Posted on 12/06/2012 5:37:32 PM PST by neverdem
Rhode Island’s blue-on-blue showdown is heating up. Famed litigator David Boies is taking a 96 percent pay cut to represent the state against recalcitrant public sector unions. The New York Times reports:
Mr. Boies became involved, he said, because he was convinced that Rhode Island’s pension troubles were just the tip of a $5 trillion iceberg of unsecured retirement promises to the nation’s millions of public workers. “This is something that can cripple state and municipal governments at a time when the federal government is, more and more, cutting back on the services it provides,” he said.
Public unions and their allies maintain that state pensions are owed, intact, to their recipients, and that any tinkering with benefits amounts to theft and criminal breach of contract. Boies and others disagree:
“There’s no contract,” he said. “Even if there was a contract, the state, pursuing the public interest, has the right to modify contracts.”
Cities, states and their lawyers around the country are following the case avidly, said Amy B. Monahan, a law professor at the University of Minnesota who has written extensively on legal aspects of employee benefits. Many are wondering whether their own pension systems are sustainable, she said, and if not, how to make them so.
As the blue social model decays, the coalition that was once united behind it is becoming increasingly splintered and parochial. Boies, known for representing Al Gore, waging antitrust battles against Microsoft, and fighting California’s Proposition 8 in federal court, has impeccable bona fides as a liberal Democrat. But in the face of economic realities, he and other blue liberals are being forced to make fundamental choices about their values and goals.
Boies has opted to defend public services for the young and the needy against the asphyxiating costs of state bureaucracy. But where once he might have been called on to face down opposition to these priorities from the Right, he and other post-blue Democrats like Rahm Emanuel, Andrew Cuomo, and Cory Booker find them on the Left.
There is no denying that the Democrats won impressive victories at the ballot box last month. Nevertheless, the internal contradictions of its governing agenda are already beginning to show.
There is a Blue Civil War coming. It will cut deeply.
Wow. I have to go to the store and buy a case of popcorn to watch this.
Worth a look.
Spoken like a true liberal.
Government can make promises. But it doesn't have to keep them...
These are REDS, not “blues.” Enough of the Orwellian newspeak.
Well, not exactly.
It is a fundamental of republicanism that one legislature cannot bind its successors - if they could, then the People could not exercise their sovereignty by electing representatives.
These public employee "contracts" are not worth the paper they are written on, because they pretend to bind future legislatures to tax and appropriate to pay for them.
The temporary occupants of offices who negotiate these contracts are promising to pay them with money they don't control and can't raise. A mayor or Board of Education that make promises to the teachers union are promising that a freely elected legislature, in 10-30 years, will raise taxes or borrow money, and they can't promise that.
Look at my keywords, leftsocialmodel and redsocialmodel. Mead calls it the blue social model. Maybe the rot social model is best. Red in German is rot, IIRC.
You're quite right and I fully concur with your point.
My issue was with Boies' formulation -- which was facile and cavalier. He could've made a more thoughtful statement.
Like you.
Bump. It's a Red civil war, Stalinists versus Trotsykites, or Bolsheviks versus Mensheviks and Fellow Travelers.
I wish both sides a vast triumph atop a mountain of bodies in a sea of Red blood.
Watch Illinois. It will be the last to go down and it will go down hard.
Thank you!
That we have so easily allowed the media to upset 80+ years of history associating “red” with the Left, just because they decided to reverse election return maps in 2000, is the height of lunacy.
They need to own their association there.
See my previous post to fieldmarshaldj.
Why do no conservative commentators ever have much to say about this?
I am so sick of this impressive victory talk
Obama got 51%
He squeaked by
The nominal conservatives in the lamestream media have been castrated and are confined to cerebral analysis, e.g. David Brooks at the NY Times, George Will at WaPo and ABC, etc. Those who are great at ridicule like Mark Steyn are confined to the right wing echo chamber like this forum, IMHO.
Less than 51%. The non-Obama vote was over 49%, counting the idiotic third party candidates.
Obama got 51%
He squeaked by
"There is no denying that the Democrats won impressive victories at the ballot box last month."
I agree, but their wins in the Senate were impressive. They had 6 open seats, and they picked up 2! That hurt.
The curse of the 17th Amendment...the cities are electing the Senators...just like the President.
Famed litigator David Boies is taking a 96 percent pay cut to represent the state against recalcitrant public sector unions... Amy B. Monahan, a law professor at the University of Minnesota who has written extensively on legal aspects of employee benefits. Many are wondering whether their own pension systems are sustainable, she said, and if not, how to make them so. As the blue social model decays, the coalition that was once united behind it is becoming increasingly splintered and parochial. Boies, known for representing Al Gore, waging antitrust battles against Microsoft, and fighting California’s Proposition 8 in federal court, has impeccable bona fides as a liberal Democrat. But in the face of economic realities, he and other blue liberals are being forced to make fundamental choices about their values and goals. Boies has opted to defend public services for the young and the needy against the asphyxiating costs of state bureaucracy... he and other post-blue Democrats like Rahm Emanuel, Andrew Cuomo, and Cory Booker find them on the Left. There is no denying that the Democrats won impressive victories at the ballot box last month. Nevertheless, the internal contradictions of its governing agenda are already beginning to show.This will come as a big surprise to the SEIU thugs. /s
I would speculate that only Detroit, Flint and Ann Arbor are keeping those two in the Senate...
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.