After dozens of posts about overpaid government employees, I’m sick of writing about the topic. But what’s happening in Wisconsin is critically important in the fight for long-run fiscal sanity, so I’m reluctantly wading back into this fight. Simply stated, bureaucrats have figured out how to manipulate the system and they are bankrupting state and local governments.
Chris Christie is the first governor in a long time to stand up to these thugs and now the new chief executive of Wisconsin, Scott Walker, has joined the fight. But unlike Christie, who must deal with a hostile state legislature, Governor Walker has a GOP-controlled Assembly and Senate. As such, he has a chance to take much bigger steps in the right direction.
The unions realize that their special privileges may disappear and they are engaged in a vicious fight to block reform. Other groups that get money and/or political support from the unions also are joining the battle against Wisconsin’s taxpayers. John Fund of the Wall Street Journal provides the key details.
Mr. Walker’s proposals are hardly revolutionary. Facing a $137 million budget deficit, he has decided to try to avoid laying off 5,500 state workers by proposing that they contribute 5.8% of their income towards their pensions and 12.6% towards health insurance. That’s roughly the national average for public pension payments, and it is less than half the national average of what government workers contribute to health care. Mr. Walker also wants to limit the power of public-employee unions to negotiate contracts and work rules—something that 24 states already limit or ban.
…Democratic reactions to these proposals have been over the top. In addition to the thousands of protesters who descended on the Capitol building on Thursday to intimidate legislators, so many teachers called in sick on Friday that school districts in Milwaukee, Madison and Janesville had to close.
…Why are national liberal groups treating Wisconsin as if it were their last stand? Partly for reasons of symbolism. Historically, Wisconsin “embraced the organized labor movement more heartily than any other [state],” notes liberal activist Abe Sauer.
…Labor historian Fred Siegel offers further reasons why unions are manning the barricades. Mr. Walker would require that public-employee unions be recertified annually by a majority vote of all their members, not merely by a majority of those that choose to cast ballots. In addition, he would end the government’s practice of automatically deducting union dues from employee paychecks. For Wisconsin teachers, union dues total between $700 and $1,000 a year. “Ending dues deductions breaks the political cycle in which government collects dues, gives them to the unions, who then use the dues to back their favorite candidates and also lobby for bigger government and more pay and benefits,” Mr. Siegel told me.
Just in case you’re wondering why unions are being so intransigent, Instpundit has a link to a website explaining that state bureaucrats get twice as much compensation as the tax-paying serfs in Wisconsin’s private sector. I can’t vouch for the specific numbers, but I’m sure the gap in the state is enormous, as is the case all across the nation. This video explains.
Let me close with a caveat. There surely are thousands of Wisconsin government employees who disagree with the thuggish tactics and absurd demands of the union bosses. My criticisms obviously don’t apply to those folks, but I would ask them to stand up and be counted. Write op-eds and letters-to-the-editor. Attend today’s Tea Party rally. The union bosses are using your money to do bad things, but you can use your time to do the right thing.
