Posted on 05/22/2010 4:22:30 PM PDT by Steelfish
More Than 30,000 In NJ Protest State Budget Cuts
Thousands of people, some holding signs, fill the street near the New Jersey Statehouse during a rally Saturday, May 22, 2010, in Trenton, N.J., to protest Gov. Chris Christie's proposed budget cuts. Organizers say members of public employee unions hope a show of force will sway the state's top politicians to fight Christie. Gov. Christie has called for workers to accept wage freezes, and he's pushed for them to contribute toward their health benefits. (AP Photo/Mel Evans)
TRENTON, N.J. - A crowd estimated at 30,000 to 35,000 people gathered Saturday near New Jersey's Statehouse to protest Gov. Chris Christie's proposed budget cuts. State police, who gave the crowd estimate, said no problems were reported.
The crowd is believed to be one of the largest ever to protest in state history. It was mostly comprised of public employee union members and several community and nonprofit groups that would lose some or all their funding if Christie's plans are adopted. Christie has called for workers to accept wage freezes, and he's pushed for them to contribute toward their health benefits.
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“Too busy being productive?”
Perhaps, but a Saturday should be able to draw out seniors & week day employees IMHO.
And act as “baby-sitters” to the uneducatable high school kids! nice pay for baby-sitting.
Your observation seems correct. And no,its not right.
I think California. Christie is ahead of the curve there. California could had hundreds of thousands of illegals rioting for their rights.
Christie is doing just fine, thank you.
We don’t need to take to the streets to back him up.
We voted for him and unlike Scott Brown, Christie is the real deal not a weak sister.
I can’t wait to see Christe when he’s really pissed!
Christie does not care if he’s a one-term governor. He was elected to effect change and to override the greedy unions for the first time of any governor in the modern age, including several Republicans. He can do very well in the private sector if he’s defeated three+ years from now. Its not hard to put 30,000 of the selfish in the streets; not one of them would vote for him in any event.
That guy from the Star Ledger was great. Christie should show his vid around the state on NJPTV. No one when confronted with the facts had a clue.
A couple of years ago, the city of Vallejo, in California was forced into bankruptcy, as a result of underfunded pensions. The politicians promised all kinds of pension bennies, but never funded the plan appropriately. As a result, firemen and cops, who gamed the system to retire in their 40’s with 150,000 pensions were told by the bankruptcy court that they had to settle somewhere in the neighborhood of 45,000 per year. Tough luck for them, but thats whats coming for all public pensioners, and probably social security recipients someday. Politicians have been able to get elected and re-elected promising unrealistic pensions to unions, firemen, teachers, cops and state, city and federal employees. Our country can deal with two harsh choices for retirees: take less than has been promised, or the gov’t will simply print way more money making your pension worth far less, regardless of the inflation adjustments you think are built in to your pension.
All no doubt SEIU members.
The Looter Class pipes up. These cuts will be nothing compared to the effect of a national bankruptcy triggered by states defaulting one after the other.
Millions of New Jerseyans turned out several weeks ago to vote down an unprecedented percentage of bloated school budgets.
Yeah, I attended that protest rally.
The School budget elections in NJ last month were historic, Only one other year in the history of the state had such a high percentage of school budgets been voted down, and that was in 1976 at the height of the Carter/OPEC recession in NJ.
These public union protests are irrelevant inside the Statehouse, no one inside the Statehouse including the heads of private industry unions, are going to dare cross the NJ voter in this budget year.
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