Political Class “In the Tank” for Public Employees, Part Deux.

Part trois, actually . . .

I’ve started something of a drumbeat on this blog regarding Michigan legislators who act as if their fiduciary duty is to state employees rather than to taxpayers.

Attention legislators: You owe your loyalty to citizens and taxpayers, not to government employees (and their unions).

The latest example of confusion on this point is Senate Bill 552 introduced by Cameron Brown, R-Fawn River, which would benefit employees at the Adrian Training School reformatory,  slated for closing under a budget-cutting executive order issued last December. Employees would get a full pension if their age and years of employment equals 70 (such as a 50 year old with just 20 years on the job).  Those whose age and years on the job equals 75 would get a 16.7 percent increase the cash portion of their post-retirement benefits.

This  is recurring theme. I wrote in March about a scheme to give a similar pension bennie to prison guards who might get laid off if several prisons are closed as proposed (without specifics) by Gov. Granholm.  At the time the Senate was also holding hearings on a massive school employee pension expansion sponsored by Sen. Wayne Kuipers, R-Holland, that would have loaded billions of dollars worth of new unfunded liabilities onto taxpayers.

Thankfully that last dog would not hunt, but the fact that such measures are even contemplated shows how skewed the priorities are for many members of this state’s political class.

I also wrote just last week about how state police also get a pension “double dip” opportunity that would be considered absolutely nuts by any private sector employer. They’re all symptoms of the same dysfunction, which is bringing about the gradual Detroitification of the entire state (hollowing out the private sector to prop up an unsustainable government establishment).

As I said in March, it would give me no pleasure to see former state employees on unemployment rolls, any more than it does to see tens-of-thousands of auto industry workers and others among the jobless ranks. But private sector employees impacted by the economic downturn don’t get these kinds of golden parachutes, and the people who citizens elect to represent their interests need to remember who their real bosses are.

Tags: political class