There are a lot of factors to blame for our state’s ongoing fiscal crisis: corruption and greed in the financial industry, the worst economy in over 70 years, an antiquated tax structure that grows revenue slower than both the economy and growth in demand for public services, a failure to adequately plan for an economic downturn (though to be fair, no state could adequately plan for this economic downturn, and no state did), and I’m sure a handful of other factors I’m just plumb forgetting

But if you’re a regular reader of the Seattle Times op/ed pages, you’d think that the main culprits behind our interminable budget mess are the corrupt, underworked, overpaid, state employees.

Gov. Chris Gregoire and the Legislature have a Mount St. Helens moment on their hands with the blatant double-dipping by state employees who retire, get rehired and gleefully collect two state paychecks. Cozy deals, with loopholes scammed or rules simply ignored. Crass double-dipping by rehires in positions never advertised as open.

In good times, the violations might only be budget dust. Deep into a recession, with unemployed people scrambling to keep a roof over their heads and state retirement funds awash in red ink, this is outrageous. If Gregoire and lawmakers do not act and make it stick, this is pure gold for initiative hawks looking for another payday.

No doubt, the double-dipping, now that it’s been revealed, is something that needs to be addressed. If there’s a loophole, close it… though the specific incident the Seattle Times keeps harping on was actually a case of existing rules being ignored by sloppy managers, and I didn’t see anything in the State Auditor’s report to suggest that corruption was at play.

But as a means toward closing a projected $5.7 billion budget gap, this issue doesn’t even make a dent in a dent, so the Seattle Times relentless effort to whip up a frenzy of hate on government employees against a backdrop of “unemployed people scrambling to keep a roof over their heads,” comes off as overwrought, insincere, and counterproductive. And their choice of words only reinforces the sense that what the editors really want is for state employees to join their non-unionized brethren in a vicious race toward the bottom:

The latest nasty details revealed by the State Auditor’s Office, and earlier work by The Seattle Times and other media, infuriate otherwise grimly inured taxpayers, legions of whom will never collect a pension despite decades of work.

Shorter Seattle Times: you don’t get a pension, so why should state employees? It’s pretty much the exact same rhetorical device the editors use in their tireless campaign to slash government employee health care benefits: a shameless effort to turn working people against each other, rather than the corporate and political elites who have had their boots on the throat of the American middle class for most of the past few decades.

So at the same moment public employees agree, mid-contract, to increase their health insurance premiums by 25 percent, while cutting their pay by 3 percent in each of the next two years—a concessions package that will cost the average state worker hundreds of dollars a month—the Seattle Times insists on whipping up outrage against “cozy,” “crass,” “double-dipping” state employees.

Why anybody who works for a living would willingly drop their quarters into Frank Blethen’s pockets is beyond me.

16 replies on “Why Does the Seattle Times Hate Working People?”

  1. The op/ed side of the Times remains so fucked up: for “state employees” they mean “tax collectors aiming to steal our collection of pearl-handled walking sticks”.

  3. Whatever…you still can’t deny that some state employees were gaming the system at the expense of you and I (tax payers). At the very least, the “managers’ should be fired.

  4. @3, yes, a handful of people were cheating. Cheating is bad. But in the larger picture of budget deficits, it doesn’t matter. It’s classic tea party economics — you’re short a million bucks, so you go looking for pennies on the ground. “Tighten your belts”. Pfft. It has no impact on the problem.

    And all the people who aren’t cheating get screwed because of it.

  5. The thing is, upper-income hacks like the Blethens et al wouldn’t continue to use this “divide and conquer” tactic if it wasn’t so effective.

    Unless and until individuals who make up the lower and middle-classes come to the conclusion that sticking together and collectively working for a common good is better than going it alone in the hopes of someday winning the upper-income jackpot, the upper-class will continue to pit them against each other, to their perpetual detriment.

  6. There is always a market in telling the rich that the problem is everyone else. Well, actually, there’s a market in telling _anyone_ that the problem is someone else, but the rich pay best.

  7. I dunno…

    I am a former employee of D.S.H.S., and I can tell you that this is but the tip of the iceberg, when it comes to outright thievery & abuse by state employees. Someone needs to do some investigating into that side of the story. The exploitation I witnessed would make your head spin.

  10. Double dipping should be stopped because it’s cheating, but explain to me how it costs the state a huge amount of money.

    Instead of paying one person a pension and a salary, the state will end up paying two people, one a pension, and the other a salary. Seems like it should be nearly a zero-sum game, or am I missing something?

  11. cats @10,

    The cost argument against double-dipping is that incentivizes workers to retire and collect both, when they might otherwise keep working full time. So it can end up costing the pension fund.

    But like I said, it really has little to do with the current budget crisis.

  12. Double-dipping is something so easy to get all hot and bothered about, but what’s the alternative? If an employee has the right to retire on a pension, you can’t stop them. So then you need to hire someone to replace them. If that person is the most qualified for the job, then why deprive the state of their services? Why pay the same for someone less qualified?

    Here’s a thought experiment. Would you feel better if instead of hiring Washington state employees on a pension, we only hired Oregon state employees on a pension? Then they could hire all of ours. No more double-dipping, and problem solved.

  13. The Times’ Republican attitude does show up once in a while. Isn’t this the same company that smashed its union employees, at great expense, only to hasten the newspaper’s own demise? They suck.

  16. @3: I second what @4 said. There’s always going to be someone who cheats the system, but that doesn’t mean that honest, well-intentioned workers should suffer. By your logic, there should be no unemployment benefits for ANYONE because of the minority who abuse the system. This is just a consequence of capitalism, folks.

    “… the Seattle Times relentless effort to whip up a frenzy of hate on government employees against a backdrop of “unemployed people scrambling to keep a roof over their heads,” comes off as overwrought, insincere, and counterproductive. And their choice of words only reinforces the sense that what the editors really want is for state employees to join their non-unionized brethren in a vicious race toward the bottom:”

    Is the Seattle Times suggesting the state follow in the footsteps of WalMart and other megacorporations who make billions of dollars off the backs of middle and lower-class taxpayers, as well as their employees (especially here in Washington, where we have a spectacularly regressive tax system)?

    This crisis IS NOT THE FAULT OF WORKING PEOPLE as the media would have you believe. People in good jobs, many of which are union, should be the rule, not the exception. And if there were mandates for ALL companies to pay their fair share to their workers and their communities, we wouldn’t have this problem. As always, Goldy is so right on.

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