Quote of the Day
To put up with. . . distortions and to stick to one's guns come what may
this is the. . . gift of leadership.
Mohandas Gandhi
Sen. Ben "Cornhusker Kickback" Nelson (D-NE):
2010 Porker of the Year
Yes, the notorious corrupt deal that eventually resulted in the Democratic Party Health Care Law, with its disingenuous, misleading, Medicare-undermining, double-counting, unrealistic, unsustainable, obtrusive, job-killing, Ponzi-scheming foundation, earned former Governor Nelson, whom tried to pass off blame for the deal as a request from the Republican governor, the dubious title by plurality. (In case anyone thinks the Citizens Against Government Waste and its member voters are partisan shills, I should point out the runner up is Mississippi Republican Senator Thad Cochran, a 3-time unrepentant Porker of the Month.)
Congressman Jerrold "(Show Me the Money) Train" Nadler (D-NY):
February 2011 Porker of the Month
A Rant on Public Sector Collective Bargaining
Anytime you get a wide discrepancy in polls, you have to look at technical factors (e.g., survey design, reliability and validity, nature and extent of sampling, etc.) Gallup asked, in my opinion, a loaded question: Do you favor restricting collective bargaining as a deficit-cutting measure? 61% oppose restrictions. Now before going further, I want to point out Gallup asked questions with responses mutually inconsistent: for example, they oppose, by a huge margin, raising taxes. At the same time, they more narrowly disagree with cutting teacher compensation (salary or benefits) or reducing state services.
Now I intensely despise these questions because they don't provide sufficient context for those polled. For example, state employee benefits are inadequately funded and crowd out funding for necessary government services. They vastly exceed private-sector contributions/distributions. The details of collective bargaining include things like demanding a union-favored insurer which doesn't provide the most cost-effective coverage. Young teachers, even remarkably able ones, are laid off first, in favor of older mediocre teachers. Moreover, the collective bargaining process lacks necessary independence in the sense that government unions almost always support Democratic lawmakers with contributions and voluntary activities, those contributions are made possible by tax revenues, but the negotiation process is not independent, which I believe is a moral prerequisite. After all, if a CPA cannot invest in shares of a public company he is auditing, how can a teacher invest in the election of someone whom decides his compensation?
I think most people think of collective bargaining as little more than lobbying: they think government workers should have input as to their working conditions. But even if you accept the rights of unions in the private sector, it's to enable laborer to share in the fruits of improved productivity: you produce more widgets per man-hour, the company earns more profit. On the other hand, if product demand falls, you also share in the business risk, through layoffs, etc. There is no natural profit incentive for government to improve productivity because it is a legal monopoly. When I had to cope with burnt-out overhead office lights at UWM for a few days, the college electrician got paid for doing things by his union's arbitrary work rules. (On the other hand, if I had changed the bulbs myself in a more timely fashion, the union would have billed the college for the work I did--money, of course, which they would get to keep. Imagine if pizza delivery was a government function...)
FDR noticed the intrinsically undemocratic nature of collective bargaining in government:
I am so sick and tired of teachers refusing to police themselves and to accept responsibility for their efforts; performance is better in cheaper private (Catholic) schools with low administrative overhead using teachers with lower pay and benefits. I am tired of the self-indulgent entitlement, of having to pay lip service to teachers, many of whom earn $100K compensation ($60K pay, $40K benefits) packages for 9 months of work are "underpaid". I spent 8 years of teaching my own classes at the university level; I have first-hand knowledge of having to deal with students whose high school teachers and prior college professors failed to do their jobs. I know what it takes to be a great teacher, and great teachers don't go around making excuses.
What were labor unions saying (before Wisconsin introduced public sector collective bargaining in 1959 and strengthened it in 1971)?
FDR noticed the intrinsically undemocratic nature of collective bargaining in government:
"The process of collective bargaining, as usually understood, cannot be transplanted into the public service," Roosevelt wrote in 1937 to the National Federation of Federal Employees. Yes, public workers may demand fair treatment, wrote Roosevelt. But, he wrote, "I want to emphasize my conviction that militant tactics have no place" in the public sector. "A strike of public employees manifests nothing less than an intent on their part to prevent or obstruct the operations of Government."Consider former Socialist Milwaukee Mayor Frank Zeidler:
But in 1969, the progressive icon wrote that rise of unions in government work put a competing power in charge of public business next to elected officials. Government unions "can mean considerable loss of control over the budget, and hence over tax rates," he warned.If the reader hasn't picked up the point by now, it's this: we have unelected, unaccountable government workers (i.e., teachers and others) whom can decide, from the standpoint of their own self-interests, to block what taxpayers want through their mandate in electing a governor and legislators: say, for instance, we want layoff policies to be implemented in a way of protecting the best-performing teachers, we desire to implement market-based salaries and merit incentives, we need principals to be able to assign teacher resources without having to navigate through obsolete, ineffectual work rules, we require streamlined hiring or termination processes, we demand more accountable teacher evaluation methods based on objective results (not "good old boy" peer reviews), and we need to abolish tenure, which protects not the best teachers (whom can work anywhere) but the mediocre ones. In fact, the teachers are paid by us, the voters. We are their bosses, not the union, not corrupt, bought-off politicians. We decide how to evaluate them and what to pay them. And we certainly are not going to let them grade themselves or argue that the taxpayers are too incompetent to evaluate schools with 50% dropout rates and marginal literacy scores.
I am so sick and tired of teachers refusing to police themselves and to accept responsibility for their efforts; performance is better in cheaper private (Catholic) schools with low administrative overhead using teachers with lower pay and benefits. I am tired of the self-indulgent entitlement, of having to pay lip service to teachers, many of whom earn $100K compensation ($60K pay, $40K benefits) packages for 9 months of work are "underpaid". I spent 8 years of teaching my own classes at the university level; I have first-hand knowledge of having to deal with students whose high school teachers and prior college professors failed to do their jobs. I know what it takes to be a great teacher, and great teachers don't go around making excuses.
What were labor unions saying (before Wisconsin introduced public sector collective bargaining in 1959 and strengthened it in 1971)?
[Labor leader George Meany said in 1955:] “It is impossible to bargain collectively with the government.” Up through the 1950s, unions widely agreed that collective bargaining had no place in government...The A.F.L.-C.I.O. Executive Council’s 1959 advice: “In terms of accepted collective bargaining procedures, government workers have no right beyond the authority to petition Congress — a right available to every citizen.”
In fact, today five states do not allow collective bargaining (for teachers), and 11 make it optional.
In my judgment, the single best thing we could do for legitimate education reform is to abolish collective bargaining and unions. But would I do this now? No, for the same reasons I think what Governor Walker is doing is counter-productive and politically inept. I've been low-key in my criticism of Walker, because I believe in what he is trying to do, but I disagreed with his strategy and tactics.
I have written dozens of commentaries on education. But both as an educator and as an IT professional, I understand resistance to change. People are threatened by change. I could give dozens of examples, but briefly: some accountants were told by troublemaking contractors that the application of a certain Oracle software patch (needed for the addition of HR product functionality) would break core functionality of Oracle Financials. There was absolutely no truth to the rumors, but they led to political conflict between the departments, and the IT vice president was so fed up she decided to implement a Solomonic solution of giving each department its own ERP database. I had to jawbone her over a number of days not to do it--knowing my predecessor had been fired after 2 weeks for disagreeing with the same manager. It was one objection from her after another: for example, she knew it worked because another company had done it. (I later called the DBA of the other company to humor the VP, and he wanted my advice on how to put Humpty Dumpty back together again...) On another matter, the production DBA wanted to use a technical solution to a problem that Oracle in writing refused to support; he went to the VP and claimed that my motivation for advocating the approach Oracle did support was to bump up my billable hours at the company's expense. This is the real world: you have to fight to do the right thing, and that can cost your job. It's simply easier to go with the flow.
What does this have to do with teaching reform? Because unions and teachers will fight each and every change tooth-and-nail. Now what does this have to do with the Wisconsin kerfuffle? Well, first of all, since Wisconsin is proud of its leadership in implementing collective bargaining in 1959, it is predictable there would be resistance to change. Second, it seems many people in Wisconsin were unaware of Walker's intent to change collective bargaining or understood what it meant in practical terms. Third, Walker didn't have the votes--quorum calls are similar in nature to cloture of a filibuster. What Walker should have done is similar to what Obama did in trying to peel off 3 GOP senators for the 2009 stimulus bill--negotiate some face-saving concession that would give Democrats political cover to say they got concessions to protect teacher union collective rights. Fourth, if I had been Governor Walker, I would have immediately agreed to negotiate without preconditions. In essence, what Walker did comes across just like what Obama did--shove a partisan health care bill down the nation's throat without a single GOP vote. This is just a toxic thing--it makes bipartisan legislation all but impossible.
First things first. I would have grabbed the union's essentially forced concessions on pension and health care and gotten the budget deal done. Next, I would be talking about collective bargaining reform: providing a framework for discussing things like merit pay, evaluation methods, and layoff priorities, but empowering voters, not teachers, to make the final decision.
In my judgment, the single best thing we could do for legitimate education reform is to abolish collective bargaining and unions. But would I do this now? No, for the same reasons I think what Governor Walker is doing is counter-productive and politically inept. I've been low-key in my criticism of Walker, because I believe in what he is trying to do, but I disagreed with his strategy and tactics.
I have written dozens of commentaries on education. But both as an educator and as an IT professional, I understand resistance to change. People are threatened by change. I could give dozens of examples, but briefly: some accountants were told by troublemaking contractors that the application of a certain Oracle software patch (needed for the addition of HR product functionality) would break core functionality of Oracle Financials. There was absolutely no truth to the rumors, but they led to political conflict between the departments, and the IT vice president was so fed up she decided to implement a Solomonic solution of giving each department its own ERP database. I had to jawbone her over a number of days not to do it--knowing my predecessor had been fired after 2 weeks for disagreeing with the same manager. It was one objection from her after another: for example, she knew it worked because another company had done it. (I later called the DBA of the other company to humor the VP, and he wanted my advice on how to put Humpty Dumpty back together again...) On another matter, the production DBA wanted to use a technical solution to a problem that Oracle in writing refused to support; he went to the VP and claimed that my motivation for advocating the approach Oracle did support was to bump up my billable hours at the company's expense. This is the real world: you have to fight to do the right thing, and that can cost your job. It's simply easier to go with the flow.
What does this have to do with teaching reform? Because unions and teachers will fight each and every change tooth-and-nail. Now what does this have to do with the Wisconsin kerfuffle? Well, first of all, since Wisconsin is proud of its leadership in implementing collective bargaining in 1959, it is predictable there would be resistance to change. Second, it seems many people in Wisconsin were unaware of Walker's intent to change collective bargaining or understood what it meant in practical terms. Third, Walker didn't have the votes--quorum calls are similar in nature to cloture of a filibuster. What Walker should have done is similar to what Obama did in trying to peel off 3 GOP senators for the 2009 stimulus bill--negotiate some face-saving concession that would give Democrats political cover to say they got concessions to protect teacher union collective rights. Fourth, if I had been Governor Walker, I would have immediately agreed to negotiate without preconditions. In essence, what Walker did comes across just like what Obama did--shove a partisan health care bill down the nation's throat without a single GOP vote. This is just a toxic thing--it makes bipartisan legislation all but impossible.
First things first. I would have grabbed the union's essentially forced concessions on pension and health care and gotten the budget deal done. Next, I would be talking about collective bargaining reform: providing a framework for discussing things like merit pay, evaluation methods, and layoff priorities, but empowering voters, not teachers, to make the final decision.
Stick a Fork in It: Sarah Palin's Done
There is a kerfuffle brewing in Alaska about leaked details from an unreleased tell-all book from onetime Palin insider Frank Bailey, a former airline manager. Among the leading tidbits: a message from Palin to Bailey, shortly before she resigned, saying how much she hated her "damn job". Bailey allegedly confirms an "independent" RGA spot during Palin's gubernatorial campaign was done with Palin's cooperation. He also asserts Todd and he worked together during the Troopergate scandal and suggests that Palin had made certain appointments or nominations based on personal connections (including promoting a judge whom supposedly had put despised former brother-in-law Wooten in his place). He details how Palin tries to manipulate her public image and has aggressively responded to minor slights in attempts to destroy the professional reputation of her opponents. (Letterman?) I will note that Palin representatives have disputed certain details, including the judge in question.
I have written several critical commentaries on Palin, and I can't figure out her appeal for a potential Presidential run; almost any other candidate (certainly a male candidate) who quit his or her job as a first-time governor of a sparsely-populated state would be a non-starter. Most conservatives I know intensely loathe the victimization philosophy/politically correct rhetoric Palin relishes. I can only conclude is that Palin gets support primarily in sympathy against the left's fanatical personal attacks on her. But I don't think the Republican Party, which is obsessed with defeating Obama's reelection, would want to nominate a candidate viewed unfavorably by most independents and moderates. Could Palin poison-pill the election through a third-party candidacy? I don't think so. I think the Democratic Party is broken, and we would probably see something like the 1992 election where Perot got nearly 20% of the vote but not a single state. Palin's Tea Party support, once they know her real tax-and-spend record in Alaska, will abandon her in droves; all we conservatives need to do is to point out the facts.
Political Humor
"Texas is reportedly going to give college students the right to carry guns on campus. So I guess that next semester, every college student in Texas is getting straight A's." –Conan O'Brien
[Teachers now have other concerns about a student holding up the rest of the class...]
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid says he wants to outlaw prostitution in his home state of Nevada. He said he wants to keep prostitution where it belongs — in Washington, D.C. - Jimmy Fallon
[The Democrat statists want to eliminate the competition in screwing the American taxpayer.]
An original:
- While daughter Sasha was skiing with her mother in Colorado, President Obama coached his daughter's basketball team. Obviously he taught the girls the fine points of the game: spreading the points around, working the ball away from the center of the court, stealing the opponent's ball and blocking their shots. But you could tell work was on his mind as he repeatedly encouraged the girls to pass the bill...
The Bee Gees, "I Started a Joke". Featuring Robin on lead...
