The great part of this is that OSPIRG gets almost all of it’s operating income from the public through our I-Fees. So basically Oregon students are paying to file grievances that they then have to pay to reply to in taxes. It’s like a beautiful clusterfuck of government and OSPIRG waste!

Dirty, dirty PIRG.

Good points, all.

Chris:

“In other words, what’s good for the secretary is good for upper-level administration as well.”

Agreed.

I think it’s important to note that I’m not writing this as some kind of son of wealth. When I was growing up, my father worked for Curry County and my mother was a part-time librarian at the town high school. Now my dad works for DEQ my mom works for the City of Eugene, and my brother is a police officer up in the Portland area, so when I say that “public servants” might need to accept some wage/benefits compromises, I’m fully aware of the fact that I’m talking about my family, too.

A lot of the problem, as Matt mentioned, is simply waste. DEQ, for instance, is required by law to reply to every single letter that’s filed pending development, etc. On paper, this sounds good — government accountability!! In practice, this means that OSPIRG files a grievance EVERY SINGLE TIME there’s any kind of development pending, each one of which someone like my dad has to personally respond to. Sometimes, the activists don’t even get their grievances right, as in the case where they wrote a big complaint about some kind of development on one John Day River when in fact the development was happening on another John Day River entirely, one which was not subject to the same environmental regulations.

An honest mistake, maybe. But it was one that consumed a lot of taxpayer dollars because of well-intentioned regulations that end up wasting everyone’s time.

At the U of O this has been happening already. For instance, when I was working as a staff member and not faculty, the union agreed to years of wage freezes. Insurance has also been lowered for part-time employees…as in you don’t get certain benefits if you’re working somewhere between .5 and 1.0 FTE.

I agree that the issues here are still important, but I think it should be noted that the state employees (especially unionized) are not sitting around sucking non-stop from the teat of the government.

There were some interesting ways that upper-level administration gave themselves and highly-coveted faculty raises during the wage freeze years as well. I imagine that some of this is the same now, and I also imagine that with all of the money being invested in our numerous Vice Presidents, Provosts, Vice Provosts, Assistants to the (Vice) Provosts, Presidents and so on down the line….that the U of O should be operating far more efficiently and competing more than it does with its ‘peer’ universities.

In other words, what’s good for the secretary is good for upper-level administration as well. In fact, the secretary probably does more in any given year to make sure things work smoothly than some members of upper-administration do in their highly paid careers in the upper echelons of the ivory tower. (emphasis on “some”…there are people who are worth their salt in these positions)

There’s a whole assertion about how “higher tax rates drive away business.” There is some evidence to suggest this can be true, and business taxes are without doubt a major factor in corporate locating decisions. But they are not, of course, the only factor.

Taxes pay for things, and often these things are important to corporations. If a higher tax rate means they can save on healthcare costs through government-subsidized healthcare, it might help their bottom line. If it means a more expensive school system that turns out a more educated workforce, it again can be a corporate benefit. If it means that their distribution costs are lower because roads are more abundant and of higher quality, it might be worth it for companies to take the hit (also, it’s not unreasonable, considering their benefits, for them to be expected to). Quality of life, traffic congestion, educational and research resources, an environment which attracts an ambitious workforce… all of these are important factors for the profit-motivated firm to consider in addition to the bottom-line tax rate. Sometimes corporations are aware that what they lose in tax expenses they get back in worker productivity and innovations (and therefore, hopefully, better profits).

For example, my home state of Washington was ranked #13 for its business tax climate by the Tax Foundation, but nonetheless ascended to #3 on Forbes’s ranking of “Best States for Business.” Forbes reported Washington’s “labor rank” of educational attainment and projected population growth as a key supporting factor behind this ranking. Wyoming, the state ranked by the Tax Foundation as #1 to avoid pesky business taxes, only achieved #31 on the Forbes list, meaning more than half of the states are considered to have a better business climate than Wyoming.

Of course, neither Forbes nor the Tax Foundation should be considered the final word on this issue. It’s just to point out an important nuance to the argument that “lower taxes = better economy,” is that sometimes lower taxes mean poorer services, which can hurt business. Not always, but it’s worth considering.

Otherwise, yeah, we do need to get rid of government waste or figure out a way to start paying for it. Continuing the deficit game is really not an option, and hopefully both liberals and conservatives can agree on that.