PolicyGuy

Thursday, April 13, 2006


Got Benefits?
Among the many fiscal problems facing the city of Detroit: employee benefits that are on average 88 percent of employee salaries.

On the face of it, the distribution of cash versus benefits should not make any difference: it's all compensation that must be paid by the employer. But the types of benefits--pension liabilities and a health care model that encourages irresponsibility--matter indeed.

(Thanks to fellow Detroit News blogger Jeffrey Hadden, who also links to a story about the latest effort to bring the city's finances under control, complete with the usual complaints that are greeting the plan.)

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"Justice Louis D. Brandeis'?s metaphor of the states as "laboratories" for policy experiments ... had almost nothing to do with federalism and everything to do with his commitment to scientific socialism. .... To this day, it continues to inhibit a truly experimental, federalist politics." -- Michael S. Greve

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