GOP plan to change collective bargaining passes House subcommittee (Iowa)

[Joanne98]

Source: Iowa Independent

On the same day when thousands took to the streets of Madison, Wis., to protest legislation that would strip collective bargaining rights from nearly 200,000 state workers, an Iowa House subcommittee passed a bill that would weaken the bargaining position of public employee unions in the Hawkeye State.

The bill, House File 206, was passed by a subcommittee Tuesday and will now go to the full House Labor Committee. State Rep. Ron Jorgensen (R-Sioux City) is the sponsor. If contract negotiations deadlock, the legislation would prohibit an arbitrator from selecting a final offer that an employer couldn’t afford without raising taxes. It would also require public employees to pay up to 30 percent of the cost of health insurance.

Earlier in the session, Gov. Terry Branstad released a report from his labor adviser, Leon Shearer, criticizing the state’s collective bargaining laws and proposing numerous changes. The report was immediately criticized by the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Iowa Council 61, saying it relied on faulty data to try to paint a picture that state workers are overpaid.

In fact, analysis by Iowa State University economist Dave Swenson concluded the opposite, that private sector workers with a bachelor’s degrees earned $58,670 annual, compared with $48,752 for state employees. Advanced degrees further widen the pay gap, according to Swenson, who said that private-sector workers with master’s or higher degrees averaged $82,081, compared with their public-sector counterparts, whose earnings averaged $58,670.



Read more: http://iowaindependent.com/52527/gop-plan-to-change-collective-bargaining-passes-house-subcommittee

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This is a co-ordinated attack! This has nothing to do with deficits. This is all about bringing down the unions before the 2012 election!

[Kingofalldems]

1. This plot was formulated behind closed doors

Probably at one or more RW think tanks.

[ElsewheresDaughter]

2. it was handed down from Leo Strauss to Ronald Reagan to Newt to GW google "Strave the Beast"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starve_the_beast

www.post-gazette.com/pg/10054/1037783-109.stm

www.allbusiness.com/public-administration/4104556-1.html

For nearly 30 years, many Republicans have argued that the most effective way to control federal government spending is to "starve the beast" by reducing federal tax revenues. Moreover, two Nobel laureate economists, Milton Friedman and Gary Becker, have endorsed this argument. Friedman (2003) summarized this perspective as follows:

How can we ever cut government down to size? I believe there is one and only one way: the way parents control spendthrift children, cutting their allowance. For governments, this means cutting taxes. Resulting deficits will be an effective-I would go so far as to say, the only effective-restraint on the spending propensities of the executive branch and the legislature. The public reaction will make that restraint effective.

Becker and his colleagues Ed Lazear and Kevin Murphy (2003) described this effect as "the double benefit of tax cuts." (Lazear is the recently appointed chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers.) This argument has been effective in unifying the Republican Party in favor of reducing federal taxes, but at the cost of undermining the more traditional Republican concern about fiscal responsibility.

Problems with Starve the Beast

There are three major problems with the starve-the-beast argument: (1) it is not a plausible economic theory; (2) it is inconsistent with the facts; and (3) it has diverted attention away from the political reforms needed to limit government growth.

[andym]

3. This is the essence of the current war against Government by the Right.

The current crop of teapartiers feel they are the chosen soldiers that will finally reduce government to a small, limited force in American society.

[Hardrada]

4. Luckily our State Senate is in Democratic hands.

A lot of this crap won't even come up for a vote and this might dismay some of my rich fundy gospel-singing reactionary land owner in-laws.