Quote of the Day
Courage does not always roar. Sometimes, it is the quiet voice at the end of the day saying, "I will try again tomorrow".
Anonymous
Wisconsin State Assembly Passes Morally Necessary Public Union Reform:
Taxpayers Score Victory Over Politically Corrupt Practices:
Democracy Wins! Democracy Wins! Democracy Wins!
One of the problems that Wisconsin Republicans have faced is trying to explain abstract concepts like unfunded liabilities. They also have done a poor job questioning the intrinsically corrupt nature of public sector unions, unelected, unaccountable parties, ultimately funded by the taxpayers, but which have goals inconsistent with the goals of flexible, efficient, effective governance. The parochial interests of unions are focused not on the common good (i.e., the taxpayer), but their own survival and the maximum possible benefit of their members. Union contracts may call for utilization of affiliated, more costly vendors, which is against the taxpayer need to contain costs. Work rules, by their very existence, limit managerial discretion to respond to a need for public goods and services in the fastest, most cost-efficient manner; negotiated work policies may hamper the ability of management to terminate, lay off ineffective employees or minimize overtime costs, or use less expensive non-union contractors or adjunct personnel. Take, for instance, a police office or teacher whom has been removed from their duties for whatever substantive reason; it may be that union agreements guarantee a paid suspension for a certain period of time. Assuming that public employee had been performing a marketable service, the taxpayer has to pay for a substitute full-time employee (FTE) to maintain service levels.
Let's speak a bit about typically defined-benefit pensions. I've written a number of segments on social security (a defined-benefit program), so a number of concepts are related. We have employee and employer (state/local government) contributions, a related fund and outgoing distributions to retirees. (In many cases, retirees also have guaranteed healthcare benefits, also inadequately funded. If the government fails to make necessary contributions (including any negotiated coverage of employee contributions, as in Wisconsin) and/or the fund fails to achieve investment objectives, the state will have to make up the difference, certainly in the long run. With the largest, longest-living baby boomer generation just starting to retire, we are already beginning to see public budgets being chewed up by pension-related outlays. They are going to take up more of state/local budgets--to the point of crowding out those products and services that citizens have come to expect. It's important that we control for this sooner than later. Among other things, we need to ensure taxpayers are aware of the long-term risks: do they want to contain costs now or let them multiply and face ruinous tax increases and/or service cuts in the future to accommodate unsustainable personnel costs?
I would argue that the Wisconsin GOP has ineptly handled this situation from the start: they should never have let themselves get maneuvered into playing on the other guys' home court talking about so-called collective bargaining rights. He needed to phrase the debate in terms of being competitive with other states, where almost 2 of every 3 public sector workers aren't union and in order to be competitive, it was necessary to get state costs, the largest driver of which are personnel costs, under control. He also had to argue, look, Wisconsin: if you want me to be accountable, give me the authority to do my job; I can't tackle reform or costs with an unelected, unaccountable entity fighting the elected legislature and governor each step of the way.
This has always been an issue of taxpayers' rights--if they want to consider legitimate education reform (e.g., public school choice, charter schools, private school vouchers), unelected teacher unions believe they have a right to veto any and all reforms. What Scott Walker needed to argue from the start was capping overall state employee total compensation costs and transforming Wisconsin from a defined benefit to a defined contribution pension system. He needs to talk about taxpayers taking back power from the unholy alliance between public sector employees and Democrats, a clear violation of the independence principle.
I still think Scott Walker has shot himself in the foot on two points (beyond his politically inept handling of the crisis), in particular, the double standard with the exclusion of public safety employees and this trade-off on employee concessions and layoffs. Let me provide some context, especially since pro-union people have misused previous Gallup polls on related issues. A March 3-6 poll showed 62-65% supported cutting government programs and reducing state payrolls and a plurality (49-45) favored limited collective bargaining of state employee unions. At the same time, a slim majority opposed reducing employee pay and benefits (stronger majority argued against raising taxes and issuing bonds). So I'm not sure why Walker is implying the benefit concessions are a quid pro quo for layoffs. I haven't read the details of how he resolves a nearly $4B deficit over the next 2 years, and the wisdom of pointing out federal employees pay more towards their benefits than state employees (among other things, state employees are not going to be won over by the governor by his saying 'it could have been worse'; if he was going to get union resistance anyway, he might as well go for the full 25% of health care costs).
I don't know what cards the governor is holding, but I would have probably said something like this to Wisconsin residents from the get-go, once in office: "Governor Doyle left me a bigger mess than I was aware of, and in order to bridge the gap, we are going to have to trim or eliminate programs, reduce nonessential personnel, and get state employee/retiree costs under control. In order to do that, the state and local executives need to have more control over employee costs--and this means streamlining various expensive, unnecessary union rules and getting state employees to pay more of their fair share of benefits."
As for the Democratic gripes over the nature of the revised bill, stripped of fiscal language, violated open session laws, etc.: as Fox News legal analyst/host Megyn Kelly pointed out, these rules were relevant only to regular, quorum sessions, which Wisconsin state senate Democrats unconstitutionally prevented. In fact, collective bargain rights were hardly a new topic over the last few weeks, and it's not a question of being heard or debated: there was a disagreement, there was an election last fall, and elections have consequences. During the 111th Congress, there were many votes taken all the Republicans in Congress disagreed with--but they didn't run away in violation of the Constitution. The Wisconsin Constitution explicitly allows sanctioning minority abuses of power like the Wisconsin Democrats in Illinois.
How clear was Governor Walker about collective bargaining reform? Again, this is much ado about nothing. Obviously what Walker could do on collective bargaining reform depended on the legislature he was handed. What is clear is that unions ran against Scott Walker because his tough stands against unions as county executive and his calls for state employees to engage in cost sharing.
How Inept is Obama's Foreign Policy on Libya?
First of all, let me repeat what has been a consistent theme over the past several months on this blog: I believe that an overextended military is unsustainable from an economic standpoint; we need to streamline our foreign alliances. I would like to see us withdraw as soon as feasible from Afghanistan and Iraq.
At the same time, DoD Secretary Bob Gates has been quick to urge caution over the concept of a no-fly zone, something I've urged consideration of. Let me be clear: I'm more concerned about Qaddafi's use of his Air Force to commit crimes against humanity. Our activities should be coordinated with NATO and used as sparingly as possible, mostly to discourage the Libyan pilots, urge them to defect, etc. But National Intelligence Director James Clapper has testified Qaddafi, given his Air Force, is likely to survive the crisis. At the same time, the Administration has made it clear that Qaddafi must go and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is planning to meet with Libyan rebel leaders, but she also indicates that a no-fly zone should not be US-led, but UN-led. I've seen reports that China and Russia at the UN oppose a no-fly zone. This is typical UN analysis paralysis, not to mention classic Obama Administration dithering.
No, I oppose US ground forces in Libya. I do support military assistance (supplies, anti-aircraft, etc.) to rebel forces. I want to see a stronger, faster, unambiguous, more consistent message from the administration; the Obama Administration is responding in a scattershot, incoherent manner. I don't know why Secretary of State Clinton is in a state of confusion or denial over the UN's repeated failure over time to deal with genocidal crises; but when you are dealing with genocide, you have to act sooner than later, before all the civilians have been murdered.
Political Humor
A few originals:
- Things don't look so good for self-indulgent Wisconsin public labor unions. They may not be able to afford to keep up the payments on those 14 Democratic state senators they put on layaway in Illinois. The state senators have been putting their time to good use in Illinois: Chicago Mayor-Elect Rahm Emanuel is educating them on death taxes and getting out the vote efforts in local cemeteries. Impeached former Governor Rod Blagojevich has been a guest speaker good old-fashioned political horse-trading and brought the authentic US Senator Barack Obama chair to show-and-tell; each state senator got a chance to sit in a "real" Senator's chair...
- The space shuttle Discovery ended its 27-year run yesterday. After Endeavor finishes its remaining missions, our astronauts will travel to Russia in order to hitch a ride to space. President Obama explained that Russia, as the world's leading oil producer, has fuel money, and the last two shuttles don't qualify for his Cash for Orbiters program.
Musical Interlude: My Favorite Group
Barry Gibb (The Bee Gees)/Barbra Streisand, "Guilty"
