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Comment by Ericson2314 | Hacker News Reader

Public sector needs to stop paying shit wages.

I’d put it slightly differently: the public sector needs to pay much more of its total compensation in the form of cash wages instead of in benefits, work rules, and job stability regardless of performance.

Yes basically pay the money upfront not after 20 years of service after they quit or quit in place

That is indeed better. We need a less risk-averse civil service with the stones to push back against idiot pols and deliver the services we need like nuclear energy, public transit, and social housing.

I wonder what would happen if a state changed their income tax laws to exempt public employees?

Probably cause a huge outrage by people who don’t understand math.

I have no idea why you were downvoted for the obvious answer.

Because it makes a naive assumption that there's some magic money tree a state government can go to in order to pluck dollars from that the voters have chosen not to provide for salaries and other expenses.

Yes, the voters want their potholes filled but that doesn't mean they'll approve a bond issue or whatever to pay for it.

Let these voters suffer their decisions seems like the only option? They learn eventually.

https://www.brookings.edu/blog/unpacked/2017/07/11/the-kansa...

“Voters choose to withhold funding for public services they expect” would be a better headline.

>Let these voters suffer their decisions seems like the only option?

Seems perfectly fine. And maybe they decide that they don't actually want to pay for some public services or they're fine with more automated/online versions of certain things. For example, where I live you do a lot more associated with the DMV online than you used to and I assume significantly fewer people are employed. Of course there can be issues with access and those need to be dealt with.

It's not clear to me that, in general, state governments are massively underfunded.

>Because it makes a naive assumption that there's some magic money tree a state government can go to in order to pluck dollars from that the voters have chosen not to provide for salaries and other expenses.

I mean there clearly is one. Ukraine got billions within two days of asking. We've sent them what, $70 billion this year alone? Funnily enough no new outlet seems to be tracking the total, just covering each one individually so it doesn't look like we're doing what we're doing: Prioritizing Ukraine over US citizens.

That's the federal government which owns money printing presses. State governments do not and are often required by their state constitution to balance their budget.

There's nothing legally stopping the federal government from giving that to the states though. Which makes it clear that they just don't want to.

The federal government spends quite a bit on infrastructure at the state level. But, yes, the federal government also prioritizes certain spending related to foreign policy over other spending that's related to domestic policy (and vice versa).

Disclaimer: Writing this doesn't mean that I approve or agree with how the world currently works or that this is fair, right or good from moral perspective, it's only a cold analysis.

In current geopolitical climate you would lose a lot more than $70 billion if Russia would win in Ukraine, there is a lot more on stake than Ukraine independence, US debt is financed by the rest of the world. US is world hegemon because of its influence granted by military and economical power. If you lose that status you lose influence, if you lose influence you also lose your country "safe heaven" status for other people money, next USD could lose status of world reserve currency, next your budget deficit is unsustainable anymore, your social contract gets broken, 2008 crisis would be nothing compared to this. Not mentioning that US was not ready to fight Russia and China same time, elimination of Russia from equation through proxy war in Ukraine will allow US to focus on China. Additional benefit to USA is Sweden and Finland joining NATO and strengthening US influence in Europe, making it a lot easier to flip Europe against China (see how NATO joint statement about China changed in Madrid summit in July 2022 compared to stance of leading EU countries before the war). $70 billion is not a high price to show the world that you are not a declining superpower (especially after that Afghanistan retreat and rise of China) and retain your status and influence, if I were a US citizen I would be glad it costs me only $70 billion knowing the alternative.

>In current geopolitical climate you would lose a lot more than $70 billion if Russia would win in Ukraine

Pure speculation.

>if I were a US citizen I would be glad it costs me only $70 billion knowing the alternative.

I am one and I completely disagree. We have no business helping either side when we have so many huge problems at home. Our citizens don't even have national healthcare. An incursion in Ukraine should be about 50 spots down the priority list.

> Pure speculation.

No it's not, I wrote about how debt works in USA and you have 1 trillion deficit a year.

> I am one and I completely disagree. We have no business helping either side when we have so many huge problems at home. Our citizens don't even have national healthcare. An incursion in Ukraine should be about 50 spots down the priority list.

Remaining a world hegemon is number 1 priority for USA, sorry but being US citizen and not knowing this is ignorance and lack of knowledge about how the world works, if you lose that position I assure you that you will have a lot more problems than national healthcare, actually you can forget about national healthcare then.

Ok fine so hire one worker for 32 an hour instead of 0/2 for 16. It’s not rocket science, you just might have to cut hours or services.

> Because it makes a naive assumption that there's some magic money tree a state government can go to in order to pluck dollars from that the voters have chosen not to provide for salaries and other expenses.

Yeah there is. It's called the weekly handouts and tax cuts for the rich.

Yes that is also true. State and municipal governments are by and large austerity shit shows.

I wouldn't put it about the money as much as "there is only so deep a pool of competent workers, and if another 5 million of them are hired in the public sector, labor in the private sector becomes correspondingly worse."

It's unfortunate that the city can't hire enough secretaries. Do I want them to poach competent workers from my ISP, Target, Amazon, or my insurance company? Not really, no.

I seem to have been upvoted.

Then the people, in general, need to stop listening to the echoed words of Grover Norquist ("government so small you can drown it in a bathtub") and recognize that taxes are the price we pay for living in a civilized society.

After all, where else can public sector wages come from?

It also needs to be said that this is a common and despicable tactic of the right wing: first, vote consistently against any support for the public sector; then, claim that the public sector is fundamentally incapable of doing a good job (and should thus be deprioritized further), rather than it having been deliberately starved of funding and public support over the course of decades.

We have the public sector we vote for and are willing to pay for: no more, no less.

Also don’t forget, use anytime gov is ineffective but your enemy party is in power as evidence that they can’t do their job. When you’re in power, still blame them when things don’t work.

Well since we are getting political, how about the left-wing tactic of always needing more money. Just a little bit more and everything would be better.

I am being a bit pithy, but I think these sort of opinions are based in ideology, and not experience. If you are untrustful, you will always be skeptical of government, and too trustful, will always accept that more money is the answer.

> Well since we are getting political, how about the left-wing tactic of always needing more money.

And if government had ever been funded to the point that the left wing actually wants (note: not "to the point that politics actually allows in compromise budgets, either with the Republicans or with the fiscally conservative parts of the Democrats"), over the past few hundred years, and it had still failed to solve the problems that are trying to be solved with more money, you might be able to derive a valid criticism out of this.

Money isn't zero-sum, even during inflation. But the broader point that we need a big active public sector that isn't cowering and underfunded to be a modern society is true.

Galbraith's get it https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Affluent_Society

I want them to get good wages to the point I paid additional taxes, half to the Federal Government and half to the State of California. 45% of income, while in the lowest tax bracket, blowing literally every billionaire out of the water. Why? Gratitude, first off, because they prescribed me stimulants knowing I had been treated for addiction, which was risky, and which I couldn't have done in the private sector. Took a risk. Made a bet. Helped me. Went very very well for everybody. And consequently I made sure it went well for the government, sure it's not that much money but it does pay for eg a tank of gas on a police cruiser, send in the cavalry. And I would argue I look great on their balance sheet, obviously better than Jeff Bezos.

And I did the math and noted, first, to get a dollar out of State of California, you have to pay them a million in taxes. In aggregate. Like if you pay a million dollars in taxes and it's equally distributed, maybe not a million to one quite but around there. Very close, ballpark, at least for the purposes of the following estimate:

I got a 1000000000x speedup (actually a bit more but I frequently round down to a more impressive number) on an algorithm thanks to those stimulants, and then it made sense: I still got 1000x ROI from paying taxes. Purely mathematical about it. Best money I ever spent! If you get a big enough speedup, taxes are a great investment. And they're the only thing that get people out of the absolute deepest holes.

Are you ready to pay an extra $35 in taxes on your paychecks to make that happen?

Yes.

If that's what it takes for public sector employees to be well taken care of. Unironically, yes.

>Public sector needs to stop paying shit wages.

No, they don't. In a democratic system, they need to pay what the voting public wants them to pay. Give the People a referendum to decide this: they can choose between paying public-sector employees well (competitively with private industry) and raising taxes to pay for it, or lowering taxes and keeping public-sector pay low.

Which one do you think they'll choose?

Or, if you prefer that elected representatives make these decisions, get some people to run on a platform of jacking up taxes to raise public-service position salaries. Let's see if they get elected.

The People are getting what they voted for.

First Past the Post is not democracy

Yes, it is, it's just not a very good voting system. But it's the oldest one and most frequently used still, I'm pretty sure.

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