Subject: Who's Fleecing Who? Hi Larry, Before dinner, I had an opportunity to read the latest installments to your blog. During dinner, my wife and I discussed the blog, and spent most of the time discussing the continual complaint about worker's pensions, and who gets what at who's expense. You and I have discussed the issue of the reality of a teacher's pay, benefits, etc. before, but I think the discussion needs to be revisited. For longer than the last year, the articles concerning the state of the State, blogs such as your's, letters to the editor, etc. continue to fall into the trap of pitting the working men and women against one another. There is a constant effort on the part of government politicians, lobbyists and the media to divide and conquer the people. By falling into that trap, the taxpayers are allowing those who are really responsible for the financial mess that the working people are in, to continue on their merry ways, untouched by the havoc that has been created by them and on their behalf. As the husband of a teacher who supports her in any way that I can, which includes keeping an open mind, and especially, an open ear to what she goes through on a day-to-day basis, it truly bothers me when I read the anti-teacher rhetoric having to do with all of their benefits, time off, etc. So, tonight I did some math. I wish to write briefly about money. The math that I did tonight added up the total monies deducted from my wife's yearly earnings, which illustrated that approximately 28% of her earnings were payed back in the form of taxes, benefits, and dues. This did not take into account the money she pays into her personal IRA, just the fees charged to her by the federal and state government and her union. That sum, I believe is close to the average. I felt it was necessary to then look at her time off during the school year and during the summer. By the way, today's teachers by contract, do not get the whole summer off. They do get most of the last half of June until the last half of August off--two months not three. During the end of summer they are in school attending workshops, etc. Continuing education, and the needs of their schools, also cause a number of teachers to have to take specialized courses at their own expense during the summer, or on week nights during the school term. Their time off is a nice vacation, but boy do they need it in order to get over what they went through during the school year--teaching, "baby sitting", giving life instruction that the children's working parents are not there to give, dealing with all kinds of social, emotional, physical and drug-induced learning problems, etc. Those two months are just enough time to recharge the batteries to begin the next school year. What most people do not know is that in addition to all of the normal and difficult working place conditions, are the continual new tests mandated by the government, together with curriculum and text changes that come with the new term, all of which contribute to an incredible amount of stress for at least the first month of the new school year. And all add up to a nasty "welcome back." But I digress, we were talking math. After figuring out the money paid off the top, I then wondered just how much time/money was given that was not in my calculations. What I found, and I want you and your readers to know that I erred on the side of the all of us taxpayers, was that my wife gives for free, at least $9,000.00 worth of her "off" time to her job of educating our children. Figuring on 1 hour per day during the school year--not counting holidays, of her free time given to "home work/next day preparation," gave me the number I needed to come up with that monetary amount. Personally, I think that $9,000 is a pretty good premium to pay for health benefits, and as added contributions to her pension per year. Kindly remember, that is a conservative amount, and not based on the actual much higher amount of free time she gives. And kindly remember, that her reward of a financia l and medically-stable retirement is a just compensation for the contribution that she and all good teachers make to our society, and that she is and will continue to contribute her own money and her own time to make our future and the future of her students and their families, a reality. What is truly missed in the discussion of how to right the financial ship that we are all on thanks to mismanagement of our tax dollars, is that the real foe, is not the hard working taxpayers. No, the real culprits are the political and corporate welfare recipients. If we were given the facts by our politicians, reporters and the news sources to add up all those dollars, "given," away to those who can most afford it, I believe that we would see where the waste is. We all have been supporting these freeloaders with our hard work and our tax dollars for far too long. While there has been discussion about the cost of government representatives' perks, that talk is inconsistant and somewhat stifled within the media. The discussion of corporate welfare is hardly ever mentioned in a serious and continuous way, and I have yet to hear any of our elected representatives mention it. Instead, they find it far easier--together with the media, to keep the discussion fueled and fired by pitting one group of taxpayers against another. The game of divide and conquer is alive and well, and is coming to our Atlantic County with the governor's plan to increase taxes on all of us. Again, the argument of who pays more tolls, divides us, while no one is talking reality. That reality is, the increased cost of goods that all of us will pay to offset the higher tolls. Tax, tax and more tax, no matter how you disguise it, is the continual fixerupper. Hopefully, I've made myself clear. The basis for this email is to discuss my thoughts about what I believe needs to be said about our current fiscal reality, and a possible course of action that we need to pursue. It is time to stop fighting among ourselves. It is time to rally behind one another to reveal the true culprits in this mess. It is not the hard working taxpayers who are at fault--it is the machine operating behind closed doors, and in the halls of our various forms of government, and media buildings. It is the largess paid out of our hard earned tax dollars to those who continue to profit by our work. Thanks for reading. Hopefully, the governor will be throughly questioned about the increased taxes/tolls we will pay for his plan to right this mechanically-damaged ship of state. Hopefully, he will be questioned about corporate and political welfare, and the continued undeserved money paid to these recipients. It is time to close the huge loopholes in our laws which benefit the few at the cost to the many. Make an effort to stop the wasteful spending, and misappropriation of our money by writing letters to the editor, making calls and sending letters to elected officials, and by talking among ourselves loudly enough until the press responds to our argument.

RESPONSE: Let me start my response by noting where we agree...it has long been the modus operadi of those in power -- to seek to stay in their favored position of wealth and power by dividing us -- one against another. This has been the very successful strategy of Republicans for the last twenty plus years. The southern strategy turned the racist Democratic south ... after LBJ pushed through civil rights -- into the solid Republican south we see today...the essence of that control is the appeal and knowledge that Republicans are against civil rights for people of color and their record of obstruction to every civil rights bill out there validates that view and code words are used to make that point over and over again...we the Republican Party are the Party of racist and bigotry. We see in the recent South Carolina primary ... the phony Christian evangelical HUKELBERRY telling the voters that he supports the flying of the symbol of lynching and bigotry Confederate flag over the State House...as a way of appealing to the many bigots in the South who are all now Republicans.

We have seen with the courting of the nut wing Christian Evangelicals and the embrace of homophobia and abortion issues ... again a most effective way by Republicans of dividing us, one against another. And the core issue for REPUGS today for anyone focusing on the rhetoric of their primary is racism against Hispanics in their call for deportations of all non documented residents. More validation of the fact that if you are a bigot of any sort -- the Republican Party is on your side.

When the debate turns to a more equitable distribution of wealth and those on the Left call for things like Health Care to be viewed as a 'right' that all citizens have and to be provided by the government with higher taxes on the super rich who most benefit from our free society and capitalistic economy. Republicans claim that to be some kind of class warfare. What was it last week with the Bush veto of extending the health care program SCHIPS to more kids and the REPUGS sustaining his veto ... and of course the Democrats had proposed to fund the additional costs of providing health care to more children with a tax increase for the super rich.

Every social legislation that has sought to make our society fairer and safer has been basically opposed by Conservatives. We see here in New Jersey with Democrats in control of the State that school Districts will now be forced to provide full day pre-K education to kids. Something like that which gives all children from all economic backgrounds a better chance of moving ahead as adults would never pass with Republicans in control...for it costs money and that would mean higher taxes on wealth.

I have posted here many times my view that taxes need to be raised to fund government and that the rich don't pay their fair share. But we all should pay more, I believe. Further, because I perceive health care as a basic human right that simply will not be a reality until more and more people (government employees especially) lose their health benefits and have to pay to support the large profits of insurance companies ... the fact in my mind is that some teachers and other government employees who have gold plated benefit and health care packages simply give empty lip service to the issue that all citizens have a right to health care...and until they lose theirs -- they are not invested in the fight at all.

I fail to see the rallying together from government employees who have theirs ... and seem oblivious to the fact that 50 million Americans have no health care. Further I see nothing that is likely to educate these indifferent folks into rallying to redress the sham but successful efforts of the Republi CON. And for the rest of us who pay taxes to support the generous package of benefits that government workers get while we are getting screwed by market manipulations by the super rich with Republican deregulation that allow for Enron and sub prime scandals ... that when they collapse, they only leave the super rich, more rich...is the situation we are in today. Only when the fight for a more equitable distribution of the wealth is joined by the complacent government employees will 'change' come...and that ain't happening until they start to suffer like those who work in the private sector.

Note, government employees continue to get raises that surpass the inflation rate year after year...and to pay little to support their benefit package. You can play all the math games you want...but public sector employees have only gotten better off the last few decades with Republicans in control...like the super rich...while the rest of us ... have gotten worse off...or stood still. Yes, it is an ugly TRUTH that the divide and conquer ploy has been so effective in appealing to the greed and selfishness of teachers and other government employees that they have been bought off with the burden falling on the middle class to support their increasingly better life style while the United States remains the only industrialized country in the world with a health care system that fails its citizens at such a massive level and is so costly. We should all be out in the streets bringing the State to a halt...but as long as you have yours along with the rest of government employees ... that ain't happening.