This and that: Reform, painter's lesson, communications, unions

Everyone needs to work the return desk of a major department store (which I have), serve in elected office (which I have), umpire a Little League baseball game (which I have) and serve on a government reform commission (which I just did).

In none of these can you please everybody, but you learn a lot about human nature -- and yourself.

The final report is not out from the Missouri State Government Review Commission (though expected out this week or next), but I have yet to read anything good about any of the 84 proposals.

And too many of the articles have implied that the committee was biased from the get-go and the report (no matter what it contains) would not be creditable and should be discarded.

Yea! That's why I spent over 150 hours of my time along with 19 other committee members while we seriously made, discussed, amended and discarded proposals after 12 public hearings around the state and numerous subcommittee meetings.

It is sad that this era has become one of politicizing sincere efforts to resolve debatable issues and too often personally attacking those who make suggestions. Too few reform suggestions were offered by government-involved constituents who seem to forget that criticism can be constructive and our commission (like the elected officials who deal with the nuts and bolts of government) would and did welcome good-faith suggestions.

More on this after the final report is issued.

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The painter: There was a tradesman, a painter called Wayne, who was very interested in making a penny where he could, so he often would thin down paint to make it go a wee bit further.

As it happened, he got away with this for some time, but eventually the Baptist church decided to do a big restoration job on the painting of one of its biggest buildings. Wayne put in a bid, and because his price was so low he got the job.

And so he set to erecting the trestles, setting up the planks and buying the paint -- and, yes, I am sorry to say, thinning it down with turpentine.

Well, Wayne was up on the scaffolding painting away, the job nearly completed, when suddenly there was a horrendous clap of thunder. The sky opened. The rain poured down, washing the thinned paint from all over the church and knocking Wayne clear off the scaffold to land on the lawn among the gravestones, surrounded by telltale puddles of the thinned and useless paint.

Wayne was no fool. He knew this was a judgment from the Almighty, so he got on his knees and cried: "Oh, God! Forgive me! What should I do?"

And from the thunder, a mighty voice spoke: "Repaint! Repaint! And thin no more!"

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Thoroughly modern thinking: The modern communications world is entirely unlike the past. Cable companies are offering voice, and telecom companies are offering video. Both offer high-speed Internet access, and all services are converging into a single market for data. Soon, voice will be free -- simply a service you get from whomever you choose to be your data provider. Ultimately, everyone will be in the digital content business, and distinctions between cable, telecom, wireless and satellite won't be important.

Since this is clearly the direction that technology is headed, policy should be driven by technological reality, and our laws should encourage robust competition. The winners will be consumers, who will have access to the best combination of product and service, and the economy, which will benefit from increased investment by all competitors. Let's not saddle communications companies with the kind of regulations, franchise agreements, build-out requirements and taxes and fees that characterized communications policy of the past. We want new networks that carry new products and services. Let the competition begin. -- Tom Giovanetti, Institute for Policy Innovation, Dallas Morning News

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John Sweeney, president of the AFL-CIO and member of the Democratic Socialists of America, must have mixed emotions. The bad news for him is that union membership as a percentage of the nation's total private-sector work force peaked in the 1950s at about 40 percent and has dropped to 7.9 percent today.

That devastating decline recently motivated four of Sweeney's major international union affiliates -- United Food and Commercial Workers Union, Teamsters, Service Employees International Union, and Unite Here -- to sever their AFL-CIO membership ties. Sweeney's federation thereby lost 5 million dues-paying members, constituting more than one-third of his AFL-CIO roster.

Sweeney's good news is the reverse-trend: Today, 37.2 percent of government workers throughout the nation are represented by labor organizations. And the number is expanding steadily.

For many years, public-sector unionism was opposed both by leaders of the AFL-CIO and union-friendly U.S. presidents. But in 1978, the Civil Service Reform Act was passed by Congress. Under this statute, federal government unions have exclusive power to negotiate (to be paid out of the earnings of taxpayers) employee benefits and working conditions of the nation's largest employer: the U.S. government. Many states and municipalities began to conform, and today about four out of every 10 Americans work for some government.

"Without any doubt, government employment has become the growth industry for organized labor," says David Denholm, noted authority on public-sector unionism and president of the Public Service Research Foundation. "When union membership as a percentage of the nation's total work force began to decline and the number of people employed by government began to grow, labor officials saw the public sector as the solution to the membership dues dollars and political clout they were losing in the private sector."

According to Leo Troy, distinguished professor of economics at Rutgers University, this phenomenon has created "a new unionism that is bringing radical yet unnoticed changes in the economy and society." They include expansion of the size and scope of government, an increasing role in the formation of public policy, more control of taxpayers' money, and a diminished role of government sovereignty. Troy also warns that this unchallenged strategy by huge public-sector unions such as the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees is aided by "collaboration with other social and political forces, principally in the Democratic Party." -- Samuel Cook, author of "Freedom in the Workplace"

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The real issues of Social Security reform: There is no longer any doubt that Social Security needs to be reformed. The nation's troubled retirement program will begin running a deficit in just 12 years. Overall, the program faces unfunded liabilities of more than $12 trillion. But while the politicians in Washington debate whether this represents a crisis or just a big problem, many believe it is an opportunity to build a new and better retirement program for all Americans.

Ownership: Under the current Social Security system you have no legal, contractual, or property rights to your benefits. What you receive from Social Security is entirely up to the 535 members of Congress. But personal retirement accounts would give you ownership and control over your retirement funds. The money in your account would belong to you-money the politicians could never take away.

Inheritability: Because you don't own your Social Security benefits under the current system, they are not inheritable. Millions of workers are not able to pass anything on to their loved ones. But personal retirement accounts would change that by enabling you to build a nest egg of real, inheritable wealth.

Choice: Choice is part of the essence of America. Yet when it comes to retirement, Congress forces all Americans into a one-size-fits-all, cookie-cutter retirement program, a system that cannot pay the benefits it has promised and under which you have no right to the money you pay in. With personal retirement accounts, workers who wanted to remain in traditional Social Security could do so. But younger workers who wanted a choice to save and invest for their future retirement would have that option. -- CATO Institute

Gary Rust is chairman of Rust Communications.