How did the system that we have, with so many groups involved in offering perspectives, and analyzing, and evaluating evolve?

In the 1960s, which was a very tumultuous decade, Americans woke up to all kinds of abuses of authority, racism-... pollution, gender discrimination, abuse of disabled children, lies about the Vietnam War, uh, you know.

So we woke up to all these abuses and we needed to change our values, and we did.

We created civil rights law and environmental laws.

Great, that's fine.

Changing values was a good thing to do.

But the geniuses at the time said, "W- we don't want any more abuses of authority.

You need a person to be accountable and be able to make the decision.

Can you talk more about how collective bargaining agreements in the public sector preclude and limit management choices generally? And then we'll talk about some more specific examples.

Sure. So what's happened since collective bargaining was authorized in the 1960s is there's been a steady accretion of controls. One benefit is to have raises go up, and I'm not... You know, I think that's the least of the sentence here. The second thing that happened is that unions and political leaders figured out they could make promises with pensions in the future without having it come out of the current budget. So then they made promises for future pension and health care benefits that didn't affect the current sitting political leader. And then you have these two to 300-page agreements, which have gotten more and more detailed over the years, where the controls almost look like it's control for its own sake. So the disciplinary proceedings require objective proof, all kinds of warnings in advance. In police contracts in many jurisdictions, you can't interview the police officer for several weeks. The police officer and his representative get a chance to view all the other witness statements first so they can conform their story to what other people are saying. The discipline is resolved by arbitrators who are approved by the unions. And if they don't go along with what the union wants, then they won't be approved next time. So it's their job. So they've been paid off as well. And then there are these management controls by your federal government. Anytime there's a new word processing program, the union gets to negotiate how the training works. Whenever there's any reallocation of resources or asking somebody to do something out of their job description, the answer is no. You only can work within your job description. So let's say a work crew is fixing the Long Island Railroad, for example, and there's an overhanging branch on the tree. The work crew fixing the rail tie isn't allowed to pull down that branch. You have to call in a worker whose job it is to clean up the branch. I mean, it's just... There are controls that are designed for inefficiency.

So what you're describing essentially is that these public sector unions get benefits for their members in terms of rigid work rules and job restrictions, and much higher pensions and health benefits. And in return, what do the politicians get?

The politicians get campaign contributions. So the politicians in exchange for this wha- what is in effect a new spoils system. You know, in the old spoils system, politicians would get campaign funds and then they would give people public jobs, no matter how bad a job they... And we supposedly got rid of that with the merit system. Union collective bargaining creates a new spoils system, except it's different because it's permanent. It doesn't change with the change of party control. And in this system, the unions consolidate the mass of big government with the mass of public employees, put all their contributions in a place, and then go to the political leader with a boxcar filled with cash (laughs) effectively. And not just cash, but also working labor banks and call banks and, and knocking on doors. They literally recruit and they'll pay members to do this, to be campaign workers. So in New Jersey in the last election, the campaign of the winning governor was staffed by union members. The campaign director was a union officer. So, so you end up having this system where the unions basically provide the campaign resources and personnel, and in exchange what they get is the continuation of this system in which government is unmanageable and in which the pensions and benefits are far beyond the market, and that have rendered, again, certain big industrial states effectively bankrupt.