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Christie: Jersey superstar

Last Updated: 4:00 AM, September 17, 2010
Posted: 11:58 PM, September 16, 2010

Chris Christie gets it -- and he didn't need the Tea Party to inspire him.

Christie has been shaking up New Jersey since Day One, and now he's done it again -- proposing an unprecedented tightening of pension and health-care benefits for public employees, in order to shore up a system that's teetering at the edge of bankruptcy.

He wants to raise the normal retirement age for teachers and most state and municipal workers to 65, requiring 30 years service for early retirement instead of 25. Police would have to work 30 years for full retirement, but could retire early with reduced benefits.

He also wants public employees to:

* Contribute 8.5 percent of their salaries toward their pensions.

* Start paying 30 percent of the cost of their health premiums.

* Accept the rollback of a 9 percent raise in pension benefits granted in 2001 -- an increase he admits was put into place by Republicans, who "shouldn't have done it in the first place."

Naturally, this has the public-sector unions -- and their Democratic legislative allies -- screaming bloody murder.

But, as the governor notes, "this isn't about promises made and kept. This is about special interests squeezing benefits out of the government and taxpayers [that] we can no longer afford to pay."

Indeed, adds Christie, "we can't shelter one special group of people -- public-sector unions -- from the ravages of this recession and have that shelter paid for by the very people who are getting hurt by the recession the most: the people in the private sector." ..............................>>>>...................>>>>............................http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/editorials/christie_jersey_superstar_g3jPWT7cHzcYXksxQp06QO

CHA-CHING!!!!!

This guy is the BEST!!!! Paladino would do the same for NYS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!