Advertisement - Click to support our sponsors.
Editorials
Thursday, February 10, 2000Public employee
benefits excessiveTHE public employee unions blasted Governor Cayetano's proposals for civil service reform. That is no surprise. The unions, true to form, turned a deaf ear to the governor's insistence that the state can't afford to fund the excessively generous pension program and let state employees continue to take 55 days a year of vacation, holidays and sick leave.The issue: Governor Cayetano has proposed civil service reforms to reduce excessive employee benefits.
Labor's response was that if the state can't afford these benefits, raise taxes. Let the people who aren't on the government payroll foot the bill.
Even the Democratic governor and Democratic Legislature have too much sense to raise taxes to please the public worker unions. Cayetano in particular recognizes that the lawmakers have been too generous with the unions in the past -- in return, of course, for unswerving support in their election campaigns -- and that this can't go on much longer.
The government employee unions have wielded great power thanks to the apathy of the general electorate. The unions have used that power to elect sympathetic candidates and gain for their members benefits far in excess of those prevailing in the private sector.
For example, how many workers in private business get 55 days off a year? It's ridiculous.
Cayetano pointed out that government workers in California, Washington and Oregon get only 34 to 36 days -- still a lot more than the private sector offers, but three weeks less than Hawaii's workers. Is it any wonder that government offices often seem understaffed?
All that time off, of course, mean less productivity. It takes more workers to accomplish the same tasks -- and there's not enough money to hire the people to make up the difference.
It's small wonder that government is inefficient -- particularly when you consider that it's terribly difficult to fire anyone.
Then there's the matter of calculating retirement benefits. Cayetano wants the Legislature to eliminate overtime from the calculations.
The governor used the example of a 54-year-old worker who retires with nearly 30 years of service. By counting overtime, the worker could boost his average final compensation to $79,658. Without overtime, compensation would average $34,140. Counting the overtime would increase the estimated monthly pension benefits from $1,664 to $3,883 -- a difference of more than $1 million during the retiree's expected lifetime.
To the unions, retraction of benefits once granted is unthinkable. They have served notice they will fight these and other reform proposals with all their strength.
And they will probably win by intimidating the legislators, most of whom had union support in their election campaigns and want to retain that support for future elections. The only hope for reform is that the public turns out and expresses its outrage at having to foot the bill for these excesses.
Two-man
GOP raceAFTER attention-generating caucuses in only one state and primary elections in two, the Republican presidential race has become essentially a duel.
The withdrawal of millionaire magazine publisher Steve Forbes after his dismal third-place finish in the Delaware primary leaves Texas Gov. George W. Bush and Arizona Sen. John McCain as the only remaining major candidates for the GOP nomination. Which candidate will draw more support from Forbes voters is uncertain.
Forbes finished a strong runner-up to Bush in the money-important Iowa caucuses, which McCain ignored, and a poor third in the New Hampshire primary. McCain chose to skip Delaware but still gained more support than Forbes, who won that primary over Bob Dole four years ago.
Like both Bush and McCain, Forbes cast himself as a conservative, combining his trademark flat-tax proposal with more emphasis on moral issues than in the 1996 campaign.
Analysis of exit-poll results in New Hampshire's Feb. 1 primary suggests that Forbes voters describing themselves as conservatives are more likely to gravitate toward Bush. Those attracted to Forbes' maverick image are apt to switch to McCain, the surging underdog and champion of campaign-finance reform.
As the two contenders focus on South Carolina's Feb. 19 primary, each is claiming to be both more conservative on social issues and more dedicated to reform. Bush questions McCain's adherence to practices consistent with the campaign reform measures that McCain has sponsored.
While Democrats point to March 7 as their most important date for state primary elections, Republicans have much at stake before then, following South Carolina: Arizona and Michigan primaries on Feb. 22, Nevada caucuses a day later and on Feb. 29 primaries in Virginia and Washington and caucuses in North Dakota.
Republicans may have produced a front-runner before the end of this month, but the two-man race is likely to continue through March. As votes cast so far have indicated and Forbes' defeat confirmed, the size of a candidate's campaign chest may not be the determining factor.
Published by Liberty Newspapers Limited PartnershipRupert E. Phillips, CEO
John M. Flanagan, Editor & Publisher
David Shapiro, Managing Editor
Diane Yukihiro Chang, Senior Editor & Editorial Page Editor
Frank Bridgewater & Michael Rovner, Assistant Managing Editors
A.A. Smyser, Contributing Editor
