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[RanchHQ]

Public-sector Unions Bleed Taxpayers to Help Dems

Obama's Democrats have used the financial crisis to expand the public sector and the public-sector unions. But voters seem to be saying, "Enough."

by Michael Barone
Growing up in Michigan in the heyday of the United Auto Workers, I long assumed that labor unions were part of the natural order of things.
That's no longer clear. Last month, the Labor Department reported that private-sector unions lost 834,000 members last year and now represent only 7.2 percent of private-sector employees. That's down from the all-time peak of 36 percent in 1953-54.

But union membership is still growing in the public sector. Last year, 37.4 percent of public sector employees were union members. That percentage was down near zero in the 1950s. For the first time in history, a majority of union members are government employees.

In my view, the outlook for both private- and public-sector unionism is problematic.

Private-sector unionism is adversarial. Economic studies show that such unions do extract premium wages and benefits from employers. But that puts employers at a competitive disadvantage. Back in the 1950s, the Big Three auto companies dominated the industry and were at the top of the Fortune 500. Last year, General Motors and Chrysler went bankrupt and are now owned by the government and the UAW. Ford only barely escaped.

Adversarial unionism tends to produce rigid work rules that retard adaptation and innovation. We have had a three-decade experiment pitting UAW work rules against the flexible management of Japanese- and European-owned non-union auto firms.

The results are in. Yes, clueless management at the Detroit firms for years ignored problems with product quality and made bonehead investment mistakes. But adversarial unionism made it much, much harder for Detroit to produce high-quality vehicles than it was for non-unionized companies.
As economist Barry Hirsch points out, non-union manufacturing employment rose from 12 million to 14 million between 1973 and 2006. In those years, union manufacturing employment dropped from 8 million to 2 million. "Unionism," Hirsch writes, "is a poor fit in a dynamic, competitive economy."

Moreover, federal laws passed since the 1950s now protect workers from racial and sex discrimination, safety hazards and pension failure. They don't need unions to do this any more.

Public-sector unionism is a very different animal from private-sector unionism. It is not adversarial but collusive. Public-sector unions strive to elect their management, which in turn can extract money from taxpayers to increase wages and benefits -- and can promise pensions that future taxpayers will have to fund.

The results are plain to see. States like New York, New Jersey and California, where public-sector unions are strong, now face enormous budget deficits and pension liabilities. In such states, the public sector has become a parasite sucking the life out of the private-sector economy. Not surprisingly, Americans have been steadily migrating out of such states and into states like Texas, where public-sector unions are weak and taxes are much lower.

Barack Obama is probably the most union-friendly president since Lyndon Johnson. He has obviously been unable to stop the decline of private-sector unionism. But he is doing his best to increase the power -- and dues income -- of public-sector unions.

One-third of last year's $787 billion stimulus package was aid to state and local governments -- an obvious attempt to bolster public-sector unions. And it was a successful one: While the private sector has lost 7 million jobs, the number of public-sector jobs has risen. The number of federal government jobs has been increasing by 10,000 a month, and the percentage of federal employees earning over $100,000 has jumped to 19 percent during the recession.

Obama and his party are acting in collusion with unions that contributed something like $400,000,000 to Democrats in the 2008 campaign cycle. Public-sector unionism tends to be a self-perpetuating machine that extracts money from taxpayers and then puts it on a conveyor belt to the Democratic Party.

But it may not turn out to be a perpetual-motion machine. Public-sector employees are still heavily outnumbered by those who depend on the private sector for their livelihoods. The next Congress may not be as willing as this one has been to bail out state governments dominated by public-sector unions. Voters may bridle at the higher taxes needed to pay for $100,000-plus pensions for public employees who retire in their 50s. Or they may move, as so many have already done, to states like Texas.

Obama's Democrats have used the financial crisis to expand the public sector and the public-sector unions. But voters seem to be saying, "Enough."

SOURCE: Michael Barone : Public-sector Unions Bleed Taxpayers to Help Dems - Townhall.com

[RanchHQ]

The Trouble With Government Jobs
Posted by: Michael Medved at 3:31 PM

President Obama backs government programs to create new jobs, but how will he pay those new salaries?

Ultimately, the only source for this money will be more tax burdens imposed on those who work in the private sector. Government jobs never pay for themselves, since it’s not government’s purpose to make a profit or to break even, so taxes from the shrinking private economy must support the swelling public economy.

Since the beginning of the recession in 2008, the federal work force has already expanded by nearly 10 percent, while private sector jobs went down by more than 6 percent. In other words, fewer people are employed privately, but are forced to pay for more and more people who are employed publicly. This means more government expenses but less potential revenue, and less productive private sector activity—a surefire formula for national bankruptcy.

[RanchHQ]

FROM: GM Chief Gets $9 Million Pay Package - WSJ.com


FEBRUARY 19, 2010, 6:29 P.M. ET
GM Chief Gets $9 Million Pay Package

BY SHARON TERLEP

General Motors Co. Chief Executive Ed Whitacre will receive a pay package valued at $9 million to help turn around the government-owned auto maker, according to a regulatory filing.

Mr. Whitacre, according to the filing, will receive a $1.7 million base salary this year. The rest of his compensation is comprised of $5.3 million in stock available to him beginning in 2012 and restricted stock units valued currently at $2 million.

General Motors stock closed at $0.59 today.

[RanchHQ]

USA Today: Average federal employee makes $38,000+ more than private sector worker

By: Mark Hemingway
Commentary Staff Writer
03/05/10 1:25 PM EST

USA Today has been doing some excellent anaysis on the federal workforce. But the headline "Federal pay ahead of private industry" really understates things:

Federal employees earn higher average salaries than private-sector workers in more than eight out of 10 occupations, a USA TODAY analysis of federal data finds.

Accountants, nurses, chemists, surveyors, cooks, clerks and janitors are among the wide range of jobs that get paid more on average in the federal government than in the private sector.

Overall, federal workers earned an average salary of $67,691 in 2008 for occupations that exist both in government and the private sector, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data. The average pay for the same mix of jobs in the private sector was $60,046 in 2008, the most recent data available.

But that's just part of the picture. Throw in benefits and you see a huge gap between federal and private pay:

These salary figures do not include the value of health, pension and other benefits, which averaged $40,785 per federal employee in 2008 vs. $9,882 per private worker, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis.

Throw in benefits, and the average federal worker makes $38,000+ more than the average private sector worker -- the very same one who's ultimately paying his salary.

In December, USA Today was also responsible for reporting "federal employees making salaries of $100,000 or more jumped from 14% to 19% of civil servants during the recession's first 18 months."

Read more at the Washington Examiner: http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/beltway-confidential/USA-Today-Average-federal-employee-makes-38000-more-than-private-sector-worker-86633182.html#ixzz0hRFf0X6p

[Luke]

The top 3 richest counties in America are all in the Washington, D.C. suburbs. Go figure.

1. County: Loudoun County, Va.

Population: 277,433
Median Household Income: $110,643.00
Percent of Residents 25 or Older with Bachelor's Degree or Higher: 58

2. County: Fairfax County, Va.

Population: 1,005,980
Median Household Income: $106,785.00
Percent of Residents 25 or Older with Bachelor's Degree or Higher: 60

3. County: Howard County, Md.

Population: 272,412
Median Household Income: $101,710.00
Percent of Residents 25 or Older with Bachelor's Degree or Higher: 60

americas-richest-counties: Personal Finance News from Yahoo! Finance