Sheilbh's Scott Walker Lovefest and Union Bashing Megathread

[Jacob]

I have no idea what reasonable teacher salaries ought to be in the US.

Looking at some stats they appear to range - on average - from just shy of 40K in South Dakota to in the 70s in New York, Massachusetts and that vicinity.

Whether that is reasonable or not rather depends on local cost of living etc, so I can't say how fair that is.

Let's say you are right, and the average should be $50K per year and we cut New York teachers' salaries to that... what problem have we solved?

[Jacob]

Who else gets paid too much, Yi? 
I mean, other than everybody--as we all know your preferred economic model is "slave wages = good for executives and shareholders"--but as far as actual professions go, who else gets paid "too much"?

West Coast longshoremen.

Dunno about the situation in the US, but I can definitely see your argument in Vancouver. That's some good money right there, AFAIK.

[Admiral Yi]

Let's say you are right, and the average should be $50K per year and we cut New York teachers' salaries to that... what problem have we solved?

State and local budget problems.

[Jacob]

Let's say you are right, and the average should be $50K per year and we cut New York teachers' salaries to that... what problem have we solved?

State and local budget problems.

But we were discussing the public good of better public education and thus better education outcomes.

Solving state and local budget problems can be done in other ways than degrading public education and jeopardizing important public goods.

[Admiral Yi]

But we were discussing the public good of better public education and thus better education outcomes.

Solving state and local budget problems can be done in other ways than degrading public education and jeopardizing important public goods.

We were discussing better education in the context of a rationale for raising teacher pay.  It's emphatically possible for people to be perfectly satisfied with their current position on the quality/price matrix, or in fact to think that it's too high.

Budgets can be fixed in other ways, but education does account for 80% of the average state budget.

[Jacob]

We were discussing better education in the context of a rationale for raising teacher pay.  It's emphatically possible for people to be perfectly satisfied with their current position on the quality/price matrix, or in fact to think that it's too high.

Sure. But that doesn't counter the argument that better pay can be argued to improve educational outcomes, and thus provide a public good.

Budgets can be fixed in other ways, but education does account for 80% of the average state budget.

Holy shit! 80%? For real?

I'm looking at our provincial budget in BC and Education is $5 Billion out of a little under $45 Billion total - so a bit more than 10%.  For Ontario education is $23 Billion out of 123 Billion, so roughly 20%. 80% seems crazy to me.

I guess the differences between the average state budget in the US and Canadian provincial budgets are significant.

What are the main things, other than education, that the US states are responsible for?

[grumbler]

Somehow the feds missed the whole "public sector union" connection in their prosecution of Governor McDonnell of Virginia, and how teachers (probably black ones, no less) forced him to take all those gifts from Mr. Vitamin Guy. 

The funny thing is that McDonnal was actually an excellent governor.  I was a big fan of his until the whole crook thing emerged. 

He couldn't carry Webb's jockstrap, of course.  If Jim Webb decides to run, I think I will dust off my 2000 McCain notes and go ahead and volunteer for his campaign. 

[Sheilbh]

That seems extraordinarily high. Who pays for the police and prisons in states? Are they sub-state? Don't the states also have a role in healthcare and unemployment? Does that include higher education?

[Admiral Yi]

Jacob:  Highways, state police, courts, state parks.

Shelf:  Includes state universities.  Unemployment is off-budget I think.  Healthcare spending by the state is only at the margins.

[Jacob]

I did some googling, at it seems California is at about 50%, New York maybe 30%, Iowa 34%, Idaho at about 55%.

Now, I didn't dig deep into things and am not 100% of of the websites (i.e. some of the numbers could be off), but it doesn't quite get to 80%. Big chunks of the state budget for sure, though.

[Admiral Yi]

Kay.

[mongers]

Damn this thread grew quickly; exec.sum. please.



Also on what page did the insults start flying? 

[Jacob]

Kay.

Indeed. That was just an info-thing, not an argument. Your point still holds, IMO, that education is frequently a huge part of State budgets.

[Kleves]

In Washington, a teacher's union-sponsored ballot initiative to hire 15,000 new teachers in order to reduce class sizes was passed in November. The measure allocated precisely $0 to pay for this. So the measure is essentially going to force the state to gut numerous other services (including higher education) in order to fund a measure that has, at best, marginal benefits for everyone save the union. Nothing is likely to be done about it, because of the stranglehold that the union has on the Democrats in the state. While ultimately the responsibility resides with the idiocy of the voters, this is a pretty clear example of the teacher's union attempting to cannibalize state resources solely for its own ends. Of course corporations would do the same, but their impact doesn't seem to be as pervasive as the state level.

[jimmy olsen]

In Washington, a teacher's union-sponsored ballot initiative to hire 15,000 new teachers in order to reduce class sizes was passed in November. The measure allocated precisely $0 to pay for this. So the measure is essentially going to force the state to gut numerous other services (including higher education) in order to fund a measure that has, at best, marginal benefits for everyone save the union. Nothing is likely to be done about it, because of the stranglehold that the union has on the Democrats in the state. While ultimately the responsibility resides with the idiocy of the voters, this is a pretty clear example of the teacher's union attempting to cannibalize state resources solely for its own ends. Of course corporations would do the same, but their impact doesn't seem to be as pervasive as the state level.

What are the class size they're aiming for?