TUESDAY, DECEMBER 21, 2010
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Politics & The Nation
for public-sector workers comes after they leave government, be- cause of generous and secure retiree health and pension bene- fits. This, too, could be changing. In Virginia, one of only four states where government workersmake no annual contribution to their retirement fund, RepublicanGov.
RobertF.McDonnell proposedon Thursday that 87,000 state em- ployees begin chipping in 5 per- cent. When combined with a 3
on
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percent pay raise thatMcDonnell will request from the legislature, it would mean their take-home pay would drop by 2 percent. Aresistance movementmay be
stirring even in liberalMontgom- ery County, where spending on
health and retirement benefits more than doubled over the past decade. The new council chair, Valerie
Ervin, a labor movement veteran, kicked off an epic battle when she put forward a relatively modest
proposal that would have re- duced the leverage of the unions in contract disputes. Over the next several months, worker sala- ries and benefits, which account for80percent of all county spend- ing, will come under greater pres- sure as Montgomery County grapples with closing a $350 mil- lion deficit. Meanwhile, many federal
workers felt betrayed when Presi- dentObamaput a two-year freeze on their salaries as one of his first
peace offerings after the Demo- crats’ midterm election losses. The move, which will save $5 bil- lion over the next two years, barely dents a federal deficit that has been running more than $1 trillion annually. “I was really disappointed in
theObamaadministration for do- ing it,” said John Gage, president of the American Federation of Government Employees. “It was simply a public relations piece.” Chris Christie, the Republican
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take a tougher line on government workers’ salaries and benefits 6
governor of deeply Democratic New Jersey, has become a folk hero to conservatives — and a YouTube sensation — in part be- cause of his confrontations with that state’s educators, whose sala- ries and benefits he has tried to scale back. When a teacher complained
during a town hall last May that she wasn’t being fairly compen- sated for her education and her experience, the governor retort- ed: “You know what? Then you don’t have to do it.” Even the most revered of gov- ernment workers are feeling the sting. This month, the Senate blocked a House-passed bill that would have provided $7.4 billion in benefits for the first respond- ers and emergency workers made ill by their work after the Sept. 11 attack. Too expensive, the filibus- tering Republicans complained. Resentment of government
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workers is not entirely new, of course. As far back as the Great Depression, Americans fumed that theWorks Progress Adminis- tration—the largest employer in the country—was paying people to lean on their shovels. When Republicans took over Congress in a tide of anti-govern- ment sentiment in 1994, strate- gist Frank Luntz advised in a memo: “Individual programs have friends. Bureaucracies and bureaucrats don’t. Therefore, fo- cus the general rhetorical attack on the ‘Washington bureaucra- cy.’ ” The political currency of bash-
ing bureaucrats ended abruptly, however, when terrorist Timothy McVeigh in 1995 detonated a truck bomb in front of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City. After eulogizing the 168 people who died there, then-President Clinton vowed never to use the pejorative “bu- reaucrat” again. As the country engages in yet
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another argument that pits gov- ernment workers against the tax- payers they serve, some worry about the message it is sending to future generations of public em- ployees, even as a significant share of the current generation nears retirement. “Lost in the discussions are the
ones we ought to be having, which are about the quality of the workforce,” said Rep. Gerald E. Connolly (D-Va.), who counts 56,000 federal employees and at least as many government retir- ees among his consituents. “Where are we going to get the sophisticated skill set we need for the future, if we’re demeaning that service in the first place?”
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Ball marking S.C. secession anniversary draws protest
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charleston, s.c.—The memo- ry of the Civil War collided with modern-day civil rights Monday as protesters targeted a “Seces- sion Ball” commemorating South Carolina’s decision exactly 150 years ago to secede from the United States. As blacks and whites gathered
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with electric candles and signs for anNAACP protest, a predomi- nantly white group of men in old-fashioned tuxedos and wom- en in long-flowing dresses and gloves stopped to watch and take pictures before going into the Charleston auditorium where the ball was taking place. NAACP leaders said it made no
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sense to hold a gala to honor men who committed treason against their own nation for the sake of a system that kept black men and women in bondage as slaves. “Why does South Carolina and America think this is the right thing to do?” said Lonnie Ran- dolph, president of the South Carolina branch of the NAACP. But organizers of the ball said
it had nothing to do with cele- brating slavery. Instead, the$100- a-person private event was a fundraiser to honor the Southern men who were willing to sacrifice their lives for their homes and their vision of states’ rights. “We honor our ancestors for
their bravery and tenacity pro- tecting their homes from inva- sion,” said Michael Givens, com- mander in chief for the Sons of Confederate Veterans. “It’s hard for us to judge the
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situation that existed then by today’s standards. I think slavery is an abomination. But it’s a part of history, legal at the time,” said Randy Burbage, vice president of the Confederate Heritage Trust, which put on the event. —Associated Press
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