A Conspiracy Against The Public Good

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 31st, 2011 at 9:13 am and is filed under Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the comments RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

17 Responses to “A Conspiracy Against The Public Good”

1. FormerSwingVoter says:
   

   I don’t know much about Wisconsin, but I know that what’s happened there over the past two months reveals how deadly unionized government employees can be to republican governence.

   I’d say it reveals just how deadly electing a power-hungry madman is for republican governance. Scott Walker and the Wisconsin Republicans issued warrants for the arrest of the absent Democrats, tried to strip Democrats of their right to vote, and has twice ignored a court order to not implement the law until its court case is settled.

   Walker’s poll numbers are plummeting, but it likely has more to do with his acting like a would-be dictator than anything the unions are doing.

   What makes this even more ridiculous is that he could have simply said “Fine, you can bargain for wages, but benefits are off the table” and everyone could’ve won, given that the unions involved had already agreed to the givebacks themselves.

   March 31st, 2011 at 11:36 am
2. Jamie says:
   

   I’m still mystified how anyone can believe that public employee unions are legitimate.

   March 31st, 2011 at 11:41 am
3. Apollo says:
   

   Really? “Power hungry madman”? This is Levin-level rhetoric. The law Walker sought to pass brought public employee law in Wisconsin in line with the federal government (I presume Barry is also a power-hungry madman? The unpopular law he passed serves to accumulate enormous amounts of power in his office, whereas it’s not clear that the law Walker passed really gives the governor that much more power) and many other states. All the Hitler signs and “dictator” talk are just so far removed from the reality of what the law does that I can’t let myself believe that the protesters themselves believe it.

   As for the procedural issues, when one side plays procedural hardball, why can’t the other? When a minority’s tactics seek to completely nulify an election and a legislative session by refusing to attend, that side does not have the moral legitimacy to condemn the procedural tactics of the other side.

   Finally, that court order – it’s as inept as it was illegitimate. The damned judge enjoined the wrong person from publishing the law. Who’s fault is that? So when the law was legitimately published, how was the governor duty-bound to expand the judge’s order to get at what she really meant? There’s activist judges, and then there’s this lady.

   March 31st, 2011 at 1:06 pm
4. math_geek says:
   

   Jamie, what makes a union “legitimate” or illegitimate?

   I mean, are we really saying that people who work for the government should not have the right to assemble and lobby for better working conditions? Say what you will about one particular union over here or another particular union over there, I think that arguing that becoming a teacher should require you to give up your right to assemble is a bit much.

   Of course, the first thing a smart union does is require the employer only to hire people in the union, and it’s not hard to see that causing problems.

   On the other hand, we don’t have to vote the way the unions want and neither do our politicians. I can see how distorted incentives make public unions stronger than private unions, but there are many ways to undistort those incentives.

   I think it’s insane how conservatives claim that cutting teacher salaries and benefits won’t reduce the quality of education over the long term. I know what people get paid in the public sector in my field and in the private sector. It’s not close, and talent, once identified, moves quickly from the public sector to the private sector.

   March 31st, 2011 at 2:10 pm
5. FormerSwingVoter says:
   

   It’s not the passing of the law that I take issue with. But issuing warrants for the arrest of the minority party and revoking their ability to vote are not the kinds of things that happen in a democracy. Period. The Republicans can, should, and were condemning the tactics taken by the Democrats, but citing the other steps taken as merely “procedural hardball” is insane.

   Also, are you really surprised that implementing a law whose implementation has been enjoined is frowned upon? Given his past behavior, I find it difficult to believe that the governor’s behavior was simply based on a misunderstanding.

   The law itself is fairly mundane. But when a governor is completely ignoring the rule of law and trying to spark a constitutional crisis within his own state, it seems a little silly to blame his falling popularity on the opposition.

   March 31st, 2011 at 2:15 pm
6. FormerSwingVoter says:
   

   I can see how distorted incentives make public unions stronger than private unions, but there are many ways to undistort those incentives.

   I’m not sure there is, to be honest. CEOs aren’t elected in the same way that mayors and governors are. If a private union doesn’t get what they want, they can’t really cause the CEO they’re negotiating with to lose his job, but a public employee union can. The amount of manpower and fundraising you can get on a local level from heavily motivated union support makes a big difference.

   March 31st, 2011 at 2:22 pm
7. math_geek says:
   

   FormerSwingVoter,

   Alright, so what we need to do is eliminate any special interest which has the ability to raise money, campaign politically, and motivate voters?

   Alright, let’s ban the NRA, AARP, Chamber of Commerce, and quite possibly the idea of a union or corporation in general. Lockheed Martin makes about $127 per United States resident per year in government contracts. Open Secrets has them spending $12 million in Lobbying in 2010. Should we ban them from lobbying politicians?

   March 31st, 2011 at 2:52 pm
8. Apollo says:
   

   I can see how distorted incentives make public unions stronger than private unions, but there are many ways to undistort those incentives.

   The more fundamental problem isn’t with power, it’s with incentives. Unions frequently control large blocks of stock in their companies and can have some sway in board elections. And certainly a threat that “unless x is elected to the board, we strike,” would be powerful.

   The reason private sector unions don’t behave as badly is that they have an incentive in keeping their company profitable (please ignore the recent auto bailout – let’s pray that was a one-off deal). Public-sector unions have no such incentive, because government can always borrow or raise taxes to increase salaries and benefits. As part of maximizing their own salaries and numbers, private sector unions have a genuine incentive to make their company more productive (even if this plays out in often bizarre ways). A tenured teacher has no incentive other than altruism to improve a school. Actually, the incentives often run the other way: when schools start failing, teachers are always lobbying that it’s because they don’t have enough money. This is a scenario that plays out in virtually every government agency: “we only suck because you don’t give us enough money.” When that cry is met by union-supported elected officials who then throw money at the agency, there is a real and perverse incentive for the agency to suck. So the public winds up paying more for crappier services.

   Even without unions these perverse incentives exist (yes, even here in Texas our non-unionized teachers believe they don’t make enough and their schools are underfunded). But the incentives for politicians to throw money at them are different without the organized lobbying and spending.

   I think it’s insane how conservatives claim that cutting teacher salaries and benefits won’t reduce the quality of education over the long term.

   We’ve been doing this for long enough to know that the correlation between spending and results is weak and uneven. Our education spending has increased by leaps and bounds over the decades, and there’s not a ton of evidence that we’re doing a lot better. Other countries have class sizes twice the size of ours and do as well or better. Until we improve our education policy – which means smashing the teachers’ unions – additional spending is probably going to be wasted.

   As for teacher pay, I’ll believe it’s too low when they don’t have enough people to fill the slots. We’re laying off teachers in Austin, and the same teachers who a year ago were griping that they didn’t make enough are now sqealing in abject horror at losing their jobs. Wouldn’t be the case if they were underpaid.

   As for “reducing” teachers’ benefits, what planet are you living on? You show me another job with those hours, for those months, with that sort of job security where you can make a professionals’ salary. I’m not saying we should short them on healthcare, but we should recognize that the real benefits of being a teacher are inherent to the position.

   And it’s true that, aside from the federal government (which has contracted out its low-paying jobs), state workers make less than the private sector. That is as it should be, because they’re inherently less productive. We want our best and brightest, those with the most ambition and drive, out creating wealth in the private sector. It’s a misappropriation of social resources to use high wages to get our most productive citizens into less productive jobs.

   The law itself is fairly mundane. But when a governor is completely ignoring the rule of law and trying to spark a constitutional crisis within his own state, it seems a little silly to blame his falling popularity on the opposition.

   I’m no fan of the arrest warrants, etc, but I don’t like any sort of legislative hardball like that. But I think that it’s important to establish the correct incentives to discourage people from playing hardball in the first place. If the majority rewards a minority who exceed democratic norms, we’ll get more violation of democratic norms. If, on the other hand, the majority goes nuclear and there are consequences for violating the norms (even if I’m not a fan of those consequences), we’ll have a better system in the long run.

   March 31st, 2011 at 2:53 pm
9. FormerSwingVoter says:
   

   Alright, so what we need to do is eliminate any special interest which has the ability to raise money, campaign politically, and motivate voters?

   I wouldn’t advocate for the law passed in Wisconsin; I just wanted to point out that private and public unions are different in some important ways, and I’m not sure how to sort that out. Maybe allow collective bargaining for wages, health care, and other stuff that shows up on the immediate budget, but require a referendum or Congressional vote for deferred costs like pensions?

   Though if you want to ban lobbying as a whole, you’ve got my vote

   I’m no fan of the arrest warrants, etc, but I don’t like any sort of legislative hardball like that. But I think that it’s important to establish the correct incentives to discourage people from playing hardball in the first place.

   I would agree with this, but I feel like a line was crossed this time. “We’re withholding your pay” strikes me as hardball, while “we’re not letting you vote” strikes me as something that happens in third world countries.

   March 31st, 2011 at 3:27 pm
10. Jamie says:
    

    “Though if you want to ban lobbying as a whole, you’ve got my vote”

    Who wants to deny constitutional rights now?

    March 31st, 2011 at 5:08 pm
11. FormerSwingVoter says:
    

    “Though if you want to ban lobbying as a whole, you’ve got my vote ”

    Who wants to deny constitutional rights now?

    It’s like the joke about how “I’d rather be governed by the first 100 names in the phone book than the U.S. Senate”, except not actually clever or funny. See, he’s not actually trying to take away people’s right to vote, it’s… oh, never mind.

    March 31st, 2011 at 9:03 pm
12. Apollo says:
    

    “We’re withholding your pay” strikes me as hardball, while “we’re not letting you vote” strikes me as something that happens in third world countries.

    That’s a pretty marginal distinction at best. As best I can tell, the minority party would have lost all the votes anyhow. The real import of what happened is that the record does not show dissenting and ineffective votes. Meh. The one you see as more consequential actually is of no consequence, whereas denying them their pay actually has consequences. Not sure how much they get paid, but it’s not nothing.

    What happens in third world countries generally happens along tribal or racial boundaries. So long as our parties are ideological in nature, we’ll never much resemble a third world country.

    March 31st, 2011 at 11:06 pm
13. math_geek says:
    

    As for “reducing” teachers’ benefits, what planet are you living on?

    I’ve known several teachers and they tend to work much longer hours than I do during the months they are actually working. 6.5 Hour days are not much, but grading, lesson plans, running extra-cirricular activities, and hosting makeup exams and tests all adds up. When I was a TA in college/grad school, grading took hours upon hours, and I had a reputation for being a fast grader. But this is neither here nor there. It doesn’t matter what the current benefits levels are at, reducing them is nevertheless reducing them.

    And you’re right that you will always find teachers. And I certainly have my concerns about the current compensation system. Tenure and Seniority rules are absurd, and pretty terrible for everyone except the older teachers that lack those altruistic tendencies to try to improve their school and teaching.

    However, efficiency wages are real. You would think this had been covered by Henry Ford, and if not him, then George Akerlof, or Costco’s business model. Pay teachers less, and you’ll still hire teachers. The smarter, more qualified ones will be off doing other things. And the ones that remain will be less concerned about losing their current job, which is, of course, only a threat if they can’t find a job elsewhere.

    What is needed is a system that actually gives teachers an incentive to be successful outside of “personal altruism” Tenure is obviously the biggest impediment to this, but trying to reduce salaries and benefits to “market” levels spends political capital and doesn’t bring us any closer to solving the problem.

    April 1st, 2011 at 12:21 pm
14. FormerSwingVoter says:
    

    That’s a pretty marginal distinction at best. As best I can tell, the minority party would have lost all the votes anyhow.

    I’m going to call shenanigans on this one. How would you feel if you were told you couldn’t vote, even if your preferred candidate faced impossible odds? Or if you were told that your state rep (or Congressional rep) couldn’t vote? If a Democrat pulled this sort of thing, you’d be outraged. Not annoyed. Not frustrated. Outraged.

    When you combine this with issuing of likely-illegal warrants and the willful, deliberate ignorance of a direct court order (note that the court order didn’t just enjoin publication by the State Department, but also implementation by the State), you have an administration that is consistently and deliberately acting with complete disregard for any laws it finds inconvenient. This is not hardball politics. This is a man who feels that, as governor of the state, he has the power to completely ignore the laws of that state.

    But because conservatives are sympathetic to the ends he’s pursuing, some are simply going to defend him no matter how clearly undemocratic and/or illegal his actions have been.

    April 1st, 2011 at 2:58 pm
15. Jamie says:
    

    “I’m going to call shenanigans on this one. How would you feel if you were told you couldn’t vote, even if your preferred candidate faced impossible odds?”

    I’m going to call shenanigans right back. Who was preventing who from voting?

    April 1st, 2011 at 3:07 pm
16. math_geek says:
    

    Actually, I think that the exodus is probably a very useful example of a filibuster. It was highly costly for the Dem Senators that had to leave, but still ensured the rights of a passionate minority. Compare to the US Senate, where it’s basically presumed that it requires 60 votes to vote for something. There’s no cost to the minority to sustaining a filibuster.

    And really, while it was a Dem minority in Wisconsin and a GOP minority in the Senate, it’s not like those same filibustering GOP senators weren’t screaming about the Democrats filibustering a bunch of judgeships 4 or 5 years ago.

    April 1st, 2011 at 4:30 pm
17. FormerSwingVoter says:
    

    I’m going to call shenanigans right back. Who was preventing who from voting?

    Perhaps I failed at analogy there, but you’ve kind of made my point in a roundabout way. I feel like a lot of people’s decision on whether something is acceptable or not is based solely on who has a (D) and an (R) next to their names.

    April 2nd, 2011 at 7:23 am

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