New Jersey Lawmakers Approve Benefits Rollback for Work Force

Here is another state looking to the people to solve the budget problem. Everyone agrees that we have to do things differently, I just don't believe that they have to be so drastic. I remember working for the state Colorado and those employees that were at the bottom of the pay scale, every year would face a decision on health care. These people were the making the least amount and the healthcare cost were increasing. It was sad to see a woman who a year earlier had been diagnose with cancer look at what it was going to cost her to keep her insurance. She would eventually have to work three jobs to make ends meet. There has to be another way.

New Jersey lawmakers on Thursday approved a broad rollback of benefits for 750,000 government workers and retirees, the deepest cut in state and local costs in memory, in a major victory for Gov. Chris Christie and a once-unthinkable setback for the state’s powerful public employee unions.

The Assembly passed the bill 46 to 32, as Republicans and a few Democrats defied raucous protests by thousands of people whose chants, vowing electoral revenge, shook the State House. Leaders in the State Senate said their chamber, which had already passed a slightly different version of the bill, would approve the Assembly version on Monday. Mr. Christie, a Republican, was expected to sign the measure into law quickly.

In a statement released after the vote, Mr. Christie said, “We are putting the people first and daring to touch the third rail of politics in order to bring reform to an unsustainable system.”

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