Government Workers Live Well
A recent article in Budget & Tax News from the Heartland Institute points up how government workers often get better wages and benefits that the public they are supposed to serve.
For 50 years, public-sector unions, health care lobbyists, and social services advocacy groups have doggedly been amassing power in state capitols and city halls, using their influence to inflate pay and benefits for their workers and to boost government spending. The bill for that influence is now coming due, and it is overwhelming state and local budgets.
Hawaii’s economy is still doing well so everyone is eyeing the budget “surplus” for their favorite interests but this report notes how the increased spending eventually catches up with state and local governments and overwhelms them forcing yet more tax increases. Thus this state is poised to make the same mistakes that other states did during the 1990s boom, which Hawaii didn’t participate in.
The tidal wave of local government spending that produced this crisis built up as tax revenues poured into state and municipal coffers during the 1990s boom. State tax collections rose by 86 percent, or about $250 billion, from 1990 through 2001, while local property tax collections soared by $90 billion, or 60 percent, during a period when inflation increased by a mere 30 percent.
Rather than give surpluses back to taxpayers, government went on a spending spree, lavishing opulent pensions on employees and expanding politically popular health and education programs.
The next quote states Hawaii’s position precisely since this state some of the highest union membership in the nation.
Unions and social services groups were perfectly positioned to funnel this flood of surplus tax revenues into their pockets rather than back to the taxpayers. Starting with virtually no representation in the public sector 50 years ago, unions have relentlessly organized workers, so that in some states as many as 60 to 70 percent of public employees now are members.
The article then goes on to explain how government employee medical retirement and pension benefits are surpassing those in the private sector, as has been well evident of late.