Today’s moment of conservative zen comes from New Jersey, where Gov. Chris Christie is taking on the greedy public sector fat cats head on.Posted on 11/13/2010 9:19:12 AM PST by Kaslin
Gov. Christie zeroes in on all the zeroes in educational executive salaries. It's a target-rich environment.
Today’s moment of conservative zen comes from New Jersey, where Gov. Chris Christie is taking on the greedy public sector fat cats head on.
About the only thing that could make that clip any better would be a few uses of the word “jackwagon.” But we’ll let that slide.
For a little background, go here:
The day before the meeting Seitz is quoted in the Daily Record as saying, “Because of the proposed salary caps, I have to look at my future and the financial welfare of my family. I certainly would have options if I didn’t feel the compensation in this district, or New Jersey, is appropriate.”
The governor reacted to Seitz’s veiled threats to leave New Jersey and go to a nearby state where there is no state salary. “I will say in response to Mr. Seitz, ‘Let me help you pack.’ We have real problems in our state that we have to fix and we don’t have the time, nor the money, nor the patience any longer for people who put themselves before our citizens,” Christie railed.
Christie is brilliant to individualize the issue by making an example of Seitz. The fact is, public sector salaries have gotten out of control and the educational system is a prime example. And the problem isn’t unique to New Jersey by any means. For starters, 7 of the top 10 richest counties in the United States surround — literally — Washington, D.C. That’s no coincidence. And taxpayer money is increasingly being used for lobbying — to spend more taxpayer money. Is it any wonder that our country is in the mess it’s in?
As for educational salaries, I’ll see Christie’s Lee Seitz, and raise him a Jesus Chavez.
Who’s Jesus Chavez? He’s the superintendent of the Round Rock Independent School District in central Texas, with about 42,000 students. And he makes a lotta money.
Round Rock Superintendent Dr. Jesus Chavez has 14 years experience and is the only superintendent who agreed to talk to KVUE about superintendent salaries. His base salary is $250,000 a year.
That works out to just shy of six bucks per student. Don’t worry, though. He doesn’t think superintendents make too much.
“I don’t think superintendents get paid too much,” he said. “There is a shortage of superintendents, principals and other top level administrators. So the market and the qualifications that one brings makes it competitive.”
Shortage or not, this is ridiculous and arrogant. Parents, the vast majority of whom earn far less than Dr. Chavez, are routinely asked to kick in school supplies paid for with their own money. Schools hold fundraisers to pay for even basic classroom supplies. Yet atop the educational pyramid sit folks like Chavez, among the wealthiest in their regions. The superintendent of the Austin ISD makes a whopping $276,000 in base salary. In the case of educational executives, the rich seem to get richer while teachers and classrooms get shortchanged. Parents get hit on both ends, through rising property taxes to pay these salaries and through being hit up to pay for supplies directly.
If you cut Dr. Chavez’s salary in half, he would still be far ahead of the local median salary (which is itself probably inflated a bit by the presence of Dell’s and other high tech headquarters), and that money could pay for two or three additional teachers. Multiply that by all the other fat cats at the top of the educational food chain and pretty soon you’ve made a real difference in class sizes.
Or, you know, you could just turn those savings back over to the taxpayers who are paying these exorbitant salaries in the first place. Doing so might even be economically stimulative.
“Paying for supplies directly”.
Unless the ‘supplies’ in this sentence are things like toilet paper—I don’t get it.
When I & my 3 brothers went to school, our parents bought all our notebooks, paper, pens, pencils, colored pencils, Elmer’s glue, construction paper, etc. I can remember what a BIG DEAL it was for every ‘back to school’ year that we each got a new PENCIL BOX- 4 different colors, obviously. But it meant a new supply of Ticonderoga pencils, a new sharpener, scissors, colored pencils, new erasers, & all the goodies we could stuff into the pencil boxes. I am almost 71 y/o & I can still remember that excitement. Each year, Mom would let the ‘color choice’ of the pencil box go in a different rotation for fairness.
We attended a one room school—14 kids 8 grades & 1 teacher when I was there. A few more kids by the time my youngest brother went there.
I would not trade that education for a single thing out there today. We had no running water- it was brought in each day in a 10 gallon milk can by one of the farmer/parents & poured into a large ceramic jug with a spigot. There were 2 outhouses out back- one for the girls-one for the boys. A merry-go-round was the only playground entertainment. Heated in winter with a large coal fired boiler & we carried the burned ‘clinkers’ out & spread them on the driveway that circled the school so it would stay compacted. The older kids added the coal during the day.
2 times a year- once in the fall & once in the spring, we brought yard tools to school & spent the whole day cleaning the lawn & gathering leaves. Parents alternated with mowing the school lawn.
In the winter, the snow was plowed up in banks on the road sides & we would have snowball fights across the road at each other’s ‘forts’. A number of those kids got college educations & were very successful.
The 4 in my family all went on to be self-employed, with one of us having as many as 65 on payroll at one time.
I say it was a superior education to ANYTHING out there today.
Sharron Angle were the writing on the wall: popular enough among conservatives to get nominated, but not taken “””
Angle was beaten by massive voter FRAUD.
Don’t ever think otherwise. All the polls had her 4-6 points ahead. Then she loses by 6 points???
That is a huge swing in 48 hours.
FRAUD...ACORN is alive & thriving in Las Vegas. Bet on that.
Ah, a bitter Steve Lonegan voter weighs in. Will you be starting with the lies that Christie is "pro-abortion" and "not a social conservative"? You should probably stop asking people to do their homework on this man, or they might take you up on it and realize the "Rudy clone" stuff is BS.
I have seen that commercial a hundred times, and it still makes me laugh out loud every time. I mean really laugh out loud.
I still have no interest in buying Geico insurance, but that ad is hilarious.
I live in Texas...so NO I am not. There has always been something about Christie I couldn’t put my finger on and I think Mark Levin has done that for me. Mark Levin believed in Christie as I did but NO more....OBTW, I always supported Rudy and like Rudy way over Christie now.
Actually, he is pro-life according to what I’ve read. The turning point for him was hearing his unborn daughter’s heartbeat:
“I am pro-life. Hearing the strong heartbeat of my unborn daughter 14 years ago at 13 weeks gestation had a profound effect on me and my beliefs. The life of every human being is precious. We must work to reduce abortions in New Jersey through laws such as parental notification, a 24-hour waiting period and a ban on partial-birth abortion”
Source: Campaign website, www.christiefornj.com, “Issues” Jul 21, 2009
As far as the 2nd Amendment, from what I’ve read he supports 2nd amendment rights. He did say that he believed the laws on the books should be enforced.
So your statement that “he’s no different than Rudy” isn’t true.
I live in NJ. I had to hold my nose and vote for this guy. My property taxes have gone up and I had to vote for a former US attorney who said ‘’illegal aliens haven’t broken any laws’’. This fat a-hole is no different than any other governor Jerseys ever had. If I could I’d get out of this state. There isn’t any politician of any integrity or honesty in this state, only a professional political criminal class.
What did Levin do to change your mind?
Dan Riehl's post is very important. I'm going to try to get Christie on my show so I can ask him to explain his positions on Obamacare (he refused to join 20 other states in challenging it), his opposition to the Arizona immigration law, his position on global warming, his refusal to comment on the ground zero mosque, and his active support for Castle. He is a very good NJ governor for he has confronted the teachers' unions and fought to limit taxes. And he doesn't take a lot of grief from reporters. Nobody has better YouTube clips. But if he's to be a national conservative figure I'd like to explore other matters with him that are very important to a lot of us. And it does not appear that he campaigned for many of the Tea Party Senate candidates. I want to explore that as well. To say Castle would have won is not good enough. I'd like to know what Castle has done that he supports and thinks merits his promotion to senator. Christie has been governor less than a year and we don't know enough. Hopefully he'll be receptive to an offer. ------------------------------------
Yes, I do remember Rudy was pro-choice...
See post #52.
Refreshing!
I heard Levin saying all this. My point was that you said he’s no different than Rudy...yes he is different.
I don’t care as much about their salaries as the results they produce - they should be paid based on outcomes.
A good Superintendent could save millions of $ each year and improve student achievement. It is value that matters to me. But their pension plans are way out of whack vs. private sector jobs. Gotta cut them.
Sorry, I just don't see Chris Christie doing the Rudy in drag thing.
Rudy is definitely a RINO first class, Christie is conservative light
That’s enough for me. Thank you, OW.
I’ve been listening carefully over this issue. Glad to see some solid facts.
It’s also a health issue. Christie needs to drop 75-100 lbs for starters.
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