Wednesday, April 20, 2011

Public Service Unions, Wisconsin, Ohio and the Kos

It's good to know what big government liberals are up to....  I get updates occasionally for Soros funded Move-On.org, the WhiteHouse.gov, the Daily Kos, and Soros' Open Society Institute.  
 
Right now, the Kos is spurring on public sector monopoly unions to storm the Wisconsin State Capital.   It's not that hard to do... because there is the threat that the tax payer funded money spigot might be turned down just a bit.   In contrast, Tea Party crowds, while concerned about the money being taken from them, make their stand on principle.
 
You may know that recently the number of people who are members of public sector unions has exceeded those who are members of private sector unions.   The reason for this is fairly simple.  Public sector unions have a monopoly on the services they provide.   Indeed in most cases private concerns are not even allowed to offer the same services.   So the deal is often, either you pay public sector workers what the union says they want, or you don't get the service. Of course many public service employees work hard and are not even interested in being a part of the union.   Too bad though, they don't get a choice.  That's the way it was when I used to teach.  I was forced to pay dues to the NEA whether I wanted to or not, and even though the NEA was supporting various liberal political causes that I was opposed to.  Meanwhile the NEA representative that taught at the same school as I did spent dozens of days per year on paid leave, and with the district also paying for a substitute so she could attend union meetings that were conveniently scheduled during the middle of school hours.   I bet that made her an especially effective teacher. 
 
Another problem with public service unions is that when they make demands, politicians, especially liberal ones, say sure, we'll pay you that benefit, or this salary, knowing its not their money anyway and that in a few years, they'll be out of office and some other politician down the line will have to pay the bill when it comes due (if he can still afford it).  
 
The result is the kind of ballooning debt that we are seeing now in states like California.  They are bound by contract to pay salaries, but if they do they will also be bankrupt.  Be on the lookout for pleas for blue state bailouts coming soon.  Still, as I understand it, collective bargaining by public sector unions was illegal until 1960.   Why?  Because such unions have a monopoly on the services they provide.  In the private sector, employers and employees set the wage through the market.  If an employee doesn't like the wage, they are free to look elsewhere.   And of course for the employer unwilling to pay a competitive wage, he is loses top notch talent.  So if a deal is struck its generally a win-win.
 
But for state employees it's often win-lose.  The employee wins, because he gets what he wants, but the employer, the taxpayer, loses because he has to pay more then necessary.   Sure, a state employee should have a fair wage, but tax-payers deserve only to pay a fair wage, not an exorbitant one.   And that's why Ohio has recently introduced Senate Bill 5 to eliminate collective bargaining in government jobs.  It's only fair.  If the government wants top notch talent, it will have to pay for it, but it WON'T have to overpay for it. 
 
So see what the liberal Kos has to say.   Kos director, Chris Bowers knocks the Koch brothers, who have indeed donated to Conservative causes (just like Soros has to statist causes), but Kos implies that they own the tea party, even going so far as to put the word "grass roots" in quotations.  Nothing could be further from the truth. Ask 20 tea-partiers who the Koch brothers are and I'd bet you you'd be lucky if even one could tell you.  And that's because in reality the people who finance the tea parties are actually tea partiers.  And that really is grassroots. And the reason the tea partiers rally is because they believe passionately in the great cause known as America.   Meanwhile, the liberals paid to bus people from out of state to the Obama's speech when he came to Columbus.  And last year they paid union activists to stage a counter protest to the one against former liberal representative Mary Jo Kilroy.   Of course the union guys left right on the hour mark after they clocked out.
 
When Obama and the Democrats came to power in 2008 he noted that "elections have consequences" as they went on to force government health care on the country.  But now that the public has come to see what the liberals are really about and turned the tables on Democrats, even at the home of "progressivism"  in Wisconsin in 2010.  Now the big government politicians ignore their own words in the idea that elections have consequences, as all 14 Democratic Senators have fled the state to prevent a quorum from occurring.  All this to thwart the people's will through their representative to get public service employees to accept modest cuts in wages and benefits so that Wisconsin will not be forced over the brink.   
 
In the Obama economy the private sector has had to make many sacrifices and suffered job losses, but the public service unions would rather see the government go into bankruptcy than make even the smallest of sacrifices.
 
But you won't read that in the Kos... To the Kos, these cowardly Senators are heroes.  
Best Wishes,
 
Bernie

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