For thirty years, during which time Governor Paterson’s generation and those before have dominated the state legislature and much else, they have continually voted themselves an irrevocably good deal every time the economy was up and money was rolling in. And then imposed “shared sacrifice” on younger generations and those without connections every time the economy was down and money was scarce. From public debt to the infrastructure to the environment to seniors who pay no tax while young people with the same income are taxed double, the story has been the same. And in public service, as I wrote here, public employee unions have pursued, and the state legislature has passed (generally without a single ‘no’ vote), ever richer pensions after ever shorter careers every time the economy was up. And claimed the time spent living in leisure off other people would cost nothing. In reality, this has been balanced by lower pay and benefits for future public employees every time the economy was down, part of a pattern of younger generations (except for the very rich) being worse off economically in every way ever since 1973. In exchange, the unions have told their members they have the right to do a worse job, since they were underpaid.
Several months ago, the man who claimed that on day one everything would change had a chance to veto a bill that simultaneously allowed NYC teachers with seniority to walk out the door at age 55 and live off others for the rest of their lives, and cut the take-home pay of future teachers significantly. The usual. Eliot Spitzer signed it, a couple of weeks before it was revealed he was screwing the young literally as well as figuratively. Now Governor Paterson faces the same choice between fairness and privilege.
The bill on Paterson’s desk, one of the few he has neither signed nor vetoed, would prohibit public employee unions and local governments from negotiating higher contributions from retirees for their government-funded health care. Since pensions are guaranteed by the state constitution (in the only provision of the state constitution the state Court of Appeals is likely to enforce), requiring higher health insurance payments from retirees is the only way that younger generations can make those retirees share in the sacrifice required by what the retirees have done. The unions are worried that younger workers will do to the retirees what those now retired did to younger workers, taxpayers, and service recipients in the past. Not in a way that is unfair, just in a way that makes the most selfish generations in U.S. and New York history give something back. So they asked the state legislature to prohibit this, and the bill was passed and is on the Governor’s desk.
It almost pain me to write this, given what I would guess is coming, so why don’t I just cut and past from the essay I wrote on the Spitzer sell-out?
“It is not enough for him to quietly veto the bill, with some mushy statement, like Pataki used to do — until he eventually rolled over and signed. He has to make a statement, to let people know he is on their side.”
“For too long, he should say, those cashing in and moving out of this state have enriched themselves and sold out future generations, running up debts and enhancing their pensions, pensions that most taxpayers don’t get, and then agreeing to lower wages and diminished benefits for those who come after. He will not sign such a bill, he should say, unless it can be proven that those now retired have never voted for contracts that imposed lower pay and benefits on those hired after them.” <> “For too long, he should say, New Yorkers have paid more and more taxes for fewer and fewer services because more and more money has been sucked out of our future by greed in our past, through debts, pensions, deferred costs, advanced revenues, and infrastructure disinvestment. He should demand a public vetting of how past public employee union contracts have benefited those hired at different times, and demand that future contracts seek to offset the inequities.”
Taking money off the top, grandfathering in existing privileges, and then dividing up the pain among those who matter less, has been the MO of Governor Paterson’s generation for 30 years. If he really is going to be different, and show that he cares about his own children, let along other children and the future of the state, then the time is now.
Do I favor people in their late 50s facing poverty because they cannot afford their health insurance? No. Readers of this blog know I favor universal health care financing at the national level — and public employee unions oppose, because they have a sweet deal now and aren’t willing to pay or give up anything for others to have something. The only way those generations will ever even consider the effect of what they feel “entitled to” on others is if they have to fear that younger generations would do onto them what they have done onto younger generations. They want Governor Paterson, on the brink of a fiscal crisis that will require “shared sacrifice,” to exempt them. If he does, we know all about Governor Paterson.
Paterson has already signed a bill that will permanetly require younger generations of workers to pay dues to the public employee unions that ripped them, and future service recipients off. I believe those unions deserve to be de-certified as legitimate representatives of anyone on the wrong end of those screw the newbie, flee to Florida contracts. Will Paterson abuse younger generations again, or have the guts to take a stand?