Follow Through, Part 2

So awhile back, I wrote a column called “follow through,” that suggested that Republicans and conservatives follow through their political philosophies to examine what kind of fruit they would bear if they were enacted. Given the recent uproar about unions in Wisconsin and other states, entitlement spending (Medicare and Social Security), and state and federal deficits, it might be wise to see what would happen if the Republicans were to got their way.
Let’s begin with the union issue. First off, I’ll agree that in hard economic times, unions have a social responsibility to take less in pay and benefits—to do otherwise would be to shut down certain necessary civic functions, such as teaching, nursing, fire fighting, public safety, etc., and that is not fair to the taxpaying public. However, governments, whether state or federal, have a responsibility to pay these people a fair wage and provide decent benefits, precisely because they are so necessary to each and every U.S. citizen.
Ultimately, this means the right to collectively bargain contracts, because a single individual simply does not have the power to compel the employer to provide fair wages and benefits; an individual is replaceable, so even if that means, say, firing a school’s best teacher, the impact to the student, while regrettable, can be justified. In such a system, wages would become unfair, especially when government revenue was low. On the other hand, firing a massive group of good teachers would impact education so tremendously, that such an act would be unthinkable—an option only to those with base motives. This is the power of collective bargaining—it allows a group of employees with a similar set of specific training and talents to attain fair compensation for their work.
Do unions sometimes go too far? Absolutely. But the right to collectively bargain isn’t at fault for union greed or poor judgment on the part of the arbiters. In fact, it could be argued that the right to collectively bargain is contained in the 1st Amendment, which states that: “Congress shall make no law…abridging…the right of the people to peaceably assemble.” Make no mistake, governments and businesses have the right to fire union workers if they cannot pay their contracts, as well as the right not to hire or renew the contracts of union workers. What they cannot do is deny workers the right to organize and collectively bargain.
But that could all change if Scott Walker, Governor of Wisconsin, gets his way. Walker has submitted a bill in the Wisconsin legislature that would eliminate the right of public employees to collectively bargain. This has sparked a number of protests by union workers, resulted in the shutdown of Madison area schools, and has Wisconsin’s Democratic representatives literally on the run (Wisconsin law requires a quorum, which means that at least one representative from the other party must be present in order to hold a vote; thus, by leaving, the Democrats are stalling the progress of the bill—a sort of traveling filibuster).
While it remains to be seen what is actually going to happen in Wisconsin, let’s assume Walker gets his way and outlaws collective bargaining for public employees. The first things to go will be health insurance, simply because other than a worker’s salary, it is the most expensive benefit. Of course, this includes not only the worker, but their family as well, so the number of uninsured in Wisconsin will skyrocket. In turn, health clinics will lose some, if not much of their regular, preventative business, while hospitals will receive more patients in their emergency rooms, driving up the cost of insurance for other citizens in Wisconsin. The result: higher premiums for private citizens and businesses and poorer health outcomes for many of Wisconsin’s citizens.
Worse, should Wisconsin’s government, under Walker’s direction, choose to cut salaries and retirement pensions, there will be an obvious drop-off for Wisconsin’s economy that extends beyond healthcare. Consumer spending will sag, real estate values will fall, and businesses will have to sell to a smaller customer base.
Conservatives may say that these cuts are necessary, and they may be right to a certain degree, but why not allow unions a place at the table to negotiate where and how the cuts are made, knowing that the state of Wisconsin has to balance its budget?
The truth is that Walker’s move is not simply about money—it’s a political calculation. Essentially, Walker is eliminating his competition. Unions tend to back Democrats in elections. No dues and no right to organize as workers means that a significant portion of his opposition will be absent in the next election—and that’s to leave out the possibility that it is payback for opposing him in the first place. If this sounds at all familiar, it’s probably because you’ve heard it before when you learned about the 19th and early 20th century in your U.S. History class.
On the federal level, Republicans are clamoring to go back to the era of Robber Barons in their own way: by cutting the notorious “entitlement” programs Medicare and Social Security (I don’t know how it can be an entitlement when every citizen pays taxes out of every paycheck to know that they will have these programs when they reach a certain age). And, basically, if Republicans get their way, the things that would happen in Wisconsin if they outlaw collective bargaining for public employees would happen nationally, only on a much larger and more horrific scale.
Consider what would happen if Medicare were curtailed or cut significantly. Seniors would now have to buy private insurance to subsidize what is left of Medicare. This insurance would of course be enormously expensive, because the elderly use a ton of health care, and much of it is very expensive. Ultimately, when the money dried up, families would be forced to make an awful decision: do we keep grandpa alive and spend enormous sums of money to do it, or is it just to expensive to justify for a man that might only live for 5 more years. Oh, but I suppose there is always the option that we’d just have many, many more admissions to the emergency room, and many, many more people that couldn’t pay the bill when they left, which everyone else’s insurance gets to fill in the gaps.
Now suppose on top of that, our Republican friends decide to cut Social Security. Get out of bed grandma—time to go back to work! You get to stop when you die. This may be the extreme, but a number of terrible things would occur: 1) retirement would be delayed significantly, leading to less opportunity for younger workers, 2) a significant number of people would fail to save enough for retirement, leaving families the burden to pick up the cost and/or the terrible proposition of many elderly facing financial ruin while they near death, and 3) there would simply be less money in the economy.
This final factor is the ultimate problem with what Republicans are proposing. Simply put, when dollars are cut for entitlements, public employees, etc, it means a good number of people won’t have money to spend, and that is not a good thing for an economy that is just beginning to get back on its feet. Our very fragile recovery’s success is put in jeopardy with every cost cutting measure. That is a fact.
At the same time, no one can deny that the current levels of spending at both state and federal levels are too high, and the federal deficit is a very real problem that is going to require the government to tighten its belt. The question is where we make those cuts. If we make them in social programs, public employees, etc, it is a double edged sword, because if the economy slows down as it would with these kinds of cuts, the government’s tax revenues will drop as well; then the question becomes whether you save more with the cuts than you lose concurrently with lower tax revenues?
The truth is, if we’re serious about the debt, the only sane thing to do is to cut areas that would have less of an effect on the domestic economy, such as military spending, procurements, and foreign aid. The other thing that has to be done is to figure out ways to increase tax revenue, and the best way to do this without harming the economy is to tax the very wealthy at a higher rate, and eliminate tax loopholes for multinational corporations, i.e. big oil.
But we know the Republicans won’t do these things, and so far all the Democrats have done is talk about them. Cutting government spending sounds really great, but if Republicans get their way and cut the programs they want to cut, we should all get used to 10% unemployment, a bad economy, and little opportunity for the average American to better themselves.