Contract for Buffalo Teachers Shows the Wrong Way of Cutting Excess Bureaucratic Blubber

Government bureaucrats are significantly overpaid compared to folks in the productive sector of the economy.

So you would think I’d support cuts, especially the kind that get rid of excess blubber in the government workforce.

But not when it means higher costs for taxpayers, and that’s exactly what’s happening in New York, where Buffalo taxpayers cough up more money every time some bureaucrat goes under the knife for cosmetic procedures such as liposuction.

Here are some excerpts from a report in the UK-based Daily Mail.

Teachers in Buffalo are getting plastic surgery on the tax payer’s buck, it has been revealed. Tummy tucks, liposuction and Botox are all part of the controversial one of a kind health plan. …it is a perk that comes with a price tag. Last year Buffalo schools paid $5.9 million for its teachers to have plastic surgery. In 2010 the figure was up at $9 million. …60 teachers spent $30,000 each on procedures in 2011, an investigation by the school board revealed, and because the schools are self-insured, tax payers foot the bill. …The policy to pay for teachers to have surgery started out innocently enough – it was intended for accident and burns victims in need of reconstructive surgery. But in the age of cosmetic surgery the rider extends to arm lifts, face lifts and breast enhancements, with surgeons advertising their services in the teacher’s union newsletter.

Wow. It’s bad enough that government workers get excessive salaries and gold-plated benefits. But this takes it to a new level.

At least we see an example of economics in action. How likely is it that plastic surgeons would be advertising in the union’s newsletter in the absence of taxpayer financing?

P.S. Here’s David Letterman’s top-10 list of how to tell you’re a unionized government bureaucrat. Liposuction isn’t on the list, but wait ’til next year.

P.P.S. Just in case you think I’m exaggerating about overpaid government employees, take a look at this map showing 10 of the 15 richest counties in America.

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“We Have You Surrounded. Drop the Big Gulp and Come Out with Your Hands Up”

Mayor Bloomberg is a wretched human being. He’s an ultra-rich limousine liberal who wants to impose his views on ordinary people.

I’ve previously written about his statist efforts to ban bake sales, and I’ve noted with mixed feelings his proposal to tell food stamp recipients what they’re allowed to buy.

Now he wants to criminalize large sodas. Holman Jenkins writes about this silly idea in the Wall Street Journal.

Mike Bloomberg’s move to regulate the size of sodas sold in his city illustrates why it’s a good thing he is a mayor of New York and not the czar of all the Russias. American big cities tend to be one-party states to begin with, but at least their totalitarian impulses end up being merely cute because they’re so easy to evade. Under the Bloomberg plan, any cup or bottle of sugary drink larger than 16 ounces at a public venue would be verboten, beginning early next year. You’ll still be able to buy as much Coke as you want in a supermarket. Go home and pour yourself a bucketful. As Mr. Bloomberg himself was the first to note, you’ll also still be free to buy two medium drinks in place of today’s Big Gulp at ballgames, theaters, delis and other venues where the ban would be in effect.

But Mr. Jenkins doesn’t just mock Bloomberg for being a food nanny. He also makes an important point about public policy.

Here is the ultimate justification for the Bloomberg soft-drink ban, not to mention his smoking ban, his transfat ban, and his unsuccessful efforts to enact a soda tax and prohibit buying high-calorie drinks with food stamps: The taxpayer is picking up the bill. Call it the growing chattelization of the beneficiary class under government health-care programs. Bloombergism is a secular trend. Los Angeles has sought to ban new fast-food shops in neighborhoods disproportionately populated by Medicaid recipients, Utah to increase Medicaid copays for smokers, Arizona to impose a special tax on Medicaid recipients who smoke or are overweight. …So perhaps the famous “broccoli” hypothetical during the Supreme Court ObamaCare debate was not so fanciful after all. It flows naturally from the state’s fiscal responsibility for your health that it will try to regulate your behavior, even mandating vegetable consumption.

Or, to summarize, the view of politicians is that the government can tell you how to live because it is paying for your healthcare. This is Mitchell’s Law on steroids! One bad government policy leading to another awful government policy.

And it’s not just Mayor Bloomberg pushing these policies. Other politicians have similar proposals, though it’s quite likely that their main motive is to collect more tax revenue since they are focused on how to tax various “bad” foods.

But let’s try not to be overly depressed. Here’s an amusing cartoon on the topic.

I’m glad that people are mocking Mayor Bloomberg and the rest of the Food Nazis. And it’s good to see that the soft drink industry is fighting back, as seen by this Super Bowl commercial.

Maybe some day we’ll get to the point where people have to smuggle food past government agents. This may sound absurd, but it’s already happening in Norway.

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