In our eighth installment of The Cato Journal’s January 2010 “Are unions good for America?” issue, we cover the eighth myth. Here is The Homeland Stupidity web site’s synopsis of this myth, and a link to each of the 12 Cato articles.
Myth Number Eight: Public sector unions work for the general prosperity of their members and all Americans. Fact: Public sector unions dramatically increase the cost of government to unsustainable levels. The cost of employee wages and benefits accounts for half of the $2.2 trillion that state and local governments spent in 2008, and that number is set to grow dramatically as employees retire and generous pension packages kick in. Though, calling them generous is an understatement. Moreover, according to Chris Edwards, director of tax policy studies at the Cato Institute, those pension obligations are grossly underfunded, which will make the fiscal crisis even more acute this decade. Businesses can and do mitigate the inefficiencies of a unionized workplace, but governments are much more constrained and have less incentive to do so, driving up taxpayer costs even further. And public sector unions use their large war chests to buy influence and protection. “So the problem with public sector unions is not just that they block compensation reforms, but that use their privileged status to control broader policy debates.”
Download the PDF here. Check out the Cato Journal and access all 12 PDFs here.
