Unemployment and the Public Sector

Today is a big day in Wisconsin, as voters there decide whether to recall Governor Scott Walker for his efforts to break public sector unions in that state. I saw a brief exchange on Facebook between two acquaintances that illustrates the strange logic of Walker's position, and reflects some of the trouble in our current political discourse.

In response to one friend's rooting for Wisconsin voters to "get it done," another wrote "I agree. Show the unions they can't just get rid of a governor for doing what he promised he would do in the election. Unions are bankrupting the state. As they are other states."

So what does this response argue, in effect? 

First, it assumes that Wisconsin has a very large budget deficit, and that such a deficit amounts to "bankruptcy." Is that true? Using its traditional methods of counting (discussed here by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel), Wisconsin did have a fiscal gap of about $3 billion -- that is, in 2011 they paid out more than they took in. But this calculation does not constitute "bankruptcy" the way it might for individuals and private companies. Especially in times of economic downturn, government may face budget shortfalls because tax revenue drops and social service demands increase. This is not bankruptcy, it's fulfilling the responsibility of government, which is to "promote the general welfare," among other things. Government is not a profit-seeking venture.

Second, the Facebook reply contends that unions are responsible for whatever budget problems Wisconsin has. There can be no denying that salaries constitute an enormous percentage of any state budget. People are expensive. And insofar as unions protect the interests of those workers, unions are responsible for raising the cost of government in Wisconsin. If union rules cause a loss of efficiency or result in unnecessary work, then unions might be said to cause a real loss in value in Wisconsin. But it is not the unions that are expensive, it's the services. The Facebook reply is therefore mistaken in an important way.

And herein lies a problem with the nature of our national discourse. Rather than assessing the value of government services, we argue about whether "government" is good at all. Does the GOP want there to be no roads, or police, or schools, or parks, or sewers? Of course not. Does it want the best price for those services? Of course, and the Democrats need to pay attention to such issues and respond to them responsibly.

(By the way, the man who complained about public sector pay on Facebook is a soldier in the US Army. I wonder whether he sees any irony. Does he assume that the need for soldiers is just a lot more obvious than the need for teachers?)

But what about those costs? Let's say government workers lose negotiating power, and then lose health benefits as a result. Who foots that bill? Well, the government does, because people don't stop getting sick when they lose insurance, they just stop getting access to primary care doctors. And then what? They go to the emergency room, which is paid for by the state, unless we say that the ill and injured just have to die ... which might run contrary to the "pro life agenda," in certain ironic ways.

Finally, if we are concerned about unemployment and its effect on the economy, then Walker has it wrong. Cutting state jobs only means that all those workers need to find employment somewhere else, and in a downturn they won't find it easily. So, what happens then? The state has to pick up the cost of having more unemployed people, either by providing benefits or by facing the social and political costs that incur. 

In other words, Walker may have some things right. Government may be inefficient, and that waste might make economic recovery slower. But the way he went about talking and acting on that observation was such nonsense that it led not to a solution but to a apolitical distraction like the one today. We have to settle down and say real things to each other if we are going to fix anything.