Freedom Line Blog

Michael Warren of The Weekly Standard has some analysis of a big name running for a little known office that should gets lots of attention.

In the piece, Warren explains how Eliot Spitzer – disgraced former New York Governor and current candidate to become New York City’s Comptroller – would use the powers of the obscure financial office to foist a liberal political agenda onto corporations.

The key to the scheme is the $140 billion worth of public employee pension funds that Spitzer would be in charge of administering. If elected, Spitzer plans to use the money invested in private companies as leverage to demand corporate policy changes in-line with his political agenda.

Of course, that’s not what the job of the NYC Comptroller is designed to do.

“As Yale law professor Jonathan Macey says, the comptroller’s top duty is to get a good return on the city’s investment of its pension funds. ‘It’s a public trust,'” Macey tells Warren. “‘His fiduciary responsibility is to maximize the returns of the beneficiaries.'”

“But what Spitzer is proposing instead—in interviews, in articles, and in his new book, Protecting Capitalism Case by Case—is to use the power of public-employee pension funds to influence corporate policies. Ostensibly, he’d do that for the sake of the public good. What’s more likely to happen is that Spitzer will use the city’s power as shareholder to extract concessions from corporate America that further a populist liberal agenda.” (Emphasis added)

Along with Troy’s excellent column this week, this is yet another reason for New York voters to reject Eliot Spitzer’s political comeback bid.

Creative carpooling or rogue riders?

Today, the Wall Street Journal details how commuters over the George Washington Bridge between New Jersey and New York are picking up passengers at bus stops near the bridge in order to pay a reduced toll.

E-ZPass customers pay $9.50, while those paying cash must cough up $12.  (Each toll will rise another $3 by 2015.)

Price of the toll for cars carrying 3 or more passengers: $6 less.

Police officers working for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey – the agency which owns and operates the bridge and six other crossings – are not amused.  They claim the practice of picking up strangers to pay a cheaper toll is dangerous to drivers.  To make the point, the cops hand out tickets for hundreds of dollars a pop.  (But they do not, mind you, patrol the bus stops for dangerous looking characters.)

Those on the receiving end have a different theory.

“In order to pad their pensions and lifestyle, they’re taking bread out of our children’s mouths,” says Ms. Javier.

According to the Journal, “With extensive overtime, some toll collectors make more than $100,000, while salaries for several officers working at the bridge topped $200,000 last year.”

Public employees gouging taxpayers to pad their compensation packages?

Fuggedaboutit.

As if California’s public employee unions didn’t have enough advantages with compulsory dues, a bought-and-paid-for Democratic legislature, and a deep blue citizenry, Steven Greenhut has identified yet another mechanism being used to extract more money from taxpayers:

In San Diego, unions are fearful of a new pension reform measure referred to by supporters as Comprehensive Pension Reform, or CPR, that has qualified for the June 2012 ballot. Instead of simply gearing up to fight this political battle, the unions petitioned one of those ridiculous commissions that most Californians have never even heard of, the Public Employment Relations Board, which is unfriendly turf for taxpayers. The union said placing the initiative on the ballot amounted to an unfair labor practice, and PERB called for an injunction to stop the election until it could complete its sham proceedings.

In essence, the unions and this unelected board insist that the people of San Diego have no right to vote on pension reform. This is just the latest reminder of the totalitarian ethics of a public-sector union movement that doesn’t care about anything other than protecting its benefits.

The Fix notes that Big Labor is looking awfully small in recent election cycles.  Citing organized labor’s unsuccessful primary attacks on Senator Blanche Lincoln (D-AR), and this week’s failure to recall enough Wisconsin Republicans to take back the state senate, one Democratic strategist speaks the obvious – if anonymous – truth.

“The unmistakable lesson is that every time labor makes it about labor, they lose,” said one senior Democratic strategist granted anonymity to speak candidly. “It’s a messenger problem.”

With public employee unions eating up ever larger amounts of taxpayer money, it’s no wonder the majority of non-union members are revolting at the thought of strengthening labor’s hand.  In reality, the unnamed source mentioned above doesn’t quite draw the right lesson from Big Labor’s election problem.  It’s not just the messenger – it’s the message of more money in a tight recession that’s the problem.  Unless unions get on-board with the national belt-tightening, they’ll experience a lot more rejections in the elections to come.

Florida Republican Governor Rick Scott unveiled his much-anticipated budget proposal on Monday in front of a crowd teeming with Tea Party activists.  Slashing $4.6 billion from last year’s budget, Scott takes aim at many sacred cows.  AOL News lists the five most controversial:

(1)   10% cut in education spending

(2)   Eliminating 1,690 jobs from the Department of Corrections

(3)   An 8,700 overall reduction in the state government workforce

(4)   Tax cuts worth $4 billion

(5)   A $4 billion Medicaid reform

None of these changes, however, may be as consequential as Scott’s proposal to require state public employees to start contributing 5% of their paychecks to their pensions.  If state retirement funds are ever to become solvent the employees who benefit from them will have to put some money in the kitty.  Scott also wants to put new state hires into a 401(k)-type retirement system, a shift that would move the state toward a pension system of defined contributions instead of defined benefits.

If Scott is successful in Florida other states might follow suit.  For the sake of taxpayers in the Sunshine State and beyond, let’s hope he prevails.