In New York City, a new public building that was recently completed serves to remind city dwellers (and all Americans, really) of a few of the major problems facing our country today. The building in question cost $2 million. With a price tag like that, some readers might be imagining a public library branch, a small office building or a sanitation processing facility. But no, this new building is none of the above; instead, it’s a public bathroom, described by the city as a “comfort station,” although it offers nothing extra in the way of comfort besides four toilets and four sinks.
Yes, this is what $2 million in public money buys these days, at least in parts of New York City. But that figure likely wouldn’t be too far off the mark in other big cities in America such as Los Angeles, Boston or San Francisco. That’s because municipal spending in many areas is out of control. It’s not uncommon for public employees or contractors to make obscene salaries, supplemented by massive overtime payments, benefits and perks. Take for example the annual salary of firefighters in San Ramon, California, who are pulling down more than $400,000 each when all is said and done. In Connecticut, mental disability nurses are making $250,000. Back in the Big Apple, a recent news story on the city’s troubled subway system showed that some workers tasked with picking up cigarette butts off the floors of subway cars are making in excess of $100,000 per year. A small minority of subway laborers are multimillionaires, with several earning more in a year (over $350,000) than the CEO of the entire transportation network. The phenomenon continues with police, firefighters, general contractors and even garbage collectors all earning outrageous sums in many cases that are many times what their brethren earned 10, 15 or 20 years ago, adjusted for inflation.
What has happened to public spending and accountability? In a word, the Democratic Party. Democrats in any number of cities have presided over substantial increases in the incomes of public employees even as health care and pension costs have driven states like Illinois, Connecticut and New Jersey ever closer to bankruptcy. In states like Wisconsin, where Republican Governor Scott Walker famously challenged state employees’ collective bargaining rights in 2011, public opinion has shown that voters have finally had enough of public costs going through the roof.
Very simply, public employees shouldn’t be earning much more than what their private enterprise counterparts earn; in fact, they should likely be earning less because studies show they’re less productive.
Why has this trend been allowed to continue? In essence, the major reason is unions. Just as happened in the automobile capital of Detroit, decades of hard bargaining and successful negotiation with management have gotten unions too high on the hog, to the point where they’re a threat to the very organizations that made their existence a necessity so many years ago.
It’s one thing for a union to demand living wages for employees, but it’s another for a union to extract a salary that’s sufficient to put five children through expensive 4-year private colleges while simultaneously paying for a worker’s three-story, six-bedroom house with a swimming pool and three-car garage.
A random ad hoc surveying of knowledgeable people in New York City reveals that many unions there make sure that new jobs come with salaries that would have been quite enviable a generation ago while making sure that union rules lock out applicants who aren’t “connected” to existing members or their families, who in many cases hand off lucrative jobs to their relatives, friends and social connections. Even when starting salaries aren’t high (as is the case with the city’s police force), standards for wage increases, overtime, benefits and perks ensure that incomes rise very quickly for those who stay in their jobs just a few years. And the topic of how to game the system to maximum levels is a natural conversation fallback for many of these workers.
Tales of no-show jobs or hours spent at work consuming alcohol or worse are epidemic, and while five million people attempt to go to work every day in the metropolis, New York City’s subway system has been accorded an “Emergency” status by the state’s governor because maintenance is so costly that needed repairs are backlogged for years and even decades into the future.
By some accounts, all the maintenance necessary to fully modernize the city’s subway network and bring it up to the same operating efficiency as other world cities such as Hong Kong, Kuala Lumpur or Berlin won’t be complete until 2040 at the earliest. Those who point to Elon Musk’s vaunted multi-hundred-mile “Hyperloop” transport efforts, which are scheduled to be functioning in the United Arab Emirates and India in just four years, are astonished that the refurbishing alone of one 1.2-mile-long tunnel from Manhattan to Brooklyn, which was slightly damaged during Hurricane Sandy in 2012, was scheduled to take 18 months, forcing 225,000 commuters to add at least 45 minutes on average to their trips every day. (The subway system has now said work may be able to be completed in “only” 15 months instead of 18, at a cost of nearly a billion dollars.)
When unions are questioned about runaway costs and delays, typical excuses detail all the rules in place that workers must follow, at the risk of having to do a job over again. Rigid, seemingly endless specifications must be followed to the letter. Rules about affirmative action, minority outreach and handicapped access must all be heeded. States Philip Howard, founder of the government reform organization Common Good, “The process is designed to prevent any human from using judgment or adapting to unforeseen circumstances. The idea of a commercial relationship, based on norms of reasonableness and reciprocity, is anathema.”
Even though only a minority of laborers belong to a union, most cities and states insist on using them, adding a minimum of 13 to 25 percent to all labor costs. Since government isn’t a private enterprise, money comes from taxpayers, not from business income; there’s much less oversight and accountability, and politicians are sometimes out of office before final bills come due. Timelines get vastly delayed with little meaningful public outcry. Decisions favoring special interests, specific contractors and, of course, unions are often made.
And which party do most unions support (often compelling members to make “mandatory” political contributions via their dues)? Hint: it’s not the Republican Party.
Returning to the example of the $2 million “comfort station”, the New York City Parks Department insisted that the final price tag was actually a million dollars less than what the building should have cost — a nearly unbelievable $3 million. Parks Commissioner Mitchell Silver attempted to explain. “New York City is the most expensive place to build. $2 million was a good deal. We built these comfort stations to last. Look at the materials we use compared to those of a home. These are very, very durable materials. We’re going to expect thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of visitors. So we have to build them to last.” Of course, what Silver ignores is that in New York City’s Bryant Park, a similar comfort station there (which is more ornate and sees much more use) cost just $300,000 to build. The difference? Bryant Park is privately operated.
And unions aren’t the only cause of infrastructure and service costs going through the roof; there are other factors such as lawsuits. From 2010 to 2014, New York City paid out half a billion dollars to citizens who were allegedly mistreated by the city’s police force. In Los Angeles, the number was nearly as high. For that kind of money, you would think that city governments could spend a substantial amount on new training programs for their police officers to prevent the kinds of incidents that lead to such legal action. But no, apparently such thinking is beyond the capacity of Democratic mayors such as New York’s Bill DeBlasio or Los Angeles’ Eric Garcetti.
In Chicago, former President Obama’s Chief of Staff-turned Mayor Rahm Emanuel has seen rampant violent crime blow up the number of murders in that Midwestern city from 435 in 2011 to nearly double the figure in 2016. It seems that no matter how much money Emanuel has thrown at the problem — via expanding new detention facilities such as the infamous Homan Square building, which has been accused of human rights abuses — the problems have only gotten worse, to the point where President Trump has said the federal government needs to step in.
In Chicago as well, lawsuits have been a tremendous problem, with just one police officer making headlines for being responsible for $671,000 in settlements and awards over the course of his career, which reportedly has not ended with the city. A report last year stated that just 124 officers were responsible for $34 million in settlements. In the meantime, the state of Illinois has said its bonds are near junk status, and a big part of the state’s financial problems come from its largest city of Chicago.
Between unions, regulations and lawsuits, the challenges facing today’s city, state and federal governments are enormous. But as pension fund troubles threaten to tip states into bankruptcy and the national debt of the federal government looms ever larger, these issues must be confronted head-on. The use of private firms, cutting of regulations and limiting of awards in lawsuits all could go a long way toward resolving many of these fiscal problems.
For the sake of the country’s future, conservatives should aim to elect only those representatives and leaders who are fully committed to reforming these conditions. As it stands, the country cannot continue advancing down the road it’s been traveling on much longer without dark clouds appearing on the horizon.
