I interpreted that statement as all government workers vote dem/left... which i'm pretty sure isn't the case. Not where I live, anyway.

My apologies, I misunderstood your point. I couldn't agree more- teachers making over 100k at a public school is ridiculous. Even more so when you factor in how poorly so many of our public schools perform. Federal bureaucrats, state bureaucrats, teachers, whoever... they all have ridiculous benefits, and they all get their mandatory raises every year. They've been promised too much, and we definitely can't afford it.

I guess my problem with the initial idea of cutting every person's pay by 20% is that it doesn't solve the problem of those bureaucrats or 5th grade teachers who makes 100k or more. They would still be making a large amount of money... it just doesn't make sense to pay someone 80k when you can find someone to do the job just as good for 35k.

how about we cut social programs for dead beats, instead of cut pay for the people who protect and defend our country?

I totally agree. It depends on the employee.

I assure you, there is no confusion on my part, with regard to teacher contracts. Teacher, and most other public employee, contracts are entirely part of the problem we're discussing here. Mandatory pay raises and excessive benefits are the direct result of these contracts.

So you're really advocating a 20 % cut of all salaries? You would still have people babysitting students in study hall, making double what a teacher makes. That is insanity. Its even crazier to do it on the tax payer dime.

My point is that a teacher is a much more valuable job than a study hall monitor. I don't really see the justification for paying someone twice as much as a teacher, for a job less valuable than the teacher's job. But if you can make the case, go ahead.

We can't just cut everyone's salary by 20 %, since most public employees are paid based on the number of years at their job. The problem with they way we currently pay public employees is that their salary isn't necessarily dependent upon how good they perform, or how valuable their services are.

As a teacher (in ny), i made 33k a year. There are teacher's assistants who make over 60k. Thats the problem. You have people who get paid more than others, just because they've been at their job for 20 years. It didn't matter that the person was basically babysitting students in study halls and in the lunch room

We need to pay people fair market wage, based on how valuable their services are. Paying someone 60k a year to babysit students in study halls and lunch, while paying a teacher 33k, is stupid. Pay the teacher 33k and pay the teachers assistant 20k or 25k.

do you have anything to back up that statement or are you just speculating?

Why don't you harp on Iran as much as you do Israel?

Oh, i know.
You're the most blatant anti-Semite i have seen posting on this site. Comment after comment, you post the most retarded, anti-semitic bullshit.

Israel causes trouble? Even if that were true, the muslim arabs cause a lot of trouble and are pretty damn belligerent, but i never see you post about them.

By the way, Iran is the country threatening to wipe Israel off the map... oh, and don't forget how their president said israel is a stinking corpse.... so, yeah, continue with your typical anti-israeli rants. douche bag.

Well, I could be wrong, but i'm pretty sure she was endorsed by the Working Families Party... aka ACORN's political arm.

She's done for. As a New Yorker, I'm going to make it my personal mission to ensure everyone knows about this "moderate's" radical associations.

maybe you should check out the msnbc clip he's talking about.

time to wake up, bud.