Harsanyi: An Assault on Taxpayers

Townhall - by David Harsanyi - When Dan Nerad, the superintendent of schools in Madison, Wis., was informed that 40 percent of the teachers union was calling in sick this week (evidently, something's going around), he shut down the entire operation. "At this ratio," he explained, "we have serious concerns about our ability to maintain safe and secure school environments." Where can one find a safe environment for children? As political props for union activists, of course, holding prefabricated signs demanding the state go broke funding increasingly inferior yet increasingly costly education. OK, by education I mean pensions. But isn't it nice to see kids thinking for themselves? Now, as easy as it is to blame unions, it's not enough.
We have a bigger problem, and that's monopoly. Every year government grows, each time a state assigns itself new duties, the monopoly expands. Education is just the worst example. Whatever you may think of the politics of private-sector unions -- now less than 7 percent of the work force -- they function in a competitive environment. Public sectors, on the other hand, have artificial leverage that no other workers in the nation enjoy. In Wisconsin -- where union sign wavers have yet to get the memo that Nazi imagery is no way to embrace the new era of civility -- lawmakers are attempting to reform bargaining rights of about 170,000 public-sector workers in unions. More precisely, they want to restrict union members to bargaining for wages rather than take taxpayers hostage with unsustainable pensions and benefit demands every few years. Read full column here: News New Mexico
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1 comments:

Anonymous said...

Maybe the non-government worker taxpayers should form their own union and refuse to pay their taxes. In fact, perhaps people should start home schooling their own kids. Nothing would make me happier than to see the union thugs deal with no money coming in, because the taxpayers union says, "HELL NO", to paying taxes and teachers getting laid off because an overwhelming majority go the home school route. I bet you could bargain with these thugs then.

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