Nice work if you can get it

"The private economy," President Obama assures us, "is doing fine," and it is state and local government that we must fund more generously in order to preserve essential services. As an example of how that will work out, we need look no further than New Jersey state senator Fred H. Madden Jr, 

Let us all be happy for Mr. Madden! He earns $49,000 a year by passing legislation on, oh, say, the pension rules for government employees--employees such as, oh, say, Mr Madden himself, a former state policeman with a pension of $85,272 a year. (He retired at forty-eight.) He also happens to be the dean of the Gloucester County Police Academy at a salary of $106,983 a year, for a grand total of $241,225, or just a hair under Mr. Obama's trigger for next year's "millionaires and billionaires" tax.

The nicest part of this triple-dipping into the public trough is that Mr. Madden is meanwhile accruing further pension credits against the day he finally does retire. Blue skies! -- Dan Ford