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Drop the political rhetoric, join the real debate
Carter Bundy
While there are signs that Washington’s stimulus policies have helped us end our downward slide toward depression, we’re far from out of the woods. Tea party ideological rants about government being evil don’t provide any guidance for how to improve our economy.
The rants often don’t even make sense: “keep the government out of my Medicare” and “don’t fill out the census — the government already has too much information like your Social Security number” are two of my favorites.
Instead, now is the time to have a real debate, and a specific, detailed discussion about how to help the private sector rebound and how to improve the public sector.
Slashing services does what?
One of the biggest cries from the far-right, anti-government folks at the Rio Grande Foundation and their tea party followers is that because the private sector has had a tough time, we should de-fund the public sector.
Several problems with that line of thinking: First, when the private sector activity is shrinking, demand for many public services actually goes up. As a general rule, for example, the worse the private sector economy, the higher the crime rate. Do tea partiers really want fewer police, fewer corrections officers, fewer courts, fewer prosecutors, fewer 911 dispatchers, and more dangerous streets? If so, be honest and say it up front, because that’s what is being asked for.
Another example: Applications for unemployment and Medicaid go up dramatically in a recession. Is the RGF advocating day-long lines for people who are simultaneously trying to get jobs? How does that help employment?
Second, it’s basic economics that when the private sector is in freefall, if the public sector doesn’t step up and at least maintain some economic activity, we’ll spiral into a depression. How many private sector jobs in Albuquerque are saved because the military still has a steady presence in the state? If it were up to most tea partiers and conservative think tanks, we’d slash government across the board, and we’d be kissing even more private sector jobs goodbye as well.
Third, in New Mexico there’s been a major omission from the far right on a central fact in this debate: Government has downsized, and to a greater level than the private sector. Classified state employees are more than 10 percent lower per capita than at the end of Gary Johnson’s administration. Meanwhile, the private sector unemployment rate has gone from about 5 percent to about 9 percent in New Mexico (which is also, of course, a per capita measure) — about 4 percent more unemployed.
In other words, state classified employment has dropped about 250 percent more than private sector employment. In addition to doing more work with less staff, most public employees are taking home less pay than they did last year or two years ago.
The reason you don’t see screaming headlines about the reduction in public sector employment and pay is that most municipalities – and certainly the state – are large enough organizations with sufficient turnover that they can cut workforce through attrition. There is also something of a lag between private downturns and public impact, meaning that public employers often have more time to anticipate and manage budget problems than private employers, and have done so effectively.
Join the real discussion
There’s a very legitimate debate to be had about which programs are vital and which can be trimmed back. There are real discussions about merging departments and making government more efficient, and Diane Denish, for one, has proposed an additional $450 million in state budget cuts.
My union doesn’t agree with all of those cuts, but at least the proposals are by and large detailed, thoughtful ideas about where to save money.
Productive ideas don’t just come from one party. Republican Rep. Janice Arnold-Jones has been supportive of some specific ideas to help citizens track government spending and tax breaks, and generally has taken the approach that while more efficiency is needed, government isn’t always the enemy. She’s also called for an end to abusive corporate giveaways and has shown a consistency in her approach to fiscal responsibility.debate
While Arnold-Jones is not an ideal candidate for public employees, her candor, understanding of the importance of many government programs including public safety and education, and her willingness to work for pragmatic solutions across party lines led AFSCME’s member-run political program to recommend her to our Republican members in the GOP gubernatorial primary.
Arnold-Jones and Denish are each engaged in a productive conversation about how we can make government better, save taxpayers money, and still deliver the services we need.
The Rio Grande Foundation’s Jim Scarantino and Paul Gessing are bright guys. Very bright, and very likable. I believe they’re also genuinely concerned with the well-being of New Mexico.
I respectfully invite them to join the real discussion going on about how to make our government more efficient while leaving the political rhetoric behind. The “government is the problem” stuff makes for good tea party agitation and may be marginally helpful in November. But such rhetoric is neither accurate nor helpful in advancing ideas for how to make both government and the private sector more effective in New Mexico.
Bundy is the political and legislative director for AFSCME in New Mexico. The opinions in his column are personal and do not necessarily reflect any official AFSCME position. You can learn more about him by clicking here. Contact him at carterbundy@yahoo.com.
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Dr. J, you write that progressives ‘have a pre-determined agenda baed on their long held values and world view and will not compromise.’
Umm… that sounds like the Republicans, who vote en masse with each other on EVERYTHING from the federal level to the local level. It is the Republicans who march lockstep with each other in virtually every policy. Not the Democrats, or even progressives.
There is a reason why the GOP is the party of no.
BTW the stimulus didn’t help.
True stever, you do wonder why the progressives (who have a pre-determined agenda baed on their long held values and world view and will not compromise) want to waste anyone’s time who disagrees with them. Nothing will change their mindset about how the bigger and more-controlling-of-our-lives government is the better, and the more powerful the unions are the better. They could care less about debating anything that threatens this agenda. They will not listen to dissent, logic, or rational argument as they have their minds made up. BTW, hope you all caught the “peaceful” progressives protesting and rioting about the Arizona immigration law.
What debate? One side has a decided majority, makes no effort to engage in bipartisanship, and now want’s to debate? You gotta be kidding me. Do what you want, the tea party can’t stop you. Debate, compromise, bipartisanship, crossing the aisle-these are code words for doing things your way and now you want to tell people not to be mad?
Mr. Molitor, I did read your guest column on RTW states and the effect they have on the economy, very good article and very true. I like your stance on the issues and I wish you all the luck in the world in your election to the roundhouse.
wedum59, Unions don’t restirct child labor laws and you know it. State law has that covered and if not federal laws do. Unions are in current existence to plot a politically liberal agenda with issues that only defeat a free market and tank the economy.
Gee, ksparks, let’s just get rid of all those worker protection laws, we can go back to the good ole days when six-year-olds worked 11 hours a day, six days a week in the woolen mills of the Northeast.
No public education. No libraries.
If you want to get rid of unions with their ‘political agenda,’ how about the Association of Commerce and Industry (ACI), the National Chamber of Commerce, the National Manufacturers Association, etc etc?
Ksparks; Please see my Guest Column of March 4, 2010 on the subject of New Mexico becoming a Right to Work state:
http://www.nmpolitics.net/index/2010/03/right-to-work-states-and-job-creation/
Separately, pay attention to Gov Christie in New Jersey who has asked the unions to agree to a plan of “shared sacrifice” of knocking down New Jersey’s deficit. Like it or not, government workers do not create jobs or wealth.
OK, I’ll join the debate:
Pass a comprehensive Right to Work Law.
Prohibit public or governement agencies from collective bargaining.
Allow companies and state and local government to bargain with individuals rather than unions with nothing but, a political agenda.
Bust the unions out of New Mexico and allow the free market to prevail.
Cut taxes and wasteful services, give tax breaks to companies willing to put New Meicans back to work.
Pass a comprehhensive Immigration Bill as tough or tougher than the one just signed into law by Arizona.
These accomplishments will GUARRANTEE a better economy in New Mexico.
Mr. Bundy I would like for you to clarify a statement you made. You indicated that “classified employees” at the state are 10% lower on a per capita basis now than durinig the Johnson era. Has the actual number of classified employees increased? By how many? Thus, should I believe there has been a 250% drop in state classified empolyment, relative to the private sector. Does this mean the growth in private sector jobs increased at a rate of 2.5 times state classified jobs? When you add the total “public sector” employment at state and local government, I beleve we have seen a dramatic increase in total state employment. Do you not agree? If not why has our state budget gone up so dramatically during the Richardson era? By classified employment I assume you mean union members?
Mr. Bundy according to NM workforce solutions NM has lost about 25,000 jobs in the private sector in the last year. (Perhas a few more now). At the same time the public sector added about 10,000. Do you think we should continue this tred? If so how do we pay for it?
It appears to me that the lions share of job increases is in the public sector. Please advise where I might be wrong.
Ok, so how do “public sector” jobs actually pump more tax dollars into the economy when they average just above minimum wage? How in anyone’s definition of “good for” do they exceed the positive impact of public sector jobs, not only for those employed but in terms of their economic power to benefit a community?
I would argue that private sector jobs do NOT pump more dollars into the economy in my city. Federal jobs at White Sands and elsewhere, our military stationed here, NMSU, LCPS, the City, the County and the State of NM pretty much account for most of the better wage jobs here, and I would guess have the biggest economic impact in our town in terms of their buying and tax-paying power. These people make up the backbone of our tax-paying homeowners, creating community stability and funding our school system. Because they receive benefits like health insurance, they also reduce the taxpayer burden for our town. Folks employed by private sector business, especially small and service industry businesses, have less employment stability, lower wages, and in general will be more likely to qualify for taxpayer subsidized support programs. Not to say that those employers aren’t incredibly important to the economy here, but it’s absurd to ignore public sector employment’s incredible contribution to economies everywhere.
Here again we have an example of how frustrating it is to try to engage with the right at this time in history. An unsubstantiated Republican talking point passed on by someone who probably heard it on the Rush LImbaugh show does NOT a fact–or good policy–make.
Perhaps the Tea Baggers are onto to something within the American spirit because they have gotten the attention of the nation. Now I have not been to even one TB event so I feel unqualified to judge them, though I know a good number of individuals who are TBers. None of them are wild-eyed crazies or strike me as dangerous.
Also, it is interesting that I have never met you nor did we communicate this last week but we each wrote somewhat to the same subject this week. I think the real way to help our state is to fix our supply side:
Making New Mexico an attracting state
http://www.nmpolitics.net/index/2010/04/making-new-mexico-an-attracting-state/
Thanks for the comments everyone. I think there are some good points in here, but I want to address three.
First, as to the Albuquerque “war” comment, it’s important to know that the union leaders in ABQ who put out that internal newsletter made public comments this week at the city council meeting that AFSCME is not at war with the city or the administration. It was an internal newsletter to help motivate members, and they union’s leaders have made it clear they don’t view this as war. I wouldn’t have chosen that word even in an internal document, and it sounds like our local folks would have chosen their words differently if they could do it again. Their public statements have certainly been ones encouraging dialogue and solutions.
They also are making concrete proposals to have public employees share in the sacrifice. I’m proud of our Albuquerque men and women–not many folks in the private or public sector in any state are out there voluntarily agreeing to share in the burden. Especially when you consider that the city employees, at least the front-line men and women who provide the services taxpayers demand, had nothing to do with this crisis. And especially when the upper-level folks are getting six-figure golden parachutes that no other employees are allowed to even sniff
Second, this whole “private sector jobs are 7 times more valuable that public sector jobs” is simply more ideology. Yes, we need the private sector to succeed. But if you have, say, a corrections officer who makes $26,000 a year (which, by the way, is outlandishly low given that it’s about the most difficult, stressful, dangerous job on the planet), and an administrative person in the private sector making the same salary, each spends that money on rent/mortgage, car payments, food, movies, utilities, and other basics of life, and the money goes directly back into the local economy. There’s just a lot of smoke and mirrors behind any statement that public sector jobs are a “drain” on the economy.
Third, for Ched, you’re right that there aren’t many (if any) “official” tea party statements. And we shouldn’t judge a movement involving thousands of New Mexicans and Americans by even two or three signs or comments (a standard I hope you’ll remember when discussing people who are less conservative, too).
But I didn’t base my assessment that many tea partiers think government is evil off of one, two, or twenty signs. It’s off of hundreds of signs, hundreds of letters to the editor, and hundreds of statements of people who are speaking at events. I’ll give you one quick example that I hope you’ll acknowledge has to carry a little weight if anything does in the tea party movement: U.S. Senator Saxby Chambliss (R-GA), just last week, spoke at the tea party rally in DC. One of his many anti-government lines was “We’ve come to the devil’s city to do the Lord’s work.”
Mr. Chambliss is a U.S. Senator. He is one of the leading people speaking at the tea party’s crown jewel event on their biggest day of the year. Thousands of tea partiers who had come from all over America let up a big roar of approval in response to that line. If you’ve watched tea party events, the sentiment that government is evil (or something close to that) is almost the only unifying theme. I didn’t say the RGF has said that or that you said that, although I do think that there has been some fairly ideological, sharp-edged political rhetoric by RGF that isn’t necessarily helpful to moving a discussion of solutions forward. I commented that it’s a tea party theme, and I’m not sure how someone could watch more than a few events and dispute that assertion.
I almost wish I hadn’t responded to that last point, because this shouldn’t be about the fringes or verbal bomb-throwers on either side. But I wanted to clarify that this wasn’t something I was making up, and to give at least one very prominent, recent, “sanctioned” comment as an example. What I do hope for are more specific ideas about where we can make programs more effective, find savings, and still deliver the services that all New Mexicans expect and deserve, and I think this discussion is a good start. I’m pretty optimistic that New Mexico, as it is with many other issues like immigration, can be a place where we have a more respectful, thoughtful dialogue than what we see in other parts of the country.
Excellent discussion, Carter.
macquigg asks, “How do you start a “real debate”by assigning what you read on a poster somewhere…” but that is the point. TEA Party folks have yet to call a meeting, pick a chair, and have a debate on what they want in a party platform. All we see is their signs. I see NO sign of a long-term view from any of these people.
Now the TEA party in Lincoln county did hold a candidate forum for the gubernatorial candidates. However, to me the questions asked were indistinguishable from what you would expect to hear at a Republican forum. In what way are they different from your average right-wing Republican?
politicalguy writes, “Mr. Bundy also neglects to mention that private sector jobs pump far more tax dollars into the economy than public sector jobs do, even in the short term, and that’s far better for the economy.” He is missing the point, Bundy is not talking about taxes (and I’m not convinced pg is even right about taxes). I heard a lecture at an economic forum that stated that for every person earning income, the salaries of 7 other people in that community were paid, from the money that one person spent on groceries, gas, clothes, etc. Those public sector jobs ARE stimulating the economy.
My long-term proposal is that we all should have more information about what our taxes are spent on, and more input into that process. I would like to have the New Mexico state budget broken down into perhaps 20 categories. My first two choices for line items would be to list the percent of the budget that is spent on administrative salaries, including the salaries of all those ‘exempt’ employees, and another heading listing the percent spent on the salaries of all the secretaries, teachers, police, maintinence workers, and other support staff. These would be listed in the income tax form AND the taxpayer could CHANGE the percent of his/her taxes that went to a specific line. This would be informative for the taxpayer and the feedback would be informative for the legislature and governor. After a few years of this we might get a budget that was more in line with what the people of New Mexico want. Or not. The individual changes might cancel out.
I think this is the kind of debate that Bundy has in mind.
It you look to their official position statements you will not find what you profess to be their.
In the first place, there is no national Party. There is a coalition of independent local groups. It would not be fair to judge the Albuquerque Tea Party based on anything that any Tea Party but theirs represents as their position.
Because Tea Party Rallies offer the opportunity to actually do something about the frustration people are feeling, they are attended by people with a wide variety of frustration based on a wide variety of issues. To make any kind of assumption about the feelings and motivations of “the crowd” as a whole is nonsense from any empirical perspective.
If the problems were are facing, are going to be solved in the best interests of all, the discourse has to rise above calling people tea baggers because the believe that the Constitution of the United States is being ignored, or because they believe in private enterprise as a generator of wealth more than they believe in government as a re-distributor of wealth, or because they believe decisions that affect our interests should be made by us at a state level and not at the national level.
Carter, how can you talk about “dropping the rhetoric” and joining the debate, when your union was quoted in the Abq Journal this week saying they were at WAR with the Albuquerque. Come on. Why dont you lead by example and include your own group in this column. Certainly, if the groups on the right should “drop the rhetoric”, your own group should as well and you should hold them to that standard.
It’s amazing that somehow, when we assume the Tea Party posters, signs and statements at their rallies are an expression of their political beliefs, it’s pejorative.
It’s time to stop pretending that there is some kind of unique, cohesive, rational set of principles with this “movement”. “We’re mad as hell for our own individual gripes about the world, but we don’t necessarily agree with the guy standing next to us on the protest line” is simply not a good enough platform to merit taking seriously.
The real irony in these remarks is that both AFSCME and many in the Tea Party movement are supporting Janice Arnold-Jones for governor. Both apparently see that she’s one who will listen to all sides even when there’s disagreement.
Mr. Bundy also neglects to mention that private sector jobs pump far more tax dollars into the economy than public sector jobs do, even in the short term, and that’s far better for the economy.
Teabaggers are ideologically anti-government to the point of absurdity. Teabaggers have allowed themselves to be manipulated by right-wing idealouges peddled on corporate owned media brainwashing them that Government is the cause of all that has gone awry in our society. They are blinded by the fact that it is the corporate masters of our politicians and media that propagandizes insustainability and immorality as American ideals. For them, “freedom” and “choice” are strictly defined in terms of consumption and ever increasing complexity in our lives. The truly fascist tactic of corralling fanatical religion to their cause makes this movement dangerous and evil. The mindlessness of ignoring the facts while believing and relentlessly repeating the propaganda is astounding.
There are two kinds of teabaggers. There are those that are incapable of critical thinking and easily swayed by fomented fear and anger and those that are simply on the take.
How do you start a “real debate”by assigning what you read on a poster somewhere, to the Tea Party itself, and then labeling it an “ideological rant”? I challenge to you point to a policy statement be anyone of the thousands of Tea Parties, that uses the word “evil”.
If your real interest is in a real debate, begin by abandoning the use of pejoratives. You cannot raise the level of the discourse by employing the very tactics that lower it.