As I have said before we should talk about religion and politics rather than ignore them in normal conversation. But we do need to learn to talk about them without rancor and incivility. With that said, let me weigh in on the recent Gov. Scott initiative on limiting union power in the state which has started a national controversy.
The founders of the country and the early practitioners of the free enterprise system, never envisioned mega companies that abused their employees or the resulting unions which wrestled their fair share, and more, of the economic pie. I like to think I am pro business and pro union as a part of our checks and balances in our economic system. And, I believe both naturally and consistently overstep their personal agendas at the expense of others (root cause of inflation). I further believe that individual income ought to have some connection with the value of the good or service a person produces or provides of the common good; a concept that seems to have become increasing foreign to common thinking. The current thinking seems to be just grab as much of the economic pie as you can get for yourself and the hell with others.
Do I think that modern unions have overstepped their grab of the economic pie? Yes!
Do I think that businesses have overstepped their grab of the economic pie? Yes!
I also think that the swing of the economic pendulum has swung predominantly toward the business side, particularly the upper management and money brokers of our society since the beginning of the 80’s.
I also believe that it is almost impossible to over pay teachers for what they provide to our society. And, I believe we have less and less competent teachers in the system due to lack of pay and the means to pay for them and do hold them in as high esteem they belief.
Gov. Scott’s justifies his legislative move to limit teacher pay on budget deficits, which I find a fallacious argument. The Wisconsin budget, while troubled is not nearly as troubled as most states today. More importantly previous to his move on teacher unions last month he gave away $117 million in tax breaks to businesses (mainly to aid expand and aid private health accounts. (numbers taken from a Washingon Post article.) In other words he played a major role in the budget deficit.
We need to have balanced budgets but there are lots of ways of going about that. The major issue I believe we face in this country in a completely out of control tax systems that subsidizes the ultra rich and a medical system that is ridiculously expensive and does not provide adequate care for our citizenry. These are the issues that state and national government need to address. The economic pie is large enough to deal with these issues but we have done a rotten job of allocation largely based on a citizenry that values its own vested self interests over the good of the whole and a tiny portion of ultra rich that have bought the government and use it for self interest, not the public good.
We need to work very hard to educate ourselves to try and understate the common good and work towards a system that benefits all, not just the few. We could begin by working to restrict lobbyists, adjusting the tax system and start to debate without rancor. Take the government back not by condemning those who we elected to pursue our self interest but to write and encourage them to do the right thing. To promote statesmen to run for government and not just politicians that cater to whims or fiduciary inducements of a few.
No comments:
Post a Comment