On the eve of our Independence Day, celebrating our freedoms should be joyous and profound.
And I’m certain it will be.
I would, however, be a little surprised if a few folks weren’t thinking about this horrible economy.
Like politicians knocking on your door, it … just …won’t … go …away.
Why is this an important topic, even on the eve of July 4? Well, my opinion, of course, but bad economies foster empty stomachs. And lots of empty stomachs make lots of people angry.
And angry people can sometimes threaten our freedoms, because hunger is often more compelling than any constitutional amendment we’d like to recite.
Of course, I’m a big believer in that first one. You know, freedom of speech, freedom of the press. It’s what allows me to say what I’m saying here today. And it’s what will allow you to pound on me when you disagree with me.
So, as we get ready to celebrate our freedoms, how can we get this economic thing fixed?
• Getting more taxpayer money: One school of thought is to sort of have the government prop the thing up in lots of ways. In part, they do this by raising taxes. In part, they do it by not making the difficult cuts to things like governmental payrolls. Governmental salaries, pensions, benefits all basically stay intact.
• Cutting spending: Others have advocated a sharper knife when it comes to governmental spending. The private sector has had to adjust its expenses way down because its revenues are way down. The government; not so much.
Recently, The Columbian — on our opinion pages — has pushed much harder on cutting spending.
We’ve been criticized for this by many. (But then, when we have supported tax increases, we have been criticized for that, as well.)
One area in particular that most governments have done little with is payroll spending. More specifically, the contracts that governmental workers have.
Again, we’ve been hammered by those who feel we have something against public servants. That’s silly. What we are against is having one segment having to share more of the burden than another segment. And the evidence clearly points to the private sector taking the biggest hit.
How many private workers have cost-of-living increases? The public sector has it. Some public sector workers have temporarily given it up, but why do they get it, period?
We’ve seen most of the private sector give up pensions. Not happening in the public sector.
We’ve heard private sector jobs pay more the public sector? Really?
A recent USA Today story did an analysis on this. It showed federal employees earn higher average salaries than private-sector workers in eight out of 10 occupations.
Then a few days ago, Time magazine had a cover story titled “The Broken States of America.”
The full Time magazine story: “Inside the Dire Financial State of the States”
Here’s a piece of that article:
“The long recession has cast a glaring light on the fact that public and private workers increasingly live in separate economies. Private-sector employees face frequent job turnover, relentless downsizing, stagnant wages and rising health-insurance premiums. They fund their own retirement through 401(k)s and similar plans, which rise and fall with the tides of the economy. Many public-sector workers, by contrast, enjoy relative job security, and the number of government jobs rose even as the overall unemployment rate shot just past 10 percent.”
One tenet of our great country is fairness. So let’s make sure we celebrate that goal on this Fourth!
Lou Brancaccio is The Columbian’s editor. Reach him at 360-735-4505 or lou.brancaccio@columbian.com.
