Let’s fight public unions.
Ed Lasky of the American Thinker website shows us how. He says it is up to us to spread the word to our friends and colleagues about the abuse of the taxpayer by public employee unions. He says the information is out there and gives some ideas as to how to dig it out:
Over the past year there has been a steady drumbeat of criticism focused on public unions and the havoc they have wrought on our public finances. Governments — city, country, state and federal — are drowning in red ink. Our taxes are flowing to ever voracious government workers (whose own ranks are growing steadily while the private payrolls shrink); they are better compensated than private workers in comparable positions. Snip –
…when liberal newspapers such as the New York Times now report on subway conductors earning hundreds of thousands of dollars a year and the Boston Globe takes editorial swipes at public employee unions and their greedy and self-centered leadership, the timing may be ripe for Democrats to come out of the closet and transform themselves from donkeys into fiscal hawks (see Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa’s efforts in Los Angeles).
When that arbiter of popular culture Saturday Night Live makes fun of surly government workers we may have reached a turning point…Snip –
Public employee unions will spend millions to try to defeat measures to rein in their bloated salaries and pension benefits. Snip –
They never address high salaries, excessive days off, sick days being used because government employees are sick of work, or pensions being used to buy Pina Coladas in Pensacola.
Government unions spend vast amounts on this propaganda (and on lobbyists and political campaigns to elect politicians to put in their pockets) and the amount is now almost unknowable. Barack Obama, in the first few days of his Presidency, issued an executive order shielding unions from disclosure rules requiring them to report how they spend union dues.
But facts can be marshaled that puts the blame where it belongs. Public sector unions and state debt go hand in hand; states with the highest per-capita debt have the strongest public sector unions who have cut sweetheart deals with politicians. We should highlight how these unions have diminished our futures. Snip –
Lasky’s column is full of website addresses and names of websites to visit to get more information if you’re interested in blogging or writing a letter the editor or if you just want to be informed so you can spread the information around to educate your friends.
And the children are not being shortchanged by any measure. One hundred billion dollars of the stimulus flowed to states to keep educrats feeding on the clover. A new effort in the Senate would give them another $23 billion dollars. These campaigns are very skillful and play on our primal needs to protect our children. Such a campaign was a winning one in Oregon where job killing taxes were increased. Unions spend millions to hype the hysteria.
But their claims can be rebutted.
Did you know that salaries in public school districts are in the public record?
The educrats and their allies on school boards may try to hide this information from inquiring taxpayers, as they did in Fairfax, Virginia until determined taxpayers pried it out of them. The information is there, waiting to be tapped and publicized via the old media and the new media. The Chicago Sun-Times, for example, made one school superintendent of a small, stable school district the poster boy for ruinous spending on sweetheart spending and benefit packages. When I passed around a list of the hundred highest paid teachers in Illinois, my friends feasted on the names and numbers (a high school guidance counselor in a suburban school district brings home one hundred and fifty thousand dollars every year — every nine month year, that is, with plenty of holidays off). Teachers in New York City who cannot be trusted to be around kids still pull in high salaries as they while away the time in so-called “rubber rooms” that one enterprising ex-teacher (teacher on detention) uses as his office to manage real estate properties worth almost 8 million dollars . John Stossel of Fox News and even 60 Minutes both reported on this travesty. The facts are on our side but concerned citizens have to find it and spread it far and wide. Snip –
Running against public employee unions has resonance with voters; the leader in the Alabama GOP primary for governor is a former college professor (!) whose platform takes on the political power of the Alabama Education “Association”.
He mentions leaders like Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey who is taking on the public sector unions. He’s tough enough to do it, and the voters like it. He also mentions how YouTube has become a phenomenon in getting the word out about the public sector unions and how much bureaucrats are getting paid. Just as an aside, why do government workers need unions anyway? Don’t they already have jobs for life? Anyway, here’s an excellent Christie video that can be found on YouTube. Go here and then scroll down: http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2010/06/026467.php
…This shows the value of videos in our new age of media. We can see gladiators fighting for taxpayers. They are instantaneous and cannot be censored by liberals in the media who pick and choose what to broadcast. Snip –
One video that circulated recently showed an AFSCME union leader threatening Illinois legislators across the street, as he demands more money for government employees. He ominously taunted them that they knew where they lived and could follow them home (not so far-fetched when you consider that SEIU leaders protested in front of the home of a Bank of America lawyer recently; they owe the Bank money and may have wanted their own bank-sponsored bailout. There is a new film genre: SEIU thugs at work). Boston firefighters have done the same at Boston’s City Hall. Protests are spreading–and not just in Athens. Apparently, public servants are willing to serve only if they are vastly overpaid.
These protests should become part of the public record. In the era of camera phones and Flip cameras, anyone can become a reporter. If Fox News won’t run these clips You Tube (the people’s network) is available-as are a myriad of websites.
Lasky has much, much more at the link. He mentions politicians like Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels who has reined in government spending by privatizing many government functions. It’s time for the American people to get serious and head off this plunge over the bankruptcy cliff. Please become part of the solution. Spread the word far and wide about how public employee unions could very well mean the end of the United States as it goes down in the flames of bankruptcy and protests, just like our European friends. Just reining in unions will be a giant step in taking our country back from the parasites that live off of it. Please read all of Lasky here: http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/06/how_to_fight_back_against_publ.html
Public unions take taxpayers to cleaners.
Here’s another very informative video on public employee unions from Dan Mitchell of the Cato Institute. He has facts and figures that you can send to all of your e-mail buddies or you can post it on Facebook. Let’s spread the word around. We must take our country back from the leftwing radicals who will bankrupt it and seem to have no inkling of regret over that fact.
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