By Matthew Continetti
Saturday, October 26, 2019
‘The fact is there is no more money. Period,” says
Chicago mayor Lori Lightfoot.
She’s talking about the teachers’ strike that has
paralyzed her city’s public schools — enrollment 360,000 — for the past week.
The public employee union is demanding more: more money for salaries (only
eight states pay teachers more than Illinois), more support staff (Illinois
ranks first in spending on administrators), more teachers per student. Their
cause has attracted national attention. Elizabeth Warren joined the picket
line.
Which is ironic. Lightfoot is not some stingy Republican.
Nor is she a centrist Democrat like her predecessor Rahm Emanuel. She’s as
progressive as you can get. But she now finds herself in the same position as
many of her political brethren: facing criticism for failing to reconcile the
contradictions in the left’s agenda.
Lightfoot has discovered that there is no limit to the
appetite of the constituencies generated by government spending. She has
learned that the special interests bargaining for higher benefits also desire
policies that make such benefits unattainable. I hope she’s taking notes.
Chicago Public Schools has run a deficit for the past
seven years. Why? Pensions granted to earlier generations of teachers are
expensive. And the cost is growing. A quarter of the school budget is devoted
to benefits — money that can’t be spent on classrooms, facilities, and
instruction. Expect that number to rise as America goes gray and the bill comes
due for the promises we made to ourselves.
The federal government can put Social Security and
Medicare on the credit card for as long as demand for U.S. Treasuries is high.
States and municipalities don’t have that luxury. There is an upper bound to
what even the most progressive mayors and governors can grant the lobbies that
mobilize voters for their campaigns. But it’s a glass ceiling. Public sector unions
are eager to break it.
Nor does being woke protect you. It’s impossible to
appease fully the groups fighting to claim resources and honor. They often
won’t take yes for an answer. GM might tout to investors the fact that it is
“leading in gender equality.” That didn’t stop the UAW from striking.
Public policy inspired by the ethic of social justice
inflames the tension between progressive leaders and the voting public. Andrew
Cuomo might sympathize with Mayor Lightfoot. His fealty to environmental groups
has backed him into a corner. Banning fracking and canceling pipelines hasn’t
just denied New York revenues, jobs, and lower energy bills. It also led energy
supplier National Grid to cancel gas hookups in Long Island. Cuomo had to
retaliate before the company restored service. Want to be a progressive? Claim
credit for resolving a crisis of your own making after threatening to unleash
state power on private actors responding to price signals. Cuomo makes it look
easy.
Gavin Newsom also has been struggling to reduce the
conflict between the imperatives of the new progressivism and the quality of
life of everyday people. He has his hands full. Rising numbers of homeless have
led to a breakdown of public order in areas of Los Angeles and San Francisco.
Land-use regulations have restricted the supply of housing, leading to high
prices and shortages, and Newsom’s answer is statewide rent control that will
make things worse. California’s budget depends so heavily on revenues from the
wealthy that it might not recover from another out-migration like the one the
state experienced after a 2012 tax hike.
Pacific Gas & Electric is a case study in the
progressive self-own. The state-regulated utility spent years deferring
maintenance while it invested in renewable energy and promoted the ideology of
diversity, equity, and inclusion. Among the consequences of its neglect were
terrible wildfires that devastated communities. The ensuing legal bills drove
PG&E into bankruptcy. It says it’s been forced to engage in
“de-energization”: purposeful mass blackouts to prevent further damage and
legal action. In early October more than two million people were left in the
dark. No house, no power, no prospects — welcome to the California Republic.
The contradictions of progressivism generate crises of
affordability and governance. But the political class suffers few consequences.
Chicago, New York, and California remain Democratic strongholds. What scattered
opposition exists is internal to the political machine. On rare occasions parts
of the coalition splinter from the whole and are able to defeat radical
measures. Think of Bill de Blasio’s stalled plans to cancel entrance exams for
New York City’s magnet schools. For the most part, though, the Democrats’ hold
on power continues. It’s one monopoly progressives don’t seem to mind.
Are the voters in these communities merely complacent?
Are they so content with the patchwork of benefits and status the jerry-rigged
welfare state provides that they tolerate dysfunction? Or is the partisan
alternative so appalling they won’t even consider it?
Questions worth pondering as progressives prepare to scale
up their model nationwide. Who knows? One day, President Warren might be on the
other side of that picket line.
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