Ben again displays that his command of facts is, to put it mildly, fantasy. After already being shown that Chicago also had Republican governors, he glossed over that fact and has now jumped back on his immigrant bandwagon.
Chicago, like many other cities, is facing the fact that benefits thought to be cheap for decades, actually carry a price; I know, I managed a city and we negotiated out health care for retirees in lieu of funding a deferred comp plan that employees could use to pay premiums after retirement.
What the unions did was to bargain; something Ben accuses is close to communism. His hero, Ronald Reagan, proclaimed the importance of unions:
http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2011...bargaining-are-forbidden-freedom-is-lost.html
The seeds for struggles by cities today has its roots in the 40's and 50's when the auto company OWNERS, trying to attract and retain the best and most reliable workers (as well as gaining support from their unions), began offering health insurance. Think back to that time period: penicillin was probably the only antibiotic and you went to a doctor's office for most tasks (or the doctor came to your house). Costs were dollars rather than your mortgage. Soon, they'd offer "life insurance" which my mom supplemented at $1 per month for each of us kids. Since it was cheap, the thought was that when workers replaced those retiring, the costs of health insurance would easily be recovered through the lower wages paid to new employees.
Fast forward and health care is $900 to $1,200 per month for two people; likely more for a family and about $600 for a single person. People are also living longer so rather than them retiring and dying (like my dad did), they are on the city insurance plans for 10, 15, 25 years or longer. For police and fire (who usually have 25 and out and who didn't contribute to Social Security when you could opt out in lieu of a city pension plan), most retire at 50 or 55 and live 30 years or more as do their spouses.
When cities did not fund these obligations, they are now faced with paying insurance on employees and also on the person they replaced. There is no savings. Most pension systems, by the way, are pretty healthy with a few exceptions and those are usually related to not contributing according to actuarial reports that often omitted overtime in the final average compensation. In other words, the cities paid on someone making $80,000 but with their overtime (usually police and fire), they might make twice that amount in their final years that then sets what they will be paid in retirement. Few plans contemplated that accounting charge. I would also note that fearless Scott Walker never touched any of these areas; instead he focused on those radical teachers and clerical employees who rarely get overtime, usually got small (if any) pensions, and live on social security following retirement at age 65. He, like so many Republicans, was a "profile in courage."
Of course Ben fails to recognize that many of these employees get a pension in lieu of social security (which saved cities from contributing the matching percentage). He hates unions, probably because he's stuck in some cube and doesn't get one. It's funny how those are the ones that now want to take away from people who worked hard all their lives and did everything that was negotiated -- and approved. If there was public outrage, I doubt those in Chicago or other cities would have retained their positions.
As for trickle down, it has been demonstrated over and over that the result is someone gets pissed on. You can look to your hero in Kansas who has bankrupted that state (oh, but he's a Republican with a Republican legislature). Or you might look at Walker's Wisconsin or Jindahl's Louisiana. They are all being nominated as basket cases for refusing to recognize that government and services comes with a cost.
From what I have seen and personally heard from candidates in both the Democrat and Republican parties: the Republicans want to go back to the failed policies of Reagan and Bush (they actually said they'd like to return to the days of Georgie) while the Democrats are positive and looking forward on how things might be better for Americans. Looking at Congress and the Party of No, they are aligned to again shut down government over unfounded rants and propaganda. Hopefully the public will get sick enough to turn them out at the next election.
