28043877
(The columnist worked as a public employee for 39 years and part time in the private sector for 46 years)
There are few phrases that tick me off more than “good enough for government work.” I find it demoralizing and self-defeating as a former state and federal employee. Those few words signify the dividing line in some of the public’s mind that private-sector employees are far superior to public employees.
I don’t believe it. Never will. Unfortunately, that bogus idea has even seeped into the minds of some public employees. You hear those damned words repeated often enough and it happens. “Good enough for government work” is the mind-set of an entire political party in America today. It explains what is happening in Wisconsin and all across this country. It explains why the Republican/Tea Party is getting away with using public employees as a scapegoat for this nation’s budget woes.
First, let me address this crap about public employee inferiority in performance and alleged superiority in pay because that’s what is at the heart of this matter. I have gotten drawn into arguments about so-called government drones a good part of my employment life. I have seen the good and the bad, witnessed the cowardice and courage, and the mediocrity and creativity in both the public and private sectors. Neither has a monopoly on worker bees or drones. I have seen brilliant executives and dunces among both public and private sector executives.
The phrase “good enough for government work” also implies that government jobs are just not as important as those in private industry. Years ago, the guys in my Air Force Reserve unit looked down their nose at me because I was a “government worker.” One such critic ran a beer distributorship, which he inherited from his father. Another sold typewriters (yeah, it was long ago). Nothing wrong with those occupations, but how important were they compared to the one where I purchased spare parts for the military, the lack of which could ground one of our fighter planes or keep a battleship mired in port?
Think about which sector really caused our problems? Was it public employees whose unions have finally gotten them approximate pay comparability with private industry? Was it really the folks making $40,000 to $75,000 a year — these so-called bureaucrats who educate our kids, keep our soldiers safe, and are responsible for the safety of our food and the environment?
Here’s just a partial list of some of those titans of private industry who have sucked us dry: Haliburton; Blackwater (now Xe); Citibank; Lehman Brothers; Bank of America; Enron; AIG; Goldman Sachs; all the health insurance companies; Walmart. To quote my friend, Ed Goldman, on the havoc that many of these corporations have wreaked upon us … “fraud and incompetence on a massive level that ruined world economies, your 401Ks, cost us jobs in the millions, denied us access to health care, moved jobs overseas, all in the name of making an extra buck …”
The assault on public employees is not just happening in Wisconsin, but let me start there. Gov. Scott Walker came into office with a budget surplus, implemented tax breaks for business causing a deficit and is now using that deficit to try to destroy the public unions in his state who coincidentally happened to oppose his election. Despite the raw deal, the public employee unions have offered to increase payments toward their pensions and to start paying a portion of their health care. Walker refuses to negotiate because his real purpose isn’t to fix the deficit, but to destroy the unions. Republican governors from Indiana to New Jersey are joining in the union-busting frolic.
Republicans in Washington moan about the budget deficit, but under the threat of filibuster pressured the administration into extending tax cuts for the wealthy that increased the deficit. Those same Republicans are trying to repeal the Affordable Health Care Act because they say we can’t afford it, but the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office tells us that if the repeal is successful, it will cost us $210 billion more in health care over the next decade.
This isn’t about budget deficits; it’s about political ideology. Destroy the unions that are the only counterbalance to big business money that goes mostly toward electing Republicans.
It was not public employee unions that caused our economic crisis, but the Bush Administration that gave us two ruinous wars and cut taxes twice. Add another trillion dollars in deficits Bush gave us in the unfunded Medicare drug plan giveaway to Big Pharma. It was the corruption and greed on Wall Street where their CEOs are still being rewarded with huge bonuses funded by taxpayer bailouts.
And that is not good enough for them. When they speak, hold on to your middle-class wallets. Instead of going after the ones who caused the deficits, they’re going after the ones who didn’t. SPR
28043877
