A truly hilarious “news” story in today’s Herald shows the lengths to which right-wing activists (disguised as non-partisan intellectuals), together with their enablers in the media, will go to further their agenda.
“Massachusetts could go a long way to resolving the budget crisis if the leaders on Beacon Hill had the same courage as the political leaders in Wisconsin,” said David Tuerck, executive director of the Beacon Hill Institute, a conservative think tank….
A similar move in Massachusetts would save “hundreds of millions,” said Jim Stergios, executive director of the Pioneer Institute, by decreasing the nearly $2 billion the state pays for pensions, retiree health benefits and other benefits.
“There are many, many impacts of this in terms of savings, but above all it would allow for far greater management rights,” Stergios said. “The potential savings on pensions, (local) health-care benefits and retiree health-care benefits are in the hundreds of millions.” …
Officials with the conservative Center for Union Facts estimate that “at minimum” the Bay State could save $250 million if they follow Wisconsin’s lead.
Rick Berman, executive director of the Washington D.C.-based union watchdog, said public sector workers get paid 5 percent more in salaries and benefits than their private-sector counterparts…. Using the center’s 5 percent compensation differential, that means the state government could save a minimum $250 million a year if its workers got the same pay and benefits as private-sector workers. The state spends about $5 billion a year on employee salaries and benefits.
Many of these numbers are, of course, completely made up. Most absurd is the amusingly-entitled “Center for Union Facts” – “a secretive front group for individuals and industries opposed to union activities” – which appears to have pulled its claim that public sector workers are paid 5% more than their private-sector counterparts right out of its bum. The truth, of course, is much more complicated. Some public sector workers make more than their private sector counterparts; others make less. (Here are a couple of links; Google reveals many more.) So the 5% number has meaning if, and only if, when you work through all the thousands of Massachusetts public employee jobs and their private-sector counterparts, you end up with an overall differential of 5%. I suppose that’s possible … but I find it exceedingly unlikely, and I find it even more unlikely that anyone at the “Center for Union Facts” has bothered to actually do that very detailed and difficult analysis.
Now, that’s not to say that you can’t save money by slashing public employee jobs, salaries, pensions, and benefits. Of course you can – it’s inescapably and also trivially true that if you spend less on public employees, you will save money. But that’s the wrong question. The right, and much more difficult, question is how to find the proper balance between safeguarding the public fisc and paying a fair amount for the public services that most sane people think we need. And no, “sane people” does not include people who want to eliminate public schools.
What’s perhaps most disappointing is that, in the course of “reporting,” the Heraldistas seem to have felt no obligation to question something like the 5% number, or even bother to ask someone who might have a different view. I shouldn’t be surprised at that kind of thing by now, but I guess I’m just a cockeyed optimist.