Public disservice

• Published in: The New Criterion Vol. 42; no. 5; pp. 1 - 5
• Main Author: Gordon, John Steele
• Format: Trade Publication Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York Foundation for Cultural Review 01-01-2024
• Subjects: American history; Campaign contributions; Cities; Collective bargaining; Election results; Employees; Employment; Novels; Pensions; Police corruption; Presidents; Private sector; Profits; Public sector; Sinclair, Upton Beall (1878-1968); State elections; Teachers; Wages & salaries; Wagner Act 1935-US; United States > US; Illinois; New York City New York
• ISSN: 0734-0222; 2163-6265

Public disservice A review of Not Accountable by Philip K. Howard BOOKS IN THIS ARTICLE Philip K. Howard Not Accountable Rodin Books, 160 pages, $21.99 In 1906, President Theodore Roosevelt, unwisely reading Upton Sinclair's muckraking novel The Jungle (1905) at the breakfast table, was so revolted by the depictions of what went on in the meatpacking industry that he flung the book out the White House dining-room window. [...]pensions in the public sector are now much more generous than in the private sector, which has largely converted from defined-benefit to defined-contribution plans anyway. Howard reports that "Illinois' state pension liability (not even including municipal pensions) was so high that every household in the state would have to pay $65,000 to cover the difference." Besides negotiating outsized pay and benefits, public-employee unions have been able over time to impose work rules that run up costs. In New York City in 2006-07, only eight teachers out of 55,000 were terminated for poor performance. Because as one supervisor said, "Dismissing a tenured teacher is not a process.