New York’s public sector unions are in danger of becoming lost in space. [ed. — ‘Puter acknowledges the lameness of this references, he’s just too lazy to come up with something creative.]

This morning’s New York Times puts forth the following editorial regarding Governor Andrew Cuomo’s (D-NY) plans to close a $10 billion budget gap. Gov. Cuomo is submitting his budget to the Legislature tomorrow. The New York Times opines:

Ilion’s [ed. — a small, upstate school district] problems are deeper than those of many other districts, but the underlying choices are the same. Savings can be found through streamlining and other creative reforms. But with 75 percent of all local education budgets going to pay for teachers’ salaries and benefits, that is where much of the money will have to be found.

The unions may have to accept a salary freeze, and even then layoffs may be inevitable. (Last year, the state lost 9,000 of its 220,000 teachers due to the budget cuts.) Teachers will have to agree to pay more into their pensions and health insurance plans, and to raise the retirement age to 65.

So there you have it. New York’s public sector unions insistence on no reduction in pay or benefits, under any circumstances, ever (WE MEAN IT!!!1!) now places them solidly to the left of the New York Times. Of course, ‘Puter would prefer to freeze all pensions at the current accrual (i.e., you get what you have as of now) and transition everyone to generous 403(b) plans, but that’s not going to happen anytime soon. Heck, New York’s ruling class can’t even agree to mandate defined contribution plans only for new hires.

But, ‘Puter does take comfort that the liberals’ house organ has ceded important ground on: (1) the sanctity of pensions and benefits for public sector workers and (2) the need for meaningful and significant spending cuts. It’s a start, and an important one at that.

'Puter

Always right, unless he isn’t, the infallible Ghettoputer F. X. Gormogons claims to be an in-law of the Volgi, although no one really believes this.

’Puter carefully follows economic and financial trends, legal affairs, and serves as the Gormogons’ financial and legal advisor. He successfully defended us against a lawsuit from a liquor distributor worth hundreds of thousands of dollars in unpaid deliveries of bootleg shandies.

The Geep has an IQ so high it is untestable and attempts to measure it have resulted in dangerously unstable results as well as injuries to researchers. Coincidentally, he publishes intelligence tests as a side gig.

His sarcasm is so highly developed it borders on the psychic, and he is often able to insult a person even before meeting them. ’Puter enjoys hunting small game with 000 slugs and punt guns, correcting homilies in real time at Mass, and undermining unions. ’Puter likes to wear a hockey mask and carry an axe into public campgrounds, where he bursts into people’s tents and screams. As you might expect, he has been shot several times but remains completely undeterred.

He assures us that his obsessive fawning over news stories involving women teachers sleeping with young students is not Freudian in any way, although he admits something similar once happened to him. Uniquely, ’Puter is unable to speak, read, or write Russian, but he is able to sing it fluently.

Geep joined the order in the mid-1980s. He arrived at the Castle door with dozens of steamer trunks and an inarticulate hissing creature of astonishingly low intelligence he calls “Sleestak.” Ghettoputer appears to make his wishes known to Sleestak, although no one is sure whether this is the result of complex sign language, expert body posture reading, or simply beating Sleestak with a rubber mallet.

‘Puter suggests the Czar suck it.