Where Are the Wingnuts

[Jim]

The frontpage headline from the staunchly center-right Bellingham Herald today is "State Budget Shortfall Growing: Tax Revenues Down Another $780 Million". There is a clue here, I'm sure of it. Tax cuts and their extension are the other side of the "unsustainability" coin. I think we all know this. If raising taxes in some areas are impossible in the current political climate, it's up to progressives to change the climate. Throwing up one's hands and removing taxes entirely from table as "impossible" while accepting the "inevitability" of wage, benefit, and pension reductions is folly. Let's make sure that public sector workers aren't the only ones making sacrifices. If that doesn't meet your right here/right this second criteria Jim, then you need to rethink it.

 

Well, let's look at WA's situation that you quote. The public rejected every tax measure in the past two years. The exception is school levies, which generally pass than not. So the pie in the sky rhetoric is great - it's not helpful. So what exactly are you proposing?

 

While I disagree with some folks on their solutions, I'll entertain any that appear thoughtful, practical, and use real math. Ideology is a wonderful thing, until you actually have to make public policy. Much of the arm waving I hear from the left includes no practical solutions to folks having to deal with the real world of public policy.

[Jim]

Still waiting for some practical advice. Or is it to low on the scale to actually get dirty trying to work out public policy?

 

as I already told you many times, to everyone his role. Mine isn't to be a sycophant for bashing the character and worth of public employees while pretending that is going to solve the fiscal crisis. Your position is no different than Obama's when he caves in getting nothing in return.

 

Translation: My ideals are not well enough defined to offer any practical solutions

[j_b]

pretending that cutting compensation for workers is going to solve the fiscal crisis while state revenue are imploding is not only poor public policy, it's a lie.

[tvashtarkatena]

Your acknowledging that healthcare is not working (up to half of cost going to profits) while continuing to advocate cutting worker benefits is just not good enough.

 

Come on. Jim's suggesting some very reasonable (and likely unavoidable) solutions. Everything isn't an 'us' versus 'them' thing.

 

FACT: most states MUST balance their budgets by law. Constitution and all that.

 

FACT: They can't right now

 

OPINION: Bringing retirement contributions in line with private sector norms is one of the least painful ways to do this.

 

Recognizing a real problem and trying to solve it in a real and fair way is what 'our side' is supposed to do. Science based reality and all that. You seem to object to any proposed solution save 'grow the economy'...which is precisely the kind of 'wish your way out' proposal the 'other side' typically pursues.

 

 

I think tweaks like this, in the long run, will aid public service workers and sustain vulnerable programs. There is nothing wrong with being fiscally conservative while pushing a progressive agenda. It just makes sense in the long run.

 

Sustainability requires fiscal conservatism, by definition.

[j_b]

While I disagree with some folks on their solutions, I'll entertain any that appear thoughtful, practical, and use real math. Ideology is a wonderful thing, until you actually have to make public policy. Much of the arm waving I hear from the left includes no practical solutions to folks having to deal with the real world of public policy.

 

you are utterly confused. Are you a bureaucrat having to make an impossible budget decision? No, you aren't you are some dude falsly claimng that cutting employee compensation is going to solve our budget woes.

[KaskadskyjKozak]

pretending that cutting compensation for workers is going to solve the fiscal crisis while state revenue are imploding is not only poor public policy, it's a lie.

 

Private companies do it all the time.

 

And w/r/t retirement... so do individual employees at private companies. Sometimes you have to cut 401k from 10% to say 6% when times are not so good. Sometimes you even have to cut below the amount where you get matching funds. That's life, j_b.

[j_b]

Sustainability requires fiscal conservatism, by definition.

 

fiscal responsibility (please leave regressive framing in the closet) demands revenues. Solely cutting spending isn't responsible Or 'conservative' as you call it.

[prole]

The frontpage headline from the staunchly center-right Bellingham Herald today is "State Budget Shortfall Growing: Tax Revenues Down Another $780 Million". There is a clue here, I'm sure of it. Tax cuts and their extension are the other side of the "unsustainability" coin. I think we all know this. If raising taxes in some areas are impossible in the current political climate, it's up to progressives to change the climate. Throwing up one's hands and removing taxes entirely from table as "impossible" while accepting the "inevitability" of wage, benefit, and pension reductions is folly. Let's make sure that public sector workers aren't the only ones making sacrifices. If that doesn't meet your right here/right this second criteria Jim, then you need to rethink it.

 

Well, let's look at WA's situation that you quote. The public rejected every tax measure in the past two years. The exception is school levies, which generally pass than not. So the pie in the sky rhetoric is great - it's not helpful. So what exactly are you proposing?

 

It's actually worse than that, Gregoire has been giving away tax cuts! More initiatives, pressure on legislators, introduction of legislation for the removal of idiotic constraints such as ding, ding, ding balanced-budget-at-all-costs, house-is-on-fire-but-sorry-there's-a-no-lawn-watering-restriction-in-effect type restrictions on raising revenues. It's gotta happen, period. If it's going to take a bridge collapse or something as dramatic as that before people realize we need to fund the State, then that's what it's going to take. And make no mistake, it's going to have to happen whether public workers move to 401k's or not.

[tvashtarkatena]

Well designed private compensation program sets discretionary dispursements like bonuses and retirement contribution levels as a % of profits. This way, nobody goes out of business, and everyone shares the pain and the glory. It's sustainable. Companies can choose to rob one dispursement, bonuses or dividends, for example, to prop up retirement contributions as the situation calls for.

Edited March 18, 2011 by tvashtarkatena

[tvashtarkatena]

Sustainability requires fiscal conservatism, by definition.

 

fiscal responsibility (please leave regressive framing in the closet) demands revenues. Solely cutting spending isn't responsible Or 'conservative' as you call it.

 

I think both Jim and I agree that we should tax the rich as part of the package, if that's politically possible, of course. You haven't been listening, apparently. Effective problem solving is 90% listening and 10% action.

[j_b]

except that you already agreed to move on to cutting benefits without increasing revenue. Paying lip service to an idea then immediately caving in isn't good enough.

[j_b]

When times are good underfund the pensions so you can screw the pensioners when times are bad! That's America! So awesome!

 

It works so well into the "drowning the state in a bathtub" playbook that it makes one stop and ponder whether underfunding obligations was solely a matter of budget convenience. Especially after what happened to private pensions.

[Jim]

pretending that cutting compensation for workers is going to solve the fiscal crisis while state revenue are imploding is not only poor public policy, it's a lie.

 

Private companies do it all the time.

 

And w/r/t retirement... so do individual employees at private companies. Sometimes you have to cut 401k from 10% to say 6% when times are not so good. Sometimes you even have to cut below the amount where you get matching funds. That's life, j_b.

 

Radical!

[j_b]

that must be why all these years of lowering effective employee compensations has led to unsutainable debt and cratering state revenue.

[Jim]

Here we go. More of the same.

 

http://www.komonews.com/news/local/103063499.html

 

[j_b]

I'll guarantee that if you chop that arm off, the hand will stop bleeding.

Edited March 18, 2011 by j_b

[JayB]

Voluntary turnover in Virginia is slightly higher than the national average. Most classified employees who leave do so after one to three years of service, though another 27 percent of turnover comes from employees with 11 or more years of service. The commonwealth has taken an aggressive approach to address employee retention, offering various flexible fringe benefits that amount to nearly 50 percent of salary. Managers are implementing market-adjusted broad pay plans and monetary rewards. Virtually all employees are eligible for a pay-for performance program. Virginia has avoided salary compression; few employees are at the top of their pay grades.

 

I fail to see an argument to cut public employee benefits in there. In fact, they did the exact opposite to help retain employees.

 

Paying what's required to qualified people, pay-for-performance, etc, etc, etc as part of an "aggressive approach to address employee retention," in a state that was near the top of the charts in all of the categories in the Pew survey.

 

Witness the dystopian nightmare at the end regressive neocon warmongering plutocrat's ideological crusade to end collective bargaining for public sector employees...

 

[JayB]

I think the answers have been - build the economy, sustain middle class jobs, offer universal health care, etc. While all great ideas, if you were discussing the issue with the mayor of San Jose, or many other jurisdictions, he would patiently lean across the desk and say "Yes, but what am I to do now, in my City?".

 

Still waiting for that answer.

 

There are no reasonable answers to fallacious questions. Cutting your hand off will stop your finger from bleeding, but you won't have stopped the bleeding. As matter of fact, you'll have made matters worse: permanently decreasing public employee compensation will further degrade public services and reinforce the race to the bottom.

 

If pensions, work-rules, seniority based pay, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc then California world beater in every category of public sector performance. It isn't.

 

Virginia outscores California, Illinois, NJ, NY, Wisconsin, etc in every category.

 

http://www.pewcenteronthestates.org/gpp_report_card.aspx

 

There *are* states with collective bargaining rules that score well, The data certainly don't support the claim that collective bargaining is necessary for the efficient delivery of high quality public services, effective public administration, etc.

 

 

And yet, without collective bargaining, Virginia's schools still suck. Surely this would suggest there isn't a link at best? Hell, having lived in that state I'm surprised anyone would trot it out as a model for anything - except never ending suburban sprawl, regional incompetence and general shittiness. But Jay's packing up the Buick and moving out to Virginny!

 

Oh dear, those dirty little facts getting in the way of Jay's ideology

 

JayB would prefer if the U.S. followed the Texas model of governance. He's apparently not willing to live in such a shithole himself, however, preferring instead the bask in the benefits of a more enlightened, liberal state.

 

What not-so-closeted hipster wouldn't?

 

Ah, the Angry Hairless Monkey and its many contradictions.

 

Family, friends, and rivers/mountains. That's it. You could swap out every other human being in Western WA for an equal number of people from anywhere in the intermountain West and it'd be a vast improvement IMO.

 

 

[Jim]

"Idealism is fine, but as it approaches reality, the costs become prohibitive"

[j_b]

especially idealism like a living wage/pension

[prole]

Witness the dystopian nightmare at the end regressive neocon warmongering plutocrat's ideological crusade to end collective bargaining for public many formerly unionized private sector employees...

 

We are.

[JayB]

pretending that cutting compensation for workers is going to solve the fiscal crisis while state revenue are imploding is not only poor public policy, it's a lie.

 

Private companies do it all the time.

 

And w/r/t retirement... so do individual employees at private companies. Sometimes you have to cut 401k from 10% to say 6% when times are not so good. Sometimes you even have to cut below the amount where you get matching funds. That's life, j_b.

 

 

 

Some kind of variable bonus compensation that's indexed to economic growth over and above a particular floor would do wonders for aligning the incentives of the public and private sector workers, and would serve as an automatic belt tightening mechanism during recessions.

[j_b]

Paying what's required to qualified people, pay-for-performance, etc, etc, etc as part of an "aggressive approach to address employee retention," in a state that was near the top of the charts in all of the categories in the Pew survey.

 

Witness the dystopian nightmare at the end regressive neocon warmongering plutocrat's ideological crusade to end collective bargaining for public sector employees...

 

overreaching just a little on the meaning of this report perhaps?

[Jim]

especially idealism like a living wage/pension

 

Wages fine. Unfunded pensions with auto increases despite the economy. No.

 

So another 6% from the WA budget. Where's should it come from in your opinion?

[j_b]

Some kind of variable bonus compensation that's indexed to economic growth over and above a particular floor would do wonders for aligning the incentives of the public and private sector workers, and would serve as an automatic belt tightening mechanism during recessions.

 

nice fairy tale. Only problem, it matches none of the reality of rising gross inequalities of the last 30 years during which the top 1% grabbed ~1/2 the growth in productivity and mostly stopped paying taxes.