Obama wants to flush $50 bil down the toilet.

[aerius]

And aerius, I expected better than anecdotal "biggest howlers" type case studies. That's exactly how newspapers stir up rage toward blacks on welfare. Don't you have statistics?

I don't have data from the last few years, but does this look sustainable to you?
It's well in excess of any population and inflation growth.

[Illuminatus Primus]

Any analysis on the exact mechanism for why its going up?

[Straha]

Aerius' post isn't actually the biggest problem, the biggest is the MTA (New York City, and its environs, transit authority.)

While straphangers suffer from higher fares and decreased services, six grease monkeys at a Long Island Rail Road maintenance facility in Queens ratcheted up their incomes by more than three times their base salaries through enormous amounts of overtime and other perks in 2008, according to payroll records obtained by The Post.

The mechanics, all union members, each easily cleared more than $200,000 in income last year -- for a grand total of $1.5 million -- giving well-paid MTA suits a run for their money.

The biggest payday went to Ronald Dunne, a car repairman who pulled down a staggering $283,373 in total compensation, making him the fifth-highest-paid employee in the entire transit system. Only MTA head Eliot Sander -- who made $364,989 in salary and perks -- and the presidents of the LIRR, New York City Transit, and the Bridges and Tunnels division made more.

Dunne's base salary was $62,976 but, incredibly, he hauled in an additional $220,397, mostly from overtime. The 23-year employee in 2007 raked in enough to buy a set of gold-plated wrenches: $201,773 in total earnings, including $147,668 in overtime.

Riders have not fared so well. The cash-strapped MTA, which oversees the LIRR along with NYC buses and subways and the Metro-North commuter railroad, needed a $2.3 billion taxpayer bailout to close a yawning gap in its 2010 budget.

The state agency approved a 10 percent across-the-board fare hike that takes effect at the end of the month.

Dunne works at a diesel train yard in Richmond Hill, Queens, which has been an overtime gold mine for employees.

Another LIRR car repairman, Michael Visceglia, took home $274,765 in 2008, making him the seventh-highest-paid employee in the MTA. The 28-year employee earned $211,789 -- most of it overtime -- on top of his $62,976 salary.

Another Richmond Hill yard employee, road car inspector and former repairman Michael Shurman, made $278,746 in 2008, and retired in November of that year. He earned $165,867 in overtime and $41,284 in payouts for unused vacation and sick days.

Retirement has been just has lucrative. After 31 years on the job, he now gets a monthly pension check of $10,122.

Three other yard mechanics were overtime kings of Queens: Donald Brooks, Michael Gilmore and Brian Delgiorno, who took home a cumulative $664,265 in 2008.

Delgiorno, who retired in September after 31 years, made $62,976 in salary plus $106,385 in overtime. He also cashed in $38,410 in unused vacation and sick days. He now collects $9,768 a month from his pension.

Workers at the Richmond Hill yard said the OT kings were off, and messages left at the facility weren't returned.

LIRR spokesman Joe Calderone said longstanding union contracts have led to the OT spree, particularly at the Richmond Hill yard.

"Antiquated work rules in collective-bargaining agreements have led to excessive earnings at our Richmond Hill maintenance facility by some employees with high seniority," he said.

"The LIRR is addressing this issue through a series of management initiatives designed to reduce overtime."

The mechanics weren't the only employees who got windfalls from the LIRR.

Conductor Shelton Bethea made $241,203 before his retirement in November 2008. He took home in $78,030 in overtime and cashed in $89,980 in sick and vacation days. His pension now pays him $7,408 a month.

MTA watchdogs pointed the blame at management for unwise staffing.

"When you have someone earning close to five times their base salary in overtime, it raises serious questions about management," said Gene Russianoff of the Straphangers Campaign. "Why do they need to pay such high extra costs? What does it say about the adequacy of their staffing?"

"Whenever you see something like that, it does raise a red flag," said Bill Henderson, executive director of the Permanent Citizens Advisory Committee to the MTA. "That's a big difference. It seems like that needs to be looked at."

Before you defend this as overtime worked, most of this overtime is worked as "on call" overtime, where the person in question doesn't even need to leave the house and just has to be theoretically on call in case of an emergency. A lot of these workers don't even have to show up at their yards or depots for weeks at a time, they just get the paycheck mailed to them and sit easy. The teachers are getting similar benefits, and this is systemic through most of New York state. The reason for this is two fold. First, when the unions were first putting together the pension plans the final payment was often tied to the total money received for the last six years worked, it was a way to reward people who worked extra overtime and make sure they weren't going to be treated the same as people who muddled through doing the bare minimum. Second, during the last forty or fifty years control of what's considered overtime has been given over to the unions more and more, sometimes fairly, sometimes not. Combined this has given the union the ability to award incredible amounts of money to people inside it well after they leave the union, for doing little to no work. It's rather ugly, but no one wants to say anything because to change the pension rules you'd have to fight the union tooth and nail (and everyone in the union wants to keep these pensions) and the problem is systemic across pretty much ever public sector union, both in field of work and geographically (even in bumbledeefuck little towns in the Southern Tier, or way upstate). No one wants to start that fight because it will not end well.

And the politicians are almost as bad. So they scratch the union's back, in return for the union scratching theirs.

[Illuminatus Primus]

Established unions are pretty shitty sometimes, especially when the rest of the population is politically disengaged or not unionized themselves, and therefore easily bleed white for their sake. Rob Peter, pay Paul.

[Alyeska]

Ah yes, Idaho, a fine model for the rest of the nation, with its 386,000-man population, no major industries or large businesses or cities, and known for its sterling public universities (alum includes Sarah Palin). Major political issues include hunters' permits for shooting wolves. Yeehaw.

Any particular reason you pulled that number out of your ass? The least populated state has more than 386,000 people. Idaho has a population 1.5 million people. Montana, where I live, has less than a million. Boise Idaho alone has a population of 205,000 people. There are 10 states with a population less than that of Idaho. This includes 4 Eastern states. And in Sun Valley there is a reasonably large number of famous people. I have personally seen Scott Glenn, Arnold Schwarzenegger (I'm taller), and Tom Hanks (with his wife). So there is some political influence from these residents as well.

[Illuminatus Primus]

Ah yes, Idaho, a fine model for the rest of the nation, with its 386,000-man population, no major industries or large businesses or cities, and known for its sterling public universities (alum includes Sarah Palin). Major political issues include hunters' permits for shooting wolves. Yeehaw.

Any particular reason you pulled that number out of your ass? The least populated state has more than 386,000 people. Idaho has a population 1.5 million people. Montana, where I live, has less than a million. Boise Idaho alone has a population of 205,000 people. There are 10 states with a population less than that of Idaho. This includes 4 Eastern states. And in Sun Valley there is a reasonably large number of famous people. I have personally seen Scott Glenn, Arnold Schwarzenegger (I'm taller), and Tom Hanks (with his wife). So there is some political influence from these residents as well.

Sorry I was looking at a bunch of stuff and read one thing but wrote another.

[Ziggy Stardust]

Ah yes, Idaho, a fine model for the rest of the nation, with its 386,000-man population, no major industries or large businesses or cities, and known for its sterling public universities (alum includes Sarah Palin). Major political issues include hunters' permits for shooting wolves. Yeehaw.

Idaho has a population of 1.5 million, as Alyeska noted (and, incidentally, is the sixth fastest growing state in the U.S.). Idaho also has several important industries (even if we ignore its huge importance in agriculture): Boise has one of the largest producers of semiconductors, the only U.S. producer of DRAM chips, and various electronics and machinery plants. There are at least 5 Fortune 500 companies that originated in Idaho (notably JC Penneys and Safeways). It also has plenty of natural resources, including some of the best hydroelectric facilities in the nation. The Idaho National Laboratory is an important nuclear energy research facility. In terms of academics, Boise State University has one of the 100 best Master's programs in the nation, and Lewis-Clark State College is regularly ranked as one of the best public colleges in the nation (in 2002, 2005, and 2007 it was, in fact, listed as Number 1).

But, you know, pulling stuff out of your ass is fun, too.

[Illuminatus Primus]

Yeah, I was sloppy and wrong. But you want a free hard on pointing out shit that is trivia to my point: Idaho is not a public policy model that can be applied to California, New York, etc. I have worked in retail, service, warehouse/distribution center etc., and right-to-work sucks.

[Starglider]

Retiring at 44 and getting a 100k pension is pretty hideous. There is absolutely no justification for final salary / defined benefit pensions. All pensions should be defined contribution, i.e. personal investment account that gets turned into an annuity on retirement based on your expected remaining lifespan (and not before a sensible minimum age e.g. 55). This is the only fair approach.

Your "solution", in fact, would help accelerate to decline of middle and working classes,

Happening anyway, bloating up and overpaying the public sector won't help, actually it will hurt by creating artificial divisions and diverting attention away from fundamental issues (some of which are unfixable anyway). Plus of course increasing both inflation and taxes and ultimately creating more poverty.

create even more unemployed benefit-sinks.

Plenty of government workers are either utterly useless, or negatively useful corrupt impediments to getting anything done. Having them on benefits would cost a quarter of what their bloated salaries cost, and they'd be forced to look for a job where they actually contribute to the economy.

gigantic prison populations

That has nothing to do with breaking unions. I haven't seen unions campaigning for drug legalisation or more rehabilitation. In fact I haven't even seen them campaigning against prison labor, most likely because the prison wardens union is all for it.

Why did people turn to debt so much since Reagandom?

Because it was available. Don't kid yourself, higher base salaries would just meant people buy even more crap. Lack of median salary growth is a serious issue, and cheap debt did hide the issue, but the acceptance of credit, debt and living beyond your means was a cultural phenomenon. More base salary would have just bumped the average size of unaffordable McMansions built up a tax bracket.

Is it not because the U.S.'s wages relative to costs-of-living and inflation are stagnant, despite growth?

In a globalised world, private sector unions don't help much. Pushing for higher salaries just pushes more jobs overseas. The investor class reaps profits from outsourced labor and financial casino games in a way that isn't accessible to the bulk of the population; all they get is cheaper prices at WalMart. Public sector unions are different because the jobs can't be outsourced, but the problem there is that they've gone way overboard. Specifically they have demanded massive salary increases while refusing to allow any sort of productivity increase, and simultaneously intwining themselves insidiously into the political system. A natural if painful check on private sector unions was that when they inevitably got too greedy and started killing companies, other non-unionised companies filled the void, and whacked back the union influence. Now that local government bankrupcy has been ruled out there is no check at all on public sector union power, nothing short of bankrupting the whole country (and I'm not sure even that would kill them).

Because we have no public services such as health care

Lots of countries lack socialised health care, even Germany.

or decent public pensions?

You have social security, that quite enough of a public pension.

Because maybe, we have no industries anymore?

There is plenty of industry in the US, but it is all lean industry that employs relatively few people.

Who advised these evil city governments to take on debt and financialize?

No one did, they were forced into doing it by union-created budget deficits. The original excessive spending was not funded by debt, it was funded by taxes. The unions were either too short-sighted to conceive that tax revenues could fall, or (more likely) so greedy they didn't give a shit what happened as long as their bloated pensions were funded, and forced through the spending increases. When tax revenue did inevitably fall, that's when debt was the only solution.

In Florida, one six years ago a cop's or fireman's "bloated union" salary could not possibly get them a real home without scammy mortgages which I'm sure we're eagerly recommended to them. What were these people supposed to do? Not live anywhere?

Offer government owned or subsidized housing. This is the same principle as food stamps, if there is a specific cost the government has to address then funding should be given for that only. Paying bloated salaries gives public servants a personal wealth twice (or more!) what the same skills can get in the private sector. That is both unfair and unsustainable. Cheap rents on government-owned city center housing addresses the specific problem without needing excessive salaries. Although frankly, that argument only applies to specific jobs that form a small fraction of the local government payroll. All those mindless beurecrats have no right to whine about housing costs, when their private sector counterparts who also work in city offices have to commute.

[Alphawolf55]

Yeah, I was sloppy and wrong. But you want a free hard on pointing out shit that is trivia to my point: Idaho is not a public policy model that can be applied to California, New York, etc. I have worked in retail, service, warehouse/distribution center etc., and right-to-work sucks.

I know how you feel in some ways. I recently lost a job in retail because they accused me of stealing and said they had it on tape but refused to show it to me when I asked (since I know for a fact I didn't steal anything), even if they were lying I still couldn't get my job back. But right to work also protects you in some ways, it allows you to break your side of the agreement at any time as well and quit a job at any point.

Though truthfully the only reason why right to work matters is because we have a shitty welfare and even more shitty unemployment benefits system that encourages businesses to lie about you breaking the rules to get out of paying unemployment.

[Guardsman Bass]

Lots of countries lack socialised health care, even Germany.

That's not really true, unless you are defining "socialized health care" as NHS-style stuff, while ignoring "universal health insurance" and the like. Germany has a form of the latter, since most of the population is covered by a public health insurance plan that is subsidized by the German government.

[Illuminatus Primus]

Retiring at 44 and getting a 100k pension is pretty hideous. There is absolutely no justification for final salary / defined benefit pensions. All pensions should be defined contribution, i.e. personal investment account that gets turned into an annuity on retirement based on your expected remaining lifespan (and not before a sensible minimum age e.g. 55). This is the only fair approach.

By investment account do you mean in a generic sense, or actually something tied straight to the market like an IRA or 401(k) plan?

Your "solution", in fact, would help accelerate to decline of middle and working classes,

Happening anyway, bloating up and overpaying the public sector won't help, actually it will hurt by creating artificial divisions

Well of course, I don't support floating the public sector at all costs while the private zone struggles to stay afloat or stable, this is becoming a social problem and risk precisely because that's been allowed to happen.

and diverting attention away from fundamental issues (some of which are unfixable anyway).

Could you be more specific/explanatory? This makes it exceptionally difficult to reply.

Plus of course increasing both inflation and taxes and ultimately creating more poverty.

Increasing taxes and public spending does not necessarily result in poverty or inflation. Though we are in a pretty ugly debt trap which places significant monetary and fiscal pressures on the system.

create even more unemployed benefit-sinks.

Plenty of government workers are either utterly useless, or negatively useful corrupt impediments to getting anything done.

Again, where is the statistical evidence for this?

We're getting a lot of repetitive hash about "lazy fuckers" "overpaid" etc., etc. But I've not seen any statistical data showing that they're being paid so much relative to inflation and the scale of government operations. All I'm seeing is rhetoric and anecdotal evidence. In the real world, I see everyday massive cuts that directly impact the public; in Gainesville we're losing lots of cops and firemen, we're seeing real pay cuts, and state-wide the university is being strangled. A graduate course costs more, is less subsidized, and has more students and less professor time and access -- that's an economic extraction from me in real terms, occurring in real time. There are real effects, and I can show easily, as in the Colorado Springs case, where this is simply a pretext to implement Brazilian/Ron Paul policies on urban development and communities.

Having them on benefits would cost a quarter of what their bloated salaries cost, and they'd be forced to look for a job where they actually contribute to the economy.

The axiom that public sector employees provide no economic benefits is pure libertarian bullshit.

gigantic prison populations

That has nothing to do with breaking unions. I haven't seen unions campaigning for drug legalisation or more rehabilitation. In fact I haven't even seen them campaigning against prison labor, most likely because the prison wardens union is all for it.

I mean greater unemployment, poorer labor standards, declining benefits and static or declining real wages is considered unrelated to greater crime, urban blight, drugs, etc.?

Why did people turn to debt so much since Reagandom?

Because it was available.Don't kid yourself, higher base salaries would just meant people buy even more crap. Lack of median salary growth is a serious issue, and cheap debt did hide the issue, but the acceptance of credit, debt and living beyond your means was a cultural phenomenon.

And where did it come from? Just organic magic? Baby Boomers raised poorly? What?

More base salary would have just bumped the average size of unaffordable McMansions built up a tax bracket.

What?

Is it not because the U.S.'s wages relative to costs-of-living and inflation are stagnant, despite growth?

In a globalised world, private sector unions don't help much. Pushing for higher salaries just pushes more jobs overseas. The investor class reaps profits from outsourced labor and financial casino games in a way that isn't accessible to the bulk of the population; all they get is cheaper prices at WalMart.

Good point; a "virtual Senate" of global investors can veto democratic policies which are made in the benefit of the whole public (not just the "quality"), and thwart local and limited popular organization.

Public sector unions are different because the jobs can't be outsourced, but the problem there is that they've gone way overboard. Specifically they have demanded massive salary increases while refusing to allow any sort of productivity increase, and simultaneously intwining themselves insidiously into the political system. A natural if painful check on private sector unions was that when they inevitably got too greedy and started killing companies, other non-unionised companies filled the void, and whacked back the union influence. Now that local government bankrupcy has been ruled out there is no check at all on public sector union power, nothing short of bankrupting the whole country (and I'm not sure even that would kill them).

What is the alternative? And where are those statistics?

Because we have no public services such as health care

Lots of countries lack socialised health care, even Germany.

Do you want to pay 10% GDP for worse outcomes, i.e., lower productivity, than other socialized systems.

or decent public pensions?

You have social security, that quite enough of a public pension.

Its often barely enough to survive. That IRS plane kamikaze talked about his elderly neighbor who survived off of SS...and cat food.

Because maybe, we have no industries anymore?

There is plenty of industry in the US, but it is all lean industry that employs relatively few people.

And I'm to believe there's nothing that can be done about this?

In Florida, one six years ago a cop's or fireman's "bloated union" salary could not possibly get them a real home without scammy mortgages which I'm sure we're eagerly recommended to them. What were these people supposed to do? Not live anywhere?

Offer government owned or subsidized housing. This is the same principle as food stamps, if there is a specific cost the government has to address then funding should be given for that only. Paying bloated salaries gives public servants a personal wealth twice (or more!) what the same skills can get in the private sector. That is both unfair and unsustainable. Cheap rents on government-owned city center housing addresses the specific problem without needing excessive salaries. Although frankly, that argument only applies to specific jobs that form a small fraction of the local government payroll. All those mindless beurecrats have no right to whine about housing costs, when their private sector counterparts who also work in city offices have to commute.

This sound more like "rah! the government! bureaucracies!" rhetoric than substance. Do you have any statistics?

[Guardsman Bass]

I mean greater unemployment, poorer labor standards, declining benefits and static or declining real wages is considered unrelated to greater crime, urban blight, drugs, etc.?

The link between crime and the state of the economy is more tenuous than you might think it would be. The 1920s were a high-crime period, while the 1930s were not. There was an economic boom during much of the Kennedy-Johnson administrations that coincided with a rise in crime, and the drop in crime from the early 1990s continued through the collapse of the Dot.com bubble and mild recession in the early 2000s.

And where did it come from? Just organic magic? Baby Boomers raised poorly? What?

A mix of things, but what made it possible were persistently low interest rates set by the Federal Reserve during much of this period. It was a fairly strong incentive to increase the number of lenders for the banks, and for people to borrow money.

Good point; a "virtual Senate" of global investors can veto democratic policies which are made in the benefit of the whole public (not just the "quality"), and thwart local and limited popular organization.

It's more the fact that investors can yank their money out quickly (and in large quantities) if anything starts to threaten the stability and viability of their investments. There's no real co-ordination or conspiratorial element to it; it's just a side-effect of a liberalized system of international finance and loosened capital controls, and since the size of the world economy has greatly increased in the past couple of decades, it has had much more of an effect. Particularly since risk and fear are contagious in international investment, so that if a few investors start pulling their money, it can start a stampede out the door.

And I'm to believe there's nothing that can be done about this?

Not when one of the biggest factors is the role of technology in driving manufacturing productivity up over the past couple of decades.

[Coyote]

To be honest, state-level Rethugs have Obama over a barrel.

Actually, Idaho seems to be in good shape. Because the state is so virulently anti-union -- I looked up unionization numbers and they were pretty impressively low -- even in government -- they were able to push through a 3.7% across the board spending cut on education funding and looked at reductions in Medicaid (!!) -- which has apparently turned Idaho budget issues from a "oh god we're in the hole for $170~ million" to "okay, we're only $50 million in the hole, this is doable".

Yeah, we're a "right-to-work" state so the employers can fire you at any time for any reason at all. Including if you are advocating for a union; they just blame it on, um, wearing mis-matched socks as a violation of dress code. Or something.

Idaho keeps its business taxes way low, constantly trying to encourage big businesses to move here. It doesn't work, because businesses typically require an educated work force to draw from but Idaho constantly short-changes education. For a city the size of Boise, around 250,000 people*, it wasn't until just a few years ago we had a community college set up. Sure, there's BSU but it's expensive (for the region) and crowded.

Our legislature is part-time and made up of a lot of older farmer and rancher types, super conservative. Our Democratic Party is tiny, so we're basically a GOP one-party state. We're kinda America's own little North Korea, sometimes, or so it seems.

*Depending on how you slice the pie; there's the "greater metropolitan area" which includes a lot of small bedroom communities that are tied to Boise.

[Guardsman Bass]

Our legislature is part-time and made up of a lot of older farmer and rancher types, super conservative. Our Democratic Party is tiny, so we're basically a GOP one-party state. We're kinda America's own little North Korea, sometimes, or so it seems.

Utah has the same problem with our state senate; all the ultra-conservative rural areas are over-represented, and combined with the highly conservative Mormon Republican suburbs (places like Sandy, Draper, Herriman, and the like), you end up with heavy Republican dominance.

[Illuminatus Primus]

Good point; a "virtual Senate" of global investors can veto democratic policies which are made in the benefit of the whole public (not just the "quality"), and thwart local and limited popular organization.

It's more the fact that investors can yank their money out quickly (and in large quantities) if anything starts to threaten the stability and viability of their investments. There's no real co-ordination or conspiratorial element to it; it's just a side-effect of a liberalized system of international finance and loosened capital controls, and since the size of the world economy has greatly increased in the past couple of decades, it has had much more of an effect. Particularly since risk and fear are contagious in international investment, so that if a few investors start pulling their money, it can start a stampede out the door.

I'll respond to the other points later, but in brief: I am a socialist. I think that the vast controlling interest in the global human economy should not in principle be controlled by a very tiny minority of people for reasons which cannot be extrinsically morally justified. All human institutions should be subject to direct democratic control by the people who participate in, as well as are effected by the workings of said institutions. This is a simple acknowledgment of the fact that as a libertarian socialist, formal democracy in capitalist societies (especially ones in the global periphery) in principle do not prevent most of public life from not being subject to unchecked private tyranny. When there is such an attempt to bridge this inadequacy, it is usually denounced as autocracy, communism, autarky, economic stupidity, fanatical nationalism, etc. -- anything which will cause hysteria among articulate sectors among the privileged imperial societies -- followed by a probable attempt by the U.S, to collaborate with apoplectic local business elites in order to subvert the incorrectly functioning elections (their function is to create elites who will service us) by a coup.

[Guardsman Bass]

All human institutions should be subject to direct democratic control by the people who participate in, as well as are effected by the workings of said institutions.

What do you mean by "direct democratic control"? We already have a form of this in the more democratic states (such as the US, Canada, Europe, Japan, and so forth) where the populace, at least in theory, has the ability to authorize others to regulate, establish, and ban institutions within a certain territory.

If you are referring to "direct democratic control" in the sense of actual direct democracy, then it is wholly impractical at any sort of large-scale organization for the same reason that direct democracy generally is impractical for any population beyond that of a small town. The operations and procedures alone involved in many of the processes underpinning our society are far too complex for most to understand without advanced training, which most don't have the aptitude for.

As for the "effected", that is a vague and large group. Hypothetically speaking, if some inventor in China discovers some radical new material that displaces, say, steel as a building material, wiping out the remaining steel industry in the US as a result of steel's usual purchasers flocking to the new material, do I count as one of the "effected" who has a right to control the inventor's company as well as the spread of the new material, beyond the role I defined in the first paragraph of my response?

This is a simple acknowledgment of the fact that as a libertarian socialist, formal democracy in capitalist societies (especially ones in the global periphery) in principle do not prevent most of public life from not being subject to unchecked private tyranny.

The Third World is, of course, an area where this is the case, but that largely has to do with weak institutions unable to enforce restrictions on behavior. That's a call for stronger state-building.

The Rich Countries are obviously not perfect in this regard, but they have gotten vastly better over the years. We have a whole network of agencies and laws that greatly limit what would otherwise be an even worse situation (look at the history of the Thames in London, before government efforts to clean it up).

When there is such an attempt to bridge this inadequacy, it is usually denounced as autocracy, communism, autarky, economic stupidity, fanatical nationalism, etc. -- anything which will cause hysteria among articulate sectors among the privileged imperial societies -- followed by a probable attempt by the U.S, to collaborate with apoplectic local business elites in order to subvert the incorrectly functioning elections (their function is to create elites who will service us) by a coup.

Your ideology perhaps would have been more appropriate in the 1980s than today. Do you have any relevant examples of this happening in the Third World today?

[MKSheppard]

Yeah, we're a "right-to-work" state so the employers can fire you at any time for any reason at all. Including if you are advocating for a union; they just blame it on, um, wearing mis-matched socks as a violation of dress code. Or something.

It's no surprise that Virginia's economy is doing better than Maryland's because VA's a right to work state; while MD isn't.

At least the Post Office wasn't a closed shop; and I could ignore the RCLA, and circular file all of their mail (ho ho ho), instead of having to pay union dues that would be used as a political slush fund for politicians and parties I do not like.

It wasn't until just a few years ago we had a community college set up. Sure, there's BSU but it's expensive (for the region) and crowded.

What about College of Southern Idaho? Founded 1965. Or North Idaho College? Founded 1933. (FYI, Palin went to NIC for two years before transferring to U of Idaho). CSI is like 2+ hours down south via I-84.

I think you're being too hard on your state. It's pretty big and sparsely populated - only like 15 people per square mile on average -- Oregon of all places is twice as dense. And looking at the enrollment numbers for CSI and NIC; the average student body is only a few thousand at each institution.

Not every county can have a community college with 60,000 (!) students like my home county of Montgomery.

Our legislature is part-time

Is that really so bad? I mean Texas operates on a bi-annual legislature, as does Oregon; and they do just fine. The other three states which meet bi-annually (Montana, Nevada, North Dakota) are about as sparsely populated as Idaho (give or take a bit).

[Coyote]

I am hard on my home state, I admit, and a lot of it has to do with how the politicians piss away money on one day on foolish things, but then complain about budget shortfalls the next day and close agencies. But this is no different from other states.

The thing about wages, benefits, right-to-work and unions is always a battle of extremes. I'd like to see better wages in Idaho and more employee protection, but the problem with unions is that while they will initially form with good intentions in mind, once they get rooted in they tend to go hog-wild and drive up costs. Virginia's bottom line looks good economically, but does that still mean that workers have access to good medical care or can afford insurance? Back in my days of retail in Boise, I was one of those people who just could not afford decent insurance. There were a lot of things my company couldn't or wouldn't cover (vision, dental) so if I had a problem in those areas, well, tough.

The community college thing I can't comment on; I went to College of Idaho myself (private lib-arts), but it has always been odd that for Boise, with the center of population for the state, there wasn't a choice right here. Well, except a couple of "Bible colleges" (snicker).