DAVID WARREN ON THE PUBLIC SECTOR:

The government is approaching this as timidly as possible, for it is up against monopoly unions that can really ruin a politician’s day.

Yet when we speak of “entitlements,” or more precisely, against them, the first thing we face is public sector entitlements — in Canada as in every other western or quasi-western country. The troubles the Greeks are now experiencing with their civil service, which is in a position to bring the country to a halt, is a warning for the road ahead.

And forget Greece, look at California. There one may see in clear North American daylight what a vast unspeakable public bankruptcy looks like. It was not an inevitable thing. Gentle reader need only compare, candidly, California with Texas — which is flourishing, and whose voters know why. Economic decline is a choice, not a fate, and it has everything to do with big, intrusive government.