Better solution might be for the federal government to stop many of its national programs that "benefit" us at the local level, for good, so that more of the money could stay at home in the first place.

Sanford's point, by itself, is incomplete. He doesn't distinguish what the money was used for. Some state spending is fully justified, some is not. Some states were irresponsible, others were not.

The biggest problem with state government spending is that it reinforces the economic cycle. In good times, state spending increases (often irresponsibly), adding to the potential for inflation, and in downturns it contracts, making the downturn worse. We need a system which is counter-cyclical.

"A better way to ease the pressure on state budgets, Sanford suggests, is to reduce federally imposed unfunded mandates, such as those associated with the REAL ID act."

Getting rid of the REAL ID act would be a bad idea as it provides some deterrent to illegal aliens. Illegal aliens are a big, unnecessary and unjustified expense for California.

All that being said, California is certainly a spendthrift state par excellence. San Jose wants in on TARP-- San Jose mayor seeks slice of bailout pie. How much? Oh say a cool $14 billion!

He also notes that a bailout would reward fiscally irresponsible states (e.g. California, which nearly doubled state spending in ten years) at the expense of those states that exercised greater fiscal restraint.

What I find interesting: Alexander Hamilton faced the same objection to his First Report on the Public Credit. Then, too, it was southern states that objected. Same old change.

Obama's entire philosophy is based on the victim/victimizer dichotomy.

People who do well do not do so by their own actions, and thus should not benefit from them. Even if they made good decisions and made sacrifices for success, they only did so because they were socialized to do so and deserve no personal credit or benefit for it. People who do well do so only because they act immorally or have an unfair advantage, and thus have no claim to their property.

Those who do poorly only do so because of unequal circumstance and victimization; they are not responsible for any poor choices they may have made because of the effects of socialization. Thus, it is only fair that they take the property of others to make up for these inequities.

I have little doubt that the same reasoning would apply equally to the states.

Spend less at the federal level, and let each state decide whether to spend less or raise taxes?

The whole send-tax-money-to-DC then send-it-back-as-grants system is broken. It's not rational for a locality to refuse federal grants when you have already sent the money in, even if local sentiment doesn't think the project is worth it. That disconnect just isn't, IMHO, how to run a budget.

William Oliver:

"People who do well do not do so by their own actions, and thus should not benefit from them."

This pretty much comes straight from John Rawls' Theory of Justice. In particular his second principle, part a.

a) they are to be of the greatest benefit to the least-advantaged members of society (the difference principle).

Rawls principle amounts to a maxmin reasoning. The best is that which maximizes the least. Thus a society is to be judged by how well off the least well off person is. He says this is the kind of world that everyone would choose to live in if they had no idea of what kind of life they would be born into.

In Rawls' world everything essentially becomes a matter of luck. If you are talented, you're simply lucky to have been born that way. If you work hard, then again you're lucky to have such a prudent nature.

There are many problems with Rawls' theory. I think the main is an assumption of extreme risk aversion. Humans are not that risk averse as to prefer the sacrifices necessary to achieve the maxmin outcome.

This is the philosophy behind Obama, who as far as I can tell has no original ideas.

"Well, duh. That's because California's population and economy expanded. State and local government spending went from 20.45% of GDP in 1996 to 20.95% in 2006 ... basically flat."

Not the best metric. Better to compare spending increases to revenue increases. I don't have that data, but a comparison of California spending to other western states is here. Note that as a fraction of personal income California's spending has been increasing faster than personal income. California also suffers from demographic shifts that are eroding its tax base, but Sacramento refuses to recognize that.

It's time to think about these things in an analytical way instead of flinging out insults.

John Moore makes a typically short sighted observation. It has been shown that development follows transport, and that light rail systems form spines about which considerable development occurs. That, of course is without looking at what the actual projected ridership is.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/METRO_Light_Rail_(Phoenix)

Zarkov, the main problem with California is that their revenue is mostly from personal income taxes which are uber-cyclic. Of course they put their spending into overdrive when incomes soared -- they had all this money and who could resist spending it?

Much as I don't like it, progressive taxation at the State level is just plain economically unsound until we invent a new kind of legislator that can save money during a boom. Maybe a system where legislators must budget with a 3-year averaged revenue instead of current revenue. Actually, that sounds about right.

Oren:

In California the state can grab the surplus from cities that have been prudent enough to save for a rainy day. Thus Sacramento provides a perverse disincentive for fiscal prudence. "Oh you didn't overspend, thanks, we'll take that." Thanks to a proposition, the governor has to declare a state of fiscal emergency before they can start grabbing. Schwarzenegger has already done that. Hold on to your wallet.

Shortly after Schwarzenegger declared the state of fiscal emergency, he submitted a new, hugely expensive universal medical care proposal. That was too much for even the spendthrift Democrats and they turned him down.

This state is crazy and it gets crazier every year. I'm afraid that one day it will simply become a de facto province of Mexico.

crises = crisis

Don't even think of mocking my spelling! Okay, maybe I deserve it.

Slightly OT but it's now almost sixty three hours after the op-ed was posted and the WSJ still hasn't published any comments about it. This isn't unusual with them. Does anyone else feel that their sluggish handling of comments shows a certain contempt for their readers' opinions?

John Moore makes a typically short sighted observation. It has been shown that development follows transport, and that light rail systems form spines about which considerable development occurs. That, of course is without looking at what the actual projected ridership is.

It has been shown that light rail is pork for construction unions, that "projected ridership" has nothing to do with real ridership, which is always vastly lower, that it's economically unfeasible, that buses are much better for mass transit (but less popular because the construction unions don't benefit), that "development" doesn't follow transport, but development subsidies.

David Welker,
Wait, what? You need a 2/3 majority to pass a budget, but can prohibit or legalize gay marriage with a simple majority?

That is appalling. I can't believe it.

Yeah, 2/3 vote required for budgets to pass. I think, though, that Prop 13 requires a 2/3 vote for a tax increase, while the 2/3 vote for budget approval goes back further than Prop 13.

But, yeah, the simple majority for an amendment seems pretty dangerous to me.

You need a 2/3 majority to pass a budget

Since the budget doubled in the past decade, maybe we need to make it 3/4.

It's one thing to argue that a state's spending should increase in proportion to its population, since the cost of many state services is essentially per capita. But there's no relation between the size of the economy and the appropriate size of state spending.

Why exactly not? A more affluent state can rationally chose (consistent with the will of the people) to spend more money in absolute terms on public goods and services.

"California just passed a $10 billion bond to pay for the first stage of what would be (by legislative mandates in the authorizing legislation) the world's fastest high-speed bullet train."

This train will essentially compete with the airlines and passenger vehicles. Why would someone take the train instead of driving or using an airplane when you know the fare will be very high? If you take the train from (say) Sacramento to San Diego, what do you do for transportation once you get there? Obviously, you rent a car. So why not drive in the first place? In most cases it will come down to a choice of fly versus train. I haven't done a rough cost calculation yet, but I'll guess that the cost of a one way train trip between SF and LA will be on the order of $400. You either pay directly or through your taxes, but one way or another you will pay. I round trip fare on SWA was less than $100 the last time I flew to LA in 2006.

Yet CA voted for this waste of money. But CA has the third lowest average IQ of all the continental states.

Since the budget doubled in the past decade, maybe we need to make it 3/4.

I think that Republicans have been good enough at blocking budget as is. I honestly do not think that such a change would make much of a difference, because redistricting to create a maximum number of Democratic seats has allowed a minimum number of more extreme Republicans to thrive in very safe districts. Trying to get even a few Republican defections is very difficult.

What we need is some sensible and moderation from both sides, not more insanity. I would prefer if we passed a proposition to make it possible to pass a budget with a majority vote, but so far such attempts have failed. That doesn't mean we shouldn't try again, of course.

In the meantime, hopefully future legislative districts are drawn up in such a way that makes life difficult for more extreme Republicans even while probably increasing the total number of Republicans in the legislature. We will see how redistricting after Proposition 11 goes.

Call aid to the states "revenue sharing," and credit a Republican with the idea--Richard Nixon.

Good points. But I am not so sure about whether invoking the name "Richard Nixon" will get you anywhere. =)

Hoosier,

"What I find interesting: Alexander Hamilton faced the same objection to his First Report on the Public Credit. Then, too, it was southern states that objected. Same old change."

Is there no difference between debt incurred fighting redcoats and debt incurred not fighting red policies?

@CrazyTrain: If senators were still chose by the state, and the earmarks were from senators, you may have a point.

But since the ratification of the 17th Amendment states have had no representation in the federal government, your point rings hollow. It is taxation without representation.

"Zarkov:

Coming to a theater near you soon-- the entitlement mentality meets reality."

Are you now coming our in favor of cutting defense spending, one of the biggest "entitlement" areas there is: no cut-no bid-no problem? If you run out of targets for your weapons, just create some new ones?

In the meantime, hopefully future legislative districts are drawn up in such a way that makes life difficult for more extreme Republicans even while probably increasing the total number of Republicans in the legislature. We will see how redistricting after Proposition 11 goes.

This is a problem the country over -- we need to reduce the number of safe districts so as to increase the number of moderates. Hopefully, we can also convince Congress-critters to assign committee chairmanships to less partisans folks.

He also notes that a bailout would reward fiscally irresponsible states (e.g. California, which nearly doubled state spending in ten years) at the expense of those states that exercised greater fiscal restraint.

Agreed. Since the money isn't being spent on especially noble purposes, the message to states like California should be: Drop Dead (i.e. the crisis should provide the necessary pressure to finally get your fiscal houses in order).

Re: Getting rid of the REAL ID act would be a bad idea as it provides some deterrent to illegal aliens. Illegal aliens are a big, unnecessary and unjustified expense for California.

If that a justifiable reason for the act (which was sold as an anti-Terrorist measure), then the Federal government ought bear the whole cost of it, by issuing a national ID card, instead of piggy-backing all these security measures on drivers licenses. Last I checked, national defense and security were the responsibility of Washington. The tendency of Congress not to put federal money where its mouth is really does need to be checked. State DMVs should be exactly that: Departments of Motor Vehicles, not branches of Homeland Security, Immigration and Naturalization, Labor or Defense.

That's because government spending mainly goes for services. The government must hire people to deliver those services; and as the economy-wide wage structure goes up, the state must pay its policemen, prosecutors, prison guards, physicians, teachers, tax collectors, etc. correspondingly more.

That's a small factor, yes. But you're double-counting; it's growth in GDP per capita, not GDP, that matters for that purpose.

But most of the spending on services isn't -- or it shouldn't be -- for salaries for people to provide those services. It's for the services themselves. And if states were being responsible, they'd be spending less on those services as the economy got better, because there would be less need for them. You'd need fewer prosecutors and prison guards, because as the economy got better, crime would drop. You'd need less money for Medicaid and social workers and welfare and housing subsidies and such, because more people would have jobs. Etc. The problem is that states don't do this; they use extra money as an excuse to hand out even more goodies to people, since they can do so without having to raise taxes.

And ordinary services don't cost more just because the economy is better; if people get richer and can afford luxury cars instead of compact cars, it doesn't cost more to process the registration for the former, or to inspect the former, or the like.

"I think that Republicans have been good enough at blocking budget as is. I honestly do not think that such a change would make much of a difference, because redistricting to create a maximum number of Democratic seats has allowed a minimum number of more extreme Republicans to thrive in very safe districts."

And of course it never occurs to you that gerrymandering has the same effect on democratic districts: it allows a lot of extreme liberals to carry on with no worries about voter revolt.

Your attempts to hang California's fiscal problems on the decades-old republican minority is comedic.

Certainly. But then it can't morally ask other people to bail it out because it chose to do that instead of saving money.

Of course they can morally make such a request. And a majority of the Congress can morally grant or deny that request. We are one nation, not 50 little ones.

California already spends more in taxes than it receives in benefits. That is fine, because we live in a nation and the border between California and Nevada, for example, is not as significant as the border between Idaho and Canada.

David M. Nieporent --But you're double-counting; it's growth in GDP per capita, not GDP, that matters for that purpose.



GDP = Population X GDP per capita

Government spending goes up proportionately with population (more people to serve)

Government spending also goes up proportionately with GDP per capita (service providers' wage level goes up)

Therefore government spending goes up propotionately with GDP

Don't see where I'm double-counting .... please explain further

Government spending also goes up proportionately with GDP per capita (service providers' wage level goes up)

Therefore government spending goes up proportionately with GDP

And down? If GDP goes up by 10% one year and down by 10% the next, state spending should do the same by your argument, no?

If you insist on wandering outside of your field of physics, at least know what you are talking about.

I'm not impressed by sneers substituting for arguments. But apparently it's the best you can do, so by all means continue to undermine whatever of substance you might have to say.

Of course the Constitution is a practical document. And it is a principled one. The concept of checks and balances runs throughout the history of discussion and adoption of the Constitution. Election of senators by state legislatures was part of that system.

The way slaves were counted was a compromise, and probably not one I'd have been willing to make. But there's a subtext to your mentioning of slaves, one which I recognize from many years of trying to have rational discussions with left-liberals, who frequently bring race into virtually any argument from out of the blue. It's a smear.

The bullet train/pork barrel project in California is the stupidest idea to come down the pike in a long, long time. Zarkov has deconstructed the giant fiscal waste machine, so if I may take another tack regarding one of the local agencies also pushing the train, here it is:

The San Jose/Silicon Valley Valley Transportation Authority [VTA] is backed by a self-appointed group called the "Silicon Valley Leadership Council" [and their cronies].

These incompetent 'leaders' have saddled taxpayers with the VTA, which has a budget of $720,000,000 a year! Yet they are in deep financial trouble [a foretaste of the state bullet train wreck coming up].

The VTA used to hold competitive bidding for bus companies. Naturally the low cost provider would bid competitively, and would also pay property taxes.

But last year the VTA took over running the bus system itself, at double the cost. Now, drivers and managers are unaccountable, and transportation has gotten much worse. Which is to be expected, when the government decides it can run a business.

The VTA also runs a light rail project, the brainstorm of one Rod Diridon, who pushed the idea in the '80's [the local paper had a contest to name the trolley system. My fave suggestion: "Diridon's Urban Money Burner" -- D.U.M.B.]

Light rail systems NEVER attain anywhere near the projected ridership numbers, which are always based on outright lies. In VTA's case, the light rail system carries fewer passengers per dollar spent than any other large system. The reduced fares are subsidized by almost $6 per ride for every rider -- and thousands of free passes are given out each year, to try and keep ridership at minimal levels.

The VTA's government-run bus system ranks 368 out of 373 in the country. Even after taking in $720,000,000 a year, VTA is deeply in the red.

Eight years ago the VTA got a multi-billion dollar bond issue passed to connect BART [Bay Area Rapid Transit] from San Francisco to San Jose [about 45 miles]. Despite already spending the money, the VTA hasn't even gotten around to writing a plan for the BART connection yet. VTA's own CFO has issued a report stating that even if VTA canceled every other project, they would still run out of money and bonding capacity trying to connect BART to San Jose.

So in the past 8 years VTA has spent all the money for BART [and then some], and has now gotten yet another sales tax increase -- Measure B -- to do what it promised to do eight years and several billion dollars ago.

The VTA/BART situation is a preview of what is going to happen with the California bullet train earmark: a completely unnecessary train [R/T airline fares between San Jose and San Diego are less than $200, and travel will be much faster than in the 'bullet' train].

Government track and parking lots will be built on huge swathes of land that now pay property taxes; the trains will be run by the government, using unaccountable workers sucking up huge and costly benefits. Every aspect of the project will be far more costly than the projections, doubled and squared -- and it will all be based on vastly inflated, and completely unrealistic ridership numbers: why take a 3+ hour trip, when a much cheaper airline flight gets you there in 1 1/4 hours?

But Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger backs this giant pork barrel, and he explains his rationale here.

But there's a subtext to your mentioning of slaves, one which I recognize from many years of trying to have rational discussions with left-liberals, who frequently bring race into virtually any argument from out of the blue. It's a smear.

You really do prefer to address the strawman you wish to attack, rather than addressing the argument that is actually made, don't you? It is so much easier, isn't it? I am sorry if you consider the mention of plain facts that are quite relevant to the point to be made to be smears. That is your psychological problem, not mine.

Let me try again.

Amendments to the Constitution are as much part and parcel to the Founder's plan as any other part of the Constitution. To attack the Seventeenth Amendment is to attack the original Constitution. So, rather than bitching about the Seventeenth Amendment, maybe you should be complaining about the Founder's decision to allow amendments at all. Because, unlike you, the Founders apparently did not believe they had made the perfect document for all times and all generations.

If selection of Senators by state legislators was part of the imperfect system put in place by the Founders, then just as much so was a process whereby the Constitution itself, or the system originally in place, could be amended.

Overall, your argument against the Seventeenth Amendment (which approaches irrelevance) seems to amount to a raw assertion that this goes against the original plan (but changes to the original plan were also part of the original plan!) and some vague and unfleshed-out notion that states as entities have somehow been disserviced by this Constitutionally approved of adjustment by the People.

I will admit, overall, I am not impressed with you in particular. Given your earlier reference to Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, Nobel Prize winning economist Paul Krugman, and United States Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson as "quacks," when they are all far more accomplished than you are now or ever will be, I do suppose I have lost a certain amount of respect for you.

It appears to me that you are too quick to spout off about that which you know very little. Maybe, just maybe, you should stick to physics. I am all for responsible cross-disciplinary research. But, I am definitely against arrogant statements by those who fail repeatedly to address substance and think non-concrete and vague references substitute for actual substantive discussion. I am against the arrogant statements of those who assert that superior men are "quacks," or who construct strawmen to attack when these strawmen obviously and clearly contradict plain text, or who make vague references about how the "public choice school" would prove the point they wish to make, but fail to explain how, or who makes clearly ignorant statements about the Constitution, or who assert that stating actual, relevant, and indisputable historical facts qualifies as smears. None of the above counts as quality dialogue.

The bottom-line is before you go on your little jihad and call people quacks when you are clearly not qualified to do so, you should think about the impacts on your own reputation. You would have been better off maintaining anonymity. I never called you out, instead hoping you would have the wisdom and good sense to slink away with your tail in between your legs rather than creating a permanent record of your ignorant arrogance on Google. I am neither impressed by your nasty demeanor nor your petty accomplishments in comparison to the "quacks" you feel you are qualified to dismissively insult.

And with that, I am through with you. As they say, you cannot roll in the mud with pigs for too long without getting dirty yourself.

I opined that the 17th was misguided, and offered a rationale.

I am sorry, I found your rationale to be so vague and fluffy as not to count as a real rationale. So, it is all about protecting the prerogatives of states as institutions? And what reason exactly do we have to believe that Senators directly elected by the People no longer represent the interests of their states? Especially in light of the actual historical reality that the people in the various states often selected their legislators BASED on who they would vote for to represent the state in the Senate? Is it really surprising that people would base their votes on the office they perceive to be more important? How far is that really from direct election of Senators? Also, did you address the systematic allegations of corruption that used to result before the Seventeenth Amendment? Also, if the Constitution was really all about protecting the institutions of the states as institutions, it is hard to understand why they would move away from the Articles of Confederation at all. It is quite clear that the Constitution is about much more than merely protecting the prerogatives of the states as institutions, as the Constitution in fact reduced those very prerogatives. Obviously, not completely. But, an informed observer arguing based on Constitutional structure would address this issue in a nuanced way.

Given the superficiality of your analysis, and your failure to address the obvious issues that anyone who knew what they are talking about would, I failed to count your "rationale" as a real rationale. And I suppose this is in part based on previous arguments where you apparently thought that vague references to the "public choice school" counted as argument and you thought that calling very accomplished men "quacks" counted as argument. It is hard to separate this argument, which I do not find impressive but probably would not react to as strongly if made by someone else, from your particular history.

As for the rest of your post, I kind of fazed out on the ad hominem, so if there was anything substantive in there, I'm afraid I missed it.

I am glad that you disprove of ad hominen argument. Now here is a final question.

Does calling Ben Bernanke, Paul Krugman, and Henry Paulson "quacks" qualify as ad hominen argument????

For someone who so readily employs ad hominen argument himself, I am surprised that you are so easily fazed by small doses of it.

Perhaps you should admit that, at least, was a mistake. And something you would not have likely said under your real name as opposed to "Doc W."

David Welker,

Hey, this is the internet, not tea and crumpets with the Queen. Hyperbole in making a point is pretty common around here. On rare occasions, it's possible I might even engage in it myself.

...just sayin'.

Hey, this is the internet, not tea and crumpets with the Queen. Hyperbole in making a point is pretty common around here. On rare occasions, it's possible I might even engage in it myself.

You are right. I must stop being such a shrinking violet! =)

Thus we see another example of federal regulation (this time, federal mismanagement of the financial system) creates incentives for further actions to remedy the unintended consequences of the initial intervention.

So, is the theory that the Federal government regulated the financial industry too much, not in the right way, too little, or what?

Also, since the Federal government gets all the blame when things go badly, does it get all the credit for the years that went well? Of is this a "blame the Federal government when things go badly" and "praise private industry when things go well" sort of analysis?

Layoffs are always a gerat opportunity to get rid of the deadwood.

I suppose that is the silver-lining.

The dark side of that is that this "deadwood" -- as you call these people who are now unemployed -- no longer spend money, have their cars repossessed, their homes foreclosed and often see their marriages and families fall apart. This obviously has negative effects on neighborhoods, crime rates, divorce rates, suicide rates, and so on.

One of the ironies of cutbacks in state government is associated cutbacks in law enforcement just when you would expect the crime rate to increase.

I think on balance, layoffs are better news in an economy that is thriving and are company-specific rather than in an economy where entire industries are suffering very serious problems. Especially since when it is the entire economy that is bad, it is not always the "bad employees" who lose their jobs.

Ricardo,

I've never bought into the argument that luck determines whether someone makes it in life. That claim is easily falsifiable.

The system of government makes all the difference. Capitalism results in: a) inequality of wealth, and b) enormous national wealth compared with statist systems.

Just look at North Korea vs South Korea. Japan vs China. Pre-1990 East Berlin vs pre-1990 West Berlin.

In a capitalist system, with property rights protected by the state, and general economic freedom, individuals make their own luck, and society becomes rich. Everyone benefits enormously [but not equally; that's the deal].

But when society starts redistributing the wealth on a massive scale, it kills the goose that was laying the golden eggs.

The bright side [to some folks] is that everyone becomes more or less equally poor. Or at least, the go-getters are brought down to the level of the layabouts, and society loses its dynamism.

Smokey's excellent examples demonstrate the Pareto principle, or the "80-20 rule." Namely 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes. This principle seems to appear over and over in human affairs. It's the primary cause of income inequality. Ask almost any auto dealer and he will tell you that most of his sales come from very few salesmen. Most of the research papers get written from very few authors. This leads to social conflict. The achievers think of the non-achievers as free loaders, while the non-achievers think the system is unfair. This is why they hate the Bell Curve book so much.

loki

I don't think that you can reduce Rawls in the way you do. If you view it simply as the veil of ignorance, I think you get more traction. In other words, make decisions without an a priori knowledge of who will benefit. . . . In fact, I would say it is wrong. A better way to view it is to think of how we would craft the rules (for example, legal rules) if we did not know what position we are currently in.

But this is precise the weakness of Rawl's "veil of ignorance." Why should I agree to the rules Rawls suggests? Because, he says, of my own self-interest: Since I don't know what position I'll have in society, it is a good bet to support rules that will give me a fair shake if I turn out to be at the bottom of the social order.

But since the veil of ignorance doesn't actually exist, and thus I do know what my advantages are under the current rules, the same principle--self-interest--may very well dictate that I support different rules than I would have had I not known my position, or had I been in a lower status group.

Put another way, if self-interest is the decisive factor, Rawls gives no reason for those in positions of power to make any changes.

I honestly hadn’t expected to see the 2012 presidential race start quite this early.

Zarkov &Oren,

I still think you're missing an important element from Rawls' ideas. The veil of ignorance is just that- a conceit, but it gets to the heart of what we imagine 'fairness' to be. It's an elaboration on the old "Do unto others . . ." maxim.

It is useful in determining the assignment of rights (for example, in a legal dispute). Without going all L&E on you, one way to view the transaction is the right assignment should go to those who value the right the most, which would strongly be correlated with income (not taking into account marginal utility of money). Another would be to look at the assignment of the right ab initio from the veil of ignorance- how would the right be assigned if we did not know our own station in life, and the benefits that would accrue from it.

I still don't think this is an argument for 'all is luck' as much as it is an acknowledgment the different starting positions we have in life (inherited wealth, genetics) and given the different variables that we cannot control from the environment (e.g. our health) we should look for rights assignments that would protect those that are more unfortunate.

"The dark side of that is that this "deadwood" -- as you call these people who are now unemployed -- no longer spend money, have their cars repossessed, their homes foreclosed and often see their marriages and families fall apart. This obviously has negative effects on neighborhoods, crime rates, divorce rates, suicide rates, and so on."

Sure that happens. It happens when private sector people get laid off, too. Citi just announced 50,000. Most of them go find something else to do so they can avoid the ills you mention. I doubt there is any alternative that doesn't have some significant downside.

However, it is a bit strange to think a population getting hit with layoffs should continue to pony up so government employees don't have to share the same risks.

He is responding. Those laid off will find a more productive venue for their labor than their current employment. Continued employment of vast resources at GM is a misallocation as we've clearly demonstrated that they don't produce anything of sufficient value to justify their costs.

"You really not responding to the point. You say that layoffs are a "great opportunity" I suggest that overall the costs of this "great opportunity" exceed the benefits. You aren't really responding to that point."

Sure I responded to your point. I said layoffs have happened before in many industries, and the people have adjusted by finding something else to do. Dislocation was short term. State employees can do the same thing. There's nothing special about them.

Do costs exceed benefits? I doubt it. In one case we keep the unnecessary deadwood forever, in the other we get rid of it and let it find other productive activity.

"I do not see how you can say that is necessarily true. Even when the economy is good, not everyone is able to find a "more productive" job."

Of course it's not necessarily true. So what? Past experience has shown it happens over and over again when people get laid off. I agree that's not a guarantee, but we don't live in a world where anything is guaranteed to be necessarily true.

It's also true that not everyone will succeed in finding new employment. OK. Do we sit on our hands for the rest of time because not every one will succeed? If we did we would still have elevator operators and buggy whip makers because if we eliminated those jobs not everyone would find a more productive job. Maybe some will find something just as productive, and others will find something less productive.

Elliot123,

All I have to say is this. You have a bad attitude and are clearly not a very nice person. You could improve in both areas.

I would say that the average piece of "deadwood" that you refer to probably has less to do in terms of self-improvement than you do. So, maybe you should look in the mirror before criticizing others.