Today I came across this very interesting – and relevant – article in the City Journal about how California’s public employee unions have contributed mightily to the Golden State’s economic destruction.
[W]hat was once the most prosperous state now suffers from an unemployment rate far steeper than the nation’s and a flood of firms and jobs escaping high taxes and stifling regulations. This toxic combination—high public-sector employee costs and sagging economic fortunes—has produced recurring budget crises in Sacramento and in virtually every municipality in the state.
How public employees became members of the elite class in a declining California offers a cautionary tale to the rest of the country, where the same process is happening in slower motion. The story starts half a century ago, when California public workers won bargaining rights and quickly learned how to elect their own bosses—that is, sympathetic politicians who would grant them outsize pay and benefits in exchange for their support. Over time, the unions have turned the state’s politics completely in their favor. The result: unaffordable benefits for civil servants; fiscal chaos in Sacramento and in cities and towns across the state; and angry taxpayers finally confronting the unionized masters of California’s unsustainable government.
Read the whole thing – it goes on to detail the unsavory tactics of the unions in seeking their power, and the disastrous consequences that came after they obtained it.
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This weekend when I was out knocking on doors, I met a man who worked for the state and asked what I was going to do to “protect public employees.” He then complained that Republicans “don’t care” about public employees or their unions.
But he’s exactly wrong – we DO care about public employees. It’s just that we care about other employees, too. Like all those private sector workers whose taxes pay for the public employees. There are all those small business owners and entrepreneurs who hire those taxpayers (and pay plenty of taxes themselves).
And then, of course, there are the public employees themselves, who face massive layoffs when state and local governments run out of money, and lose out on promised benefits when entire cities are forced to file for bankruptcy. (Think that’s far fetched fear mongering? Sadly it’s not – it’s happening already in California.)
In other words, continuing the current unsustainable trend in public employee compensation makes it more likely, not less, that public employees face a risky future both in terms of job security and retirement dependability. It is conservative policies, not liberal ones, which will best protect public employees (and the Nevadans who rely on them) in the long run.
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Neither I nor other fiscal conservatives are anarchists – we understand there are critical functions of government which must be funded, and we further understand we need good people carrying out those functions. But we don’t just need them now, we need them in the future, too – and that means we need to get serious about sustainability.
Here in Nevada, our public employees have benefits and retirement packages which significantly outpace their private sector counterparts. Retirement benefits alone currently face at least $9.1 Billion in unfunded liabilities – and that number gets bigger every year.
If we don’t get these costs under control and return public sector funding to a more sustainable footing, we don’t have to guess what will happen – we have only to look a little ways to the west.
