Progressive government has become unprogressive QUOTABLE  March
18, 2011 By Peter Samuel  by New York deep mayor Stephen
Goldsmith, WALL STREET JOURNAL 2011-03-18  "Across the country,
the interests of organized labor, elected officials and
taxpayers are colliding over wages, work rules and the
astronomical costs of retiree pensions and health care. As
important as these specific issues are to resolve, there is
another, more fundamental problem causing so many Americans to
lose faith in their government: It is not government unions per
se but progressive government itself--long celebrated in
Wisconsin, New York and elsewhere--that no longer produces
progressive results...  Performance and qualifications cannot be
considered in hiring  "New York City has more than 300,000
employees who work under more than 100 collective-bargaining
agreements, along with layers of bureaucratic state civil-
service laws. State law mandates that over 1,500 job titles must
be filled... specifically ignoring an employee's actual pe