Randal O’Toole for Downsizing Government: A strong case can be made that — with the possible exception of New York — American cities shouldn’t restore deteriorating rail transit systems and instead should shut them down as they wear out and replace them with buses where demand for transit still exists. …
First, restoring obsolete transit is not the same as modernizing transit. Electric rail transit was developed in the 1880s and 1890s, and was largely superseded by buses in the 1920s… Outside of New York City, which…may be the only place in America where rail cannot easily be replaced by buses, this is a waste of money.
Second, the transit backlog is due to bad transit management. Rather than spend money maintaining existing infrastructure, politicians and transit agencies have built new infrastructure. New York built or is building the Second Avenue Subway and East Side Access projects; Washington the Silver and Purple lines; Boston the Green Line extension to Medford; San Francisco built BART to the airport; and so forth. Rewarding poorly managed agencies by giving them more money sends the wrong signal to other transportation and infrastructure agencies.
Third, transit ridership is declining nationwide and may soon disappear in many places with the advent of driverless ride-hailing. It may be declining in New York and Washington because deteriorating infrastructure has led to unreliable and unsafe conditions. But it is also declining in places with crisp, new infrastructure such as Norfolk-Virginia Beach and Charlotte. The real reason transit ridership is declining is that alternatives to transit are faster, more convenient, and increasingly less expensive…
Fourth, transit is irrelevant in most urban areas. New York is the obvious exception: a majority of commuters who live in New York City take transit to work. Transit is somewhat relevant in a few other central cities: Washington, where 38% take transit to work; San Francisco, 37%; Boston, 34%; Chicago, 29%; Philadelphia, 25%; and Seattle, 23%. When counting urban areas as a whole, however, transit is much less relevant: 35% in New York, but only 21% in San Francisco-Oakland; 17% in DC; 15% in Boston; 14% in Chicago; 11% in Seattle and Philadelphia; 10% in Honolulu; and under 9% almost everywhere else.
Blame tax cuts for union woes
Moshe Marvit for the Century Foundation: For decades, states and the federal government have been cutting taxes, which has led to huge fiscal problems in state budgets. In response, many states have cut services, education, and employee salaries and benefits. (Indeed, this was part of the reason for the widespread teacher strikes earlier this year.) However, in Alito’s majority opinion [in Janus v. AFSCME], he lays the problem at labor’s door. He writes:
Illinois, like some other States and a number of counties and cities around the country, suffers from severe budget problems. As of 2013, Illinois had nearly $160 billion in unfunded pension and retiree healthcare liabilities. By 2017, that number had only grown, and the State was grappling with $15 billion in unpaid bills. We are told that a “quarter of the budget is now devoted to paying down” those liabilities. These problems and others led Moody’s and S&P to downgrade Illinois’ credit rating to “one step above junk” — the “lowest ranking on record for a U. S. state.”
The State of Illinois claimed that its employment-related debt was “squeezing core programs in education, public safety, and human services, in addition to limiting [the State’s] ability to pay [its] bills.” In the collective bargaining process with the public-sector unions that represent its employees, Illinois tried to exact concession in the form of reducing health insurance benefits, holiday and overtime pay, and promotions. The unions responded by arguing that the state should raise more revenue by creating a more progressive income tax system, reducing corporate tax loopholes, and cutting spending to Wall Street financial firms.
Putting aside Alito’s legal reasoning as to why this means that fair-share fees are matters of public concern, it is noteworthy how much space he spends discussing the fiscal crisis in states and the costs of public employment. When reading the pages that Alito devotes to the issue of states’ fiscal crises, one can sense that he locates the problem with the unions. This is not an uncommon idea in conservative circles, but it constituted a strange component of what was purported to be a First Amendment case involving fees for labor representation.
This discussion shows that as long as there are regressive taxation policies that lead to public service cuts, public workers and unions will continue to receive the brunt of the attacks.
Politics is broken, change my mind
James Wallner for the R Street Institute: In a free society, obedience can only be legitimately compelled by persuasion. At bottom, political rule requires rhetoric (i.e., the act of persuasion) to convince citizens to abide by the decisions government makes. And equal legislators in government need rhetoric to persuade their colleagues that their proposed course of action is the correct one.
In that way, persuading citizens and legislators via speech and debate is the sine qua non of politics. Citizens affirm their individuality by taking part in such activity. And in the process, they contribute to a greater awareness of what is needed to create and maintain a just community. When obedience is secured by persuasion alone, every citizen is a ruler and every citizen is ruled. That is the essence of republican politics.
But this is not compatible with our understanding at present because persuasion engages opinion (i.e., political activity) and not truth (i.e., philosophical or scientific activity). The way we think about politics implies the inferiority of the former to the latter. This leads us to devalue the role that persuasion plays in making a free society possible. It also makes us less tolerant of the conflict republican politics generates.
Compiled by Joseph Lawler from reports published by various think tanks.
