Chuck Schumer by DonkeyHoley

Today in New York City, the bastion of blue, in the bluest of states there is an upset in the making. Republican Bob Turner is leading Democrat David Weprin for the Congressional seat vacated by the disgraced Anthony Weiner, a protegé of Senator Chuck Schumer.

The margin is a remarkable 6% (47%-41%) the day before the election. I walked two election districts yesterday, and not a Weprin sign was visible and the support for Turner was strong. Registration in the district is 3:1 Democrat. The national party is pouring money into the race on the Democrat side, $500,000 – $800,000 recently, and robocalls featuring Bill Clinton have begun. Unions are also being summoned to get out in force.

Why is this so important to the Democrats? Part of it is history. This seat was held by Chuck Schumer before he ran for the senate. His hand-picked protegé, Anthony Weiner, replaced Schumer in Congress. These were two of the most strident, aggressive progressives in Congress (Schumer still is)  and two politicians who never worked in the private sector, but have all the knowledge and experience to tell everyone else how to run their lives and what is good for them.

The Democrats also puffed out their chests when Kathy Hochul won a special election in upstate New York in a traditionally Republican district, where another Democrat ran on the Tea Party line. Hochul attacked her opponent’s support for Paul Ryan’s budget plan that would actually save Social Security, in the typical “scare the seniors” tactic. The Democrats felt they had the signature issue they needed to carry them all the way to 2012. When Weprin tried to carry that ball forward, he ran into a buzz saw named Ed Koch.

“This is former Mayor Ed Koch. I’m calling set the record straight on something. David Weprin is making phone calls trying to scare seniors. They’re NONSENSE. Weprin should be ASHAMED of himself. Bob Turner is running for Congress to PROTECT your Medicare and Social Security. It’s why I ENDORSED BOB TURNER for Congress. If anyone tries to scare you with LIES about BOB TURNER, tell ‘em ED KOCH told them to KNOCK IT OFF. BOB TURNER is the BEST candidate for senior citizens in this race. Don’t believe anything else. Send Washington a message:  Vote for Bob Turner for congress on September 13th. Bob Turner is supported by Rudy Giuliani, the Liberal Party and me.”

If the Social Security scare tactics don’t work in a district with a 3:1 Democrat edge, Team Obama is in serious trouble. In a recent New York Times article, other Democrat candidates are starting to distance themselves from Obama so they don’t go down with the ship. This will get very interesting.

That’s my opinion; I’d like to know yours; Please comment below.

Photo by photobunny

It would be an understatement to say that unions have had some setbacks recently, so what’s wrong with hogging a holiday all to themselves as they lick their wounds?

The Marathon County Labor Council originally tried to ban Republican lawmakers from Monday’s parade, but it backed down when the Wausau mayor threatened to refuse insurance costs and other expenses to the public event.

While it is true that organized labor was behind the establishment of Labor Day, when you consider that at their peak in the 1950s, unions only represented a little over a third of  all workers, it never would have happened without a lot of non-union support to get them more than the fifty percent needed to pass any legislation. So just how did we get in this mess?

Another New Deal Idea

The National Labor Relations Board was created as part of the National Labor Relations Act, also known as the Wagner Act, passed in 1935, in the midst of the progressive movement. The Wagner Act is an interesting study.

First of all there is nothing in the Constitution that empowers Congress to pass any law regarding the conditions under which private businesses could or could not hire people. The Wagner Act only applied to private companies, as even Roosevelt said that allowing public sector employees to organize was crazy, or to use his own words:

All Government employees should realize that the process of collective bargaining, as usually understood, cannot be transplanted into the public service. It has its distinct and insurmountable limitations when applied to public personnel management. The very nature and purposes of Government make it impossible for administrative officials to represent fully or to bind the employer in mutual discussions with Government employee organizations. The employer is the whole people, who speak by means of laws enacted by their representatives in Congress. Accordingly, administrative officials and employees alike are governed and guided, and in many instances restricted, by laws which establish policies, procedures, or rules in personnel matters. — Letter to Luther C. Steward, President of the National Federation of Federal Employees, August 16, 1937

The Act also allowed states the prerogative to protect against compulsory union membership. This is exactly backwards. The federal government doesn’t tell the states what it can or cannot do.  The states created the federal government (remember that ratification process back in 1788?) and in case there was any doubt, they erased it with the Tenth Amendment.

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people. {emphasis added}

You will notice that it is the states, through the Constitution, that are granting powers to the federal government, not the other way around. The Act tells private employers that if they fire someone for joining a union they have committed a federal crime, but if they fire someone for not joining a union that was okay and is federally protected.

Adding the Public Sector

Despite Roosevelt’s views on public sector unions, if there is a political opportunity to stick it to the citizens to advance one’s political career by all means do so. New York City Mayor Robert Wagner, the very son of the Senator who sponsored the Wagner ACT, was facing a tough reelection. All five Democrat county leaders were against him. That’s not good when that happens. Wagner needed to pull a rabbit out of his hat if he was going to win. So, in 1958 an aide came up with the idea of allowing public sector employees to unionize and create a huge voting block in his favor. Eureka! He went on to win again. In 1962, President John F. Kennedy signed Executive Order 10988, allowing the unionization of federal workers. It wasn’t a law debated and passed by Congress, just an executive order from one president.

In the private sector union membership declined from it’s peak to its current level of around 7% of all workers. In the public sector is has continued to grow, and to cost a bundle. Why? As union leader Victor Gotbaum said, “we have the ability to elect our own boss.” And elect they did, unions almost always come out in force for Democrats, those who get elected have been more than happy to negotiate generous pay packages, early retirement, retirement pay formulas that allow loading up on overtime the last few years to jack up the calculation, numerous sick days that can be converted to cold hard cash upon retirement, etc., etc. The cookie jar is empty. The party is over. Stop whining, kid, that you didn’t get more ice cream.

Labor Day for All Americans

How about we celebrate Labor Day for all Americans, who work and have worked  to make this country great? How about a little round of applause for all those non-union workers who supported the rights of union workers to organize? This is not a private party with a union goon manning the velvet rope. This is an American holiday that is open to all Americans, because it was passed into law as a legal holiday by our Congress. Thank you. Now, I’ll have a beer and a Hot Dog, please.

That’s my opinion; I’d like to know yours. Please comment below.

Photo by Dovina is Devine

After negotiating a debt limit deal that included no tax increases, the ink was hardly dry on the paper before President Obama and Harry Reid started talking about what? That’s right, tax increases.

We hear it over and over again that the rich must pay their fair share. It is often parroted by the likes of Warren Buffet and Matt Damon. “I can pay more,” they say. I say, what’s stopping you? The Treasury has an account set up just for folks like you who feel you are not taxed enough. As Buffet has said, “I could give away 99% of my wealth and my family would still want for nothing.” Movie actors like Damon get paid tens of millions for a single film. It’s nice that the “I can’t spend it faster than I make it crowd,” volunteers that we all have to pitch in. But what happens when a sacred progressive program gets in the way?

Take rent control. In New York City, rent control is a sacred progressive program. “We need affordable housing for the middle class or they will be driven out of the city.” Rent control was responsible for many abandoned buildings in the 1970s and 1980s that turned into drug dens or were set ablaze, because landlords couldn’t raise rents to cover their costs so they just walked away. Tax revenue to the city walked with them. But don’t you dare challenge rent control and put those poor people on the street. Meet the defendant in case No. 7666/11, whose landlord claims she is not entitled to rent control on her apartment. Her name is Faye Dunaway. Yes, that Faye Dunaway. Her landlord argues that this is not her primary residence and that she lives, votes, and registers her cars in California. The rent stabilization rules require tenants to live in the apartment they are renting as a primary residence. Her rent for the one-bedroom walk-up is $1,048.72, but if allowed to rise to market rates it would probably be around $2,318 per month. Would Ms. Dunaway be forced to move to Queens if her rent increased?

How about former mayor Ed Koch. While he was given a mansion to live in, as all mayors are during their tenure, in his case twelve years, he never let go of his rent controlled apartment in Greenwich Village. How would he makes ends meet if he had to pay market rent? After all, isn’t that the purpose of the law to help rich white Democrats pocket more dough? Okay it wasn’t fair to single out white Democrats, how about Charlie Rangel? He had four rent controlled apartments. Three of them were adjoining, so he had some of the walls knocked down to make a really swell place. What about the fourth, you ask? Oh, that was for his district Congressional office. Rangel whose salary alone puts him squarely in the top 5% of all earners used to chair the committee that writes the tax laws, but seemed to have a problem remembering such things as income from a villa in the Dominican Republic so he didn’t exactly pay all his taxes. He’s still serving in Congress and not a guest of the IRS in prison. I guess he used the famous Steve Martin defense, “I forgot.”

Perhaps all the little people who the progressives argue need things like rent control would be helped if the rich Democrats would only get out of their apartments.

That’s my opinion; I’d like to know yours. Please comment below.

Congressman Eliot Engel writes a letter to the editor of the New York Times titled, “Banning Gun Imports.” He was prompted to write because of an editorial in the Times titled “Hypocrisy, Locked and Loaded,” but I’ll address that one later. Here is how Congressman Engel sees it. There is a tremendous illegal drug business in Mexico. It has gotten so big and contentious and violent that thousands are killed every year. His solution to the problem in Mexico? Ban the importation of guns into the U.S.

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives created a program that would allow the illegal purchases of guns in the U.S. and let the guns walk across the border to Mexico with the idea that it would lead them to the cartel bigwigs. Instead the program backfired, they lost track of the guns, and the guns turned up at the scene of a shootout with U.S. Border Patrol agents where an agent, Brian Terry, was killed. When Congressman Darrell Issa’s government oversight committee started investigating what happened, Democrats circled the wagons to deflect criticism of the Obama administration and instead brought out that old bromide gun control. Chairman Issa would have none of it, provoking the ire of the New York Times editorial board and thus their editorial.

Why not focus on the root causes? The root cause is not guns. The root cause is drugs. Why doesn’t New York’s mayor Michael Bloomberg, instead of launching crusades against trans fats and table salt, launch a crusade against the glamorization of recreational drugs? Perhaps if he could get his Hollywood pals to stop taking drugs and stop glamorizing drugs then maybe there wouldn’t be cartels in Mexico killing each other to supply the drugs, or would that be too uncool?

These drug cartels are swimming in money. They are as well equipped as some armies. Do we really think that instead of buying fully automatic AK-47s at one of the world’s arms bazaars, they instead are buying “cheap AK-47 ‘knockoffs’”, to quote Congressman Engel, at retail in the U.S.? No doubt there are guns flowing into Mexico, where gun ownership is tightly controlled. When there are reports of guns being smuggled across the border in containers of powdered milk, do you think that is destined to a drug cartel, or perhaps a frightened citizen who is trying to protect himself and his family from the cartels?

The left doesn’t want to totally alienate gun owners in America because they could never win another election if all gun owners voted against them. So what you will typically hear is, “I support the right of Americans to own guns, but…” You will hear that from Carolyn McCarthy, who along with Bloomberg is perhaps the most anti-gun politician in American and you will hear it from Congressman Engel:

While I support the right of American citizens to own firearms for legal purposes, there is nothing sporting about AK-47s, which are military-style weapons.

Excuse me, Congressman, but my copy of the Constitution doesn’t include the word “sporting” in the Second Amendment. It is not about sports, it is not about hunting, it is not about target shooting. What it really is about is the people being protected against the tyranny of government. So instead of focusing on guns, perhaps you and your Democrat colleagues all the way up to the White House, should start a campaign with your pals to make drugs “uncool”. While you waiting for the guffaws from your friends to die down, perhaps you should work on sealing the Mexican border. Third, perhaps you should convince the Mexican government to relax their gun control laws so that their citizens won’t be coming here to buy guns to protect themselves, since their government won’t or can’t because they are too corrupt. Focus on solving the problem, not on getting an applause line from your base.

That’s my opinion; I’d like to know yours. Please comment below.

How many times are we going to hear asinine comments like the following from Zack Burgess at the Philadelphia Tribune?

After Monday’s debates it seemed at times as if the GOP was focused on bashing the president vs. dealing with the problems that face the country. At this point I would like to hear from  presidential scholars, people within the GOP and the Democratic party about how the next nominee from the GOP will run their campaign. Does the GOP have a plan? Or will their platform be solely based on bashing the president? It really didn’t look as if they had an answer for high unemployment, a stalled economy  and soldiers bogged down in Afghanistan. And believe me, I’m not taking the president off the hook, but I want to know about the  GOP and where they seem to be going, because right now it doesn’t look like they have a clear strategy or answer…besides bashing the president. Is this strategy going to work? Most times it doesn’t. Your thoughts. Zack Burgess Enterprise Writer The Philadelphia Tribune

Let me try to explain it so that even Zack Burgess can understand it. The problem, my friend, is in Washington not out among the everyday folks. The Republicans, unlike your fellow travelers, do not think they are smarter than 340 million of their fellow Americans such that they can command and control the economy, like some Soviet politburo which, by the way, couldn’t do it either. This economy is recovering, far more slowly than it should, not because of Obama’s policies but in spite of them.

This administration has thrown more monkey wrenches into the economy than I thought existed. The housing market? It is still in the tank because the administration is trying to micromanage everyone’s mortgage. Get the hell out of the way, let the market find a natural bottom and it will resume its historical 3.5% per year growth rate. Unemployment? Stop throwing program after program on small and medium businesses so that they have no idea what it will cost to hire the next employee. That includes ObamaCare, Dodd-Frank, cap and trade, card check, QE2, subsidies for green energy, Chevy Volts. Stop throwing away money on stimulus that did not work, and if you don’t believe me, ask your president what a shovel ready project is. The stimulus was one big, massive, porkulus bill to pay off supporters with taxpayer dollars, e.g., public sector unions. Remember, in selling the stimulus program we were warned that if nothing was done, unemployment would rise to 9%. So, by that very definition the stimulus program made the problem worse than if we did nothing.

President Obama is the most inexperienced person ever elected to the office. He is so clueless he thinks ATM machines are the reason we have high unemployment. Shall we return to to using quill pens?

So here is what the Republicans stand for. We are spending too much money. Stop it. We are putting too many programs on small and medium businesses such that they cannot calculate the cost of hiring, so they are not hiring. Stop it. We have public sector unions who are bankrupting state and local governments and it cannot continue. Stop it. Businesses have trillions of dollars overseas that they don’t want to bring back because if they do, a very large chunk of it will go right into the government spending machine. Stop it. We have program after program in Washington that has no basis of authority in the Constitution (Article 2, Section 8). Stop them.

Mr. Burgess seems to believe that if you don’t like his massive government program, you have to show him your massive government program. He doesn’t seem to grasp the idea that massive government programs are the cause the problem. It wasn’t deregulation that caused the financial crisis, it was everyone following the government’s lead to have every Tom, Dick and Harry own a home whether they could afford it or not, and if you stood in the way, the government was going to steamroll you, paint you as racist, or otherwise destroy you. The government took the lead and Goldman Sachs, Lehman Brothers and others dutifully followed along.

The plan and the strategy of the Republicans is to cut government down to size. Limit it to the authority granted by the Constitution, stop running ponzi schemes that would make Bernie Madoff blush, and get spending under control (see Paul Ryan plan). I guess what confuses people like Mr. Burgess was that all seven candidates at the debate seemed to agree on this. The idea is to grow this great economy, not try to micromanage it by picking winners and losers.

As former New York City mayor Ed Koch once famously said to a reporter who kept asking him the same question, “I can explain it to you. I can’t comprehend it for you.”

That’s my opinion; I’d like to know yours. Please comment below.

The Tea Parties sprang to life after seeing cyincal politicians advance their own agenda that most Americans knew wouldn’t work, but damn the people, the politicians plowed ahead. It was about the time of the great stimulus program that we were told (and didn’t believe) the program would cap unemployment at 8% for the mere cost of nearly $1 trillion. If we didn’t act, the politicians somberly pronounced, we would face the dire situation of 9% unmployment.

New York Congressman Tim Bishop has introduced “The Big Oil Welfare Repeal Act,” which could be said is cynicism on steroids. Let’s start with the title. Does Mr. Bishop really believe that oil companies are receiving welfare? Welfare as most honest people know is where the government gives people money who are not working. It takes little questioning to figure out that is not happening in the case of the oil companies but, hey, lying works. Tim Bishop just ran his entire reelection campaign on personal attacks on his opponent rather than running on his record, so lies and distortion are his specialty. Let’s break it down.

What he wants to do is eliminate a tax break, not a subsidy, that the oil companies receive which equates to 6% of the income they get from domestic oil production. I am all for simplifying the tax code and eliminating all loopholes and at the same time reducing tax rates so on balance it is revenue neutral. But why stop with the five biggest oil companies? What about eliminating subsidies for ethanol? Wind? Solar? Crops? Electric cars? Mortgages? Uh, those wouldn’t be cool with the people Bishop needs to reelect him, but Big Oil, yeah everybody can hate Big Oil!

Bishop goes on to say that the extra revenue from the oil companies by eliminating the tax break will reduce the deficit by $13 billion over ten years or doing the math about $1.3 billion for one year which is 0.08% of the current one year deficit of $1.6 trillion. So, Mr. Bishop is cyinically trying to show he is concerned about the debt, and yet he voted against the Ryan budget proposal that would save $6 trillion; deficit reduction to Tim Bishop has to be symbolic not serious or real.

Lies, Lies and more Lies

Mr. Bishop, on his own website, says the following:

• I’m outraged that at $4 a gallon, Americans are still paying twice for gas: once at the pump and once on tax day,” said Congressman Bishop.  “Borrowing money to pay Exxon-Mobil to drill for oil they have every incentive to drill for already is Exhibit A for wasteful government spending.”
• Repealing the oil industry’s tax subsidies will not impact gas prices for American consumers.
• Bishop unveiled the bill at the Patchogue Village Department of Public Works facility on Waverly Avenue, which houses the gas pumps used by village, school, and fire district vehicles.  He was joined by Village Mayor Paul Pontieri, who described the effect high gas prices have on the Village’s budget.

These three bullets were from the same post on his website! He begins by saying he is outraged by the price of gasoline at $4 a gallon. He then says that his proposal will not affect gas prices. Then he uses the poor Patchogue Village mayor as a prop, to unveil his plan that Bishop  says won’t do a damn thing to solve the mayor’s problems. Do you wonder why Americans hate politicians?

Bishop is right about the gas prices. Exxon makes a profit of about $0.07 per gallon of gasoline. Bishop’s proposal will affect 6% of the profits they make on domestic production. It doesn’t take a mathematician to figure out at 6% of $0.07 is about half a cent per gallon. So why all the hoopla other than to create a false impression that this congressman is actually earning his $176,000 salary. That’s why Americans hate politicians.

Let’s move onto the next lie, paying the oil companies on tax day. With Memorial Day approaching we will be seeing a lot of sales from merchants. If you go to Lowe’s to buy that new grill and they advertise 10% off for Memorial Day, does the cashier reach into the drawer, take out some cash and give it to you? No. Ten percent off means you pay ten percent less. You do not come home with a grill and more money in your pocket than when you left the house. The same applies to taxes. Any tax break means you pay less in taxes, the government doesn’t pay you. The government doesn’t have any money except what it gets from you. That’s how it works. So tax cuts are where you get to keep more of your own property. It is not a payment from the government, it is not a cost to the government, IT’S NOT THE GOVERNMENT’S MONEY, it’s your money.

Okay, gas is expensive, so what do we do about that? Many on the right have said we should increase domestic production. So what does Tim Bishop do? His proposal is to remove a tax incentive on domestic production. That seems counterproductive. He also said he just voted against expediting domestic drilling permits. It would almost seem that Bishop wants to increase our dependency on foreign oil. He then goes on to say in a C-SPAN interview that domestic production is at an all time high, and that the oil companies have plenty of leases and they should just drill on the leases that they have.

The problem is that it takes about sixty leases to get one with a productive discovery of oil. What Mr. Bishop only mentions in passing is the value of the dollar as a contributing factor in the price of gasoline. I suggest that it is a more serious relationship than that and who has been destroying the value of the dollar by printing money and spending it like crazy? It was Tim Bishop who voted for the stimulus that accomplished nothing. Nancy Pelosi ran up the debt $5 trillion during her tenure as Speaker and Tim Bishop voted with her 97% of the time. Now he proposes meaningless legislation just to get some campaign sound bites, because attacking Big Oil is good politics. That’s why Americans hate politicians. They want their elected representatives to do things that work, not things that get the politicians another two years on the government’s payroll.

Here Mr. Bishop let’s his fig leaf slip and reveals his socialist leanings:

He noted that while continuing to enjoy the subsidy, the largest five oil producers have directed the lion’s share of their profits into dividends and stock buy-backs.

Think about the local green grocer. If he has a good year and he makes a profit, maybe he decides to put that profit into the bank. Would Tim Bishop object to that? Okay, who owns the oil companies? The stockholders. Mr. Bishop is basically saying that the people, maybe even a certain green grocer, who invested their hard earned money are not entitled to any of the profits from the oil companies they own in the form of dividends. They are not allowed to sell some of their stock back to the company in the form of a stock buyback so they can invest their money elsewhere. Perhaps some of those oil company owners are retirees who bought the oil company stocks for the dividends and because they believed the oil companies will be around for some time to come. Perhaps they don’t believe that Social Security is such a swell deal; few ponzi schemes are. Mr. Bishop takes exception to them getting a dividend increase now and then. In his twisted understanding of economics or lack thereof, the oil companies should be taxed more, its owners receive no profits, plow all profits back into exploration and development, and sell their product for less money, while he and his cohorts spend every last dollar that this country produces, to keep themselves in office, and have a claim on everything you own, except that which Mr. Bishop decides you can keep. But whatever you do, don’t call them socialists.

And that’s why Americans hate politicians.

That’s my opinion; I’d like to know yours. Please comment below.

I got an opportunity to watch the documentary “Waiting for Superman,” and it confirmed much of  what I have been saying. Teachers are a national treasure. Teachers’ unions are the new empire of evil. Whoa! That’s harsh. Yes, but not nearly as harsh as flushing thousands of uneducated children into the streets to fend for themselves, when we should be educating them for our future.

The reason I chose the word “evil” is the patent dishonesty the teachers’ unions use to advance their agenda. The steelworkers’ union doesn’t talk about looking out for the steel; they say they are looking out for their members. The United Auto Workers union doesn’t talk about looking out for the cars, they say they are looking out for their members. The Teamsters union doesn’t talk about looking out for the trucks they drive; they say they are looking out for their members. But listen to any pitch from the National Education Association or the American Federation of Teachers and they are always “fighting for the children.” What utter twaddle. If that is true they should all be horsewhipped for the awful job they are doing. Who are they fighting with? The parents? The taxpayers?  It is a bald faced lie. They are fighting for the teachers and the children be damned.

In New York City, where Mayor Mike Bloomberg has shut down 110 poor performing schools, they are trying a new approach, turning around schools. The experiment would consist of replacing the principal and half the teachers at two schools but keeping the schools and their programs running. Here is the union’s position:

Union leaders might be seen by their rank and file as acquiescing to the replacement of teachers, though those teachers would be entitled to their full salaries and jobs elsewhere in the system. But if those schools were closed, they could be replaced with charter schools, which tend not to be unionized.

That’s the basic union formula, keep incompetent teachers at all costs. They do not want to lose one dollar of union dues and the power that flows from those dues.

In the documentary a bold approach was tried by Michelle Rhee, superintendent of Washington DC public schools perhaps the worst school system in the country, where she proposed a merit pay system where teachers could earn as much as $150,000 a year in return for giving up tenure. The union would not even allow it to come up for a vote. Hmmm…merit pay, rewarding teachers for doing a good job, which means actually educating the children, but the union says, NO! We won’t even vote on that. Can we queue the violins and roll one of the union’s commercials about “the children” now, please.

In New York City they finally shut down the “rubber rooms” where teachers accused of misconduct waited, sometimes as long as three years, for an administrative hearing on their case for dismissal. At the time of closing there were 550 teachers in the rubber rooms costing the city $30 million per year. The teachers in the rubber room continued to receive full salary and their benefits grew with the seniority they accumulated while in the rubber rooms. Psst…it’s for the children.

Another expert in the documentary estimated if only the bottom 5%-8% of teachers could be culled from the schools, the progress improvement would soon put the United States back near the top of the world in educational performance. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that if after three years on the job a teacher is guaranteed their job for life, that no matter how motivated, they lose their edge. When the going gets tough, instead of doubling their efforts, they can just say, “the hell with it,” I will get paid whether anyone learns or not, and next year I’ll get a raise.

The counter argument, if they were honest enough to make it, is that the unions are fighting to keep teachers’ jobs in a period of high unemployment. But how many uneducated of our youth will be and remain unemployed for much of their life because of failure factories? Why are high tech companies with jobs crying out for more visas for foreign workers? Because our own schools can’t graduate enough people to do these jobs. This is a national disgrace. Imagine if these children, our children, could graduate high school and actually be able to read and write, put together a coherent sentence, and do basic math.

The solution is not the federal government throwing money at the problem. The federal government should get out of the way. It is the teachers’ unions that are the problem. I ask this question to teachers and no one can seem to answer it. Why would a competent and skilled teacher want to link themselves to an incompetent teacher and be sold to a school district as a package? Anyone? Beuller?

That’s my opinion; I’d like to know yours.  Please comment below.

When the unions and their progressive supporters hit the streets in Madison, Wisconsin the news cameras didn’t have to look high and low to find the Hitler posters, they could probably spot them from a hundred yards off, but honestly, who didn’t think there would be Hitler posters at a left wing rally? But in a effort to modernize, somebody found a newspaper and saw there was some unrest in the Middle East and voila, we had comparisons to Hosni Mubarak and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. So Governor Scott Walker, we are to believe, is acting like a dictator not a democratically elected governor working through a democratically elected legislature? Hmmm, I wonder how the public sector unions got the “rights” they ferociously cling to?

Wagner and Kennedy

In 1958, New York City mayor Robert F. Wagner was running for reelection. He had a little problem, though, and that was the fact that all five Democratic county leaders were opposed to him. Not only did that make getting reelected an uphill fight, he realized that he might not even be the nominee of the Democrat party. He needed a bold stroke of political genius. He found his stroke with the point of a pen. He penned an executive order giving public sector employees the ability to unionize. Were the public sector employees in some sort of danger that they needed additional protections? No. They were already protected under civil service provisions. This was purely a political power play designed for the sole purpose of getting Mayor Wagner reelected against the wishes of the leaders of his own party. Sounds a little bit dictatorial, no? One man creates the first public sector unions for the purpose of getting himself reelected. Let the public be damned with the long term consequences. He would be long retired before that piper had to be paid.

President John F. Kennedy won the presidency by the slimmest of margins. Some have reasonably argued that voting shenanigans in Chicago threw the election his way. President Kennedy saw how well things were going for the Democrats in New York after Wagner’s executive order. He also didn’t want to face another tough election. What could he do to put a thumb on the scale? In 1962, President Kennedy picked up his pen and wrote Executive Order 10988, that gave federal workers the right to organize. Again, no public outcry that public sector unions were needed, no act of Congress; one man, exercising executive power, dramatically changed the direction of public worker compensation that we are now buried under. Sounds somewhat dictatorial, no?

In Wisconsin, Governor Scott Walker is trying to use the democratic legislative process to pass a law, changing the scope of the collective bargaining abilities, not eliminating them, and somehow that earns him the comparisons to Middle East dictators. What does that tell you about the intellectual honesty of the left? Likes the states, it’s bankrupt.

The Unspoken Truth

The unions in Wisconsin have said they agree to the health care contributions that the governor has demanded, they have agreed to the retirement contributions that the governor has demanded, so it is not about the money it is about breaking the unions. I wish that Governor Walker would come clean and explain exactly what the goals are.

 Without the changes in collective bargaining, sure the unions will give in now, but they will still have all their political power. Meaning that in the next election, they can once again come out in force to elect their future bosses and then negotiate to restore everything they gave up. It is not only about the money today, it is about the money in the future as well. As long as unions can take money from their members, use it to elect politicians who will give away the store to them as payback, any concessions today are only a short term fix. Governor Walker is trying to effect a permanent fix. He wants to bend the cost curve downward so that Wisconsin can attract businesses to the state and jobs. With jobs and a growing economy the states fiscal health will be restored. With the changes in collective bargaining, compensation in the public sector will not continue to outgrow private sector compensation that pays the salaries and benefits of the public sector. Is that fair? Ask a taxpayer and then ask a union member.

Right to Work

If the place of unions is so glorious in the tradition and success of the American economy, why are unions so desperately afraid of Right to Work laws? Why do unions need the coercive power of the state to force people to join unions in some states? Sounds more like Iran than America, no?

When I was in college I took a summer job with UPS. UPS was a union shop, which means they can hire union or non-union workers but after a set period of time the non-union workers have to join the union or lose their jobs. In the period that I was there, I and the guy I was teamed with developed a reputation as hard workers. Whenever a tractor trailer came in with just a few minutes left before the transfer point closed for the night, we were typically asked to be the ones to unload it because we could to it faster than anyone else. My work performance got me a raise in the short time I was there. But after about two months the foreman came to me and said it was time to join the union. Again, this was a summer job that I would be leaving to go back to college regardless. But there was no give. Rather than join, I quit, and finished out my summer at another job that appreciated a hard worker.

Where Right to Work laws are in play, an individual cannot be forced to join a union. If unions are the mother’s milk that the left claims they are why does the left oppose Right to Work laws? Why should an individual be forced to join a union as a condition of their employment?  If unions are so wonderful, why is union membership in the private sector plummeting? What happened to our steel industry? Our ship building industry? Our auto industry? Tell me again where the dictators are and where the democracy lies.

That’s my opinion; I’d like to know yours.  Please comment below.

To hear the progressives talk about the public sector unions in Wisconsin and other locales you would think collective bargaining was enshrined in the Bill of Rights. We have a right to bargain collectively. The unions are fighting for their rights. The Bill of Rights was won through the fighting of a bloody revolution. The right for all citizens to vote was won through the passage of an amendment to the Constitution. So, naturally, the right of public sector unions was won through a similar groundswell of popular support, right? No. Actually it was started by one man, fighting for his political life, in the shadow of Tammany Hall.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt

President was a champion of organized labor. He was a champion as long as the organizing was done in the private sector. When pushing legislation to make it easier for unions to organize and operate, the public sector was specifically excluded. Here is what Roosevelt said:

“… Meticulous attention should be paid to the special relationships and obligations of public servants to the public itself and to the government. All Government employees should realize that the process of collective bargaining, as usually understood, cannot be transplanted into the public service. It has its distinct and insurmountable limitations … The very nature and purposes of Government make it impossible for … officials … to bind the employer … The employer is the whole people, who speak by means of laws enacted by their representatives …

“Particularly, I want to emphasize my conviction that militant tactics have no place in the functions of any organization of government employees. Upon employees in the federal service rests the obligation to serve the whole people … This obligation is paramount … A strike of public employees manifests nothing less than an intent … to prevent or obstruct … Government … Such action, looking toward the paralysis of Government … is unthinkable and intolerable.” — FDR

Roosevelt is considered by progressives to be the greatest president in the history of the United States. But against his admonitions of Roosevelt, we have seen the militant tactics of going to the homes of the governor and other Republican elected officials, to the point where the police had to be called to clear the street. We have seen doctors fraudulently write excuse notes so that union members could continue to draw their pay from the public while not serving the public. We have seen the Hitler signs, the comparisons to Mubarak, and the shouting down of news reporters, such that they have to continue interviews inside of news trucks instead of in the public square. Why do the unions say they are fighting for rights, while doing everything possible to make sure the rights of their opponents to speak freely is drowned out?

Public Sector Organizing

So how did the rush to public sector unions happen? It started in 1958, in New York City. The mayor at the time, Robert Wager who happened to be the son of the Senator who authored the Wagner Act, was running for re-election. Things were going badly for him. All five of the borough Democratic leaders were against him. He needed a bold stroke to turn things around and that stroke involved a pen. He signed an executive order allowing public sector workers to organize. That’s it, one man, one pen, one order and it was done. No debate, no deliberation, no vote of the people or their representatives. 

The public sector workers were thrilled, remember the 1950s were the peak of union membership in this country, and they poured out for Wagner in gratitude. Wagner was reelected and the floodgates were opened. In 1962, President John Fitzgerald Kennedy, picked up his pen and signed an executive order allowing federal employees to organize.

So two men, not a groundswell of the American public, wrote two executive orders allowing public sector employees to organize. It seems strange then, that when a politician tries to pass a law to rollback not eliminate their bargainig power, as they will still be allowed to bargain for pay, it is painted as an attack on fundamental American rights. In 1959, Wisconsin passed laws rather than an executive order allowing public sector unions, and now after the public voted in a new legislature and governor they are seeking to modify those laws.

Have the collective bargaining gains over the past fifty years gotten out of control? Ask John E. Nelson, a municipal bus driver in Madison, Wisconsin. In 2009, his salary for driving a bus totaled more than $159,000. Another half dozen bus drivers also earned over six figures. Try to tell the struggling private sector workers who are paying this bus driver that taking away the ability to drive his salary and benefits still higher is grossly unfair.

There are two issues that are really at stake here. Sure the unions have said they will agree to the health and retirement contributions that Governor Walker is asking for in return for backing off on the collective bargaining issue. The two reasons are, the unions will use their clout, through the collection of union dues from all members regardless of their political point of view, to defeat the Republicans and put back in power their Democrat friends. Once accomplished, they will use collective bargaining to restore all of their givebacks, and their grateful Democrat allies will be happy to comply. Next step, raise taxes on everyone in the state, that have chosen to remain in the state, to pay for them.

California will be interesting to watch. Jerry Brown, the last time he was governor, gave public sector unions the ability to organize on his first day in office. He now is dealing with a massive budget problem and has to fix it. What goes around, comes around.

That’s my opinion; I’d like to know yours.  Please comment below.

The public sector unions have succeeded. They have been so successful they are on the verge of bankrupting the country. Like the private sector unions, who at one time were a key advocate for unskilled and semi-skilled workers, they don’t know when to declare victory and go home.

However, in the private sector market forces are actively in play. As low skilled jobs move offshore and are replaced by higher skilled jobs, the individual knowledge worker brings a stronger value proposition to the table than the previous generation. Employers have learned to both see and reward that value and the worker has taken responsibility for their own compensation. As such, the need and, to the worker, the benefit of unions has dwindled as has union membership to about 7% of private workers.

But the public sector’s story was very different. True there were some cases where public sector employees were not paid very well, but the real reason for organizing public sector workers was political. It was a devil’s bargain from the outset. The politicians would help the unions organize and the unions would become the political machine of the pols.

In New York City, mayor Robert Wagner allowed public sector workers to organize in 1958. This was opposed by the leaders of the five boroughs in New York, so Wagner turned to his newly organized workers to help win reelection in 1961. President John Kennedy, who won by a razor thin margin in 1960, followed Wagner closely and with the stroke of a pen he signed Executive Order 10988 that allowed federal government employees to organize. There was no groundswell of support for doing this, no long hard fought campaign promise that had to be kept. Simply two executives, Wagner and Kennedy, who just decided to do it. Consider this views of the concept a generation earlier.

“a strike of public employees manifests nothing less than an intent on their part to prevent or obstruct the operations of Government until their demands are satisfied. Such action, looking toward the paralysis of Government by those who have sworn to support it, is unthinkable and intolerable.” – Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 1937

an infringement on democratic freedoms that threatened the ability of government to represent the broad needs of the citizenry. – New York Mayor Fiorello La Guardia

 Where We are Today

 Today, we have public sector employees making more money than the average private sector worker. There are over 170,000 federal employees that make over $150,000 per year. Twenty percent of all federal employees, nearly 400,000 make over $100,000 per year. We have a number of states that are destitute owing to unfunded public sector union pensions. Not only do they make good pay, they will be very well cared for after they retire. All paid by you and me. Meanwhile you have to provide for your own retirement, work at a company that has to be profitable to be able to continue to employ you. But you have virtually no control over how much these public union employees are paid, but every raise comes out of your pocket.

So as someone struggles to make ends meet on $50,000 per year, he faces increased taxes so that some government employee can get a raise on top of their $100,000. That public sector employee will then work furiously to make sure Democrats are reelected so they can get another sweetheart contract.

It’s time for Congress to undo Executive Order 10998 and tell the highly paid government workers, “You are on your own.”  In other words, each and every one of you will have to prove your own value to your employer to get a raise or keep your job and the unions will have to do without millions of dollars of coerced union dues to help Democrats get reelected.

That’s my opinion; I’d like to know yours.  Please comment below.