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r Pension & Benefit Health smoother for the 800,000 active and retired New Jersey public employees who are the taxpayers and are the middle class, and who share these roads with the rest of New Jersey. 3.2 miles 9. OK, yes. Cheap shot, but we’ve certainly been on the receiving end of a few harsh words from you over the years. 3.6 miles 10. I read a lot of references in your Roadmap to “shared sacrifice” but when I read the entire document all I see is our pensions are frozen, our healthcare is eviscerated, your contributions to our plan are a fraction of what they were and your Commission will hit the “reset” button on all of us. Can someone please point me to the page where that “shared sacrifice” actually occurs? Did you print an addendum with your side of the sharing that I missed? Otherwise I’d say we are going the wrong way down a One Way street here sir. 1.5 miles e u t m t A. h- e 11. Now there is a big difference between “playing by the rules” and downright “stomping on the rules” when it comes to Double Dippers. (And you know who I mean.) No need to name names here, and even though it doesn’t have a huge impact on the the cost of travel, it sure does send the wrong message to the rest of us on the road. I’m not too shocked that the other “Roadmap” conveniently downplayed this problem in its report. That’s just giving wrong directions! 1.9 miles A B 12. The Pension & Benefits Commission should have recognized the differences in the five different pension systems and how they are funded more than they were. We all know that they were funded unevenly. The local and county governments weren’t able to ignore the payments like the state has. I’m sorry sir, that’s like ignoring your EZ Pass bill for decades, then stealing my EZ Pass for your Suburban. Quite frankly, that’s just not how the system works. You’ll just have to use the “Cash Only” lanes again until your old bills are paid. 1.3 miles 13. So, we’ve come to a fork in the road. Do we head west to Iowa on , do we head east to New Hampshire on or do we continue on to finish the ride. Trenton I sure hope you pick Trenton. ?.? Miles 14. And so here we are, caught in this endless traffic circle in Trenton. Like Clark Griswold in European Vacation, as much as we keep trying, we just can’t seem to exit. Round and round, years and years and stuck in the same damn loop. “Look kids! State House, War Memorial!” I shout with nervous laughter. Around we go again. Certainly not a circle we deserve to be stuck in. We’ve watched governors and legislators come and go from this traffic circle and here we continue to drive; round and round looking and hoping for an exit. - st Try our roadmap Governor, I’m pretty sure it will help. www.njcopsmagazine.com ■ MARCH 2015 5