Smart bombs: Labor pains began long ago

We’ve gotten a close-up view of Wisconsin politics and the universal labor issues at the center of that imbroglio, but I think it would help to pull back a few decades and look at the big picture.

The leveling off in wages for the middle class worker began in the 1970s and it has turned into a fairly pronounced decline ever since. What’s more, private health care benefits and pensions have deteriorated or disappeared. At the same time, union membership has gone from about 36 percent of the non-agricultural work force in 1945 to about 12 percent today, though 36 percent of public employees belong to a union.

These changes have spawned resentment among people who wonder why others, in this case government workers, aren’t suffering as much. So now public employees’ unions are likely to be cannibalized in many states out of “fairness,” but this movement won’t improve the overall plight of middle class workers. Sure, they might save a few dollars in taxes here and there, but it won’t be enough to make up for the long slide in their standard of living.

For those not in the middle class, this fight is a godsend. Better to have intra-class warfare than the traditional kind. That way they can continue to feast on an increasingly large share of the overall income pie in relative peace while the middle class wrangles over their dwindling portion.

To understand the extent of the compensation erosion for typical American workers, compare private sector benefits from the 1980s to public employee benefits today. Back then, it wasn’t unusual for private employers to pick up the entire tab for health care coverage. Now, private workers are incredulous when they hear that public workers pay only 10 percent to 20 percent of the cost. That’s because the private share has increased to 25 percent to 30 percent, if they’re fortunate to have health coverage at all.

So, let’s fast forward to the finish line in this race to the bottom, after public employees have felt our pain and shared in this sacrifice. Now what? And who will be the new culprit?

on safety. Idaho is on the same trajectory as many other states that want to lift the bans on guns in public places. Emboldened by recent court victories that expand the right to bear arms, many legislators are raising fears about public safety in the hopes of lowering resistance to widespread gun-toting.

College campuses are the lawmakers’ favorite target, thanks to the mass murders at Virginia Tech University in 2007. But it’s questionable that increased safety is the goal, because a better way to prevent that kind of tragedy is being widely ignored.

Before Seung-Hui Cho shot and killed 32 people at Virginia Tech and committed suicide, he was ordered to undergo mental health treatment after a court hearing determined that he was a danger to himself. He was still able to buy two guns. After his shooting spree, the federal government required states to forward the names of mentally ill people to a national database. The idea was that background checks would prevent the mentally ill from purchasing weapons.

However, more than half the states have failed to comply with the 3-year-old law, either sending very little data or none at all. Idaho is among nine states that haven’t sent a single file to the feds, according to a recent Associated Press report. An estimated 1 million names are missing nationwide. That’s a lot of ticking time bombs.

To be sure, privacy laws and a lack of funding have presented challenges for the states. Congress has yet to produce much of the money that was to help states finance data collection. Still, 11 states have provided more than 1,000 files each.

If state lawmakers are seriously concerned about on-campus shootings, they should lobby Congress for increased data funding and privacy law changes. That’s a much wiser safety measure than setting the stage for self-defense heroics.