Taxpayers Are From Mars, Unions Are From Venus
While San Diego has some unique attributes – most notably our near-perfect weather – it’s no different than many other cities in at least one notable respect; when times were good, city politicians acquiesced to public employee labor unions’ insatiable appetite for higher salaries and ever more generous benefits for its members.
It was a pretty good deal for everyone involved – until the music stopped and revenues fell through the floor. Faced with having to confront the very labor bosses who helped get them elected in the first place, our politicians chose to intentionally underfund those generous benefits and “pass the buck” for the next set of politicians to deal with.
Local labor union bosses saw the changing of the guard coming, and invested heavily in recent elections to make sure that the next crop of politicians would be the right kind. You know the kind that would know to return the favor when push came to shove. And with the Obama wave of 2008, the unions ran the table in local elections. [article]
So as our city struggled with its budget deficit in recent years, it made all the “easy” cuts first, followed by some minor salary and pension reforms for new hires. It never dealt with the 800 pound gorilla in this equation; the overly generous lifetime pension and health care benefits that existing city employees continued to enjoy.
Over the years the city had also taken it upon itself to provide all kinds of services in-house; everything from a print shop to vehicle maintenance and dozens of other non-core services, all of which – conveniently – added to the ranks of local union members. While the rest of America had learned the benefits of outsourcing, that fell on deaf ears here.
So in 2006 mayor Jerry Sanders and councilmembers Kevin Faulconer and Carl DeMaio banded together, along with taxpayer groups and businesses, to advance a ballot measure to allow private firms to bid on city functions outside of police and fire. Voters passed it overwhelmingly (60%), despite a campaign by the unions to defeat it. [article]
Four years later, NOT ONE city function has been put out to bid as labor unions and their allies on the city council blocked implementation of the measure. In frustration, this summer councilman DeMaio advanced another initiative, this time saying the city “must” (vs. “may”) allow competitive bidding. Unfortunately, it failed to qualify for the ballot.
With the unions refusing to address pensions, health care and competitive bidding for non-core services, recent budgets have been balanced on the back of the basic core services that any self-respecting city should rightfully provide its residents; roads, neighborhood services, police and fire protection. Talk about misplaced priorities.
Which brings us to this week…
Faced with a $75 million deficit, city council president Ben Hueso is pushing a 0.5% sales tax increase to go on the November ballot which, if approved, would generate about $100 million of additional revenue to “restore basic services”. A false choice if there ever was one: “give us more money, or you will lose more police and fire protection.”
Of course, until the city gets its costs under control and deals with its massive pension and health care obligations, any additional revenue will only postpone the day of reckoning for a few more years. Desperate for the revenue, labor unions are suddenly promising to work on all those reforms; but are asking taxpayers to fork over the money first.
Republican councilmembers Kevin Faulconer [article] and Carl DeMaio [article] have laid out specific ideas to address our situation – without raising taxes – and have helped pull together a coalition of taxpayer and business groups which will defeat any sales tax increase on the November ballot under the refrain “Reform Before Revenue”.
To me, what is becoming evident is that the political battle going forward is not so much the usual “Republicans versus Democrats”, but rather it’s “Taxpayers versus Public Employee Labor Unions”. Something is wrong with a system where all of us work hard to support an ever growing public sector which is insulated from any competition.
Don’t get me wrong. Political parties will remain, but the key question is: “Which party will represent the hard working taxpayers that make this country great, and which party will represent the ultimate special interest: labor unions?”
Rest assured that the Republican Party of San Diego County will vigorously oppose any attempt to raise the sales tax in San Diego. If such a “Pension Tax” should make it on the November ballot, we will embark on an unprecedented campaign to defeat it.
There will be no doubt which political party is looking out for taxpayers in San Diego County.
I suspect there will also be no doubt which political party is looking out for the labor unions, at the expense of the very constituencies they claim to represent. Of course, I could be wrong.
But I doubt it.
It was a pretty good deal for everyone involved – until the music stopped and revenues fell through the floor. Faced with having to confront the very labor bosses who helped get them elected in the first place, our politicians chose to intentionally underfund those generous benefits and “pass the buck” for the next set of politicians to deal with.
Local labor union bosses saw the changing of the guard coming, and invested heavily in recent elections to make sure that the next crop of politicians would be the right kind. You know the kind that would know to return the favor when push came to shove. And with the Obama wave of 2008, the unions ran the table in local elections. [article]
So as our city struggled with its budget deficit in recent years, it made all the “easy” cuts first, followed by some minor salary and pension reforms for new hires. It never dealt with the 800 pound gorilla in this equation; the overly generous lifetime pension and health care benefits that existing city employees continued to enjoy.
Over the years the city had also taken it upon itself to provide all kinds of services in-house; everything from a print shop to vehicle maintenance and dozens of other non-core services, all of which – conveniently – added to the ranks of local union members. While the rest of America had learned the benefits of outsourcing, that fell on deaf ears here.
So in 2006 mayor Jerry Sanders and councilmembers Kevin Faulconer and Carl DeMaio banded together, along with taxpayer groups and businesses, to advance a ballot measure to allow private firms to bid on city functions outside of police and fire. Voters passed it overwhelmingly (60%), despite a campaign by the unions to defeat it. [article]
Four years later, NOT ONE city function has been put out to bid as labor unions and their allies on the city council blocked implementation of the measure. In frustration, this summer councilman DeMaio advanced another initiative, this time saying the city “must” (vs. “may”) allow competitive bidding. Unfortunately, it failed to qualify for the ballot.
With the unions refusing to address pensions, health care and competitive bidding for non-core services, recent budgets have been balanced on the back of the basic core services that any self-respecting city should rightfully provide its residents; roads, neighborhood services, police and fire protection. Talk about misplaced priorities.
Which brings us to this week…
Faced with a $75 million deficit, city council president Ben Hueso is pushing a 0.5% sales tax increase to go on the November ballot which, if approved, would generate about $100 million of additional revenue to “restore basic services”. A false choice if there ever was one: “give us more money, or you will lose more police and fire protection.”
Of course, until the city gets its costs under control and deals with its massive pension and health care obligations, any additional revenue will only postpone the day of reckoning for a few more years. Desperate for the revenue, labor unions are suddenly promising to work on all those reforms; but are asking taxpayers to fork over the money first.
Republican councilmembers Kevin Faulconer [article] and Carl DeMaio [article] have laid out specific ideas to address our situation – without raising taxes – and have helped pull together a coalition of taxpayer and business groups which will defeat any sales tax increase on the November ballot under the refrain “Reform Before Revenue”.
To me, what is becoming evident is that the political battle going forward is not so much the usual “Republicans versus Democrats”, but rather it’s “Taxpayers versus Public Employee Labor Unions”. Something is wrong with a system where all of us work hard to support an ever growing public sector which is insulated from any competition.
Don’t get me wrong. Political parties will remain, but the key question is: “Which party will represent the hard working taxpayers that make this country great, and which party will represent the ultimate special interest: labor unions?”
Rest assured that the Republican Party of San Diego County will vigorously oppose any attempt to raise the sales tax in San Diego. If such a “Pension Tax” should make it on the November ballot, we will embark on an unprecedented campaign to defeat it.
There will be no doubt which political party is looking out for taxpayers in San Diego County.
I suspect there will also be no doubt which political party is looking out for the labor unions, at the expense of the very constituencies they claim to represent. Of course, I could be wrong.
But I doubt it.
posted by Tony Krvaric at 4:57 AM
Momentum! That's one way to put it!
