes later, Rogers added, “seventy Republicans joined 158 Democrats on a 228 - 203 vote that restored $280 million on the Joe Biden favorite initiative of Community Oriented Policing Services. And the firefighter lobby prevailed on 132 Republicans to back a Democrat amendment to restore $510 million for Homeland Security grants for first responders.”
Keep in mind that the House now has 243 Republicans to 193 Democrats a sizeable majority of fifty votes and they lost those and other measures because of RINOs who just can’t seem to remember what party elected them. I don’t think the voters will forget that come November 2012. The moral here is don’t trust an Establishment (long time) RINO Republican to cut or stop spending.
This is not to say that the new conservative rookies elected last November all stayed the course and voted for the funding cuts; no, there were some of the newbies who joined the liberal Democrats to spend more of our tax dollars, including in at least one vote for the restoration of $510 million for Homeland Security grants for first responders; both of my own state Representatives also collaborated with the lib-Dems. But the lure and righteousness of being for first responders probably overcame good fiscal sense.
Another factor that may have played a role in rushing to judgment on these spending bills was that it was done on Wednesday, February 16 the evening before the day of the President’s Day recess; yes, already they got a recess. For the newcomers it was a needed respite as they had put in many long hour days in their new and totally different from normal ‘back home’ living routines. A few days to go back home and chat with their neighbors and friends as well as to listen to many complaints, suggestions and long stories I’m sure has put them in a better frame of mind to come back and do some of our country’s work.
Now that you’re back and all rested up and looking forward to the next vacation, flexibly called a recess to disguise its proper status, how about you old timers looking at your crystal balls and seeing where working with the very productive young conservatives will pay off better for you in 2012 than pursuing a career-ending RINO course of trying to please the liberal
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