Private workers can be made part time serfs to corrupt unions
“The most highly compensated Chicago Public Schools (CPU) employee was the CEO, Janice K. Jackson, who made $322,839—a $260,000 salary and an additional $62,839 in benefits.”
“Our auditors found that the average Chicago teacher earned $108,730 last year—$81,422 in salary and another $27,307 in benefits. Further, teachers are allowed to accumulate up to 244 sick days for use or pension credit. (A full school year runs only 175 days.)“
Just for comparison the Governor of Illinois receives a salary of 177000. Dunno how such corruption survives in the enormous pay that some government employees receive. Most voters are not government employees. There is a lot of talk about “public service” being so noble—but from the way many government employees are being paid it is clear that is not what attracts many of them—it is the money. And when government employees are guarded so heavily from competition, their price tags are inevitably going to be highly inflated.
We have to wonder why the Chicago public’s schools are so shitty that Obama chose to send his daughters to a private school while living there and yet their employees receive so much wealth at the expense of tax payers. They blame their shitty outcomes on racism and sexism and all the other high sounding words—but the primary cause is just the horrible school system that has a monopoly and tyranny over the education of children. It’s power and greed of the Chicago Teachers Union, not racism, that is at primary fault for the academic outcomes of black students. Give students and parents the freedom to choose a different school not run by a corrupt union and we would see academic outcomes improve. The next time the teachers strike, they should all be fired. Certainly not all are essential; others will be happy to replace them and be paid less and do a better job and those who are worthy of the job will get it again. Their jobs exist not to provide a comfortable life for the teachers, they exist to educate children.
The same sentiment could be expressed toward much of the public education system in the US. I know in California, particularly in large cities like Los Angeles, the same level of corruption and greed exists without any results.
When public unions get so much power private workers are little more than part time serfs that work to pay for the bloated salaries of ineffectual public employees that rely on the violence of law to ensure their power and comfort.
That is why one aspect of classical liberalism was the freedom of markets and the lack of central and governmental control over the production of goods and services. When such freedom doesn’t exist, citizens are forced to hand over the fruit of their labor to leeches that suck on the treasury. Serfdom.
Even if income taxes were not eliminated, much liberty could be had simply by giving tax payers more power to choose where their taxes are actually used—thus if there is an education tax on income we could choose what schools receive that tax rather than forcing us to hand it over to politicians who divy it up where they can get votes and paybacks or teachers unions who choose to pay high salaries based on seniority or ideological loyalty rather than ability and will forever try to squeeze as much money from tax payers through legal force as they can regardless of merit.