UNIONS AND STATES

No secret here. I'm not fond of unions, and I'm particularly not fond of government unions. This country would be so much better off if FDR had managed to have his way and forbid government workers to unionize. Government employee unions are a pestilence, a plague. They're worst than the baddest locust swarm you've ever imagined ...though not nearly as smart and hard working. Oh ... and government employee unions eat taxpayer money instead of crops.

The Cato Institute did a little study on states and their rising debts. Interestingly enough, they discovered something common among states with high per-capita debts.

That something in common would be a high level of unionization of government employees. Yup, the states with the highest per-capita debt also happened to be the states with the largest government union workforces. You can see a handy little chart if you click here, but here are some of the details:

• Among states whose government workers are less than 40 percent unionized, median per capita state debt is $2,238.
• Among states with between 40 and 60 percent of their government workers in public sector unions, the average debt is $3,609.
• Among states with more than 60 percent of the government workforce unionized, the average (median) per capita debt is $6,380.

I am reminded of a wonderful column about the difference between private and government unions. The difference is quite simple but incredibly important: Government union members know that the government is not going to go out of business. The same cannot be said for unionized workers at private companies. The government unions, then, can push their demands to the absolute limit knowing that their employer will simply have to pay up eventually. The union mentality is that all the employer - the government - has to do is just simply raise taxes to cover the cost of their new contract and expensive health and pension plans.

This profound difference is the reason why states like those described above are drowning in union contracts. As I said, the states can't just "go out of business," so their solution is either renegotiate contracts - which isn't all that popular an option for politicians who want to be re-elected with the union seal of approval - or you raise taxes. You know where the story goes from there ...