If we manage to escape the economic catastrophe that is ObamaCare, we may breathe a little easier, but watch the horizon for a storm is brewing that makes the health care monstrosity look like pin money.

Unions have long been in decline in private industry, but recently for the first time union membership in the public sector surpassed that in the private sector, and it is still growing.  We all know the stories about municipal workers working for 20 or 30 years, then retiring at 50% to 90% of their last year’s pay which is often inflated with heavy overtime, and then they go out and get another job where they work until retirement and a cushy life of a public pension, a handsome private 401k, and Social Security.

It used to be that it was a trade off that government workers (teachers, cops, firefighters, sanitation workers, clerical) got great benefits because they were paid poorly when compared to the private sector.  However that is no longer the case as reported in USA Today:

 USA Today reported that nearly one in five federal government employees now earn over $100,000. The paper also reported the average federal salary rose to $71,260, almost $31,000 more than the comparative average private-sector wage. 

If that doesn’t get the hair on the back of your neck to stand up as, after all you are who pays for these salaries and benefits, then perhaps this will from National Review’s March 8, 2010 issue:

The highest-paid municipal employee in Madison, Wis., is bus driver John E. Nelson, whose salary last year totaled more than $159,000. Half a dozen of his fellow drivers also earned in six figures. How is this possible? The Wisconsin State Journal explains:“A high base salary and other benefits for drivers were largely setin the 1970s and 1980s, when the city took over the bus company.” Combine that with generous, federally mandated leave provisions that make for lots of overtime, and it’s not unusual for a bus driver to out-earn the mayor (and with much better job security). In the 1950s, Ralph Kramden of The Honeymooners was paid $62 a week by the skinflints at the Gotham Bus Company; he was constantly hatching schemes to strike it rich so he could quit. Today Kramden’s dreams of avarice would have been a lot simpler: get a government job and join a union. — The Week, “National Review,” March 8 , 2010

$159,000 for driving a bus.  Imagine.  I wonder what the private bus company was paying their drivers before the city took them over?  I am sure, like ObamaCare, the takeover was a cost savings measure.  After all, those greedy private companies are out to make a profit. 

Who was the most frequent visitor to the White House  at the time the White House released its visitor logs?  It was Andy Stern, president of the Service Employees International Union (government workers), which should tell you where this is going.  Remember, as well, that when the federal government took over GM and Chrysler they gave huge percentages of those companies to the unions.  So when it comes time to negotiate the next contracts the union will sit on both sides of the bargaining table, as management and labor.  How will that turn out?  It will be one of two ways, either the union will have an epiphany and realize that profits are important to staying employed, or the unions will pick the bones of GM and Chrysler clean, driving them out of business and leaving you and me, brother, holding the bag.

The Ticking Pension Bomb

The killer, however, is unfunded pension liabilities.  All those pensions that we will be paying for with retirees being retired for longer than they worked in many cases, will be like nothing we have imagined before from a fiscal crisis standpoint.  In private industry as businesses learned to appreciate the value of their human assets, they treated them accordingly and the unions withered.  However in the public sector we have elected officials writing laws, e.g., Davis Bacon, that heavily favor or require union labor.  Unions in turn, pour millions into making sure those same politicians get re-elected.  Who is looking out for you and me?  As the ultimate employers of government employees, how about a law that union contracts must be ratified by the public at the ballot box?  Too cumbersome?  Okay, how about a law that government employees cannot receive salaries and benefits that exceed what the average private employee (the public employees’ bosses) receives in that geographical area?

Tea Party Members, are you listening?

It is clear from the present administration that the statists believe that it is their destiny to rule, not govern, over the masses who they believe are their intellectual inferiors.  Keep piling it on, but don’t worry we can always tax the rich to pay for it.  But as you board that bus in Madison Wisconsin, ask yourself if Mr. Nelson behind the wheel, is the rich guy picking up the tab or is it you?  Watch out folks, if we don’t do something soon, the rich won’t be rich enough to pay for it even if we tax them at 100% and there is no law to stop them from taking their wealth and moving somewhere else where taxes are lower.  And at this rate there are a lot of places in the world where the taxes are lower.

For nearly eight years we heard the left scream, “Bush Lied!” over the decision to invade Iraq.  One decision and the same refrain repeated over and over again.  Where is the scrutiny of the truth police where President Obama is concerned?

In his State of the Union address he took the unprecedented step of calling out the Supreme Court and encouraging his minions to give that rebuke a standing ovation.  Shameful.  This is not to say that Obama cannot criticize other branches of government, but there is a time and a place.  When Joe Wilson called out “LIAR!” during a previous speech by President Obama he was roundly criticized and rightly so.  Not for the criticism, but for the time and the place.  Joe Wilson called the president to apologize.  Did Obama do the same?

The timing of the act was bad enough, but the accusation he made was not true, as Samuel Alito could be seen saying, if you can read lips.  In the midst of his constitutional duty to report to Congress on the State of the Union, he uses a blatant lie to attack his guests. But that wasn’t all.  His speech was sprinkled throughout with falsehoods, not least of which was his statement on jobs.

Counting the Uncountable

To try to put a positive spin on his porkulus bill, he had to make up a statistic that no reputable economist can endorse, “jobs saved”.  In his State of the Union speech and on the Sunday morning talk show circuit, Obama and his team talked about 2 million jobs created or saved. But they weren’t all on the same page, some said 1.8 million, but regardless it is blatant dishonesty.

Jobs created is a real statistic.  As a small business owner I can tell you that when you hire someone there are a number of government agencies that you have to report it to and you have a deadline in which to do so.  There is also some paperwork involved when you eliminate a job.  But I have never, never had to report to any agency when I thought about eliminating a job and then changed my mind.  After all wouldn’t that be the definition of a job saved?

If I never thought about eliminating the position, then the job is not “saved” it just continues to exist.  If I thought about eliminating the position and did so, it would not be a job “saved” it would be a job eliminated, no?  So it is this two step process of thinking about the action and then not following through that could reasonably be thought of as a “job saved”.  How do you measure that thought process?  Hiring someone is an observable action.  Eliminating a job is an observable action.  Saving a job are two related thought processes not externally observable, they can only be “reported” by the decision maker and it cannot be independently verified.  Is that the kind of statistic upon which you want your government to base billions of dollars in spending decision?   The only added feature of Obamanomics is that some money changes hands.  Money that comes from you, dear taxpayer, and goes to the businessman.  Can you see why such a statistic is ridiculous?

Which One Is It Mr. President?  Mr. Biden? Anyone?

Let’s pretend for a moment that “jobs saved” is a real statistic.  If the president has a figure in his head of 2 million jobs created or saved, and for the aforementioned reasons the number of jobs created is a hard number reported to some agency, then the number of jobs saved should be a matter of simple math.  2 million minus the number of jobs actually created equals the number of jobs saved.  So why not report it as such?  100,000 jobs created and 1.9 million jobs saved, for example.  Why lump them together?  Because when you lump them together its harder to tell how big of a lie the president is telling.

Stimulus recipients previously reported that they had directly “created or saved” 640,329 jobs by Sept. 30, but their filings were criticized after it emerged that some people had reported saving jobs when they had actually spent the money on pay raises or paying employees who were not in danger of being laid off.

In December, the White House Office of Management and Budget changed its guidance, telling recipients they should start counting every worker whose salary was funded with stimulus money, rather than guessing whether the jobs would have existed in the absence of the federal plan. Opponents of the program accused the administration of “moving the goal posts” to make the plan appear more successful. — Wall Street Journal, Latest Stimulus Report Fuels Jobs Pressure, Feb. 1 2010

So companies using stimulus money to give people raises was counted as jobs saved!  We have 10%-17% of our workforce idled and taxpayers are being fleeced to give people raises and this administration is calling that successful policy.  When do we start firing people in this administration?  How about Janet Napolitano?  How about Eric Holder?  or are we saving their jobs too so that the numbers look good?  The other reports are just as galling: $1000 purchase of a lawn mower is credited with saving jobs;  using stimulus money to purchase boots with each boot (left and right) being counted as a job saved because someone had to make the boots; stimulus money going to create jobs in Congressional districts that do not exist.  Does anyone have any confidence that this administration has a clue about how to run a government?  This is beyond embarrassing.

The Next Stimulus

But fear not, since the first stimulus was so successful, President Obama is teeing up the next one, but don’t worry this one is only $100 billion.  Doesn’t that just make you feel warm all over?

The December jobs report was a disappointment for this Administration.  They expected a mere decline of 10,000 jobs and were hit with an 85,000 loss.  They will, of course, downplay the numbers and say how many jobs they “saved” even though that is a statistic no one can measure.  But what are this administration’s priorities?

Upside Down Priorities

Let’s look at the priorities of this administration:

1. Bailouts
2. Health care
3. Cap and Trade
4. Jobs
5. National Security

Leaving aside that the top three are questionable as being within the constitutional authority of the president, what does it mean to job growth? 

The Little Engine That Can’t

The engine of job growth in this country are small businesses.  If you run a small business and you don’t know what your expenses are going to be, you will be very cautious about hiring.  In the list of items above, the first four have this administration on a spending binge that can only result in higher taxes because despite the rhetoric, that’s what statists do.  They will claim they only tax the rich, but many small business owners will fit into that definition of rich without having the cash to pay the taxes because their income is plowed back into their businesses.  So until they know how big the tax bill will be, they cannot afford to commit any cash to increased payroll.  They are more likely to use overtime rather than hiring to tide them over because they can just as quickly turn off that spigot.  While that might mean more economic activity, it doesn’t translate into new jobs.

Health Care is another looming question mark.  Since no one in the administration nor Congress seems to care about reading the bills they are voting on, it carries enormous risks to small businesses when the bureaucrats start crafting regulations based on any approved regulations.  If a small businesswoman doesn’t know what the impact will be on the cost of her existing workforce, she is certainly not going to hire new workers until she knows if the impact on her bottom line will be positive or negative.

Cap and trade is another potential whack to the small business bottom line.  Either through new taxes or carbon credits, who can tell a small businessman what this is going to cost?  When in doubt, stand pat.

Righting the Ship

Until this administration jettison’s the useless cargo that is sinking this administration, their new top priority should be ”man the lifeboats!”  If this administration hopes to avoid being a lame duck for two years, they need to come forward and say health care is dead, cap and trade is dead, bailouts are over.  Don’t even say that they will take them up again when the economy recovers.  Throw them over the side and start the pumps to empty the Treasury of IOUs.  If they don’t do this, any recovery in the jobs area will be slow indeed. 

It’s the Uncertainty, Stupid

Until the uncertainty is lifted, unemployment will remain stubbornly high.  When Reagan came into office and boldly stated his goal to shrink government and cut taxes, small businesses could see immediately that the effect on them would only be positive.  Less government and lower taxes meant more money on the bottom line and with more money on the bottom line they could start hiring and they did.  The result?  Twenty-five years of economic growth.  Obama is following the Franklin Roosevelt model of spend, spend, spend.  It didn’t work then.  It’s not working now.

Who doesn’t love a freebie?  Who does not get a thrill of good fortune by finding money in the street, no matter how insignificant the amount?  We may not believe in the Tooth Fairy, but many of us believe we have a rich benevolent uncle, Uncle Sam, who is willing to lavish upon us his wealth if only we would ask.  The sad truth is that Uncle Sam is not rich, but penniless and is running a ponzi scheme that would make Bernie Madoff blush.

Health Care for $20

One of the major reasons that health care costs are rising out of control is that no one is minding the store.  While Washington twists itself in knots to rearrange deck chairs on the Titanic of health care, we have little to no say in how our health care dollars are spent.  Our health care “insurance” system is not really insurance.  Insurance is meant to protect us from a financial catastrophe.  Going to the doctor for a checkup is not a catastrophe.  Paying a $20 co-pay for that checkup is like finding money on the street.  There is no way anyone can get a physical exam, except by a hooker, for $20.  It is a good idea to get a physical checkup every year?  Yes, then pay the bill and ask what you are paying for and make sure you need it.  You take your car in for service don’t you?  Do you file an insurance claim when you do?  Can you get it done for $20.  Let’s get real.  What we have is called third party payer and when someone else is picking up the tab, do we care what it costs?  Really?  But someone is picking up the tab.  Look in your other pocket, because you are.  If you are generally healthy and you get your annual checkup, your insurance premium (here in New York at least) will probably run around $10,000 per year.  But, hey, you only paid $20 for that physical!  What if you paid the full amount for the physical, say, $500.  What if your insurance premium was cut to $5,000 because you would pay most routine medical costs out of your pocket and what if you could put the $4,500 left over ($10,000 original premium, minus $5,000 current premium, minus $500 cost of checkup), into a tax free account that can be used for future medical expenses or retirement if you don’t use it?  If you are a young person and stay healthy into your mid-40s, you would have accumulated over $90,000 in your medical savings account and you still have catastrophic insurance coverage and the government stays out of the picture.

Retirement for Free

Like many well intentioned Government programs, Social Security, enacted during the Great Depression, seemed like a good idea at the time.  When enacted there was about 15 workers paying in for each recipient drawing out.  Today there are about a little over 3 workers paying in for each beneficiary.  Bernie Madoff would blush at the audacity of it.  On top of that the money that is paid into Social Security can only be “invested” in Treasury Securities so the return is lousy, but safe.  People reacted to Social Security by saving less because the government safety net was there.  Had people been encouraged to save for their own retirement, they would not be leaving their children this legacy of a ticking time bomb.  So today, many young people feel the government’s hand in their pocket when they look at the FICA line on their pay stub, but don’t believe they will ever get a penny back.  Nice concept.

Bring Home the Bacon!

What’s the measure of a good Congressman or Senator?  Bringing home pork for the district, no?  If you are like me, you get flyers every year or several times per year, touting how Congresswoman Jones obtained federal funding for that pier at the amusement park.  With 435 Congressmen you can count on this, for each $1 that your Representative brings home $434 leaves the Treasury for each of the other Congressional districts and probably more, depending on the power and seniority of your Representative.  Guess who’s paying for that Turtle Crossing in Florida?  that bridge to nowhere in Alaska? that airport in Johnstown, PA that no one uses?  That’s right, you are.  What if we decided locally if we really needed a pier at the amusement park, and if we did, pay for it ourselves?  Then we could let the people of Florida decide if they want to build a turtle crossing, the people of Alaska decide if they wanted a bridge to nowhere and the people of Pennsylvania decide if they wanted an airport that no one used.  Then we could cut federal taxes by an equal amount to keep them out of mischief and help us pay for these projects if we really wanted them.

Let’s Get Organized

There was a time in our history where labor unions performed a valuable service.  In those times when many industrial jobs were unskilled or semi-skilled, employers could dismiss someone on a whim and replace them within the hour.  Unions gave those workers some counterbalancing power and fairer treatment.  Today, we have a much more sophisticated economy and workers have more skills and mobility.  Union membership has declined accordingly, in the private sector at least.  Why is union membership still growing in the public sector?  What is different about workers in the public sector that they still need unions?  Are we suggesting that all government workers are unskilled?  Why do teachers need a union?  Are they not skilled such that they could sell their services to the highest bidder?  Why do unions fight merit pay for teachers?  Why are school principals, the de facto CEO of the school and who in New York easily make six figures, unionized?  Do you get an idea why our K-12 public school system is trailing the world in performance?

In Michigan, privately owned small businesses that provided day-care services suddenly discovered that they were part of a union and union dues were being withheld from their government contractual payments.

Ms. Berry owns her own business—yet the Michigan Department of Human Services claims she is a government employee and union member. The agency thus withholds union dues from the child-care subsidies it sends to her on behalf of her low-income clients. Those dues are funneled to a public-employee union that claims to represent her. The situation is crazy—and it’s happening elsewhere in the country.

Ms. Berry, runs “The Berry Patch” a private day care center she operates from her home catering to low income clients.  The money that was once paid to her, now goes to a union that does little for her.  She is “self employed and wants nothing to do with the union.”  Don’t you think we need more of these tactics in America?  Card Check anyone?

Going Postal

And let’s not forget the Postal Service.  As postal rates are again scheduled to increase on January 4, let’s look at this paragon of efficiency, that is actually authorized by the Constitution.  In 2008, the Postal Service lost $3 billion, and the Postmaster General John Potter pulled down $800,000 in compensation including $135,000 in incentive bonuses.  What do we have to pay this guy if he actually breaks even?  Also, let us not forget this is also a very heavily unionized operation.

Don’t Worry, You Won’t Feel a Thing

During World War II, FDR needed to raise more revenue to pay for the war.  Fearing a backlash, his team hit upon the idea of payroll withholding.  Knowing the potential backlash that would result when taxpayers had to write that big check on April 15th, he rightly figured that if he took a little bit each week, he could take a lot more in total.  Statists in Washington have never looked back.  It’s like the tax that was imposed on telephone service to pay for the Spanish American War that is still in place today.  Instead of picking our pockets every week, what do you think most Americans would say about the size of the federal government if they had to write one big check on April 15th?  There would be no tax rebates, because there would be no tax withheld.  Do you think Americans would force Congress to sharpen their pencils and scale back the size of government?

Help is On the Way

Ronald Reagan said, “The nine most terrifying words in the English language are, ‘I’m from the government and I’m here to help!’”  But perhaps the best example of how far from our founding principles our government has strayed comes from Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut as she spoke during a House End of Year Wrap Up Session:

“This House–we understand, we’re there,” she said.  “You can count on us because we believe that it’s our moral responsibility to make sure that you and your family need our help.” 

I don’t know about you, but I don’t need the House of Representatives making sure I need their help.  I need as little interference as possible from them.  Their meddlesome intrusions in our lives is killing what made this country great.  It is a point we cannot make often enough.

Let’s say you were having a problem with your knee.  So you go to the doctor and tell him your problem. The doctor examines you and says he has to act quickly.  He says you need an operation and if you have it, you will experience some mild pain for a brief time, but if you don’t  the pain will get worse.  How bad you ask?  On the pain scale, designed by Andrea Mankoski, you are currently at a 6, described as, “Can’t be ignored for any length of time, but you can still go to work and participate in social activities.”  He says without the operation you will probably reach a 9, “Unable to speak.  Crying out or moaning uncontrollably — near delirium.”  With the operation you will probably peak at 8, “Physical activity severely limited; you can read and converse with effort; nausea and dizziness set in as factors of pain,” but then things will progressively improve.  The pressure he is putting on you to decide is intense, so you give him the go ahead.

The good doctor performs the operation and as he predicted the pain does get worse, but it doesn’t stop.  You are beyond delirium, you are reaching level 10, “Unconscious.  Pain makes you pass out.”  Your medical proxy, demands the doctor tell her what went wrong.  The doctor shrugs and says it was worse than anybody thought, but then says the surgery is working better than expected. ”What the hell did you do in that surgery, you screw-up?” your proxy demands.   The doctor, just smiles, and turns on his heel ands walks away, leaving your proxy standing there sputtering, desperately trying to find the words to express her disbelief and outrage.  When she finally regains her composure, standing there all alone, she reaches for her cell phone to call a malpractice attorney.

Economic Stimulus Surgery

Dr. Obama told us, upon taking office, that we desperately needed a stimulus package or the unemployment rate would continue to rise.  He said without a stimulus package, the unemployment rate would rise to 9%, if we did NOTHING!  His able assistants, Harry “the Healer” Reid, and “Nurse” Nancy Pelosi, slammed through the $787 billion package.  We were saved!  Unemployment would not rise above 8% before starting to fall.  But there isn’t a happy ending to this fairy tale.  The unemployment rate rose past 8%; it rose past 9%; it rose past 10%.  So when Dr. Biden steps to the microphone and says the stimulus is working better than expected, why isn’t someone putting a straight-jacket on him and carting him off?  Why isn’t someone pointing out that the stimulus may have actually made the problem worse?  Team Obama said themselves that it would have been better to do nothing. The unemployment rate would have peaked at 9%.  Why are they getting  pass?

Non-stimulating Stimulus

Look more closely at the stimulus, which we now have had time to do.  Extending unemployment benefits does not create jobs.  Giving teachers a raise, does not create jobs.  Spending 80% of the stimulus funds so far in the Department of Labor, the Department of Health and Human Services, and the Department of Education doesn’t speak to job creation.  It speaks to a sop to their union backers and the creation of their impossible to measure metric “jobs saved.”  Only $4 billion so far has gone to the Department of Transportation and their “shovel ready” projects.  Even these, while a help to construction workers, doesn’t do a thing for laid off bank tellers, software engineers, or FedEx employees.

The Obama administration is spending us into oblivion,  while pouring gasoline on to the unemployment fire with their ill conceived and basically botched stimulus plans.  What is needed are tax cuts that will allow the market to direct the resources where they will do the most good and get the economy moving again.  Instead Obama is taxing and spending our way to economic disaster. What we need is a sharp curtailment in government spending and to shrink the size of the federal beast. Is there a good economic malpractice trial lawyer out there?

If I asked you a simple question, what government organization works well, what would you say?  Let’s take a look at two government organizations and compare their effectiveness and motivation.

The Military

Whether you support our troops on the battlefield or want them to always stay home in their barracks, most Americans will say the military does a pretty good job.  Why? That is, why are they effective, not just why do people think so?  Well, they put a lot of investment in training and technology.  They seem to have solved the problem of integration, being based on merit rather than racial prejudice.  These are all important things, but I don’ t they get to the core of the issue.  The key question is, what happens if they don’t do their job?  They die…they die, the guy beside them dies, their buddies die, and depending on the size of the conflict, their families and country may eventually die.  With that kind of motivation, race is not even secondary.  If the guy next to me has got my back and I have his, I don’t care what color he or she is.  We do it right, we live;  we don’t, we die.

The K-12 Teacher

K-12 education comes under fire in this country, and rightly so, for failing to produce an educated workforce.  In New York, for example we spend over $14,000 per student, per year on education, far above the national average of around $9,000.  Are students in New York 50% smarter than the country in general?  Hardly.  Is the nation as a whole turning out well educated students?  Sadly, no.

Our K-12 public schools are a government run monopoly.  So what happens to a K-12 teacher if they fail to do their job?  If they have been in the job long enough to get tenure, nothing.  They will get a raise like everyone else.  So what motivates them to turn out outstanding students?  I’ll wait.

Let me be clear that I don’t want to lump all teachers together.  They are many teachers who, by having what  I suppose is a strong moral streak,  do a great job because they want to teach.  Okay, so let’s look at the teaching profession where there is a group that does their best because they get satisfaction from doing a good job.  Now, some studies come out that say the way to improve results is smaller classroom size.  The teacher’s unions get behind it and eventually push it through.  So what does that mean?  If you cut the size of the class in half, you double the number of classes.  If you double the number of classes, you have to double the number of teachers and thus have to go deeper into the labor pool to find them.  Before you took this step, we can probably assume that all the self-motivated teachers were already on the job.  So the additional teachers are motivated by what?

Co -conspirators

That brings us back to the teacher’s unions.  When government’s come under pressure to cut educational expenses, the airwaves are soon flooded with the heart wrenching commercials pleading to restore the funding “for the children’s sake.”  What you don’t hear is the trailer that says, “This commercial paid for by the PTA,” or “This commercial paid for by the Association of Concerned Parents.”  No, what you typically hear is, “This commercial paid for by the X Teacher’s union, Joe Blow, President.”

Who do the unions really represent…really? The students? or the teachers?  They want the funds restored so that their membership is not hurt and their dues are not curtailed.  If their true concern was for the students, why not support school vouchers and charter schools?  They fight the former with a vengeance and the latter, if it is not union organized.

Let’s Not Pick on K-12 Education

Let’s look at other government areas.  Government is the only area where union membership is growing.  How many people relish going to their Department of Motor Vehicles?  How efficient is the Post Office?  Amtrak?  Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have a bonus compensation plan, which is a step in the right direction unless it leads to cooking the books and making extremely risky loans that lead to the near collapse of our economy.  How can we get this under control?

Controlling the Uncontrollable

Our government is trying to install a massive health care program that will cost a trillion dollars.  At the same time, tens of billions of dollars are stolen from Medicare every year and they can’t stop it.  Early this year, the Obama Administration passed a $787 billion stimulus package, spent $18 million to build a website to track it, and put Joe Biden in the role of watch dog.  How is that working out?  A recent report from ABC News, of all places, found that credit for creating jobs was given on the web site to Congressional Districts that do not exist.  A $1,000 grant was purported to have created 50 jobs.  The New York Times investigated and found that the $1,000 went to purchase a lawn mower.  It took from the time of the founding of the Republic until about the mid 1990s to accumulate $6 trillion in debt.  It has doubled since then, and it is projected to go from $12 trillion to $14 trillion by next year!

It cannot be controlled.  It is impossible to control.  The only solution is to cut the federal government down to size.  Take out the Constitution and read what the true function of government are supposed to be.  The military, absolutely;  the Post Office, yes it’s in there; coin money; establish patents and copyrights; establish the courts; control the District of Columbia; regulate interstate commerce; make treaties; give the State of the Union address.  That pretty much sums it up and everything else should be left to the states and local government or the people.

We should jettison all the rest and cut this government down to size and get out of debt.  Department of Labor–gone;  Department of Health and Human Services–gone; Deparment of Housing and Urban Development–gone; Deparment of Transportation–gone; Deparment of Energy–gone; Deparment of Education–gone; Deparment of Veterans Affairs–gone, rolled into the Department of Defense;  Deparment of Homeland Security–gone, rolled into the Department of Defense; Deparment of the Interior–gone; Deparment of Agriculture–gone.

The amount of money saved would be enormous.  Selling all the real estate and buildings would bring in more money.  We could then cut taxes to jump start the economy and run a surplus to cut the debt.  The next step would be to make it illegal for unions to organize government workers without a referendum approved by all the voters.  Side benefits would be less campaign money because there would be less government to influence.  Government would be more accountable to the people because it would be closer to the people, that is, at the state level or local level.  We can do this proactively, or wait until the government is bankrupt and we have to sell off the parts to the Chinese.

The White House released a list the other day of visitors.  Topping the list, in terms of frequency of visits was Andrew Stern, president of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU).  If the name of that union is not familiar to you, it is often closely linked to ACORN, the discredited group of community organizers.  So how many visits did Mr. Stern make?  Twenty-two (22).  That’s about once every other week, give or take.

Unions Decline

From a peak, as a percentage of employed workers, of 28.3% in 1954 to a level of 11.5% in 2003, the importance of unions in American life is not what it used to be.  In his recent book, What Americans Really want…Really, Frank Luntz asked this question, which of the following institutions are most important for America’s future? He then gave them a list to choose from.  When he combined their first and second choice percentages here is how it came out:

1. Schools – 51%
2. The Church – 26%
3. Federal Government – 24%
4. The Military – 23%
5. Business – 22%
6. Local Government – 13%
7. The Courts – 12%
8. Financial Institutions – 11%
9. Hospitals – 9%
10. The Media – 4%
11. Police – 3%
12. Unions – 3%

So let’s see…unions are at about 1/3 of their peak membership numbers;  Americans think they are unimportant to America’s future and yet, the president of SEIU is at the White House just about every other week, far more than any other visitor.  How is that for being in touch?  It is hope.  It is change.  But it certainly seems like the wrong direction for America.  Do you feel like President Obama is leading America to greatness, or plotting against it?

Our once proud automobile industry

The government institutes regulations such as CAFE that force the automobile companies to build many cars they can’t sell at a profit for each car they can.  The unions negotiate contracts that pay people who have been let go 90% of their salary and give retirees extremely generous packages.  The automobile companies stagger under this load to the brink of bankruptcy and what happens?  The CEO of GM gets booted out and the government and the unions end up owning the car companies.  In the case of Chrysler the UAW will end up owning 55% of the company if the government’s plan is approved.

Had the automobile companies gone into bankruptcy before the bailout, as this author advocated, the union contracts could have been voided and a new workable deal struck.  But the government said bankruptcy was bad. The government said we had to give the car companies billions of our tax dollars.  The government said, if you automobiles companies don’t accept our deal, you will be forced into bankruptcy.  Huh?

So tell us again, Mr. Obama, how this is not socialism.

New York, like many states, is in the midst of a state budget crisis.  The state is facing a $14 billion budget deficit.  The cause of the problem is pretty clear, too much spending.  State spending has grown far in excess of inflation and population growth.  What provided the wallop is the sharp downturn on Wall Street, which drastically cut revenues to the state.  But the state does not have any reserves to speak of.

We’re All in This Together, Right?

Everyone is being asked to tighten their belts.  The Democrats had previously held the State Assembly and now control both houses of the legislature and the governorship.  Among the strongest supporters of the Democrats in this very blue state are the labor unions.  They wholeheartedly support the spending increases that the Democrats propose every year especially where those increases shower wages and benefits on their members.

So while the Democrats, with no place to hide, are scrambling to close the budget gap why do I see commercial after commercial on television urging me to tell the governor and the legislature to make the necessary cuts elsewhere and not to touch their sacred cow.  The commercials are from the police unions, the teacher unions, the health care worker unions, the university professor unions, the public employee unions, all urging us to rise up and make sure the cuts are not directed at them.

Chutzpah

After years and years of spending increases under both Republicans and Democrats, and year after year of fat labor contracts for these unions because the politicians were too cowardly to confront them or turn down their money and electoral support, we are now in this mess.  But now instead of shouldering their share of the burden, some of which was a result of their greed, they are telling their fellow New Yorkers to take on more of the pain and spare them.  How about a little bipartisanship on behalf of the unions and suck it up and help your fellow New Yorkers carry the load you created.

Where’s Ronald Reagan when you need him?

I’ve said it before.  Barack Obama is a masterful politician.  It is almost like a magician.  His slights of hand are so subtle, you have to be watching very closely the hand that is not the center of attention to catch what he is really doing.

Creating Jobs

As he tried to builld up support for his stimulus package the number of jobs his package would create steadily grew.  It went from 3 million jobs to 4 million jobs.  Further it went from 80% private sector jobs to 90% private sector jobs.  Pretty impressive stuff. But what is the other hand doing?

Saving Jobs

When public opinion got behind needing to do something, the rhetoric started to shift.  From creating jobs it became creating or saving jobs.  Saving jobs?  Just how do you measure that?  How do you link that a particular employer didn’t lay off an employee because of a stimulus package to save the salt marsh harvest mouse?  Once, you slipped in that innocent change and got the media to buy off on it, which is not a stretch with this president, you can really go full bore.  “Why, we saved 15 million jobs!”  Go ahead, prove we didn’t.

“Well the package was intended to create jobs, but then the economy went into a free fall.  No, we weren’t able to create the 3 (not 4) million jobs we promised but, by golly, we saved 25 million jobs from being lost if we didn’t implement the stimulus package.”  If repeated often enough and lapped up by the slobbering main stream media, a complete failure will be hailed as a masterstroke.

What Happened in the Great Depression?

FDR is still revered as the president who got us out of the Great Depression.  His own Treasury Secretary, Henry Morganthau, said that eight years of spending failed to reduce the unemployment rate.  But Roosevelt is still considered a hero, not a failure who couldn’t end the Great Depression after ten years.  He couldn’t end it at all, reallly, because World War II was what eventually ended it.

Conservative Battle Plan

Conservatives lost the battle to keep this stimulus plan from going forward, and putting one in place that would work, led by tax cuts.  We must expose this slight of hand.  Just like sitting in the theatre watching a magic show we have to stand up and shout, “Did you just see what he did with his left hand?!!”  We need to perempt this by asking liberals, “You’re not going to start saying now that the package is designed to save jobs rather than create them, are you?”  If we don’t expose them, they’ll pull it off.