The End of Campaign Season

This Tuesday, November 8, is Election Day.  To every Second Ward voter, I respectfully request your vote for a term on the Plainfield City Council, and hope I have impressed you with my ideas.  I have not shied away from controversy, and indeed, I have sought it.  My adversary has given us fine service for the last 8 years, but I think I can do more, and it’s time to let someone else have a chance.   An all-Democratic Council cannot, by definition, have the “checks and balances” which our Federal and State Constitutions, and our City Charter, contemplate.

The most important parting thought I can send out is to note that, if elected, I would be the “swing vote” on the Council, which would have 3 Old Democrats and 3 New Democrats.  With such a role, I can promise not only a higher level of expertise and decision-making than Plainfield has seen for many years, but a high degree of entertainment as well.  In short, watching the Council, with me on it, will be refreshing.  Mayor Robinson-Briggs and Assemblyman Green, watch out!

Please also elect the best candidates for State Legislature: Joan Van Pelt, Jeff First and Michael Class, all of whom would be a big step up from the mediocrity of the current incumbents.  And likewise, vote for Andy Smith and Eddie Ortiz for Union County Freeholders.

I intend to keep this blog going indefinitely.  Indeed, win or lose, I may run for other offices later.  Anyone who would like to be on the e-mailing list, let me know.  For now, I urge everybody to vote for change in Plainfield.  We certainly need some of that.

Why We Lost Our Hospital

Still angry three years after the fact, I have some observations to offer about why we lost Muhlenberg Hospital.  These conditions must be addressed before we have any chance of getting it back.

Between 1987 and 1994, I practiced law with a firm that represented 15 hospitals, of which 5 were mine.  We did all their malpractice and other liability defense work.  All of them were either non-profit or municipal.  But then, someone got the bright idea to turn hospitals into for-profit business enterprises.  And so it was that JFK Medical Center in Edison turned into Solaris Health Systems in 1997, when its owners bought Muhlenberg.  Lots of money has been made in the hospital business since then, but lots of money has been lost too, at hospitals that could not stand the competition, or which bore special burdens.  From my perspective as a hospital lawyer, the change was like fixing something that wasn’t broken, always an invitation to disaster.

Major changes in American medicine have caused many hospitals to go broke.  Today, all sorts of surgeries and other treatments are far faster and less invasive than before.  For example, people who have lumbosacral spinal procedures (as I had at JFK in 1997) go home the very next morning.  Most gall bladder removals are now done laparoscopically, also reducing what were once 10-day hospitalizations (as I had at Muhlenberg in 2003) to 1- or 2-night stays.  People with debilitating conditions, who are not ready to go home, and those waiting to die, no longer stay in the hospital for weeks, but are sent to nursing homes or rehabilitative centers.  Numerous medical conditions do not require admission at all anymore, but are treated with medications at home, or at outpatient facilities.

And so it is that the volume of hospital usage has been reduced.  But while there were small hospitals in some of our older cities that really aren’t needed anymore, Muhlenberg is not like that–it served a large area.  Solaris, wanting to be more cost-efficient and thus more profitable, removed several departments and services from Plainfield and put them in JFK.  What it left behind is the emergency room, which we still have–for now.

There was a second problem, and it was gigantic.  The number of people who seek care, but have neither insurance nor money, has skyrocketed.  Plainfield has a disproportionately huge number of them, mostly minorities, both legal and illegal.

New Jersey has an incredibly stupid law that requires hospitals to treat any and all comers, whether insured or not, and whether or not their illness belongs at a hospital.  Though the State provides some reimbursement for “charity care”, it isn’t anywhere near enough.  Muhlenberg became a de facto clinic, at tremendous cost, and defenseless to stave off those who should be going to a doctor’s office, or a clinic like the one on Rock Avenue.

I do not suggest that people needing medical care should be left out on the streets.  I am merely saying that letting them swamp Muhlenberg created a dilemma reminiscent of the sinking of the Titanic.  People in overloaded lifeboats drove off those trying to climb aboard, because if too many people did it, the boat would capsize, and everyone would die.

Hospitals must be allowed to refuse treatment to people who show up with minor or routine health issues that don’t justify going to them.  The abuse of emergency rooms would stop if those seeking treatment for a child’s earache, for instance, were sent away.  I don’t want to hear it that there are people who lack other options.  That is a societal issue and can be handled in other ways.  If excessive compassion has cost us our hospital, because Plainfield has so many poor and immigrants, then the price is too high.

None of our Plainfield elected officials have done anything to seek relief for hospitals with this problem.  Assemblyman Green is certainly not leading the charge for measures that would relieve urban hospitals of their special burden: being swamped by people who should be getting their medical attention somewhere else. 

If I am elected to the City Council, I won’t have the power to effect reform that has to come from the State Legislature.  But I would be the first Councilman to say out loud what the real problems are, and if others join me, that would create some pressure that might filter up to Trenton and Washington and actually address the problem.

We Lost Our Hospital: Now What?

It has been 3 years now since Muhlenberg Regional Medical Center closed.  It was both the largest employer and the largest taxpayer in Plainfield, not to mention the place where almost everyone in town went, when they needed hospitalization, emergency room service, or a variety of outpatient services.  We still have the emergency room and nursing school, but quite possibly not for much longer.  Others have done so much in reporting upon this disaster, and trying to reverse it, that there is no point in my repeating the tale.  I offer a special thanks, however, to Dottie Gutenkauf, for leading the charge to undo the catastrophe.

The hospital “campus” remains zoned for “professional – office” use, including a hospital.  To get anything else built there, it would have to be rezoned, or a use variance must be obtained.  This is where we may still have a chance. 

If I am elected, I would most likely also serve again on the Planning Board.  The City Council does not vote on variances, but it does have to approve rezonings.  It also gets to approve or reject all nominations to be a Commissioner on these Boards.  In either capacity, I will vote against any proposal to do anything with the campus, except to reopen a hospital.  I want Solaris to sell the property to someone who will replace the hospital as it was.  I don’t care if Solaris has to give it away for $1.  The City could even buy it, if the price were low enough.

How would I expect to get away with this near-confiscation of the campus?  Easy: a hospital remains the “highest and best use” of the property, not to mention the thing most needed by the entire community.   And, the terrible loss Solaris would take would be a “self-created hardship”, a familiar rule in the field of land use law, which can be used to refuse approvals to landowners who complain of the normal regulations, and want to build something inappropriate, to stem their losses.  Solaris repeatedly stripped away departments and services that Muhlenberg had had for years, and moved them to its JFK Hospital in Edison.  I do not question that this was justified from its point of view, but I still feel like some evil power attacked us, just like 9/11, and took our hospital.  Note also that Solaris claims to be nonprofit, but that all its actions look just like the converse.

Although I have used JFK and it is a fine hospital, I have no interest in it.  It is remarkably hard to get to from here, located on a side street, even though it is only 5 miles away.  Muhlenberg, by contrast, had a near-perfect location, if you agree that its function was to serve a dozen or so towns, of which we are the largest.

I will devote my next article to the topic of why Muhlenberg got into such trouble in the first place.  For now, I will limit my blame mongering to repeating what others have noted: that our Assemblyman, our Mayor, and our Councilmen all had reason to notice that it was being stripped of its services, and in effect shrinking into vulnerability, yet they didn’t notice, or in any event, they didn’t do anything to alert the community to what was happening.

As a Councilman and/or Board member, I will make noise when I think it necessary for the community’s welfare, and I really don’t care if I step on a few toes along the way.  I always have, for the last 25 years.  My adversary has always claimed that he has done the same thing, and always will.  But he certainly wasn’t making noise when saving Muhlenberg was still possible.

Banning Pay-to-Play

One of the most embarrassing things about New Jersey, politically speaking, is the common practice by which business entities and professionals who want to do business with local governments, or the State and its agencies, make campaign contributions to those who award the contracts.  It’s called “pay to play”, and was somewhat limited at the State level by a 2005 law, though most people believe the reform has been insufficient.  It is, in my opinion, even worse at the local level.  New Jersey municipalities are allowed to have their own regulations about this, or to have no restrictions at all.  As would be expected in a City governed solely by Democrats, Plainfield has no restrictions at all.

To show how porous the regulations are, consider the fact that corporations are barred from making campaign contributions to anyone, but they get around it by making the contributions in the name of an owner or partner.

I want to ban pay-to-play in Plainfield altogether.  I am tired of seeing contributions by lawyers, engineering firms and the like, who do business with the City, and realizing that this is precisely how they get the contracts.  The problem, however, is wider than that.  We need an ordinance prohibiting the City and its agencies from doing business with officeholders and their companies, and if elected, I will introduce one.

During Mayor Mark Fury’s tenure in the mid-1990s, the City hired Weiner Lesniak, the powerful law firm of Senator Ray Lesniak, to handle a wide variety of litigation and legal matters.  I remember hearing that the firm tried to overcharge the City drastically, and then when Mayor Fury tried to fire it, the firm sued the City, and made off with all the money he was trying to save.  Worse, Senator Lesniak made sure Fury didn’t get the Democratic “line” in the 1997 election, for his impudence.  And indeed, he lost, though I think he was the best Mayor we have had in decades.

Senator Lesniak, you see, was Chairman of the Union County Democratic Committee at the time, and remains its major power to this day.  Therefore, although Plainfield wasn’t in his legislative district, it was in his county, and thereby indirectly vulnerable to his whims. 

I must add that I have no proof of any of this, though I remember it vividly.  I also cannot say whether the firm was really charging too much or not, because in those days before OPRA, I as a mere citizen had no access to the records that would give me that information.  As a lawyer specializing in legal malpractice and ethics, I often hear complaints from people who think they are overcharged for legal services, or perceive that they don’t get their money’s worth.  I also have no reason to criticize the quality of the work Weiner Lesniak did.  I did ask both Mayor Fury and then-Council President Malcolm Dunn to look into this issue, and let me help, but they ignored me, presumably fearing the wrath of Senator Lesniak and his hench-woman, Charlotte DeFilippo.

I have no proof of any of the above, but if someone like me has the perception that this is what happened, then so do others, and the damage is done!!  Very few business people want to work for us, aside from those who are “in” with the State or County Democratic organizations, because they believe they will be shaken down for contributions, or else not seriously considered.

The most glaring current example is John Wisniewski, a lawyer who is both Chairman of the Democratic State Committee, and Deputy Speaker of the State Assembly.  He has contracts with the City now, to handle such things as tax appeals.  I readily state that his charges are reasonable and customary, and that his firm’s work is good.  But I worry what will happen if he ever has a spat with the Mayor, or with Boss Green, because I remember what Senator Lesniak did to Mayor Fury. 

It is offensive to me that there should even be a risk of such problems.  Contractors and professionals should respect the City, and recognize that they have to keep us pleased with them, not the other way around.  It should be possible to fire them, if they let us down in any way, without fear of reprisal.  We need to ban all contracts with those who hold public office in New Jersey, or are members or officers of party committees at any level, including firms of which they are a part.

The Council has obviously never brought this reform about.  If elected, I will push for it until it happens.

 

Where Your Taxes Go

Everyone complains about our high property taxes, but Plainfielders do not really pay more than people in most of the towns around us do.  Of course, if our homes had the value of similar properties in nearby towns, and were assessed accordingly, we’d be paying through the nose.  What seems more galling than the amount is what we get for that money. 

Of every dollar we pay in property tax, only 59 cents is municipal.  Another 15 cents goes to the County, and 26 cents to the school district.  The County provides places where our garbage, leaves and recyclables go.  It also pays for parks (two of which are here), social services, the courthouse (though not the courts), the jail, and a number of other things.  Union County is not known for thrift, but our Council can’t do anything about that.  Our County Manager until this month, George Devanney, is the nephew of Senator and Boss of Bosses, Ray Lesniak.  Even if he has been a fine civil servant, in my book, any relative of a powerful politician should be deemed ineligible for any salaried public office.

As for the school district, if I said half of what I think of this, I would get more complaints than I did when I mentioned other, ummm, sensitive topics in recent blogs!!  Suffice it to say, much of our citizenry regards the schools as simply unusable.  Frankly I think the schools here are better than anyone gives them credit for, but perception is everything, and they don’t compete. 

I believe that all New Jersey parents who don’t want to send their children to the local public schools should receive vouchers, which will pay for two-thirds of the actual tuition charged by private and parochial schools, charter schools, and those public schools in nearby towns willing to take our children on tuition.  Put a ceiling on the amount charged so the schools don’t gouge, but there should be no other restriction on where this money can be used, beyond the school being accredited.

Around 85% of the Plainfield school budget actually comes from the State, since we are an “Abbott district”, but the budget is a topic for another time.

We often hear that if the more able or affluent students could go to non-public schools, or public schools outside their districts,  it would be disastrous for the students left behind in their district public schools.  My answer to that is that any particular parents, and their children, owe nothing to other parents, or other children.  You don’t help A’s children by hurting B’s children.

It is my goal to put any and all subjects that people care about onto the table.  I know I have already ruffled many feathers by my rather outspoken statements.  These are things no one has talked about for years, but all that proves is that our current politicians are bent on ignoring the public.  If something bothers a citizen, it is ipso facto a legitimate issue for public discussion.  A vote for me on Nov. 8 is therefore a vote to take the lid off free speech and reexamination of every aspect of the City’s activities.  Whether you are dissatisfied only about minor operational details, or seethe with discontent about whatever your issue is, you have been squelched for too long.  Vote your conscience for a change.

Why I’m Running for City Council

I know what many people think.  I must be crazy to want to serve the people of Plainfield’s 2nd Ward, a fractious bunch in the best of times.  I must be crazy to think anyone, even in the 2nd Ward, would vote for a Republican.  And I must be crazy to think I can actually make a change for the better, since the Council would still consist of 6 Democrats, and only 1 of me. 

Consider however that most of the outside world thinks the people of Plainfield are crazy now.  They have repeatedly put all their eggs in one basket, by having nothing but Democrats in City Hall.  They have refused to vote for anyone who would put checks and balances back into effect, although American democracy is supposed to be built on checks and balances.  Some of them act like no one but African-Americans should live here.  And they tolerate corruption and ineffectiveness even when, for example, it causes them to lose their only hospital, which was not only a crucial resource, but the biggest employer we had. 

In a state which has a Republican Governor and will soon have a Republican Legislature again, and in a country where Congress and the President will soon be Republican too, some of our people don’t mind being viewed as closed-minded fools, who never listen, and to whom one cannot talk sense.

I don’t really think political parties are as meaningful at the local level as they are at the state and national levels.  Political factions, however, are still very meaningful.  I have never been a right-wing ideologue.  On some subjects, I’m very much the opposite.  Thousands of Plainfielders know who I am, and respect me.  A few of them even like me 🙂

The reason I am running is that Plainfield’s government is a mess, and under all-Democratic rule, always will be.  I happen to like and respect our Mayor, but she will not stand up to powers that want to pull her strings for their own purposes.  Similarly, I like and respect my adversary, but his philosophy is to “go along to get along”, when what the Council needs is one iconoclast, someone willing to make noise and stand up to people and ideas he thinks are wrong.  We need someone who cares what the outside world thinks, and can act as an intermediary with the business world, with Washington, and with Trenton.

Plainfield is worse off than it was 4, 8, 12, 16 or 20 years ago.  We are taken for granted, and typically ignored, because most of our people vote for Democrats every single time, whether they are doing us any good or not.  We need to cut our City budget by $10,000,000, and thereby cut our outrageous property-tax rate.  We need to let our population fall by 20% over the next 20 years, because that is the only way we can cut our budget. 

I readily acknowledge the totally honorable service given us by Cory Storch, a two-term incumbent.  I submit however that he is tapped out, and has nothing more to offer us.  Whatever he was capable of is yesterday’s news now.

If elected, I will be the swing vote on the Council, for it will have three “Old Democrats”, and three “New Democrats”.  I will also most likely go back onto the Planning Board, where I could do even more good, being an experienced attorney and urban planner myself.  Indeed, when I lost my Planning Board seat in 2000, after 6 years of what I think everyone agreed was exemplary service and strong leadership, who was it given to?  Cory!!  I will always vote, on the Council and on the Planning Board, for whomever and whatever I think is the smartest thing.

I am running for Council because we need change.  I would bring us tremendous, immediate, positive publicity, just by being elected, and by breaking the Democratic monopoly that is strangling our City.  If you want modesty and meek cooperation, vote for Cory.  If you want leadership and expertise, checks and balances, vote for me.

It’s simply time to give someone else a chance, for a change.  Someone who isn’t in lockstep with failed leaders and policies.   Someone who can upgrade the whole operation, just by being there. That’s why I’m running for Council.  Vote for Bill Michelson on November 8.

Taming the Tiger – Public Employee Labor Unions – part 3

And now we get to the point where I start making waves about the labor affairs of the City of Plainfield. 

I did a thorough review of the City Budget for fiscal years 2010 and 2011, and compared them against the one from 2005.   To make a long story short, there were very few places where I looked at a particular department or program, and thought to myself that its cost was unacceptable.  In fact, although I will deny eventually that I ever said this, I found that Mayor Robinson-Briggs and her Administration have done a very, very good job of squeezing out the fat.  We had to make substantial reductions from 2010 to 2011, mainly because the amount of State aid has dropped sharply, and also due to the poor economic picture, which affects the real estate and construction businesses so sadly.  One could quibble about fine details, but there really wasn’t any bloat in any of the departments.  And now, a reasonable belt-tightening has been applied to all of them.

Still, I think property owners are paying far too much in local taxes.  I pay close to $15,000 for owning a house here, and depending on how my law practice and my partner’s accounting practice are doing, sometimes it really hurts!!  I live with the feeling I don’t get my money’s worth, and I believe, so do most of the citizens.

Our municipal budget this year is about $70,000.000, down about $4,000,000 from last year as a result of the aforementioned belt-tightening.  The amount raised by our property tax is about $50,000,000.  We do have about $5,000,000 a year that comes in from a variety of local sources, like fees for various permits, fines from Municipal Court, and $1,500,000 from the PMUA (another whole article lurks in that acronym).  I was hoping to find a way to promise that if elected, I will REDUCE everyone’s property taxes.

So Plainfield costs $70,000,000 a year to run, without frills, but can only raise about $55,000,000 a year, even with unreasonably high taxes.  If we were a private business, we would do a complete restructuring and maybe sell off a division or two, quite likely with help from the U.S. Bankruptcy Court.  We can’t really do that.  There are four big-ticket items in our Budget: $15,000,000 for the Police, $9,000,000 for the Fire Department, $4,000,000 for the State pension systems, and $11,300,000 for insurance, of which almost $9,000,000 is for “group insurance plans”. 

We can’t do anything about the State pension funds, which if anything, have been badly under-contributed-to for too long. 

We can, and must, lower the costs of insurance.  Because of the union contracts we have had in effect for decades, we have been giving away free medical coverage, not only to employees, but for an unlimited number of family members.  Unfortunately the cost of health coverage for everyone has skyrocketed.  We need to make employees pay in the cost of coverage for their dependents, or at least a large part of it.  Indeed, they should have to pay in at least part of their own coverage.  And we need to police aggressively the list of “dependents” which employees claim to have, to see how many don’t belong there anyway.  You knew I’d get back to the labor unions eventually, right?

And what about the enormous burden of our police and firemen?  I do not really think we can reduce these costs a whole lot, without compromising our safety.  Except for one thing: why does Plainfield spend so much more per capita for these services than most other municipalities do?  I propose commissioning a study, with nothing off the table, to find out what is causing the need for such large uniformed forces.  Oh, I think I know some of the reasons, and most of you do too, but it will be much easier politically to tackle the causes of our costs AFTER generating a bunch of statistics.  There are plenty of obvious targets, but I want to be fair about this process.

It is said that when you rob Peter all the time, to pay Paul, you will always have lots of support from Paul.  And with that metaphor, I lay down the political gauntlet for this year.  Some of the causes of our perennial financial imbalance will take a long time to tackle.  But the labor unions are in Peter’s pocket all the time.  I will vote against any labor contract, and for that matter any professional contract, that costs more than we can reasonably afford. 

To return to my previous observations about labor unions, the public is not to be treated like a big, rich manufacturing corporation.  They may be able to give their workers a bigger slice of the pie without really endangering themselves.  We cannot, and to even ask us to is simply indecent.  If unionized workers don’t like it, they don’t have to work for us.

Taming the Tiger – Public Employee Labor Unions – part 2

A couple of months ago, when a courageous majority in the New Jersey Legislature joined with Governor Christie to rein in–and not very harshly at that–pension and benefit costs for public employees, we were treated to a rare sight.  Major public-employee union leaders staged demonstrations outside the State House and elsewhere, and let their rhetoric foam over.  Such union leaders as Rae Roeder and Chris Shelton of the CWA, Lee Saunders of AFSCME and Charles Wowkanech of the AFL-CIO led noisy protests which are their right.  Shelton let loose not only against Christie, but also Senate President Stephen Sweeney and Assembly Speaker Sheila Oliver – two loyal, pro-union Democrats if there every were such – screaming “we have Adolf Christie and his two Generals trying to turn New Jersey into Nazi Germany”.  The sign on the podium said “Christie & Sweeney – Perfect Together”.

NJEA leader Barbara Keshishian, mistaking the passage of new legislation for a declaration of war, said “we didn’t come looking for a fight, but if you attack us, you are going to have a fight”.  I guess math teachers don’t use words as harsh as “Nazi”.

All the Legislature did was to increase the portion of salary which public workers are to pay towards their health and pension benefits.  Police and firemen will now pay 10%, and most other public employees 7.5%, towards pensions that kick in for them as young as 25 years on the job.  They will also pay, for medical coverage, from 3 to 35%, not of their salary, but of the actual cost of the insurance.

The hyperbole just described may be common in private union situations, but is unacceptable in the public sector.  It’s like this: if your co-workers or neighbors speak nasty to you, you have to put up with it, but if your children say the same things to you, you smack them for their impudence.

I am not willing to pay such a large part of the health coverage of so many people.  I pay through the nose for my own coverage and that of my employees, over $600 per month per person, whether I’m making any money or not.   I could see paying perhaps half of a public employee’s individual coverage, but I wish to pay nothing for their family members.  That’s their responsibility.

I am also not willing to pay the pension, often 2/3 of what their salary was, of people who may live for 30 years or more beyond retirement.  I don’t have a pension.  What is in my IRA came purely out of my own income, and I may have to work until I drop.  I have had years when the property taxes on my house exceeded my total business income. 

Next time I’ll take a look at benefits issues in Plainfield’s budget.  But I will say now that if elected to the City Council, I will vote against any labor contract, in which the cost to the taxpayers of employee benefits and pensions exceeds what I have just outlined.  There is no good reason why public employees should have better benefits than private employees.

Taming the Tiger: Public Employee Labor Unions – Part I

I am running for City Council, among other reasons, to take back control of our local economy and to reduce our high tax burden.  One of the major topics I will address this fall is the role of high-cost labor contracts in creating our problems.  Before discussing Plainfield’s labor affairs in particular, I want to sketch out my view of today’s labor problem, in general.

Perhaps the biggest problem facing local and state government in recent years has been the public employee labor unions.  They form Plainfield’s biggest budget challenge, though our situation is not at all unique, among New Jersey municipal governments.  Most of Plainfield’s employees are unionized, therefore, the salaries and benefits our employees receive are set forth in union contracts.  The pension and benefits programs provided in these contracts have grown way beyond our ability to pay for them.

I remember learning the history of the labor movement in college.  There was a time that people working for corporations and industries existed at the mercy of their not-very-generous owners and shareholders.  If you didn’t like doing a dangerous job for a wage too small to survive on, and raised a complaint about anything, you were fired.  Working conditions were often highly unhealthful, and there was no such thing as fringe benefits.  If a worker died, or became too ill or too old to work, his family might simply starve.  These abuses of unbridled capitalism only began to come under control when the labor union movement became strong enough to force reforms.  After unions in some sectors of the economy began to prevail, Congress created the modern labor movement by passing the National Labor Relations Act, a key piece of the New Deal, in 1935.  Basically, this law made it illegal for employers not to engage in collective bargaining, with employees who were organized and sought recognition.  Collective bargaining is built on the metaphor that a company’s income is like a huge pie, and you could fight a war, or make a deal, on how it should be divided up.

No one suggests we go back to the time before 1935.  Millions of workers depend on their unions to make sure that employers provide for them a living wage, various benefits, safer and better working conditions, a defense against unfair charges, and many other useful activities and programs.  It certainly raises the employer’s cost of doing business, however.  The downside of this started to become noticeable in the 1950’s, as manufacturers in union-friendly states such as New Jersey and Connecticut started closing down their plants, and moving their operations to low-cost, “right to work” (non-unionized) states such as North and South Carolina.

One particular kind of benefit that attracts great attention today started as a mere historical accident, during World War II: medical insurance.  A few large companies, trying to attract workers to move to where they operated, started offering health coverage on top of wages.  After the war, this became common throughout the country and the economy, and today we think of it as a right.  This quirk has led to the unintended consequence that people who work for themselves, or don’t work at all, have to buy medical insurance at great cost, or live without it.  Medical coverage is therefore not thought of as a civil right provided by the government, but rather, as a perquisite of one’s job.

To understand why the cost of medical insurance has skyrocketed is easy: look at all the medical and technological advances of the last 60 years.  Nowadays, we don’t die when we become seriously or chronically ill, or too old to live independently, we go into a hospital or nursing home, where diagnostics and treatments of great sophistication–and huge cost–are routinely incurred.  We take various medications for whatever is wrong with us, some of which are hugely expensive, and we don’t think about the cost.

Today, we have not only lost millions of jobs to low-tax states, but to other countries, which can make things far more cheaply than we can.  I could go off on a lengthy tangent here, but will just point out that our lack of competitiveness with other countries has become a huge problem for American workers.

One peculiar side effect of unionization was the emergence of loud, obnoxious, dishonest labor leaders, who demand unreasonable treasures for their members, in a shrill and confrontational way–notably by strikes.  These leaders have tried, with great success, to influence public officials in many ways, all to strengthen their hand for collective-bargaining time.  Because the NLRA compels a sort of industrial democracy, union leaders compete with each other for members’ votes by trying to outdo each other in toughness and noisiness.  This caused the labor movement to intersect with organized crime, since the stakes were so high that everyone wanted their cut.

It is likely that the uncouth power gamesmanship and insensitive brassiness of so many labor leaders is cultivated precisely so that, when it’s collective-bargaining time, their viciousness will be perceived as strength.  Maybe this works out well in the long run.  Or maybe it is just a hideous, crude excrescence of legitimate labor relations principles.

And that gets us to what I will post next week as Part II–the extension of the labor union movement into the PUBLIC employment sector, and the effect that this has had on local and state affairs, and on our economy.   I will address the specifics of Plainfield’s situation there.

Budget Battles

In recent days, the news is full of reports about budgetary battles taking place in New Jersey, other states, and Washington, D.C.  President Obama demands that Congress raise the ceiling for our enormous national debt (can you say “fourteen trillion dollars” 10 times fast?), while the Republican leadership in the Senate sees this as the grand opportunity to force some badly-needed cuts.

In Trenton, the Democratic legislative leadership in both houses has tried, but failed, to override a series of line-item vetoes by Governor Christie.  New Jersey law allows line-item and conditional vetoes, so individual subject areas can be addressed one at a time.  I’m with the Governor on this.  I wish the President had similar power, which would take a constitutional amendment.  Well then, let’s amend the Constitution!

In St. Paul, the Minnesota state government underwent a so-called “shutdown”, actually a bit of an overstatement, until the legislators and the Governor there reached a deal.  He wouldn’t stop spending the state into bankruptcy until they forced the impasse.  It may seem a bit brutal, but this is what “checks and balances” means, and everyone there will be better off for it.

The common thread is that even lawmakers have lost control of spending.  So many people have become accustomed to receiving so much money from government, that any effort to rein in the costs produces howls of anger.  But every time this conflict gets into the news, what I realize is, how many people are living with their hands in other people’s pockets.  The pundits say we need “entitlement reform”, because so many recipients of tax money were granted what they view as a continuing right to keep receiving it.  I have always objected to others profiting from my hard work, but today, we just don’t have the money to let this continue anyway.  There are too many other societal needs not being met. 

In upcoming weeks I will post several articles about how this kind of spending pattern has affected Plainfield.  Just as a preview, consider the city’s labor contracts.  They provide that employees, not just police and firemen, get health insurance for free, not only for themselves, not only for their spouses, but for everyone in their households, no matter how many individuals are there.  That’s costly enough, but no one has policed the program to see if some employees are claiming “dependents” who really aren’t entitled to this generosity.  Your in-laws, your unadopted nephew or cousin, your partner to whom you aren’t married (or in a civil union), they are not entitled to free health care at other people’s expense!   

Everyone I know in Plainfield complains about our high property tax, and the low value of what we get for it.  The politicians only pander to those who take, because they outnumber those who give enough to be aware of it.  Wake up…if you keep voting Democratic in every single election, so that you are taken for granted, it’s not going to improve!