4 ms·

Instead of cutting public employees numbers, their salaries or pension plans, they're focusing on cutting the actual benefits the state provides for its people.

Instead of cutting public employees numbers, their salaries or pension plans, they're focusing on cutting the actual benefits the state provides for its people. Say hello to the inherent incentive structure of government.

hga 17y ago
Maybe ... in this case the current proposal on the table is to make it optional. For a significant subset of students, the ones who the school system is essentially warehousing, that strikes me as OK. After all, a high school degree nowadays is essentially worthless, a basic college degree has replaced it. There's the danger of the slippery slope, of course.
- dsplittgerber 17y ago
  The danger of arguing about these proposals - they may very well be worthy of separate appraisal - is that one accepts the basic principle that in times of receding tax revenues it's ok to cut benefits for the taxpayers but not to downsize the actual legislature or governing body with its employees as well. It's a perfect smoke screen on the part of the legislature.
  - hga 17y ago
    Hmmm, maybe you shouldn't try to couple the two? I.e. accept "benefits" cuts in times of "receding tax revenues" (never let a crisis got to waste :-) and on a separate tack work on the much harder problem you and everyone else who's sane is worried about. Although ... my narrowly divided purple state of Missouri is not having serious problems with public sector employees, and how much do you want to bet that Utah is having even less?
  - euroclydon 17y ago
    I was doing some work for the Office of the Speaker of the House in California, which is huge and employees hundreds of people. They are paid by the state. A guy there told me that when the is a gov. shutdown, they get IOUs for months. Plus they do get laid off also.
    - hga 17y ago
      Do some searching and you'll find that California is one of the worst examples of the capture of a state government by public sector unions ... worse at least in that it's probably closest to the brink financially (New York at least has the excuse of the collapse of the financial sector). However legislatures tend to be a special case, e.g. the employees of the Congress are not covered by all the employment laws that are enforced by the Executive.
    - dsplittgerber 17y ago
      "According to a 2007 analysis of data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics by the Asbury Park Press, “the average federal worker made $59,864 in 2005, compared with the average salary of $40,505 in the private sector.” Across comparable jobs, the federal government paid higher salaries than the private sector three times out of four, the paper found." There is an eye-opening story in Reason magazine on how public servants have it much better than private sector workers: http://reason.com/archives/2010/01/12/class-war http://reason.com/archives/2010/01/12/class-war
- Jach 17y ago
  The proposal is essentially worthless, though. The entirety of high school (not just 12th grade) is already optional: just take the GED. And it's not very hard if you're determined enough to graduate in 11th grade with a full diploma. (I would have done that if AP classes hadn't interested me.)
  - hga 17y ago
    Yeah ... but federal and generally state money is tied to attendance, so perhaps the state needs to step in like this and make it formal? And in my state of Missouri in 1979 to get my diploma I had to take 12th grade (which due to bad or mediocre teachers was almost entirely a waste of time: it's a bad sign when you're taking English Lit, Physics, Trig and Calculus, etc. and your 2nd year of JROTC is by far the best, most interesting and most useful class).
- stan_rogers 17y ago
  The "slippery slope" in my neck of the woods was the elimination of Grade 13. Yes, we had one of those here in Ontario, Canada -- and it was a university (as opposed to college) prep year. I never finished it (I was too cool for school at the time, and Grade 13 was just a brief return visit after a period of serious professional "truancy"), but my course of studies consisted of three sciences (physics, biology and chemistry) and four maths ("abstract algebra", "functions, relations and matrices", calculus, and statistics). Admittedly, first-year university studies in the province were hell for people coming from outside of Ontario (or for anybody who loaded their schedules with courses that didn't fit their university program).
  - hga 17y ago
    Was it ever non-optional? I.e. what was the slide down the slope from A to B?
    - stan_rogers 17y ago
      It was non-optional if you wished to attend university. Grade 12 would get you into community college, but without it you needed to wait long enough after graduation to qualify as a mature student. And no, a GED would not do.

hga 17y ago

Maybe ... in this case the current proposal on the table is to make it optional. For a significant subset of students, the ones who the school system is essentially warehousing, that strikes me as OK. After all, a high school degree nowadays is essentially worthless, a basic college degree has replaced it. There's the danger of the slippery slope, of course.

dsplittgerber 17y ago
The danger of arguing about these proposals - they may very well be worthy of separate appraisal - is that one accepts the basic principle that in times of receding tax revenues it's ok to cut benefits for the taxpayers but not to downsize the actual legislature or governing body with its employees as well. It's a perfect smoke screen on the part of the legislature.
- hga 17y ago
  Hmmm, maybe you shouldn't try to couple the two? I.e. accept "benefits" cuts in times of "receding tax revenues" (never let a crisis got to waste :-) and on a separate tack work on the much harder problem you and everyone else who's sane is worried about. Although ... my narrowly divided purple state of Missouri is not having serious problems with public sector employees, and how much do you want to bet that Utah is having even less?
- euroclydon 17y ago
  I was doing some work for the Office of the Speaker of the House in California, which is huge and employees hundreds of people. They are paid by the state. A guy there told me that when the is a gov. shutdown, they get IOUs for months. Plus they do get laid off also.
  - hga 17y ago
    Do some searching and you'll find that California is one of the worst examples of the capture of a state government by public sector unions ... worse at least in that it's probably closest to the brink financially (New York at least has the excuse of the collapse of the financial sector). However legislatures tend to be a special case, e.g. the employees of the Congress are not covered by all the employment laws that are enforced by the Executive.
  - dsplittgerber 17y ago
    "According to a 2007 analysis of data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics by the Asbury Park Press, “the average federal worker made $59,864 in 2005, compared with the average salary of $40,505 in the private sector.” Across comparable jobs, the federal government paid higher salaries than the private sector three times out of four, the paper found." There is an eye-opening story in Reason magazine on how public servants have it much better than private sector workers: http://reason.com/archives/2010/01/12/class-war http://reason.com/archives/2010/01/12/class-war
Jach 17y ago
The proposal is essentially worthless, though. The entirety of high school (not just 12th grade) is already optional: just take the GED. And it's not very hard if you're determined enough to graduate in 11th grade with a full diploma. (I would have done that if AP classes hadn't interested me.)
- hga 17y ago
  Yeah ... but federal and generally state money is tied to attendance, so perhaps the state needs to step in like this and make it formal? And in my state of Missouri in 1979 to get my diploma I had to take 12th grade (which due to bad or mediocre teachers was almost entirely a waste of time: it's a bad sign when you're taking English Lit, Physics, Trig and Calculus, etc. and your 2nd year of JROTC is by far the best, most interesting and most useful class).
stan_rogers 17y ago
The "slippery slope" in my neck of the woods was the elimination of Grade 13. Yes, we had one of those here in Ontario, Canada -- and it was a university (as opposed to college) prep year. I never finished it (I was too cool for school at the time, and Grade 13 was just a brief return visit after a period of serious professional "truancy"), but my course of studies consisted of three sciences (physics, biology and chemistry) and four maths ("abstract algebra", "functions, relations and matrices", calculus, and statistics). Admittedly, first-year university studies in the province were hell for people coming from outside of Ontario (or for anybody who loaded their schedules with courses that didn't fit their university program).
- hga 17y ago
  Was it ever non-optional? I.e. what was the slide down the slope from A to B?
  - stan_rogers 17y ago
    It was non-optional if you wished to attend university. Grade 12 would get you into community college, but without it you needed to wait long enough after graduation to qualify as a mature student. And no, a GED would not do.