How much would somebody have to pay you to run into a chemical inferno? To stand down a gun-wielding criminal? To infiltrate a drug gang? If I was going to write an article about the compensation for firefighters and police officers, I might ask those questions and dwell on them for a while. Daniel Foster, writing in National Review, opts for a different approach.

In an article about government budgets and public employee compensation, he suggests that first responders are seriously overpaid--and that this is a result, primarily, of their ability to collectively bargain and to play upon either the fears or heart-strings of voters. Cash-strapped local and state governments are trying to reduce compensation for first-responders, Foster explains, but “the the fuzz aren’t taking it lying down.” In Bay City, Michigan, for example, a police union threatened with layoffs has taken out billboards warning layoffs might expose people to all sorts of violent crime.

Maybe I've misinterpreted his argument, but he seems to be suggesting that the sympathy for, and solidarity with, first-responders is largely misplaced. “We must take care that public-safety workers are not allowed to hide behind the badge,” Foster warns. And his solution? Ban collective bargaining for public employees and, in the short term, get unions to accept reductions in compensation.

Actually, on that last argument, I would agree in part. As I noted when I wrote on this subject a few weeks ago--and my friend Harold Pollack rightly emphasized in his followup--the budget situation for most cities and states is truly dire right now. Whether or not reducing pay of first-responders is the right thing to do, it may be the necessary thing to do. Local and state governments simply don’t have the money the need to meet their immediate needs and, in the long term, they haven’t planned adequately for future obligations in the form of retiree health benefits and pensions. Precisely because public safety is so important, across-the-board reductions in compensation will frequently make more sense than layoffs. Unions that refuse to consider that possibility do their members, and their communities, a disservice.

I also think there are elements of truth in Foster’s broader critique. Police and firefighter unions have a lot of power. Like any other organized political group, they exploit emotions when they can. Sometimes individuals, locals, and larger union organizations use those advantages to secure excessive compensation or even to commit outright fraud.