Monday, August 9, 2010

Public pay, special deals

Mathes, who worked for 16 years as chief of staff to former Sen. Charles Cook, R-Delhi, said criticisms by Brodsky, who is running for attorney general, are self-serving. "He should come down from his ivory tower or from his sweet area of White Plains and see what it takes to make a corn field into jobs," Mathes said.

He said county legislators should be mindful that he has been offered much higher paying jobs elsewhere and the incentive pay was a way for the IDA board to keep him.

"They provided a compensation plan that rewards performance," he said. "Quite frankly if that performance structure was not in place I would not be here for the people of Greene County. Why should public positions always have to settle for inferior talent? Why should the public sector always lose their best talent because it does not have the tools that the private sector has?"


What are we calling this sociological and psychological phenomenon? This phenomenon where a person who is caught in stunning acts of greed responds by saying just how darn important he or she is.

We've seen Wall Street defend their bonuses after they set fire to the country's economy, we've seen rich people whine about paying a few bucks more in taxes and threaten to leave the state. And now we have a "public servant" talking about just how great he is, and trying to talk past the fact that public money is going into his pocket, as opposed to going to the community he "serves."

Whatever happened to shame? Or is it now part of American life that people like this just brazen it out and their greed will be silently accepted?

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