Coordinated Attacks on Public Workers, education, health care, and Climate Change
Koch funded NJ proposal to attack public workers coincides with Christie priority
When the issue of public sector sick leave compensation emerged as one of Governor Christie’s second term priorities and started getting news coverage, I smelled a right wing rat.
The emergence of the issue followed the now obvious typical pattern: corporate right wing “Think Tanks” and astro-turf groups act like a conveyor belt to inject an ideological agenda into the mainstream media.
These right wing attacks parallel a political and policy agenda to roll back protective laws and regulations.
Many of these efforts are coordinated by groups like ALEC and Americans for Prosperity – both of whom are active in NJ and have done coordinated issue campaigns with the Christie administration.
Gov. Christie’s exit from RGGI is one of the best illustrations of that coordinated agenda operating in NJ.
Now, there are more smoking gun documents released by the Guardian newspaper that reveal that a “State Policy Network” is coordinating a stealth agenda, see: State conservative groups plan US-wide assault on education, health and tax:
Conservative groups across the US are planning a co-ordinated assault against public sector rights and services in the key areas of education, healthcare, income tax, workers’ compensation and the environment,documents obtained by the Guardian reveal.
The strategy for the state-level organisations, which describe themselves as “free-market thinktanks”, includes proposals from six different states for cuts in public sector pensions, campaigns to reduce the wages of government workers and eliminate income taxes, school voucher schemes to counter public education, opposition to Medicaid, and a campaign against regional efforts to combat greenhouse gas emissions that cause climate change.
Note especially that a group called “Common Sense Institute of New Jersey“ is in the mix (see documents and excerpt above).
The Trenton State House press corps needs to ask Governor Christie about these connections.