Let's not throw out the baby with the bathwater on collective bargaining

The budget crisis in Wisconsin has radicalized both Liberals and Conservatives on the issue of Collective Bargaining. While the Governor Scott Walker just wants to place limitations on the collective bargaining of government workers, some Conservatives are actually likening Unions to antitrust violations, implying that unions are inherently bad and actively harmful.

Labor unions like to portray collective bargaining as a basic civil liberty, akin to the freedoms of speech, press, assembly and religion. For a teachers union, collective bargaining means that suppliers of teacher services to all public school systems in a state—or even across states—can collude with regard to acceptable wages, benefits and working conditions. An analogy for business would be for all providers of airline transportation to assemble to fix ticket prices, capacity and so on. From this perspective, collective bargaining on a broad scale is more similar to an antitrust violation than to a civil liberty...

There is evidence that right-to-work laws—or, more broadly, the pro-business policies offered by right-to-work states—matter for economic growth. In research published in 2000, economist Thomas Holmes of the University of Minnesota compared counties close to the border between states with and without right-to-work laws (thereby holding constant an array of factors related to geography and climate). He found that the cumulative growth of employment in manufacturing (the traditional area of union strength prior to the rise of public-employee unions) in the right-to-work states was 26 percentage points greater than that in the non-right-to-work states.

While the current state of unions may be a problem, the fact is they into existence because of abuses by management. History is like a pendulum that oscillates between extremes. Let's not over-correct against the abuses of unions without recognizing their virtues.

Should courts decide what is said in schools?

I know many people will say this is a case of "What's good for the goose is good for the gander." But I am disturbed by news of a court case where the courts are deciding exactly what it is appropriate for school teachers to say about the Creation/Evolution debate. In this case, a student took an teacher to court for calling creationism "religious, superstitious nonsense". And he won the case.

Now, I am one who has challenged the assumptions behind evolution from time to time. I have read a lot of Creation Science, and a lot of Evolutionary Science as well. So, I am sympathetic to anyone looking to get equal time. But the courts do not belong in discussions like this. It can only lead to bad things. With rare exceptions, these kind of issues should be handled locally. Do you really want the Supreme Court taking a position on scientific issues?

Bush: We like debt, we'll take it ALL!

We've all seen it. You have a friend (or a self) who is overextended in debt. They have maxxed out their credit cards. They have used up every friendship and familial connection to borrow money. They are often seen digging thru other people's sofas looking for enough cash to buy a 99 cent cheeseburger for dinner. (Okay, that last one really only applies to college students.) Anyway, when a friend finds themselves in such dire straights, what do you do? You sit them down, make them face the problem, and work out a logical plan for repayment, including a strict budget and no credit, right?

Well, not if you are the American Federal government. If you are the Bush Administration, you instead take on all that debt yourself and let the friend go out and start racking up new debt. Or rather, you take all that debt and put it onto someone else who is barely getting by but has been paying their bills (the American taxpayer).

Sigh. Has it really come to this? Will it be under a supposedly Republican president that we see government essentially nationalizing the financial system by buying up insurance companies and bank debt? Does anyone think Barack Obama had planned anything so overtly socialist as this for this first term? I went to bed last night under GWB, and I woke up this morning under FDR.

Can anyone talk me out of seeing it this way?