Las Vegas Sun

March 29, 2024

jon ralston:

Both sides in public employee debate lose perspective, facts

During the discussions of the Las Vegas Chamber’s latest public-employees-are-rich study and of whether what happens in Wisconsin stays in Wisconsin, a familiar missing element in political discourse is absent: proportionality.

Just as the right is deifying Gov. Scott Walker as some brave paladin not unlike King Arthur and the left is idealizing the Wisconsin public employees as akin to Egyptian revolutionaries, without regard to facts that don’t support either hagiography, similar transgressions are occurring in Nevada.

I am struck — and not in a good way — how so many on the right describe public employees lamenting the state budget cuts as crybabies or whiners. But I am equally stunned by how many on the left reflexively defend the government workers and bristle at any talk of reforms.

There’s a reason, outside of riding the wave of defined contribution pension plans, that Gov. Brian Sandoval has had so little to say on the subject and was so fleet of foot in racing away from Walker after he implied the Nevada governor gave him an attaboy on trying to erase collective bargaining rights.

Sandoval, who has been resolute on taxes, could not have been more namby pamby in his State of the State address on these issues, essentially saying he was eager to see what the Legislature produces. I’m sorry, I used up all my vertebrae on taxes.

You know why? Because when rhetoric meets reality, that sound you hear is a collision of spin and substance. These are difficult issues that should not be reduced to broad brush strokes — I am sure I have been guilty of this, too — and while Sandoval may have smartly left himself a wide berth to negotiate during the endgame, he should or does know how the stubborn facts do not always comport with the agitated howling.

This goes beyond the most obvious misunderstandings — state employees do not collectively bargain and must pay into the retirement system, unlike local government employees. But the salaries and benefits in Nevada, although generous for local government and less so for state government employees, are not outrageous compared with other states. And teachers, as the chamber study found (go to lasvegaschamber.com to see it) are paid less here than in other places.

Nevada is not Wisconsin. And, ironically enough, Wisconsin actually conducted a study three years ago of all the state pension systems and clearly outlined where Nevada ranks in relation to other states. (I have posted the study on my blog on the Sun’s site.)

Some statistics jump out, especially this one:

Nevada’s employee contribution — 11.25 percent and scheduled to go up — is much higher than most states, which are in single digits. Meanwhile, you see local governments contributing 100 percent of their employees’ retirement fund contributions, which is a better deal than almost any private-sector employee is getting these days.

There should be some, well, proportionality to these discussions, with both sides acknowledging that there is room to give. Sandoval and the Republicans hewing to the Walker blueprint (or a reasonable facsimile thereof) and the Democrats parroting what their union friends say are not helpful. And while unions have helped boost employee benefits in local governments — that’s their job, folks — it is not the workers or even the bosses who should bear the obloquy but the elected officials who rubber-stamped the contracts.

Any notion that Big Labor has bankrupted these underwater pension systems — Nevada has a $10 billion unfunded liability — also is easily debunked. The Washington Post’s Ezra Klein pointed this out Tuesday with a blog post that linked to a paper by a prescient analyst (Dean Baker) who noted “the main contributor to the current funding problem facing public pension funds was the collapse of the housing bubble and the subsequent downturn in the economy and the stock market.” (It’s worth reading: http://tinyurl.com/4udorf3)

Some of this is also opportunists capitalizing on the firefighters’ sick leave abuse scandal, prompting one union leader to confide recently: “The firefighters are killing us.”

But this is also a calculated hide-the-ball game by big business interests. Better for the chamber to be talking about public employees so no one finds out that many of their members could pay more in taxes, whether in services or even in my Save Our State levy (a dollar or so a day for the biennium).

And lest anyone forget, mining’s profits are soaring and some gamers are continuing to build everywhere but in Nevada — Gondolier Numero Uno has said hasta la vista to Las Vegas for Spain after saying sayonara to go to Macau.

Yes, some of that is anecdotal and some — maybe a little — unfair. But compared with what is being doled out from both sides in the public-employee salaries and benefits debate, it is positively proportional.

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