During the boom, politicians found it easy to curry favor with voters through increased spending on fancy projects and expansive social programs. With the virtuous circle of soaring home prices and cheap credit spawning seemingly never-ending increases in property, sales, and income tax revenues, the money flowed in almost as fast as it poured out.
As an added plus, many ot those hired in connection with these efforts had a vested interest in supporting politicians who didn't like to say no.
Unfortunately, now that the bubble has burst, public-sector workers are experiencing a rude awakening. Support at the top is being quickly eroded by economic and political realities. Instead of backing them up, their paymasters are changing course, worried about covering their own behinds and the fallout from taxpayer enmity. That is why, as the Associated Press reports, "Governors Seek Concessions from Public Workers."
Governors across the nation are seeking significant concessions from public employee unions in hopes of helping to balance their teetering budgets during the economic downturn.
From Maryland to California, Ohio to Hawaii, governors have asked or ordered state workers to accept furloughs, salary reductions, truncated workweeks or benefit cuts. They say the concessions are a better alternative to further job losses in the face of record-breaking unemployment.
Unions argue their members shouldn't be singled out and are even more vital in hard times - securing neighborhoods and prisons, educating children and providing social services to growing numbers of citizens.
In hard-hit Ohio, Democratic Gov. Ted Strickland has been a friend of the unions. But as the state's budget woes have intensified, he is asking unionized state employees to consider a 5 percent pay cut, a 35-hour workweek and the elimination of paid personal days and holidays, to save the state hundreds of millions of dollars.
According to a union memo obtained by The Associated Press, the Ohio Civil Service Employees Association is waiting to see Strickland's upcoming budget and the state's share of a federal stimulus package before making a decision. Executive director Andy Douglas declined comment because the union is in negotiations.
The memo noted there's no guarantee that accepting concessions will preclude later job cuts.
Democratic Gov. Martin O'Malley of Maryland, another state facing an unexpectedly deep budget shortfall, imposed furloughs and salary cuts on thousands of state workers in December, a move expected to save an estimated $34 million.
In November, New Jersey trimmed two paid holidays from state workers' annual allotment: Lincoln's Birthday and the Friday after Thanksgiving. Eliminating the former required legislative action, while Democratic Gov. Jon Corzine cut the latter on his own.
Utah eliminated one paid holiday a year and is experimenting with a four-day state workweek.
Hawaii Gov. Linda Lingle, a Republican, has raised the possibility she will pursue furloughs for the islands' 36,000 state employees and ask them to pay a larger share of their health insurance coverage and forego raises.
On Thursday, Democratic Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell - facing down a widening budget gap - said layoffs and unpaid furloughs are likely in that state as well. He braced state workers for sharing in the "universal pain."
In California, Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger imposed furloughs two days a month beginning in February as a way to curb costs for the 230,000-member state payroll amid a budget deficit projected to grow to $28 billion by 2010.
He has had less success shaving two paid holidays off the current 14 state workers receive, an allotment that is among the most generous in the country.
Spokesman Aaron McLear said the governor is "looking under every rock" to cut costs and believes it's only a matter of fairness for state workers to do their part. "The governor doesn't believe it's fair to increase taxes and cut programs on Californians without reducing state government spending first," he said.
Kerry Korpi, director of research and collective bargaining at the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees union, said members understand that governments are in economic crisis.
"The entire country is in a dire situation," she said. "Our members, though, haven't quite been lifted back up from the last fiscal crisis in 2002 and 2003, so we've been asking governors to sit down with us and let's look at all the spending, instead of going straight to the people who provide these vital services."
Pay cuts ..oh yes--lets start with the CEO's,along with minimum
wages lets have a plateau on obscene wages, outlaw golden/silver
parachutes,,ok I'm dreaming.
Posted by: roger | January 24, 2009 at 11:17 PM
Can't wait to see what happens when Congress allows its pay raise this year....I'm thinking peasants and pitchforks...
Posted by: mountaineer | January 25, 2009 at 10:00 AM
Government isn't "spreading the pain", they're just spreading the bullshit.
There haven't been any cutbacks. There haven't been any layoffs. They keep
10% of their org chart as empty boxes. When they "layoff", that means they
just erased the empty boxes, until the day they can sneak them back again!
The Bureau of Indian Affairs, for example, was established to administer the Indian Treaties Trust Fund, the monies we owe, by treaties, Native Americans.
Even though they don't have to advertise for revenues the way a charity does,
and even though the tribes today no longer have need a paternalist overlord,
BIA manages to philter away 87% of those treaties monies as "administrative
overhead". If this were a Wall Street public business, investors would riot.
In a State agency I worked for, the general manager's slogan was, "the best
projects are the ones that never get built", and he spent his days online as
a savvy daytrader, while his minions happily studied projects out of funds!
100% administrative overhead! But the State unions vociferously fight against
outsourcing, there are no Mumbai service centers for your driver's license or
your unemployment check, nope, you have to wait hours for your number and days
before a service rep can "get to your file, our workload is so heavy." Yeah.
State government grew in the last four years by 15%, as fast as construction,
while manufacturing collapsed by 33%, outsourced to China, and services went
out on the internet highway, performed all around the world for $'s per hour,
instead of the State wage's many $10's per hour, and no production incentive.
Now we're seeing a "bailout", which says in the fine print will create, *or
save*, 10M's of jobs, they're talking about their own jobs! They're going to
study the bailout to death. They're going to "needs more permits" it up one
side and down the other. And they're going to tax the bailout, imagine that!
On top of all this, fossilizing, ossified bureaucracy living in the Dark Ages
of administrative papacy, now comes the Carbon Cap & Trade. Don't get me wrong,
we need to get OPEC out of our back pocket and out of our administrative halls
of power in Washington DC. We need green energy, and tax rebate incentives for
developing it. We need a whole lot of things infrastructure related!
But what they're doing with CC&T, at every level of Federal and State, will be
to create an new super-agency, just like the Homeland Defense we never needed
before, a place where laided off and fired and 20-and-out bureaucrats can go
to get rehired for their second pension. That's right, two government pensions
in a 40-year career as an administrative drone, if you work the system right.
Look for $250 vehicle "carbon" license renewal fees. Look for "carbon" sales
taxes on all goods and services. And those tax revenues? They won't go to the
teachers or your unemployment benefits, oh no. They're going to bureaucrats!
A whole new wave of green-mail! If taxpayers would only apply the same metric
they apply to charities, to government, there would be riots in the streets.
What the heck do we need government for, that spends 100% of our tax revenues
on "administrative overhead"?!?! They're just monkies on our back, all of them.
All the EPA regulations were made dozens of years ago. What do we still need
the EPA for? What do we still need NASA for, to send more tonka toys to some
sandbox halfway across the universe? What do we still need nuclear submarines
for, when no other super-power has them? What do we need TSA sniffing our shoes
for, when airplanes are flying everyday without adequate mechanical servicing?
195,000 people die every year in the US from medical malpractice, not counting
pharmaceutical drug reactions, which aren't reported. Where is Homeland Defense?
More people die every year from food allergies and pedestrians run down by cars
than died in the World Trade Center. Where's FEMA? It's a colossal payola scam!
It's all unionized! It can never be made to work, it can never be outsourced,
it will only continue to metastasize and grow into The Great American Soviet.
Posted by: Chip | January 25, 2009 at 01:46 PM
How come DOD gets state-of-the-art training, and all we get is State Soviet?
Anyone in DOD can spend part of their workday getting an MSc online, tax paid!
Our State only graduates 2/3rds of its students, only 1/2 of its minorities!
Our Governator just announced -$800M in teacher cutbacks, closing libraries!!
How can we privatize an alternate high school system, online like DOD has?!?!
http://www.americanpubliceducation.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=214618&p=irol-homelanding
Posted by: Chip | January 25, 2009 at 02:48 PM