Those Rich Public Workers

In my town, we have a blatantly ultra-right weekly called the Rhino Times - they even admit their bias so they do have more integrity than Fox News. They annually publish the salaries of public officials, including school teachers, administrators, and government workers of all kinds.  Then they get callers who are recorded and published in succeeding issues who are outraged that someone like the person who runs the county government makes $170,000 a year.  Their outrage is focused on the fact that these people make their large salaries from taxpayers' dollars.  Usually the complaint is, "I work very hard and only make $30,000, so why are these people so highly paid."

All of this griping, typical of conservatives, takes its leave from reality and soars into the right wing dogmata-sphere where up is down and right is wrong.  Number one, the taxpayers control how much money public employees make.  They elect the people who set the salaries for the public employees.  The public employees don't set the salaries - the elected officials do.  So, their salaries are subject to the public's votes.

Number two, the reason these people make more money than the complaining taxpayer is that they have the education, experience and expertise that the ordinary citizen doesn't have.  A quality dry wall hanger is certainly worth respect, but not worth $200,000 to run a government that employs 2,000 people.  If he or she were qualified to manage such a large enterprise, then they wouldn't be hanging dry wall.

Number three, the salaries the public employees draw is small when compared to private workers who have similar education, experience and expertise.  CEOs of even small companies make well in excess of $200,000.  And guess who pays their salaries - well, it's not unicorns.  The average taxpayer is also paying for the goods and services that allow CEOs to take home millions.  Yet, the average taxpayer has no say whatsoever in the level of compensation these CEOs receive.  Company boards, often staffed by people handpicked by the CEOs, set the levels of their compensation.  The average Joe doesn't get to vote on that.

So, who is ripping off the general public?  Is it the Superintendent of Schools who makes $184,000 - who can be fired by the duly elected city or county commission which is staffed by people directly elected by we the people? Or is it the head of GE, whose friends make up his board - and who return the favor by appointing him to their company's board so he can vote them extremely large salaries and perks - where multi-million dollar salaries are the norm no matter what the company's performance is?

Once again, the enemy is obvious as far as our economy is concerned - it's the school teachers who only want a good salary and good benefits.  It is definitely not the CEO who gets an obscene salary and benefits that would embarrass a Pharaoh.  No, the CEO is just embodying the beauty of capitalism as espoused by P. T. Barnum, "No one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public."  With one corollary, "And it's even easier if they watch Fox News where they believe that enabling the rich to get richer is in the average person's best interest, because the rich, unlike school teachers, give so much back."