The Rallying Cry of the New Rich
Thursday, February 24, 2011
Somewhere in the midst of the past week’s protests, posturing, and pathetic Democratic legislator panic of Madison, Wisconsin, an underlying and disturbing recognition about the true cost of retirement for public employees began to settle in.
The Madison explosion that has now set off similar eruptions at statehouses in Indiana, New Jersey and Ohio, was not just triggered by anger.
Beyond the emerging battle over collective bargaining, the collective knot in the stomach now being felt by millions of non public-sector Americans is the sinking sensation that as ever steeper tax burdens are created to pay the pension tab, the retirements of others may cancel out their own.
GET THE LATEST BREAKING NEWS HERE -- SIGN UP FOR GOLOCAL FREE DAILY EBLASTLeadership of the state’s public employee unions can play the class warfare card but they do so at their own peril: struggling Rhode Islanders are finally understanding that the public sector “working people” are the new rich, leaving the rest of the middle class private sector workers far behind as they amass the best pay and retirement packages in the nation.
Furthermore, in this state, communities are being forced to come face to face with the frightening prospect of what the true tab for those retirements may cost in terms of the classroom needs, human service assistance programs, town sports, arts, and road and building maintenance which may have to be sacrificed to sustain others’ pay and retirement benefits.
As unions rallied around the country Tuesday, here at home, the familiar cast of union leaders turned to the well worn pages of their familiar playbook and staged a Statehouse rally. The script goes pretty much like this:
1. Start invoking Civil Rights era language (stand in solidarity with their “brothers and sisters” in Wisconsin for the “hard fought for” rights to double dip, cash out sick time, and collect compounded COLA’s ).
2. Start demonizing an elected Republican/announce a new “Republican conspiracy” is at work: (Now that Governor Carcieri is gone, George Nee needed a new foil and has accused Wisconsin Governor Walker of leading a new “Republican conspiracy” to crush unions)
3. Distribute slogan tee shirts and swell rotunda with union ranks and a smattering of Brown students (who do not yet work or pay taxes and aren’t planning futures in broken-down, bankrupt RI towns anyway),
The unions are entitled to stage their public relations campaigns naturally, but it’s the campaign contributions they have funneled over the years into the campaign coffers of what RISC (RI Statewide Coalition) last fall estimated to be roughly 75% of legislators in the General Assembly (over half a million in donations just in the past election cycle) that have played an equally important role in the creation of the now unsustainable contracts and pensions. They claim retirement contracts can’t be broken when they have been agreed upon, fair and square. But more often than not, contracts are not so much agreed upon but brow beaten out of exhausted city and town mayors, school committees and town councils who get worn down by the unions’ relentless and expensive legal battles.
The consequences of the years of unions winning those battles have now arrived in our state: Central Falls will not be alone in bankruptcy proceedings warned the original receiver, Judge Mark Pfeiffer, if a statewide single system for pensions with more affordable and standardized benefits is not created soon.
The Senate’s Municipal Pension Study Commission report found that several cities and towns could now be facing pension burdens that could consume nearly half of all operating costs, if they are forced to make the required pension contribution. Statehouse rallies will not change the cold hard facts: as Democratic Treasurer Gina Raimondo has put it, we have a serious math problem at work here.
Mounting pension debts in Rhode Island have become a monster that threatens to devour most all other community needs if changes are not made soon. This state needs solution discussions not more class warfare rallies. This coming Saturday, February 26th, at its annual Winter Meeting, RISC will present an internationally recognized expert who has guided troubled communities, states, and even nations out of crushing debt and toward a path of fiscal stability. RISC encourages all Rhode Islanders to join us and come and listen to solutions about a chance to change course—before it’s too late.
(Information can be found at www.statewidecoalition.com)
Donna Perry is a Communications Consultant to RISC.
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