Word: biased
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...Private Bias. A more complex issue is the rising expectations of government employees. Teachers, government clerks and other civil servants in the past struck a tacit bargain under which they accepted relatively low pay in return for easy work, short hours, job security and relatively high pensions. Now they are demanding ?and increasingly winning?wages just about equal to those in private industry. The effect on budgets has been catastrophic. In New York City, the number of public-school pupils rose 16% during the past decade, but school spending zoomed 207%, largely because of higher teacher salaries...
Even these factors do not wholly explain the poverty of American public services. The most important cause is a set of national attitudes. From the earliest days of the republic, Americans have shown a pernicious bias in favor of private consumption and against public outlays. Business expenditures for new factories and machinery are looked upon as productive investments. Public spending for new schools, fire engines, libraries and playgrounds is regarded as an expense that may be unavoidable but should be held to a minimum...
...This bias has led to a massive failure to perform what might be termed preventive maintenance, of people as well as things. Bigger investments in public transportation during the 1950s might have avoided the worsening commuter crisis of today. In the period when low-income blacks (and whites) were flooding into the cities from the countryside, higher spending for manpower training, public housing and remedial reading could have alleviated many currently explosive social and racial tensions. Society is now being presented with the bill for such errors ?at inflated prices. To cite just one example, Federal Reserve Board Governor...
Another result of the bias in favor of the private economy has been a persistent refusal by Americans to tax themselves heavily enough to pay for public services. Though almost every American feels oppressed by taxes, the U.S. is in fact one of the most lightly taxed of all the industrial nations. Total U.S. tax collections equal only 31% of the country's gross national product v. 33% in Germany, 37% in Canada, 41% in Sweden and 43% in Britain. By no coincidence, most of these
Flat Failure. The bias against public spending has led the Federal Government to distribute the gains of economic growth in the form of income tax cuts rather than improved services. Since 1964, federal income taxes have been cut four times, from a range of 20% to 91%, to the present 14% to 50%. If rates, exemptions and deductions had been held steady for the past decade, Washington today would be collecting at least an additional $40 billion a year?more than enough to wipe out the $38.8 billion deficit foreseen in this fiscal year. Alternatively, if a large deficit were...