and other ride-sharing outfits, amusement taxes (which is sort of amusing when you think about it), taxes on water, sewer, and similar services (which almost certainly amused nobody), and property taxes. He also raised garbage fees, cable taxes, city vehicle sticker fees, and parking garage taxes. It has, in short, grown vastly more expensive to live in Chicago during the time Emanuel has been mayor. And yet, with all that new money coming in, the city’s bonds are rated as junk. Once upon a time, this would have been written off to graft and corruption – fundamental political skills in Chicago – as in most big cities run by (Democratic, usually) political machines. But Chicago faces a $28 billion hole, and not even the most crooked politician could steal that much. That $28 billion represents “unfunded pension obligations.” These are promises made before Emanuel was elected mayor but for which he and those who will come after him are on the hook. This looming debt is so formidable that Emanuel did not even mention it in his October farewell speech. But denial is an understandable reaction to unfunded pension mandates which loom over not just Chicago but cities and states from sea to sea. And the numbers are truly staggering. So large that it is possible to think, “Well, there is no way, no possible fix,” and just ignore the whole business. So how should we think about the problem? Perhaps the best way is to start at the
beginning and the end... simultaneously. We got here because we failed to heed the warning of a great Democrat, Franklin Roosevelt, who once warned that a “...strike of public employees manifests nothing less than an intent on their part to obstruct the operations of government until their demands are satisfied. Such action looking toward the paralysis of government by those who have sworn to support it is unthinkable and intolerable.” Turns out that strikes by, say, schoolteachers are quite “thinkable.” They happen all the time and the citizenry has learned, more or less, how to tolerate them. Public- sector unions have, as we all know, led to a prosperous public-sector workforce where the civil service protections are stern and the benefits are generous. As punishment for my sins, I once served a term on my local school board and was obliged to negotiate a new contract with the teachers’ union. I was shocked to learn that the teachers wanted to add chiropractic and similar services to their health care plan, for which they paid almost nothing. The demand for chiropractic coverage did not come out of a sudden epidemic of arthritis among the faculty. It was, rather, just about the only thing left to add to the teachers’ gold-plated plan. When public-sector employees are already being paid more than their counterparts in the private sector (where people are held accountable for performance and can actually be fired), their unions turn their sights to what they will earn when they are no longer working.
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November 2018
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