How Not to Bargain in Public

Sanitation workers selfishly slowed down the cleanup - NYPOST.com

These garbage men really stink.

Selfish Sanitation Department bosses from the snow-slammed outer boroughs ordered their drivers to snarl the blizzard cleanup to protest budget cuts -- a disastrous move that turned streets into a minefield for emergency-services vehicles, The Post has learned.

Miles of roads stretching from as north as Whitestone, Queens, to the south shore of Staten Island still remained treacherously unplowed last night because of the shameless job action, several sources and a city lawmaker said, which was over a raft of demotions, attrition and budget cuts.

It's too bad for all the actual hard working public employees, but it's episodes like these that tend to stick in the minds of the public.

Did they actually think a poor performance would help their case come contract time? Or was an attempt to punish the Mayor more important than doing their job?

Governor Doyle Good For One Last Laffer

From the Journal Sentinel (my bold):

Madison — The state's bleak budget outlook brightened a bit Monday, as state officials projected that Wisconsin will take in $57 million more in taxes this year than previously expected and $235 million more over the following two years...

Gov. Jim Doyle's administration said the higher projected tax revenues were largely the result of the recently announced tax bill compromise between President Barack Obama and Congress.

"These projected revenue increases are a direct result of President Barack Obama's recently enacted tax cut bill and additional (state) personal income data showing continued growth in Wisconsin's economy," Administration Secretary Dan Schooff said in a statement.

Got that? The Bush/Obama tax rates are responsible for increasing WI tax collections. At least according to Democratic Governor Jim Doyle.

I found this a little amusing, since just other day, Capper linked to an article that said this was one of the myths only conservatives believe:

1. Cutting Taxes Leads to More Money for the Government

Conservatives can't say they oppose popular programs on ideological grounds, and they can't admit they're happy to run up huge budget deficits, so they've come up with the fiction that cutting taxes actually brings in more revenues to finance the public sector....

It's also complete nonsense, and it's worth noting that only conservative politicians and pundits make the claim -- economists across the ideological spectrum agree that the argument is cursed by voodoo math.

Guess we'll have to change this one to a myth that only conservatives and Governor Doyle believes.

The fine print:

A good partisan blogger would just stop there and people from both sides would leave this post just having their previously held beliefs reinforced. Since one of my goals with this blog is to actually inform and persuade, let me throw in a few disclaimers.

Conservatives - It's clear that tax cuts do not pay for themselves over the long run. They don't. Stop repeating this like a mantra. They also don't reduce the size of government, you shouldn't need any bigger proof than the current national debt. Focus on the spending and the taxes will sort themselves out.

Liberals - High marginal tax rates have a disincentive effect on work. When you frame this entirely as the ultra-rich giving up some conspicuous consumption, you are kidding yourself if you think this doesn't affect the rest of us. When Donald Trump doesn't do a deal and decides instead to cut expenses, you may cry crocodile tears over the fact that he cancels his dog's yoga class. If you want to see some real tears, talk to the canine yoga instructor who was living her dream and making $50k a year. Making everyone poorer, doesn't make the poor better off.

Red WI vs. Blue WI

Steve Prestegard:

Marketplace of Ideas Blog - Wisconsin vs. the Madison–Milwaukee Axis

The “great unwashed outstate,” by the way, is most of Wisconsin. The state has about 5.6 million people, the Milwaukee metropolitan area has about 2 million people, and the Madison area has about 500,000 people. That leaves about 3 million people who live in neither metro Madison nor metro Milwaukee — people who put in more than a day’s work for a day’s pay, own or work in businesses that provide products and services for their customers, pay far too much in taxes, get involved in their children’s schools, go to church, hunt and fish, do not automatically gravitate to the newest pop culture stupidity, and do not have municipal governments with their own foreign policy. Nor do they wish the places they live to emulate New York or Chicago, or even Milwaukee or Madison.

The entire piece is excellent throughout. The divide between Madison/Milwaukee and the rest of the state is an important one. I sometimes wonder if the Fox Valley will look more like those two areas as it grows or will it serve as a counter-weight to them.

Walker Should Keep His Distance From Decker

More than once today I heard that Senator Russ Decker's refusal to vote for the state employee contracts had something to do with the possibility of his gaining a position in the Walker administration. Berry Laker even speculates Decker could head the WI DNR. Perhaps it's appropriate that a politician who managed to provoke so much outrage would head an agency that seems to do the same, but in my estimation Walker would be making a huge mistake to include Decker in any capacity.

Even if Decker were uniquely suited to fill some position in our state government, his appointment now would look like little more than a quid pro quo. As such, Walker would not be immune from criticism. It takes two to pander after all.

Among those of us that are generally supportive of Walker's policy positions, one of his weaknesses is a private sector resume that is a little thin to put it kindly. A Decker appointment that looks and sounds like politics as usual would reinforce the idea of Walker as a little more than a politician. It's entirely possible that we could still be facing a tough economy in 2014 and primary voters tend to have long memories.

If Russ Decker happens to have $3 billion he'd be willing to donate to plug our state's budget deficit then I think Walker's first act as governor should be to hire him. Short of that, Scott Walker would be well advised to keep Decker out of his administration.

Senators Cornyn & Thune on Earmarks

If these two represent the GOP's best and brightest, we may be in even more trouble than I thought. Apparently, both of these distinguished gentlemen were for earmarks before they were against them.

Jamie Dupree reports from a press conference on the omnibus spending bill (you know the one everybody on the right is up in arms about):

But if advisers to the Senators thought the opening statements of Cornyn and Thune would set the theme for this news conference, they were wrong, because the fine print of the Omnibus showed many Republican Senators at the pork barrel trough as well.

My review found 45 earmarks for Cornyn and another 26 for Thune. Those examples didn't get ignored by reporters.

"The bill contains many earmarks that you requested," said one reporter, starting the Q&A.

"Pardon me?" said Cornyn.

"I intend to vote against those earmarks because the American people sent a message on November 2nd," said the Texas Republican.

"Senator Thune, I was just looking at the list of earmark requests that you requested this year and it adds up to over a hundred million dollars," said another reporter, asking the South Dakota Republican - who has been talked about as a Presidential hopeful - if he would strike those earmarks.

"I support those projects, but I don't support this bill," Thune answered.

Time for another question.

"Going through this bill, there is earmark after earmark from the both of you, millions of dollars in earmarks," asked another scribe with a jab.

"Why do you have any credibility on this?"

"Because we're going to vote against the bill," answered Cornyn.

"It appears like you're saying one thing and doing another," another reporter pressed.

Cornyn was on Fox News (it gets good at about 3:00) and had to defend his earmarks. I don't think it could be said he acquitted himself well. From what I could tell his defense amounted to the fact that he was going to vote against the bill, so it didn't really matter that he had requested millions in earmarks.

I don't know about you, but I'm not convinced.

Where Walker & WEAC Agree

If I told you one of Wisconsin's political power players recently acted in such a way that our state missed out on millions of federal grant dollars and claimed that part of the reason was that there too many "strings attached" to the money, who would come to mind?

If you said Scott Walker, you'd be wrong.

Teachers unions often resist school reforms - JSOnline (my italics)

With its Race to the Top competition, the federal government dangled the prospect of a share of $4.35 billion for those states ready to enact reforms, especially related to improving teacher and principal performance.

Eyes on that prize, states launched plans tying teacher pay and promotions to student achievement, giving state officials more control over local schools and overhauling data tracking and assessment systems.

Then the game got tricky: Teachers unions had to be on board.

In the end, only 11 states and the District of Columbia ended up with money from the program this year. Wisconsin got nothing.

The Wisconsin Education Association Council had helped kill or watered down critical parts of the state's proposal, with the president of the teachers union attaching a letter to the application that one participant described as "grudging." In the end, only 12% of the union's local leaders endorsed a plan that might have brought in more than $250 million in school funding to Wisconsin.

So Scott Walker continues to be vilified for his part in stopping the high speed rail line between Milwaukee and Madison and the federal government's decision to take back the $810 million that Wisconsin was going to get for the project.

Maybe I missed it, but I can't seem to recall the same level of outrage over WEAC's role in Wisconsin's failed bid for Race to the Top money.

How Not To Fix Education

The big education story of the week was the poor showing of US students relative to their peers from other parts of the world on tests covering science, reading, and math:

The most important news and commentary to read right now. - The Slatest - Slate Magazine

Chinese schoolchildren have trounced students from other countries on an international education test, reports the New York Times. The 5,100 15-year-olds from Shanghai, who were chosen to give an accurate representation of students across the city, came out on top against other nations in science, reading, and math. The United States, by contrast, placed 23rd in science, 17th in reading, and 31st in math.

For some perspective on this, it's important to look back at the other big education stories of the year.

In October Michelle Rhee resigned as Washington D.C. Schools Chancellor. The coverage of her tenure primarily focused on her efforts to fire poorly performing teachers.

In August, there was an uproar over an analysis produced by the Los Angeles Times that rated teachers and that allowed the public to review the rating for an individual teacher.

And right here in Wisconsin, we had this item from the Journal Sentinel:

Sex education classes in Wisconsin public schools will have to teach
students about birth control and sexually transmitted diseases under a
bill Gov. Jim Doyle signed Wednesday.

All three of these items are conspicuous for their lack of focus on students and learning.  Given this, is it any wonder we fared so poorly on a test of science, reading, and math skills?

A Theory of Shown Family Size

Bryan Caplan had a great post last week combining statistics, biology, and parenting to lead to the conclusion that weird people should have more kids.  First, the statistics. If there is a zero correlation between parental and child traits then your child is as likely to be as similar to you as is a stranger. If the correlation between parent and child traits is greater than zero then you are more likely to be like your child than a stranger but only if you yourself are not normal. Here is Bryan:

Take a look:
 

		Parent-Child Correlation
		r= 0		r=.5
	You	Stranger	Child	Stranger	Child
Percentile/ Expected Percentile	50th	50th	50th	50th	50th
	95th	50th	50th	50th	80th
	99.99th	50th	50th	50th	95th

Notice that regardless of the value of r, normal people can expect to be like their kids.  But that's not saying much, because normal people can expect to be like any random person they meet!  The story's very different for weirdos.  By definition, weirdos never have much in common with random strangers.  With a zero parent-child correlation, weirdos will feel equally alienated from their children.  As the parent-child correlation rises, however, weirdos' incompatibility with strangers stays the same, but their expected compatibility with their children gets stronger and stronger.

Now let's look at these facts like a mad economist.  There are two ways to surround yourself with people like you.  One is to meet them; the other is to make them.  If you're average, meeting people like yourself is easy; people like you are everywhere.  If you're weird, though, meeting people like yourself is hard; people like you are few and far between.  But fortunately, as the parent-child correlation rises, weirdos' odds of making people like themselves get better and better.

...The lesson: As your weirdness increases, so does your incentive to have kids.  If you like football and American Idol, you're never really alone.  You don't need to build a Xanadu for yourself.  But if you're a lonely misfit, oddball, freak, or weirdo, then find a like-minded spouse and make new life together.  Let the normals laugh at you.  You'll have each other.

via marginalrevolution.com

Apologies to Alex Tabarrok for lifting his entire post, but I couldn't find a way to excerpt it that would do it justice. Let me just say that if you read only one blog, it should be Rhymes With Clown. If you read a second, it should be Marginal Revolution.

Posted via email from rhymeswithclown's posterous

The Tax Deal

Washington has been flooded with deficit reduction plans of late. They have different ideological shapes, but most require everyone to sacrifice something they want. That wasn't how this deal came together. Both sides agreed to give each other largely what they wanted. It is financed entirely by adding to the national debt. (Whee!)

via slate.com

I'd like to take this opportunity to thank my children (and grandchildren) for allowing my government to continue spending like there's no tomorrow and not paying to for it. Thanks.

I entertained the notion GOP gains in 2010 & 2012 would change the attitude in Washington toward spending. I'm wondering now if it's only the bond market that can do so.

Posted via email from rhymeswithclown's posterous

The Unions Forever

Given Wisconsin's history in the labor movement, perhaps it's fitting that next year we could find ourselves on the front line in the battle between public employee unions and the GOP. Union representatives and others sympathetic to the cause have been anything but hesitant to raise the issue of having it out with Governor Walker and the Republican legislature.  Here's Capper:

Cognitive Dissidence: As The Unions Go, So Goes The Rest Of The Workers

Back in the days before unionized labor, working conditions were miserable to say the least. Workers were paid lower than living wages; young children would work long days, often in dangerous conditions; workers were often killed on the job; workdays were often 12 or more hours long, six or seven days a week; and in some extreme cases, workers' wives were forced to sleep with their husbands bosses or risk losing their jobs and their company-owned homes....

The question that I have is at what point do enough of us hit rock bottom, how many of us have to lose their jobs, their homes, their health care and even their lives before we wake up and take our county, state and country back?

In the post he quotes Xoff who raises the specter of a public employee strike, which makes me wonder what would be the public reaction to such an event.

Since a recovery in the employment numbers doesn't seem to be in the near future, I guess the unions could gamble on a strike, but that's just what it would be, a gamble.  How long do they think the patience of private sector workers will hold out given the fact that many of them have had to get by with little or no raises, increased contributions to health insurance premiums, not to mention living under the shadow of a potential layoff?

Unless a Walker administration just blows it, I can imagine a scenario where Walker would take his case to the public, arguing that the offer he is making is reasonable given the tough economic times.  Now juxtapose that with video of public workers on the picket line.  Even if the public employees have legitimate arguments on some parts of the issue, how will this play out and where will the public come down?  I think that part of the anti-immigrant mood of the electorate right now is rooted in economic insecurity.  It's possible that a backlash against the unions in the wake of a strike could be even more intense.

The question, then, is why.

For Xoff the answer is simple, the public has been duped by Walker, the GOP, the Tea Party etc. It's a nice simple explanation, but like many simple explanations it probably doesn't really get at the heart of the matter.

Some of us self-described conservatives look at history and see how the industrial revolution moved us from a home-based economy to a corporate one, and how too many families surrendered their wives and children to corporations.  The remedies that were in part brought about by union action and that Capper outlines changed this.  But for a small section of us, the gains are viewed as fleeting since we just turned our children over to the government instead of the corporations.  Our children were enrolled in institutionalized settings for compulsory public schooling, the outlines of which always seem to be expanding.  After a brief interlude our wives were back in the work force and we have watched the family disintegrate.  This is my view, and it influences my thinking, but like I said, it is a small section of the populace and it isn't what will drive any potential union backlash.

The real problem is that the labor movement could be a victim of its own success.  If people view the gains that they have won as part of the permanent landscape of the country's work life, then what is the argument for keeping unions around?  Capper and Xoff would have you believe that there are still critical fights to take on, but I'm not sure how many people buy this argument.  Rightly or wrongly, many people think of unions as primarily protecting the worst workers.  It's wrong to generalize about the millions of hard working union men and women based on a few bad apples, but in a time of economic insecurity this could easily dominate the public thinking.

Do unions, particularly public sector ones, have as much important work to do in 2011 as they did in 1911?  Are gains from unionization of the labor force immune from diminishing returns?  I'd probably answer no to both of these, even while I acknowledge the important role that unions have played in our history.  If 2011 sees a showdown between the GOP and public employees in Wisconsin, we may get the chance to see how the general public would answer these questions as well.

Jeb Bush, Egalitarian

Since Dad29 threatened to ruin Thanksgiving with the news that Jeb Bush was considering a 2012 run, I just thought I'd pass along an item I recently ran across from The American Conservative's @TAC blog:

A longtime friend of mine, the former chairman of the political science department at the University of Illinois, Robert Weissberg, has published a devastating book on the educational industry. In Bad Students, Not Bad Schools (Transaction Publishers, 2010), Weissberg takes apart so many misconceptions about mass education that the reader’s head may be spinning by the end....

Weissberg quotes with searing contempt former Florida governor Jed[sic] Bush, who would not rest content until all high school graduates in his state were in college. Weissberg asks what these students will be doing in college, when their level of mathematical and writing competency is often no higher than that of competent elementary school students.

"Everybody's All American" is not a coherent education policy for a serious candidate. Please keep this in mind as the 2012 horserace starts to heat up.

The Bush note is not the focus of the post, though, and the whole thing is worth a read. From elsewhere:

Weissberg cautions about throwing more good money after what has already been misspent. Let those who want to drop out of high schools go; and let’s try to educate students who are willing and able to learn to become even better. Weissberg does not belittle the uninterested student. He is simply trying to be realistic about what schools can do

Visit the @TAC blog to read the whole thing.

Mortgage Interest Deduction

The mortgage interest deduction: winners and losers «  Modeled Behavior

We spend around $100 billion a year on this subsidy, and to the extent that it’s defenders are correct and homeownership does have positive externalities, it is actually making urban areas worse off. Even if we want the questionable goal of encouraging homeownership, recent research from the Cleveland Fed has argued that down payment subsidies are a more efficient way to do it. If we can phase the mortgage interest deduction out slowly so that there is limited disruption to housing markets, this policy really should be the first on the chopping block.

They also report that the effect on increasing home ownership was so small that each additional homeowner cost about $53,000!

If Russ Feingold had really wanted to burnish his maverick credentials, he should have embraced a phase out of the MID. This would have had the added benefit of eliminating a tax break that primarily benefits the wealthy, something a self-described progressive should support.

Missing the Point of the Last Election

New GOP majority could mean less clout for Wisconsin | thenorthwestern.com | Oshkosh Northwestern

"It’s a mixed bag," said Charles Franklin, a political science professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, in evaluating the potential clout of the new delegation. "Losing Obey obviously is a case of clout lost. But you’re gaining Paul Ryan on the budget committee. He’s certainly in a position to be influential."

Franklin points out, however, that Ryan is among the vanguard of House Republicans who have called for fiscal restraint to help balance the nation’s budget.

"The downside," Franklin said, "is you have a majority that believes in less, not more."

I'm not sure what message the professor took from the results from the last election, but I would say one of them is that at least some people want a government that does less.  (This group doesn't include a majority of Alaska voters, but that's a post for another day.)

I also wonder if Franklin would still consider a smaller government a "downside" if it prevents a debt crisis in the U.S.

What's the Chinese Character for Kill the Train?

Chinese Academy of Sciences: High-Speed Rail Construction Unsustainable – Business Topics | eChinacities.com

The Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) reported to the State Council recently, urging the large-scale high-speed railway construction projects in China to be re-evaluated. The CAS worries that China may not be able to afford such a large-scale construction of high-speed rail, and such a large scale high-speed rail network may not be practical.

High-speed rail train runs at over 250 km per hour, about twice the normal speed of a regular train. Under the current plan, the central government has approved to build, by 2020, 16,000 km of high speed rail providing access to about 90% of the Chinese population. Some local media have reported recently that the recently enabled Wuhan - Guangzhou high-speed rail is currently running an average daily attendance of less than half capacity, while the newly opened Shanghai-Hangzhou high-speed rail attendance is even lower.

Do you think Chinese citizens will hold a candle light vigil?

Seriously, if passenger rail isn't the answer in a country like China, how well will it work in a society centered on the automobile?  I'm skeptical of the economics of passenger rail and I think Scott Walker is right to end the project here in Wisconsin.

If you think government spending is needed as stimulus, I'm sure we could come up with a quicker and easier way to spend $800 million.

If you think the problem is greenhouse gas emissions, then let's talk about tougher fuel efficiency standards.

An HSR line between Milwaukee and Madison strikes me as little more than a solution in search of a problem.