Two things happened this week which, while nominally unrelated, paint a complete picture that gives insight into the Statist mind.
First was the Wisconsin recall election, in which several Republicans, but notably Governor Scott Walker, were challenged by the leftist, union forces of the state after Walker, by a vote of the legislature, made modest adjustments in the benefits and collective bargaining rights of the government employee unions in order to bring balance back to the state’s budget, which was threatening to sink beneath waves of red ink.
In spite of suspicious vote tallies equaling 120% of registered voters in some precincts (due to same-day registrations?), Walker was resoundingly reaffirmed with a larger percentage of the vote than in 2010, the shrill unions were repudiated, and his reforms stand.
I’m going to put aside speculation about ramifications for the November national elections, since the people of Wisconsin may have just been angered that better-than-average-paid government employees tried to recall a governor who hadn’t done anything criminal.
But something else happened this week that adds to our understanding of the Statist mindset. President Obama had a press conference.
Which immediately blew up in his face, because at one point he said, “The private sector is doing fine; the problem our economy has is in state and local governments.”
There are plenty of reasons to argue with the first part of that statement, and they are already being recited by Mitt Romney and others, but here in my corner of Georgia, residential housing is still down 75% from what it was during the Bush Administration. And we never really had a bubble. Anybody who doesn’t have a private jet, play golf every other weekend and hobnob with Hollywood realizes that the private sector is NOT “doing fine”.
But the second half of the obviously off-teleprompter statement is that state and local governments are the ones really hurting. Shortly after that he urged Congress to pass legislation(!) to FORCE states and municipalities to hire more (union) teachers.
Perhaps the big loss for his union cronies in Wisconsin was in the back of his mind, but the statement made it obvious that a couple of good days for the Dow Jones Index was enough for him to consider the “private sector” taken care of and he could again focus on his favorite thing: Government and making it bigger.
As has been said by many, both FDR and George Meany thought government employee unions were a bad idea, and the condition of many states’ budgets make it abundantly clear why. Politicians, especially Democrats, who receive a lot of money from unions for their campaigns, are on the “management” side of the table in public-sector union negotiations. The money being discussed in the negotiations is not the politician’s money, like it would be in a private business setting, but taxpayer money. And if the politician needs more money to pay the union workers who put him into office, he can simply raise taxes. No skin off his nose.
At least until the budget reaches the breaking point, as it did in Wisconsin.
So, my modest proposal is that, instead of politicians, there should be a Tax-Payer Advocate board in each state and at the Federal level which is unpaid and bi-partisan, but whose purpose would be to sit across the table from the union representatives to conduct the negotiations. As it is currently, the politicians are in sympathy with the unions because of all the campaign cash unions provide and they have no incentive to represent the interests of “we the people”.
Of course we would have to pay for body guards for the Tax-Payer Advocates. Just sayin’…
