The Seattle Times editorial board is “deeply disappointed” with Gov. Gregoire.
For years, state employees have paid just 12 percent of their health-insurance premiums, including coverage of spouses and children. For years, the 12-percent share has been the target of critics, including this newspaper. We have continually pointed out it is less than half of what private employees typically pay. As the state has become shorter of funds, raising that 12 percent employee contribution has become imperative.
Last summer, the state undertook to negotiate an increase in the ongoing contract, which could be extended through June 30, 2012. Gregoire asked the union to agree to a 26 percent cost share. Last week, she settled for 15 percent. In other words, she tried for an increase of 14 percentage points and won 3. This piddling increase, amounting to $27 a month, will be effective Jan. 1, 2012 — 13 months from now.
(Sigh.)
Where to start? I guess, with the math, where I suppose one could categorize this deal as a “piddling” 3 percent increase, or, one could divide 3 by 12 and understand that what this really represents to state workers is a 25 percent increase in health insurance costs… and that’s on top of the annual premium increases due to inflation.
And, assuming the Times’ own numbers are accurate (not a safe assumption considering their penchant for misleading readers), if 3 percent of monthly premiums equals $27, and workers will now be paying 15 percent, that means the average monthly premium will rise to over $135 by time the new agreement is in effect. So what truly disappoints the Times, apparently, is that state workers’ average share of health insurance premiums didn’t more than double to over $234 a month… an increase of over $1,500 annually.
$1,500 dollars a year. That’s what the Times wants state workers to give back in exchange for, well, nothing.
But the real issue here is not the math, misleading or not. No, the real issue is the Times vehement insistence on misrepresenting our current budget woes as a crisis of spiraling spending, rather than plummeting revenues.
Note to Times: state workers did not cause this budget crisis… a Wall Street induced recession, and an inadequate tax structure did. And the fact that you choose to seize this crisis as just another opportunity to hate on organized labor, does you no credit, and ultimately, does the state no good.
For even if the Times were to achieve its anti-labor agenda beyond its wildest dreams, and roll back government wages and benefits by, say, a stunning 20 percent, it still wouldn’t even buy us a couple years of budget peace, because with or without this crappy economy, our antiquated tax structure simply cannot keep pace with economic growth, nor growth in demand for public services. And as long as so-called civic leaders like the Times insist on addressing only one side of the budget equation, Washington state will continue its slide toward Mississippi-like status.
You are right about one thing. The present legislators have neither the intellect, nor the courage to redo the 19th century revenue platform. BTW, this is the same legislature you think so highly of. Take a close look.
1. Wreck economy
2. Use poor economy as an excuse to cut services and roll back worker compensation
3. Profit
re 2: I would add a #4 to the list:
4- Civil unrest = need for military dictatorship.
silly goldy, people don’t actually “work” for the government!
What part of “contract” does the Times editorial board not understand?
Although the governor can declare a fiscal emergency and force open the existing labor contracts, she can only do so for “renegotiation.” She doesn’t have dictatorial powers to make the unions agree to ANYTHING, just as any private business can’t force someone to agree to new terms of an existing contract.
If the Times is so big on balancing the budget, why don’t they editorialize that the Legislature should revoke the tax incentives for newspapers – which the Legislature can do without agreement from the effected parties?
If you live in a glass house…
Goldy, you live in a city run by a Democrat, within a county run by a Democrat, within a congressional district run by a Democrat, within a state run by Democrat, within a nation run by a Democrat. Our state also has two US Senators. If Washington state continues its slide toward Mississippi-like status, do you really expect us to believe The Seattle Times is to blame?
And state workers generally get paid quite a bit less than private employees.
What the Times is continuing to do is cheerlead for those advocating a “race to the bottom” in pay and benefits, both for private and public employees.
They should re-locate to Charleston, S.C., where their business practices would be protected by what is euphamistically called a “right to work” state. According to the propoganda attached to that phrase, any worker is entitled to work at a job with union-negotiated pay and benefits, without being required to join a union. The purpose of such legislation, of course, is to kill the unions, since why would anyone pay union dues and go on strike if they can receive the same pay and benefits anyway?
The incoming Republican governor of S. Carolina has rather blatantly revealed the hypocracy of the Republican party’s anti-worker stance, when she recently promised to make sure all her appointments were people who were dedicated to making sure Unions never gained a foothold in the aerospace community in Charleston.
Dicks elected Ranking Member of Appropriations:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/40592143
Troll, do you really expect us to think you have a brain?
@6 Not very smart you are boy. “Goldy, you live in a city run by a Democrat, within a county run by a Democrat, within a congressional district run by a Democrat, within a state run by Democrat,”
And Forbes (conservative wingnut magazine) says we’re the 5th BEST (best) state for business in the nation. Not THE worst. Not the 10th worst. The 5th BEST. So suck it.
I think it would be FUNNY to shut down the government and all THINGS government. Good luck getting customers at the Apple store at U Village, ALL of the roads to it are government (socialist) built. All of the street signs and lights are government. All of the money (the reason you don’t trade in chickens, but can use a $5 paper bill to get a cup of coffee) is standardized government. Yes, the “problem” isn’t government, it’s whining spoiled stupid children like this guy who ALWAYS wants something for nothing and ENDLESSLY bitches about having to pay his share like an adult. Grow up.
While it would be grand to have everyone as a state employee here in Washington, it’s simply not sustainable. Wealth is created, by and large, by the private sector. In order to pay for state workers, the private system has to produce the wealth to foot the bill for government. Without the private sector working for the good of the government worker, these people who work for the government would be dependent on charity or illegal activities to survive.
I tell every young person I see to get a government job, if possible. The pay and benefits are very good, and the likelihood of getting terminated is small. Heck, you’d be a fool to not work for government! But we still need a vibrant private sector to support this. Without the private economy, state government would perish.
Yeah. Like anyone here is calling for that.
Taxing and spending has been overly demonized. Where would this place be without public investment like roads, bridges, ports, dams, universities and on and on?
Squeeze out the wasteful spending sure but public spending is essential to any functioning modern economy. Look at Germany – they’re doing better than they’ve done in the last 18 years – since unification – and right in the middle of a global downturn.
Is Germany some sort of low tax, low regulation haven? Hell no!
@3
You’re right, I completely forgot about the successive steps.
4. Use poverty related crime as an excuse to incarcerate a higher percentage of the population than any country in history.
5. Use spiraling for-profit prison costs as an excuse for exemptions to minimum wage and inmate labor laws.
6. Use bloated prisons to stack district populations, ensuring reelection.
7. Laugh maniacally as poverty stricken citizens lend support to your cause on idealistic grounds.
@5 “why don’t they editorialize that the Legislature should revoke the tax incentives for newspapers”
heh- That’s not exactly an “imperative” for the Times.
In other news, government death panels might have been bullshit but a Republican “Death Czar” is quite real.
http://www.azcentral.com/news/.....lants.html
Speaking of bullshit. With the tax cuts for the rich huge deficits signed onto by Republicans. Patients told to die by a Republican governor, um, where did the teabaggers go? One could almost get the impression that it was all just some GOP astro-turf bullshit.
re 11: So, the symbiotic relationship between private enterprise and government is clear — even to you.
You just don’t realize what side of the fence you belong on. The only thing big enough to control the depradations of big business is big government. The policies you advocate lead to banana-type republics — where the private sector and big business are one and the same.
Your basic mistake in your outlook is the either/or mindset.
Thanks Goldy.
I’m glad more and more people are seeing the anti-labor, anti-worker agenda.
@1 Who says we think highly of it? All we’re saying is it would be far, far worse if Republicans controlled it.
@4 Silly you, they work harder than you ever have.
@4 Oh, and btw, if you think it’s easy getting one of those “cushy” state jobs, why don’t you try applying for one sometime — and find out what it takes to get hired.
@10 “All of the money (the reason you don’t trade in chickens, but can use a $5 paper bill to get a cup of coffee) is standardized government.”
An interesting point. In Afghanistan, a tribal society like the one Republicans are trying to create in North America, every warlord issues his own currency and the Taliban made it illegal to possess anyone else’s. So, before you can go shopping, you have to figure out which side is winning, because you don’t want to get caught in the vegetable market with the wrong currency in your pocket when the Political Police come through the market with their AK-47s asking to see everyone’s money.
What the hell, there are too many people in Afghanistan for the amount of vegetables they can grow there anyway, so if there’s a few less tomorrow that can only improve the situation.
@11 The private sector can’t create shit without public infrastructure and public services.
Again, chronically unemployed tenderhanded screech-owl Goldstein discussing WORKERS amounts to a smelly fart in the wind.
How long has it been since you have WORKED again Goldstein? Mommy must be proud.
The Seattle Times wisely discarded your resume and application, get the fuck over it already and move on!
@15 You forgot to mention that in banana republics the public sector and big business are one and the same, too.
One thing Goldy forgot to mention is that state workers are already taking pay cuts through involuntary furloughs — on top of health premium increases, pay freezes, and layoffs.
What the idiots on the Times editorial board, and our idiot trolls, don’t understand is that nobody has worked for free since the 14th Amendment. Labor markets are competitive. No employer pays workers anything because he wants to. Every employer, state included, pays what they have to, to get the workers they need, to get the work done. Keep cutting wages and benefits far enough and workers will walk away. State workers have been underpaid and overworked for as long as anyone can remember. Taxpayers are already paying for it with high turnover, high training costs, and high error rates. Hey cheap labor conservatives, if you need brain surgery and ant to hire a minimum-wage brain surgeon to operate on it, be my fucking guest. There’s too many of you anyway, and a few less of you tomorrow will improve things.
@23: Pathetic terrorist troll epically fails — again.
So what truly disappoints the Times, apparently, is that state workers’ average share of health insurance premiums didn’t more than double to over $234 a month… an increase of over $1,500 annually.
$1,500 dollars a year. That’s what the Times wants state workers to give back in exchange for, well, nothing.
Yep. Just like a couple months ago when the Times editorialized in a “news” article that a PSE rate increase was “only 3%” (amounting to many millions of dollars for individual ratepayers) and the next day in another “news” article they wrote that Boeing will have to pay another $150 million (OH MY GOODNESS! they wrote between the lines) because of the health plan (about 0.22% of their annual revenue).
# 25: In other words: if you pay employees at below-average wages, eventually you will get below-average employees, and below-average work-product.
I’ve never understood how Republicans, who claim to have a better grasp of the private business than Democrates, continually try to fight against that reality, both in public and private life.
Of course, when they talk about “competative wages”, they mean two completely opposite things. When they are talking about the jobs of 99% of the employees, they are saying that their pay and benefits have to be reduced to remain “competative”. But if they are talking about their own wages and benefits, they claim that the companies need to pay them increasingly more to be “competative”.
I’ve never understood how a CEO who earns hundreds of thousands of dollars a year (if not millions) in salary, benefits, and bonuses, needs additional salary and stock options to “motivate” him to do the job he’s supposed to be doing anyway.
That’s perfectly fine with the right wing. WA will MS without the heat and bugs.
What’s so hard to understand? Government workers should be paid less than the private sector, have worse benefits, higher workloads, and should also be exceptionally well qualified and good at their jobs. That’s just common sense. At least in the Seattle Times’ world, it is.
@19 yeah it was much easier for me to join the maffia =D
incorrect (again) @ 11
Wrong. Again.
Wealth is created by government. By picking the winners and losers. Examples of wealth creation are giveaways, wars, and deficit spending.
Wealth And Democracy: A Political History of the American Rich
By conservative economist Kevin Phillips. Worked for Reagan and Bush The First.
I know you disagree. Because your political philosophy doesn’t have room for reality. That said, I have a question for you:
If Government wasn’t the source of wealth, what gives money its value?
rhp @ 28
I hope government is never run like a business. I’ve seen way too many train wrecks in private business. Success is mostly the result of social network, timing, and dumb luck.
At least with government, there’s some transparency and accountability.
Shareholders should be so lucky.
@32 government manipulates wealth. true wealth is created only in the free market through labor. why would you think anything else? read any ayn rand lately?
http://digbysblog.blogspot.com.....eople.html
@34…
Unchecked unregulated anything…in our case Capitalism is a really really bad thing.
Don Blankenship is the poster child.
@35 failure to create wealth is the best regulator of all. who needs government? hahaha! but seriously… there is a difference between rupublicans and libertarians.
Educate your children. Keep the roads you drive on, safe. Make sure no asshole company is dumping poison shit in your water. Keep a watch on restaurants so they don’t poison you. Provide the infrastructure so your republican sucker ass can make a profit. Yeah, the gov’t worker does nothing, right?
#4 may you lose your car in a pothole and then get the runs from a private business restaurant worker who doesn’t fucking wash his hands.
#37 – you’re right! people are naturally evil nasty filthy creatures and if we didn’t have the government, we would eat each other alive! voluntary cooperation is a myth! we need laws! and guns!
@38
Are Libertarians now stumping to get rid of jails and prisons? That would save the government a ton of money. No more expensive justice system.
Doug & rodent,
I still beleive that the private sector is the wealth creator – not the government. The paychecks and benefits paid by government to government workers do not come from the wealth of government because the government cannot create wealth: it can only tax away wealth from the private sector to fund government.
Your mindset, however, is the belief that more government and more taxation is always good. It’s not.
Jason,
Government’s role, according to the Constitution, is to set the value of money, but they passed that power on to the Federal Reserve about 100 years ago.
@39,
Well, I’d certainly support ending the war on drugs as a method of improving individual liberties and lessening the number of folks in jail.
@39 i thought jails and prisons were already operated in the private sector? don’t counties pay fees for holding cons?
but if we legalized drugs, we’d need less prisons anyway.
hey… what do you think about ron paul? big in the news this week!
incorrect @ 40
Wow. That post is very civil. Thanks. Keep it up and I’ll have to stop mocking you.
Why has our nation’s economy grown faster during periods of higher taxation?
Because governments create demand for money by levying taxes.
Taxation keeps the money moving.
With less taxation, people hoard more and money moves less, decreasing economic activity.
It’s a con pulled by the supply-side smaller government shills. They use the language of equality, e.g. “rising tides raise all ships”, but it’s just doublespeak.
They just want to have the most cake. Versus growing the cake (pie).
What could possibly motivate such thinking? Because gaming the system with supply side tricks leads to greater inequity. And if I’m richer than you, I have more power than you.