Posted on 02/04/2011 3:14:34 AM PST by Michael van der Galien
Earlier this month Camden New Jersey laid off half its police officers and a third of its firefighters. Given Camden’s dubious distinction as America’s second most dangerous city – just narrowly edged out by St. Louis after years of occupying the top spot – this would seem a counter-intuitive move, but in the Bizarro world of wealth-through-debt, entitlements and outright denial of basic arithmetic, it makes perfect sense.
For Camden, as anyone with a calculator and/or a grasp of basic numeracy can tell you, is broke, to the tune of about $26 million. The police union – which appears to possess neither of these – refused outright to consider cuts in the form of unpaid leave days or any other adjustment to salaries that average $140,000 when benefits are factored in.
This resulted in some protests, street theater …
Eighty-three laid-off police officers put their work boots along the sidewalk near police headquarters to symbolize the lost jobs.
… and a brief glimmer of hope that the city government would actually hold fast and do the responsible thing:
n the end of course the local government – using what is become a dreary template – capitulated “solved” the problem by effectively deferring some of the police officers income until retirement, thus making it someone else’s problem in the future, and raising taxes.
(Excerpt) Read more at newsrealblog.com ...
In “defense” of Camden it wasn’t like these extra cops were making a difference to begin with.
The inmates are running the ass-ylum. It is outrageous what the public has let the civil “servants” and unions get away with for decades.
I used to find myself snickering anytime a politician described their job as “public servant”. Now I want to throw something.
The most egregious abuses - aside from those racked up by the politicians and their personal friends, buddies and contributors - are those generated by the law enforcement and teacher’s unions.
True, Camden is probably the kind of battle-zone where being a cop deserves special recognition. But perhaps cities like Camden should be under martial law and patrolled by the National Guard instead of a regular police force.
LAZARUS LONG
It’s always the police and firemen who are first to get the ax.
If the mayor would just do an “undercover boss” and take a walk through public buildings I bet he could find dozens of do-nothing “public servants” that nobody would miss.
But that’s too hard.
They have NO intention of ever cutting their own bloated staffs.
Where else would their shiftless son get a job, or their mistress?
As mentioned earlier, it is all street theater. Remember when the Superintendent of Detroit Public Schools had everyone come to him to sign for their paycheck? Found a few hundred paychecks that were never picked up.
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