The Wheels on the Bus Go Round and Round

In an excellent piece of reporting, today's Oregonian lays out how Tri-Met, the Portland area transit entity, will spend more money on healthcare than running buses and trains, if it loses in the current round of labor negotiations. Successive agency heads, aided and abetted by Democratic governors, have said "whatever" to union demands for lifetime health care at no cost to union members. Now Tri-Met is cutting back service to pay for the lavish benefits. Finally, seeing the handwriting on the wall, the current Tri-Met manager, is trying to scale back the benefit package so the agency has the money to provide public transit. Silly boy! He really thinks that public agencies exist to serve the public?! And so it goes, with agency after agency, state after state, country after country. When will the public wake up?

blog.oregonlive.com/commuting/2012/05/trimet_workers_management_appe.html