Quantum Windbag
Gold Member
- May 9, 2010
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"And your solution is to ignore the problem?"
Not at at all.
I'm not ignoring the problem, merely pointing out the error of solving it via the wrong path.
First, we have identied a problem.
Checks and balances have to be applied to it. Now that we admit that greed and self-aggrandizement are part of the human condition...we adjust for same.
a. The free market should determine salaries.
b. If, as has happened, there are feather-bedding positons, there should be a basis for eliminating them. I suggest that human nature will provide the answer: monetary rewards for those in the field who can point out positions that are redundant and unnecessary...for example, teachers no doubt will be able to point out better ways to excess administration positions.
Tenure can be eliminated. Easily. It was done in NYC for supervisors, by offering extra bonuses if tenure was eliminated.
I'm a strong believer in vouchers and charter schools. They can set their own salary scales.
Sanitation was once five men to a truck, now it is two.
Elected officials need to face criminal charges if they sign off on excessive raises, perqs, etc...and there should be no time limitations, if they did not anticipate long term over-runs, they would still be subject to charges.
We should expect realistic appraisal of costs, and of return on pension funds. This expertise is a requirement of the position.
Workers should be made to understand years in advance what the changes would be, so that they can plan ahead, look for other employment, etc.
The same for entitlements.
Heavily taxing entrepreneurs sends exactly the wrong message if we rather incentivize private sector employment, over public.
Off the top of my head, that would be a start. I'm sure there are bright people, Solons, who can move us along.
But it is wrong to demonize these workers.
No one, repeat is demonizing the workers. That is just a tactic by one side to make the other side look like the big bad evil guys. By repeating it you are not even attempting to solve the problem, you are perpetuating it. The problem is not the workers, it is the simple fact that we cannot sustain the pensions the unions, and the politicians they elected, promised them.
Public employees are not subject to the free market. They work for a monopoly, and get a job that is hard to loose. If they do not like the pay they get, they are free to leave the public sector, join the private sector, and prove they are worth the money they claim they are.
Teachers are not an exception to this. They should realize that they do not have to compete for their wages, and stop complaining about the fact they make less money than the private sector. The truth is that most private sector teachers make significantly less than public sector teachers. If we stopped paying public school teachers so much money that we cannot afford basic schools supplies. Either that, or eliminate the administrative positions from the schools, and allow parents to determine school policy, and overseen by the local, and maybe the state, government.
Baby steps would have worked a few decades ago, or even a few years ago, but the situation has reached the point where the only answer is drastic change. We either need to eliminate unions in the public sector, including the teachers, or we will face a massive debt crisis that we cannot ignore.