Just after President Washington’s birthday celebration, the Wall Street Journal reported that the protests beginning in Wisconsin had spread to a dozen other states including Montana. I find this a fitting tribute to the wisdom of America’s founders—and to Wisconsin, often a harbinger of political reform. First, consider the Founding Fathers.

They well understood the necessity of government through personal experiences and history. They feared anarchy, but were concerned with the importance of constraining the abuse of governmental power. John Adams wrote: “The revenue creates pensioners, and the pensioners urge for more revenue. The people grow less steady, spirited, and virtuous, the seekers more numerous and more corrupt, and every day increases the circles of their dependents and expectants....”

There is a natural tendency for those having power to use it to disadvantage others. Those with it normally conspire with politicians to rig the game in their favor.

The notorious Jim Crow laws of the old South were explicitly designed to disadvantage Blacks.

University of Wisconsin historians S.K. Schultz and W.P. Tishler wrote: “In 1890, a new constitutional convention in Mississippi wrote a new constitution in which there was a direct clause stating that Negroes were denied the right to vote....” The outrages and injustices that flowed from such abuses ultimately generated the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s. Its acts ended legalized segregation and disenfranchisement of African Americans.

People of intelligence, good will, and integrity ultimately see and resent the unfairness generated by political arrangements that use the power of government to transfer wealth and privilege to a class of favored individuals. Such transfers strongly imply wasted resources and economic loss. Hence there are both ethical and economic arguments favoring reforms to end such special privileges; and over the long term logic and data are stubborn, powerful forces.

Wisconsin has a long reputation for initiating political reforms. While patronage was the norm in most states, including Montana, Wisconsin passed its Civil Service Reform Act of 1905. It was a merit-based hiring act that dismantled the prevailing patronage system. In the 1990s, Wisconsin led the nation in welfare and educational reform.

Following the work of NY Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, Governor Tommy Thompson wrote in 1992 that: “The chief casualties of the war on poverty can be found in our central cities, where welfare is too often a way of life, and where the educational route to achievement is too often closed off.” An outside observer, L.M. Mead of NYU approvingly observed, “In recent years, Wisconsin achieved the most thorough reform of welfare.”

Perhaps the current reform efforts will follow this reform trajectory. Here’s the straightforward logic underlying the controversy. Nationally most union members work for governments. The public sector is 37 percent unionized, while the private sector is just under 7 percent.

These unions are interest groups with a practical monopoly on the services they provide. The unions lobby to increase their numbers, salaries, job security, and benefits. That’s their job.

Private companies have strong incentives to reduce costs, including labor costs. Unions organize to fight companies’ “might and greed.” They accomplished much in the 1900s. However, taxpayers are weakly represented during bargaining. Joe Klein of the New York Times notes the contrast between the private and public sectors, “Public employees unions are organized against the might and greed...of the public?”

Union dues in Wisconsin, ranging from several hundred to $1,000 annually, are taken from paychecks and transferred to the union for political investments. The unions, at the local, state, and national level, then use this money to lobby for more members, as well as more benefits for their members. That’s their job.

According to the Washington Post, “Public employees often enjoy more generous pension and health-care benefits, and these are at the root of the long-term budget problems confronting many states.”

This is the core issue as states confront current and looming budget shortfalls. I suggest we watch Wisconsin, perhaps again a harbinger.