Tag Archives: Politics

Economy, Organized Labor, Politics

How The Wisconsin Education Association Gouges Taxpayers

Digging a little deeper into just one of the reasons that Wisconsin needs to reform their collective bargaining posture with the public labor union, has to do with the labor union’s monopoly as the health insurance provider. Costing the taxpayers thousands more per year per employee than they have to pay.

[T]he big stake that the Wisconsin Education Association has in forcing individual school districts to negotiate benefits — because they can demand that their own WEA Trust have a monopoly on health insurance.

Link: One reason why Wisconsin needed union reform: captive benefits

Media, Organized Labor, Politics

The Lawless Regime Has A Partner

You may have heard that President Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder have decided not to enforce the Defense Of Marriage Act, DOMA.

Jeff Lord at American Spectator has a funny piece today. Sarah Palin’s new attorney general, Mark Levin, has just decided that Roe v. Wade is unconstitutional. They’re just gonna decide not to defend abortion anymore, it’s silly, they’re just gonna effectively pretend it doesn’t exist. Can you imagine the outcry?

Very extraordinary, and particularly from a liberty point of view. There’s a pattern of abuse here. Obama is encouraging lawlessness in Arizona. In fact, he is suing Arizona for defending their own sovereignty against the illegal alien invasion. He is encouraging lawlessness in Wisconsin. He is undermining state governments everywhere he can, particularly if they’re battleground states, which Wisconsin is. He’s ordering his Justice Department not to defend a federal law. Nobody has said the law is unconstitutional other than Obama and Holder, and they don’t have the power to do that. Obama is ignoring court orders he doesn’t like, such as drilling moratorium laws in the Gulf of Mexico, and, of course, DOMA. He is ignoring judge Vinson’s ruling that the Affordable Health Care Act (Obamacare) is unconstitutional.

Let’s not forget Obama’s Environmental Protection Agency. Which is in effect legislating now when it comes to carbon dioxide, imposing rules on citizens that Congress has not passed. In fact, rules that Congress has refused to pass.  Then there is Obama’s use of Czars simply to bypass cabinet offices, accountable to no one, and they’ve never been confirmed to anything by anyone.

Alexis de Tocqueville referred to this as soft tyranny. What is soft tyranny? Obama using executive orders, regulations, and now withholding the defense of laws he doesn’t like to run the government out of his office.

The only comments in the media are whether this will hurt Obama’s poll numbers. If there were an R behind his name instead of a D, the media would be talking impeachment.  What we are witnessing here is a deterioration of our society, our norms, our systems. Ignoring the oath he was sworn to uphold is no trivial matter. And by not calling the president out on it, the media is playing the part of the enabler. The willing accomplice.

 

Egypt, Organized Labor, Politics

Mr. President, Where Was The Support?

Egypt’s young people, fresh off of toppling a 30-year dictatorship through the help of social media, used that technology to grill Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Wednesday, asking her why the U.S. didn’t express support for the revolution sooner.

Americans in Wisconsin are wondering the same thing. Problem in the United States is, we elected a Community Organizer and hoped that he could be a President. Instead, what we got was a community organizer and a President In Name Only. Same disconnect, different countries.

Economy, Politics

House Votes To Defund ObamaCare

To quote Peter Robinson at Richochet, ‘I have lived to hear the first shots of the revolution.’

In a remarkable afternoon of floor activity, House Republicans voted to defund ObamaCare on Friday, starving the program of federal funds through the end of 2011. Republican congressman Denny Rehberg of Montana, whose amendment killed the ObamaCare funding, declared that “Today’s vote is the latest victory for the American public and our country in preventing the disastrous ObamaCare law from forever damaging our health care system and hampering job creation,” and hailed Republican efforts as saving “billions of wasted funding while opening the door to true health care reform that reduces costs and improves access.”

In fact today was a veritable two-fer. In helping President Obama live up to his words that the federal government won’t be paying for any abortions, the funding for Planned Parenthood was also dropped.

Oh but wait. There’s pee in the punchbowl. WTF

Links:

Economy, Organized Labor, Politics

Wisconsin Protests, Astroturf

Well it didn’t take very long to find out that President Obama himself, along with his Organizing for America PAC are the driving force behind the protests in Madison, WI. The big picture here is that Obama and his labor union rent-a-mob are the driving force against the voters in Wisconsin.

Dang, this is beginning to look and sound a lot like the ruler is not only ignoring the will of the people but is actively working against them. Shades of Hosni Mubarak, no? Forget that democratic process that Obama was preaching to Mubarak last week. Today, every Democrat legislator in Madison was taken out of town on a bus (probably a short yellow one) in order to avoid the democratic process of representing their constituents and voting Yes or No on the governor’s bill.

What the governor is trying to do is save his state. That’s what he was just elected to do.

The teachers union and union thugs in general are not at their jobs. The kids (gee, it’s not about the kids anymore is it?) are losing lesson time that they’ll have to make up in June and they are complaining.  And while they are complaining, they are also starving. While the schools are closed, the poor children aren’t getting fed. What? And from the ones that supposedly care about ‘the children.’

The governor’s plan is to make the labor union employees pay rates comparable to their private sector counterparts. That, and to take all but their wages out of the realm of collective bargaining. It’s not their wages that present the fiscal calamity for Wisconsin, but the Cadillac benefit and pension plans. The people, aka taxpayers, the ones paying for it, don’t have the money. The party is over. It’s time to get real. It’s time to strip away this mystical perception so long-held by public sector labor unions of being exempt from the real world.

Who is the greedy one here?

The average worker for a state or local government earns $39.83 an hour in wages and benefits. His counterpart in the private sector earns considerably less — $27.49 an hour. Over 80 percent of state and local workers have pensions; just 50 percent of private sector workers do. These differences remain, Sherk notes, even after controlling for education, skills, and demographics. The bottom line: Taxpayers now underwrite unionized government jobs that pay considerably more — over $430 per week more — than comparable jobs in the private sector.

What this all boils down to is this administration and the Democrat party are  and always have been tied at the hip to BIG LABOR. It is BIG LABOR that contributes to their re-election. Democrats know what side their bread is buttered on. That’s why they and President Obama are concerned to the point of making laws (Card Check) to help increase union membership. Fact is, what labor union membership is, is no business of the federal government. They are an industry and business just like any other industry and business, complete with its lobbyists in Washington.

The labor unions have a lot at stake, which is why they’ll bus in protestors, beat up opponents if necessary, demonstrate at private homes,  in order to not lose their grip on the public sector labor market. The kind of labor that taxpayers have to pay for. Or to put it another way. The labor unions don’t want to lose business. If Big Labor’s business cost taxpayers more, then that is a business that the government does not need to be involved in. Let alone trying to expand. Period.

The reason Democrats are so beholden to labor unions is evidenced by the breakdown of organized labor between the public and private sector.

  • In 1980, 23 percent of Americans belonged to labor unions. For 2009, it is down to 12.3 percent.
  • A majority of union members in America (52 percent) now work for the government. This is up sharply from 49 percent in 2008. A function of all those so-called stimulus spending packages which served to grow the size of government and the union’s payroll.
  • A full 37.4 percent of government employees now belong to unions in 2009, up 0.6 percentage points from 2008.
  • Union membership in the productive sector of our economy continued its long-term downward spiral, falling from 20.1 percent in 1980 to a mere 7.2 percent in 2009.

Link: The New Face of Organized Labor |  Wisconsin Democrats Get on Bus, Flee State

Economy, Politics

Obama’s Budget Up Close

The mid-term elections were a mere three months ago. Unfortunately for America, President Obama is dancing to a different drummer where fiscal responsibility, reigning in government size, and decreasing our national debt is concerned. While telling Americans what they want to hear, which is what they voted for, President Obama is doing the opposite.

“Rather than fight the same tired battles that have dominated Washington for decades, it’s time to try something new. Let’s invest in our people without leaving them a mountain of debt.”

These words, a quote from President Obama, were displayed prominently on the Office of Management and Budget Web site the morning his fiscal year (FY) 2012 budget was released. Fine words. Unfortunately, his budget is almost a line-by-line repudiation of this policy. Under the President’s budget, the deficit in 2011 will hit a new record of $1.645 trillion, and the national debt held by the public over the next 10 years would nearly double, rising by $7.2 trillion. View the rest of the damage HERE, as analyzed by The Heritage Foundation.

But where things really get ridiculous is the yelps coming from Democrats in Washington about Republicans shutting down the government. If it gets shut down, which would be an improvement at this point, it will be Democrats that do it. In fact, they’re planning on it.

Listen to how they are claiming the end of the world if  the new house majority (Republicans) do what they were sent to Washington to do. Picture this. $100 billion is but a drop in the bucket to a multi-trillion dollar budget. To put it another way, the last so-called stimulus bill pumped $800 billion of NEW spending debt into the government. So how can it be that cutting $100 billion will cause irrepairable harm to the country?  The current budget aside, there is still $700 billion of NEW debt remaining for crying out loud.

No, they’ll be the ones shutting it down and blaming Republicans for it. Just like they did during a few weeks in the Clinton administration. Only problem for those Democrats and President Obama is, that BS won’t fly here, and more and more Americans aren’t going to buy it either.

Continue reading Obama’s Budget Up Close →

Economy, Florida, Pensacola, Politics

More Waivers From Obamacare

More waivers from participation in the now unconstitutional national health care law, aka Obamacare. The waivers were granted to 4 states. Not companies, states. They are Florida, Tennessee, Ohio, and New Jersey.

Steve Larsen, director of the Center for Consumer Information and Insurance Oversight (CCIIO) at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, confirmed the news under questioning from Rep. Cliff Stearns at an oversight hearing for the House Energy and Commerce committee.

Considering that, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, a majority of union members in America (52 percent) now work for the government, giving waivers to the states is tantamount to labor union bailout. And we already know how tight Democrats and Obama are with BIG LABOR, and why.

So we have waivers to individual companies and waivers for entire states, so far encompassing 900 health plans, four states and counting. What do we have? Strip it all away we have waivers issued to stop rising costs of a program that’s supposed to reduce them. All predicated on the notion that everyone participates. What?

Link: CMS Official Confirms That Four States Have Been Granted ObamaCare Waivers

Economy, Florida, Media, Organized Labor, Pensacola, Politics

City Voting On Union Representation Today

1 Comment

You won’t find this in the local paper. A search in the Pensacola News Journal (a trade union shop) comes up empty for an organizing attempt of city employees. The only place I saw it mentioned is in a local blog called Progressive Pensacola.

The literature from the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) has a catchy phrase. ‘AFSCME – We make FLORIDA happen.’ I have another take on it. It’s more like ‘We help make FLORIDA broke!’

On Progressive Pensacola, City employees voting on union Thursday.

Now there’s a really bad idea. Unions, aside from being useless nowadays, only spell more costs for the city. And consequently, more costs for the taxpayers that currently pay their wages and benefits. As if we are flush with cash. If working for the city is so bad, why are applicants falling over themselves trying to get a job with the city? The high demand and desirability of getting a city job seems to belie the need, as far as employees are concerned, for a union. On the other hand, it’s not hard to understand why AFSCME would not want to get more dues paying members.  They are a business and an industry just like any other.

This move, like all union attempts to raid and then soak an employer, serve only to take your money, if you are one of the employees, and give some of it to the union. And increase the cost of whatever it is that is produced. Which is ultimately paid for by you, the consumer. But you are rich. You can pay it, right?

In general, labor unions had a useful purpose 50, 60, 70 years ago. But since then, employers got the message and don’t treat their employees like indentured servants. Instead, that’s what the unions intend to make of their members.

Consequently, they have contributed to their own demise. Because of their efforts and due diligence in improving working conditions and employee relations decades ago, employers nowadays got the message. Due to their successes decades ago, they have made themselves obsolete today.

But BIG LABOR does not care that unemployment is high. And that their collective bargaining, combined with their spending employee’s money on political campaigns, mostly to save their sorry underfunded benefit packages has caused states and cities all over the country to look at insolvency, if not another government bailout. Are you ready for another government bailout? Andy Stern and Barack Obama are.

Let’s be thankful that the city can employ as many people as they can right now. Raise the cost more and see if layoffs don’t occur.

So who benefits? Not the employees. Not the taxpayers. Just the labor union.

Politics, Race Relations

Black Activists Speak Out

Some more pertinent news on the subject of race relations comes in these two gems. Maybe just a coincidence that they come to us during Black History Month.

Civil Rights Leaders Urged to Denounce Leftist Calls for Violence Against Black Supreme Court Justice

Apparently, calling for the hanging of Justice Clarence Thomas is no big deal. What?

Obama Cuts Heating Aid to Poor While Raising Energy Prices

Black Activist Speaks Out Against Agenda that Assures Suffering.