We just got through a very difficult budget season in Region 19 and a clarity about today's economy occurred to me along the way.
Economists like to talk about the nation's economics as monolithic as though everyone experiences the same economic effects.
What has become increasingly apparent is that government employees, teachers, and certain other education professions have surged ahead in security and earnings during the Bush years. Their uninterrupted incomes, benefits, and automatic raises have turned the old arguments that public service jobs don't pay around. They not only pay but they are self-inflationary.
On another hand, the middle-class, working in the free-market have experienced severe deflationary economics. Layoffs, downward re-employment, displacement, and depletion of savings are typical. Missed paychecks are common. Benefits, security, and thoughts of retirement are non-existent.
A third group is a growing retirement community living on fixed incomes.
The ever-increasing tax burden that funds the inflationary group is killing the rest.
This can't go on forever.
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