Obama and the Unions – As Thick as Thieves

As the debate in Wisconsin over Governor Walker’s effort to balance the state budget intensifies, we’re finding out all kinds of things about the unholy alliance between the Democrat Party, President Obama, and unions. When it began, Obama came down squarely on the side of the unions with whom he has been aligned since the beginning of his political career. Naturally, this put him at odds with Republicans and the rest of Wisconsin who elected Walker with the mandate to manage the state effectively.

As I outlined yesterday, we now understand how unions and the Democrat Party work together to fund their political machine. In this case, unionized state workers are paid by tax dollars, a portion of which goes to the unions in the form of dues. Those dues are then used almost exclusively to fund Democrats who, once in office, funnel more taxpayer dollars to the state employees, a portion of which goes to the unions in the form of dues, which are used to fund more Democrats, until we reach the point where the game must end.

Curiously, the Wall Street Journal has an article that tries, weakly, to spin Obama out of this. I’m sorry to have to tell the fine folks over at the WSJ, but you’re a bit behind the curve. The rest of us are paying close attention to this, as it has a direct effect on our pocketbooks.

As President Obama has appeared to back down his rhetoric on this confrontation, other Democrats have stepped up theirs. As I predicted yesterday (damn I’m good at this stuff), Massachusetts Representative Mike Capuano has walked back his irresponsible and reprehensible statement inciting union members to “get a little bloody” in their protests. Um, Mikey, it’s a bit late for that, especially when you were among those who shamelessly blamed the Gabby Giffords attack on the Right.

However, as the young folks say, it’s all good. Or at least they used to say that.

This issue has given the country a good look at unions, who their leaders are, what they say and what they do, and the role that the Obama administration plays in backing the unions in a fight that shouldn’t be happening.

Here’s a video of the national face of Labor, Richard Trumka. See if you can detect just a teeny, tiny bit of a factual inaccuracy in his statements…



Now it seems as though this fellow doesn’t have even a basic grasp of economics. As the chart on the video plainly shows, and all of us know, the Obama administration is responsible for the highest deficits in our nations’ history. The deficit is one of the main reasons we can’t get our economy out of the ditch, to borrow a phrase, since the federal government is busy vacuuming money from the private sector that could be going into real investments to generate wealth and tax revenue.

If you’d like a bit more info on Trumka’s background, click here, and here. Do click and edumacate yourself, and ask these questions, “Should this guy have the ear of the president? Is he qualified to occupy any position in Washington that purports to create jobs?”

I think not.

About the good part of this issue, there are a lot more folks asking questions about the role the unions play inside and outside the Beltway. Bill O’Reilly is asking, as is Charles Krauthammer.

There is a golden opportunity for Governor Walker and the American people to break the stranglehold of unions on the various states budgets and greatly diminish the political power of unions to drive the Democrat agenda. I don’t think union leaders will like that very much. As we’ve seen, the unions will stop at nothing to lie, cheat, and intimidate the public to keep their power.

If it’s a fight they want, it’s a fight they shall have.

Democrat Representative Calls for Union Violence

So much for the New Civil Tone in politics. Massachusetts Representative Michael Capuano is calling for union protesters to become violent as a response to efforts by Republican lawmakers to balance their state budgets.

How nice.

In a report by The Hill, Capuano was rallying union supporters Tuesday when he said this, "Every once and awhile you need to get out on the streets and get a little bloody when necessary."

Is this what we’ve been reduced to? As most folks should know by now, public sector union pensions are posing a real threat to many states’ ability to balance their budgets. Year after year of increasing demands from unions have resulted in a greater share of tax dollars going towards unions. It’s not just pay rates; even those are now above the national average for most job descriptions. When you factor in benefits that are paid for by taxpayers instead of the union members, the total bill becomes quite expensive, exceeding the national average by a substantial percentage.

But when Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker tries to do what the rest of America has to do during this recession, his efforts are met by the unions with demonstrations. Tens of thousands of demonstrators have descended on the state capitol, many bused in from out of state and assisted in their efforts by the Democratic National Committee and President Obama’s own group Organizing for America. These protests have been largely free of violence up until now.

One wonders why a sitting Congressman would be advocating violence. Didn’t we just receive a lesson from the Professional Left following the attack on Gabby Giffords? Wasn’t the Tea Party falsely accused of all sorts of things? Even Sarah Palin got the blame when anyone with two functioning neurons to rub together knew differently. All of the finger-wagging came from the left, whom, as we all know, is incapable of uttering a syllable of incivility towards their political opponents and would never stoop to such tactics as comparing a sitting president to Hitler. Nor would they consider making a movie about the mythical assassination of a sitting president. Or compare him with a chimpanzee.

No, they would never do such a thing.

By now, America has learned how the unions have gamed the system. Public sector unions are paid with taxpayers’ money. Union dues are collected from those members, which are used to pay for the unions’ political support of Democrats. The Democrats, once in office, are indebted to the unions for their support and give the unions sweetheart deals. Money then goes back to the unions to support more Democrat candidates, who again give unions favorable deals in a never-ending cycle of back-scratching and hand-washing.

At least everybody involved is hygienic. Everybody except the taxpayers, that is.

You can expect this reprehensible incitement to violence by a sitting Congressman to be walked back, probably by the end of today. He will doubtless say that’s not what he meant in a weak attempt to appeal to the rest of the country’s non-union populace.

However, the cat is out of the bag, as it were.

America is at a crossroad. We can either continue down the road we’re on, where public sector unions (with the very socialist Richard Trumka as their public and private face) can continue to drain local and state coffers of money, or elected officials can do their duty to the citizens and start to rein in the outrageous demands for an ever-larger piece of a shrinking pie.

Quid Pro Quo or How Good Government Went Bad

The current stalemate in Wisconsin offers us a good lesson in how not to operate a government. Public sector union pensions are in the process of causing a genuine meltdown of the state’s budget, draining monies from needed infrastructure into pension plans that the rest of the working populace can only dream about. This budget crisis has been brewing for decades, with unions seeking ever-increasing benefits that seemed almost reasonable during good economic times. However, the tenuous nature of our economy, which has been teetering on the edge of fiscal responsibility for years, has awakened the good citizens of Wisconsin and America to the fact that we can no longer continue to give the unions each and every little thing their hearts desire. Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker puts it plainly when he says, “We’re broke.”

One only needs to listen to Richard Trumka and his outrageous Socialist rhetoric to know that this has been planned.

While teachers call in “sick” and unscrupulous doctors write fake notes so the teachers can get paid to protest, the parents who have to take days off to tend to their children or pay daycare are not amused. The rest of the country is starting to see the unions, rightfully, as the spoiled children that they are. As the details of the unions’ demands emerge, we’re seeing that the public sector unions have an awfully sweet deal, with above average pay and benefits that the average American doesn’t have.

While the rest of us are tightening our belts, the unions are screaming that their rights are being taken away from them, that Governor Walker is Hitler, or a dictator like Egypt’s Mubarak, or any number of other false, immature accusations.

Cartoon by Phil Hands of the Wisconsin State Journal.

Wisconsin’s Democratic senators are no better, fleeing the state rather that performing their sworn duty to uphold the state’s constitution and effectively manage the budget.

Sports fans, this is exactly what happens when we choose the wrong people for elective office.

Mr. Boy, you ask, how do we know when we’ve done that? What are the signs of corruption in politics?

I thought you’d never ask.

It’s simple. It’s also Standard Operating Procedure in Third World Countries. One hand washes the other, scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours, or its most eloquent title, Quid Pro Quo. It’s called by several names, but the principle is the same.

And it’s not how our government is supposed to work.

In a perfect world, a political donor would contribute to a candidate on principle, and expect nothing in return except good, honorable and honest government in accordance with the Constitution. Everyone would benefit indirectly from this, as the economic tide would rise for all the ships.

But this has been twisted into corruption where today a donor expects (quite wrongly) a direct benefit from a campaign donation. Nowhere is this perversion of the Constitution more evident than in the waivers the Obama administration has given to cronies to avoid the onerous restrictions of ObamaCare, over 700 so far.

One could argue (quite rightly) that this action is unconstitutional. What’s the point of passing a law that only applies to Americans of a certain political affiliation? This action clearly runs counter to the Equal Protection Clause in the Fourteenth Amendment. You don’t need to be a constitutional scholar or a Supreme Court Justice to understand the simple principle that everyone is equal in the eyes of the law.

I’m frankly surprised that the Supreme Court hasn’t already weighed in on this aspect of the administration’s selective enforcement of the law. While I haven’t studied the details of the various states’ lawsuits seeking relief from ObamaCare, this should be the first item on the agenda. What use is the High Court if it will not to step in and warn this administration that it’s violating the Constitution?

It’s just this simple, either we adhere to the nations’ legal foundation, or we don’t. It’s written in plain enough language that people (except certain writers for the New York Times) can understand it.