response

I work in IT and have for almost 5 decades. One of the intellectual exercises we perform when "something has gone wrong" or as we sterilely say an "incident", is called "root cause analysis". That exercise is not beloved of most because one has to ask hard questions and often get hard answers, unpopular questions and unpopular answers.

In the case of the current federal, state and local government budget crises, trying to do that, in almost all cases, causes a political outcry. So it is avoided. It was certainly avoided in your editorial "State of the Unions." To your credit you did mention "get long-term entitlement costs under control."

The problem far exceeds that.

The scandalous financial crises over the years have laid bare the unsustainable nature of government policy at all levels going back decades. The state workers feel like victims - they are. But then so are and will be present and future citizens of the state and the nation - our children and grandchildren. It is difficult to name any public (or more than a few private) policies that are sustainable. As I write this, the price of gasoline is soaring. Nobody's budget for fuel costs going forward is adequate. That will ripple through the world economy.

Until realistic analysis of the future costs and available resources are made, the most endangered species is humanity. The root cause is a failure to understand and act on the insight of Gn 1:28a - God blessed them, saying: "Be fertile and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it."

One can only fill what is finite. What is finite has limits. When you get to the limit, that is all there is. When you get near the limit, the scramble for the diminishing amount left is not pretty.

stimulus: State of the Unions

The newly elected Republican governor of Wisconsin, Scott Walker, wants to balance his state's budget by slashing the wages and benefits of state employees and eliminating most of their collective-bargaining rights for good measure.

This deeply cynical attack on workers' rights brought tens of thousands of protesters to the Capitol in Madison and induced the Democrats in the Wisconsin senate to flee the state, thus denying Republicans a quorum and stymieing the governor's plans, at least temporarily. These tactics are not likely to stop Walker's legislation in the long run, however, and its passage will be a blow both to economic justice and to good government.

Few knowledgeable people doubt that the medical and pension benefits of most unionized state employees need to be renegotiated if the states are to balance their budgets and get long-term entitlement costs under control, a fact already conceded by Wisconsin's unions. For decades, too many governors have signed off on generous benefit packages for state workers, leaving their successors to figure out how to pay for it all. But to suggest, as Walker and a number of other Republican governors have, that the current fiscal problems in the states have been caused by the unions is scapegoating. The states have been plunged into the red by the ongoing effects of the recession, which was caused not by unions but by the financial skullduggery of bankers (see Charles R. Morris, "The Two Economies"). The worst recession since the Depression dramatically reduced tax revenues while simultaneously increasing the need for social services. Stimulus money from Washington helped the states balance their budgets over the past few years, but Republicans in Congress have put an end to such "bailouts." A combination of higher taxes and government belt-tightening is now needed--in other words, shared sacrifice, not political pandering. Illinois and Connecticut are trying to implement such fiscally responsible policies. Governor Walker has chosen the low road, exploiting the economic fears of voters by demonizing public employees. (Or most public employees: his legislation shamelessly exempts the unions that supported his candidacy, such as firefighter and police unions.)

The right of workers to unionize and bargain with employers for a living wage and decent medical, disability, and retirement benefits is a long-standing principle of Catholic social teaching, enunciated in unambiguous terms in encyclicals issued by nearly every pope from Leo XIII to Benedict XVI. Wisconsin's Catholic bishops and other religious leaders have voiced their opposition to Walker's proposal and their support for the unions and the rights of workers to collective bargaining. Economic justice, not economic growth, is the cornerstone of the church's social teaching. It condemns the social and material damage done when employees and their families are treated as voiceless underlings or disposable parts. It understands unions to be vital mediating institutions between the state or corporation and the otherwise isolated individual, who would be ineffective if she or he acted alone. The defense of the rights of workers is also one of the important ways in which the church supports and strengthens democratic institutions and government. Unions, like churches, civic and voluntary organizations, professional and business groups, families, and a host of other associations, are essential in creating the "social solidarity" we need in order to recognize what actions best promote the common good. It's true, of course, that unions sometimes abuse their power, and when they do they must be held accountable. But, without them, who holds employers accountable?

In the 1950s, a third of all American workers were union members. Today that number is less than 12 percent. Public employees now account for more than 50 percent of all unionized workers. As union membership has declined, so have all working- and middle-class incomes. At the same time, the concentration of wealth among the top 1 percent of earners has reached levels not seen since the 1920s. As Peter Steinfels points out in his review of Winner-Take-All Politics ("The Great Reversal"), "our democracy has become the most economically unequal nation in the advanced world." This did not happen by accident. Over the past three decades, business and corporate interests have spent billions to limit taxation, constrain the reach of government, delegitimize unions, and attack any effort to distribute the nation's wealth more equitably. Institutions that used to look out for the welfare of the average American worker have disappeared or looked the other way--and that includes the Democratic Party. Is it any wonder that the average citizen is so alienated from government or that the nation's politics have become so bitter and confrontational?

For democracy to work, citizens must organize to defend their legitimate interests. For the market to work--for everyone--workers must have a say in the decisions that affect them and their families. That is what unions are for. The weaker the bargaining power of unions, the fainter the voice of the people becomes.

- the Editors cw2011Mar11

the votes are in

http://www.politicsdaily.com/2009/12/30/the-top-15-winners-and-losers-of-2009/

the new compassion

kicking someone while their down

you don't have to agree with everything this woman has to say, but

most of it is good and she says it well.

my reply

Well written Ms Goldstein. I do not agree with some of the asides, but the thrust is appropriate.

The bottom line is his child and that child's inheritance from his father. Which is better: to have money or self-respect and dignity?

The root value is: it is better to teach your child values than to give gold.

Or are "values" a dirty word?

have a cow man!

http://www.uscatholic.org/blog/2009/10/simpsons-vs-donohue-whos-gone-too-far

so if the music were really music

how could it be used to torture people?

putting lipstick on a cobra

http://www.newsmax.com//insidecover/talibam_field_manual/2009/07/30/241800.html

lies, damned lies and the facts

http://www.politicsdaily.com/2009/07/08/sarah-barracuda-palin-and-the-piranhas-of-the-press/?icid=mainhtmlws-maindl1link4http%3A%2F%2Fwww.politicsdaily.com%2F2009%2F07%2F08%2Fsarah-barracuda-palin-and-the-piranhas-of-the-press%2F

splain this to me Lucy!

cutting tax incentives for employer-provided insurance is intended to
discourage unnecessary use of medical services - Eugene Steuerle, vice
president of the Peter G. Peterson Foundation, a non-profit federal budget
watchdog group q.http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=a3wUXb42NPX0

Symbionese Liberation Parolee

rich and liberal gets her out of jail and out of CA

Sarah Palin

Why does the Democratic party attack th governor of AK and why are they so successful in using her as a fund raising point of darkness?

First she is a woman and a Republican. Teh Democrats think they are the party of and for women and resent any poaching in their preserve. This is a mirror image of the Democrat response to the existance of a black Republican, or even a Republican who is a person of color. How dare the Republican Party try to be as broad as the Democratic Party?

Second she is a woman and a mother. She has a career. She is successful. How dare she! The tisking directed at her daughter's pregnancy was criticism of mothering skills. Assuming this is fair game, when has this ever been done against the Democrats? Was Rose Kennedy criticised for the philandering of one son or the questionable lack of taking responsibility by another?

Third and least evident but most important is the First Gentleman of AK. No one has talked much about the fact that he is a blue-collar worker -- and a union member. A successful career woman with a blue-collar husband -- outrageous. That is not a model the Party of Women want to catch on. Next thing you know there will be Republican candidates who are blue collar workers -- or horror of horrors -- union members. Not only will union members be voting for Republican candidates which is bad enough, the candidate will be one of them.

In the interest of full disclosure, I am a life-long Republican and white collar worker with advanced degrees. My children are a Sgt in the Infantry, and a techer of disadvantaged children with two children of her own. Their spouses are a white collar government worker with two children of her own, and a former blue collar worker in construction now doing whatever can be done to run a construction site without having a degree.

shocked, simply shocked

all God's children

Election Loophole Allows Non Citizens to Vote

And in Chicago this is news how? The dead have traditionally voted. I suspect both Mayor Daleys still vote. The current one and his father.

Electile dysfunction

None of the candidates raise my interest. - ap's whiteboard

yet another very fine whine

The Greatest African American

Fine NOLA whine

We're tied up in between whether this is going to be a red state or a blue state. You have a Democratic governor and a Republican president and there is all sorts of tension there and it's slowed things down tremendously. - New Orleans Mayor C. Ray Nagin 2007Aug explaining the sluggish recovery of NOLA q.Jacqueline Adams CNN

SFB in public sector

Dear Jeff Mullis (R-Chickamauga)

Let me get this clear. You are not a State Senator from TN. You are not a US Senator from TN. You are State Senator from GA. Ok so you are the chair of the GA Senate's Transportation Committee so thinking about airports is on your plate. And your district is up near TN.

Are you a SFB? Where is your allegiance?

What about an airport in GA? What could the Republican Party do to attract more votes outside of the ATL suburbs? How about an airport south of the city where development is a bit sparse, not north of metro ATL where things are booming?

Let's blue sky:

Draw a line between Macon and Columbus. Go halfway between and a bit north. Lots of agricultual land with not enough water -- those of us in metro and to the north want it. Buy land. Build an airport.

ATL wants to build a new terminal for $1.5 billion. Probably could do this new airport for about that much. S GA wants development and could use roads. Build high speed roads to Macon and Columbus. Build high speed rail to ATL. Put it underground for security.

What do you have?

If weather causes a problem at ATL, you have a place to send planes without diverting them to places not connected to ATL.

Congestion reliever for ATL -- notice how long planes wait on runways at ATL.

Lots of jobs in places where the government has long said it wants to increase jobs.

Good connections between the metro area and two other centers of population -- within GA.

I'll wager if you and your comrades under the golden Dome can surface your heads you can come up with more advantages.

the voting Republican but fed up with stupidity pup

p.s. Maybe we need a new political party -- the Progressive Conservative Party -- its motto:

I'm not with stupid