before it got hot, before it got into the skillet. he said he was left with a big pension deficit problem and by the previous governor ridge, republican, on his way out the door. signed a bill and left him with a big, big pension bill. he can t pay. and that s been the reason for the deficits out there in pennsylvania. what do you make of that? these contracts do drive up the debt. well, in the case of montana, we statutes so that if you start even working one day, whatever your benefits are, all the way to retirement,that s what you get. what we have done when i took office, we changed the benefit package for anybody new who comes onboard. and we have negotiated with the public employee unions. we negotiated health care benefits and we negotiated their wages and negotiated the number of days they worked. they are willing to negotiate all these things. you can t simply say to them we will not negotiate with public unions. they have a right to collective bargaining and i think it
at a town hall this tuesday, just three days ago, the congressman paul brown, someone asked, who s going to shoot obama? apparently it was the first question out of the box. the local newspaper reports the crowd laughed. broun didn t answer the question, and according to his own office moved on to another question, quote, with the following response. the thing is, i know there s a lot of frustration with this president. we re going to have an election next year. hopefully we ll elect somebody that s going to be a conservative, limited government president that will take a smaller who will sign a bill to repeal and replace obama care. that s his response. broun s spokeswoman later said, obviously the question was inappropriate so congressman broun moved on. then today, broun released this town hall meeting, an elderly man asked, who s going to shoot obama? i was stunned by the question and therefore i moved on to the next question. after the event, my office took action with the ap
shame! shame! shame! shame! shame! shame! shame! shame! you know when a story has legs, it looks like that. that was the scene just last night in madison, wisconsin, after the state assembly passed a bill that does cut collective bargaining rights for state workers and they don t like it. you saw them there in the t-shirts. but the bill stops right there, because now democratic state senators have fled the state and said they re not coming back to wisconsin until the union cuts are out of business. the fight highlights the larger political shift going on among the unions, the democrats, the republicans, who s going to win it, who s got the upper hand right now. the democratic left or the republican right? democratic governor brian schweitzer met with the president today, and sue lowden, chair of the state s republican party.
before it got in the stillet, if you will. and he said he was left with a big pension definite problem by the previous governor, a republican on his way out the door signed a bill that left him with a big, big pension bill he can t pay. and that s been the reason for the deficits out there in pennsylvania. what do you make of that? that these contracts do drive up the debt? well, in the case of montana, we have statutes so that if you start even working one day, whatever your benefits are, all the way to retirement, that s what you get. so what we ve done, when i took office, is we changed the benefit package for anybody new who comes on board. and we ve negotiated with the public employee unions. we ve negotiated health care benefits. we ve negotiated their wages, negotiated the number of days they ve worked. they re willing to negotiate all these things. but you can t simply say to them, we will not negotiate with public unions. they have a right to collective bargaining. and i thi
that s the way management works with labor. senator lowden, how do republicans win these things? it s not as simple as wages. it s also a part of the collective bargaining is with health care issue, for instance. can you bid out health care and find cheaper prices? it s with days off. with sick leave. those kinds of issues are very important. it s not just wages. and that drives up state deficits? yes, it does. yes, it does. and you have to be able to get into those contracts and make it public. how about opening those bargaining sessions so that the public can see it so the taxpayers who are paying it can see what s going on. and i think that s an important issue as well. well, you haven t balanced the budget yet. we had governor rendell on this thing before this thing got hot, before it got in the skill let, if you will. and he said he was left with a big pension definite problem by the previous governor, a republican on his way out the door signed a bill that left him with a