Did you hear the caller on Thom Hartmann bashing teachers' unions?

[alp227]

The call begins at the 3:10 mark on this video of Wednesday's Thom Hartmann program. This woman named Toni from Monmouth, NJ responding to a Hartmann commentary from Tuesday regarding public vs. private employee unions. Toni claimed that 12% of her property taxes go to pensions and benefits for teachers. Thom then corrected Toni and said that the pensions are removed from teachers' paychecks and explained that the money is saved for retirement. In response, Toni claimed that taxpayers pay $20,000 per teacher for health benefits...and of course the teachers have to take reduced pay for those benefits. Thom then put Toni on hold and explained the pay discrepancy between public and private sector workers: it's true that high school grads make more money in public than private sector, but it reverses when comparing those with college degrees.

Then, Toni begins to complain about how she and other New Jersey middle-class families are being "squeezed" because of teachers' unions. It's because of New Jersey's great schools, responds Thom. But...New Jersey residents pay the highest property taxes in America and the schools are not that great, and Florida has better schools yet lower property taxes. Never mind that Florida has high sales, tourism, etc. taxes to offset the low property taxes. Then Toni cited the website DataUniverse (a project of Asbury Park Press) and suggests funding the public schools "not on the backs of taxpayers" and complains about how teachers refused pay freezes at a school board meeting. "Toni, what you are advocating is that the teachers should be reduced to the same level of serfdom the people who work at 7-Eleven...Obviously you have no interest in having a real conversation." Hung up.

The next caller, John from Dallas (Super Bowl town) responded: "Wow" and said that teachers deserve respect, decent pay, and a pension. Then to commercial break and a clarification about property taxes. At the 21:15 mark of the video, a member of a public employee union from California called in and explained that a union accepted pay cuts for the past 5 years. Thom responded that that caller Toni might've been paid by an anti-union org to call into radio shows or comment on public forums.

At 48:52, Thom comments on a plot to defund the Democratic Party by targeting the unions and then (51:40) mentions that the anti-union lobby has paid people to do call-ins, op-eds, public meeting comments, etc. (again alluding to this Toni caller).

[whathehell]

1. Good for Thom for hanging up...

Effing people want everything for nothing..

[Enthusiast]

2. Toni was obviously the victim

of a misinformation campaign. There is a lot of that going around. Chris Cristie.

[Rock The Debt]

3. Conservative plant?

I heard it and just assumed it was a conservative caller pretending to be a progressive making an attempt to drive a wedge. Regardless, it's a scary thought that these people are attacking the rights of our teachers...