Mayor Bloomberg's top political aide is vowing to win pension reform in Albany - and predicts he'll have better luck than his predecessors.
"I think we have a moment after the next election," Deputy Mayor Howard Wolfson told leaders at a breakfast hosted by the Association for a Better New York.
"The winds of change are blowing and the next governor will have an opportunity to deal with some of these problems in a way that past governors have not because crisis creates its own opportunity," he added.
Budget reformers have tried for years to rein in spiraling pension costs that threaten to hobble the state and its major cities.
Resistance from powerful unions and their allies in the Legislature have thwarted their efforts.
State lawmakers must approve any changes to pension rules.
Wolfson said the crisis has become so severe, he thinks Albany will be open to reforms like changing the rules so New York City can negotiate pension benefits in collective bargaining - something now barred by law.
It won't be easy. The state's top public employee union says it will use every resource to block proposals like Wolfson's.
"There are problems with the pension system that need to be addressed but the idea that we need wholesale reform really is just an attempt to undermine workers," said Civil Service Employees Union boss Stephen Madarasz.
Crisis creates it's own opportunity.
Just what Rahm and Obama said about the financial crisis and education.
Just what Arne Duncan said about Katrina and New Orleans schools.
Now it is what Bloomberg, Cuomo and their oily flacks like Wolfson are saying about pensions.
So the workers will pay.
How about the hedge fund managers and banksters?
Will they still get state largesse?
You betcha!
The latest polls don't look good for that noted pension protector and champion of the public sector, Carl Paladino (?).
ReplyDeleteTim,
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure your getting it.
Both candidates would love to gut public pensions.
Better for public employees that the republican rather than the dino wins.
Esteban,
ReplyDeleteThat's exactly right. Listen, Crazy Carl isn't going to win. But if the margin of Little Andy's victory is tight, then he doesn't have a "mandate" to bring "reform" (i.e., fuck working class people, pay off hedge fund managers.)
Ah, I'm getting it now: we actually DON'T want Paladino to win, because elections have consequences, and crazy Republican governors can do things like unilaterally put the kibosh on projects that would have provided thousands of good permanent jobs and improved our region's standard of living for a century or more.
ReplyDeleteWe just want Cuomo to eek out a win against Carl, have some sort of come to Jesus moment, and then leave those $250,000 police department and MTA pensions unexamined and untouched. Gotcha.
Teacher's pensions are fair, equitable, and financially sustainable. The pensions given to many other public sector employees (law enforcement, education administration, transportation, etc.) are not. These are scary times, financially and politically, and I think it's a bad move for the teacher's unions to slavishly stand in solidarity with unions that want to protect $250,000-year pensions, but that's not my lookout.
The $250,000 pensions are a red herring.
ReplyDeleteFirstly, there are not that many of them.
The real issue is the teacher pensions.
The powers that be have drummed up hysteria through their propaganda outlets, the press.
The real concern is that they are about to steal those pensions. They have brazenly talked about it, to the extreme glee of the bash teachers set.
Secondly, the bankers want our pensions because they are running out of funds to steal.
What we have is a parasite class that have bribed our parasitical "leaders", and they are going to get what they want.
They all have the same scrooge mentality as the little dictator.
The brazen manner in which they have acted, would logically lead one to the forgone conclusion, that, they wil succeed in robbing us of the only thing worth stealing from us, our pensions.
Downstate New York has witnessed a pogrom of senior teachers. This has been accomplished with the complicity and collusion of both the State Education Department and our good for nothing parasitical union.
So it will come as no surprise that they will go after the pensions. I foresee the AFT, UFT and NYSUT agreeing to it.
The Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein, shows the creation of a crisis and the methods by which change is wrought.
Take a good look at New Orleans, that was the proving grounds, that gave these creeps the green light to plunder and pillage wholesale.
It really makes no difference who is elected as governor.
We should stick with Blind Lemon Patterson. At least he is a known quantity.
Or better yet, dig up Dick Nixon. We need him now, more than ever!
Cheers,
Angry Nog
Tim,
ReplyDeleteI am not supporting any more Dems who want to take it to teachers, union members, and working and middle class people.
And that describes Little Andy to a tee.
Also describes President Accountability, Chuck Schumer and a host of other Dems.
I am not voting for something I don't want just because the other party is pushing stuff that I don't want even more.
Or, as Eugene Debs put it, "I'd rather vote for what I want and not get it than vote for what I don't want and get it."
That's what I did with Obama - the specter of Palin and the memory of Bush convinced me I should vote for him.
I was wrong.
I knew his ed policies sucked and I knew I would hate them. IO also knew he was an arrogant prick who didn't give a shit about the little guy and I have seen much more evidence on that count since the election.
Had I voted my conscience and written in Harpo Marx, at least I could say "Well, I didn't vote for this asshole" every time he fucks teachers, union members or working class people.
But I don't have that luxury because I DID vote for the asshole.
But I won;t make that mistake with Cuomo.
You want to shill for him, fine. He'll get elected no matter what either of us do.
But at least when he comes around to take my pension and outlaws tenure and seniority for teachers, I'll be able to say "I didn't support this asshole."
That matters to me.