Will public employee unions bankrupt America? Fred Siegel and Dan DiSalvo in an important article in the Examiner’s sister publication the Weekly Standard say that they may very well do so. In many though not all states—New York, New Jersey and California prime among them—public employee unions are already successfully practicing “spend and spend, tax and tax, elect and elect,” politics. In effect taxpayers are financing hugely effective lobbies that work against taxpayers’ interests—increasing tax burdens on the private sector economy and insulating public employees from accountability. Its’ a vicious cycle, and poised to continue whatever the fate of Obamacare and pending federal tax increases.  

 

Siegel is perhaps our leading scholar of urban politics, author of The Future Once  Happened Here: New York, D.C., L.A. and the Future of America's Big Cities (2000) and The Prince of the City: Giuliani, New York and the Genius of American Life (2007). Everything he writes is well worth reading.