Unions and Government: It's NOT YOUR MONEY!

Wow. If there has ever been a case of a bizarre financial infestation of parasites draining the very life from the American body politic, this must be it.

Public Employees Union Spends Huge to Save Dems


Government Union Thug Wants Your Money

 

The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees is now the biggest outside spender of the 2010 elections, thanks to an 11th-hour effort to boost Democrats that has vaulted the public-sector union ahead of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the AFL-CIO and a flock of new Republican groups in campaign spending.



The 1.6 million-member AFSCME is spending a total of $87.5 million on the elections after tapping into a $16 million emergency account to help fortify the Democrats' hold on Congress. Last week, AFSCME dug deeper, taking out a $2 million loan to fund its push. The group is spending money on television advertisements, phone calls, campaign mailings and other political efforts, helped by a Supreme Court decision that loosened restrictions on campaign spending.

"We're the big dog," said Larry Scanlon, the head of AFSCME's political operations. "But we don't like to brag."

"Big Dog", indeed. Hubris comes easy to those spending other people's money.

So, we have a public employees union, spending their members' money, made from public taxation, in order to elect more Democrats, so they (Democrats) can spend more of the American people's money (presumably) on behalf of public sector employees.

First, most state and local governments are even in worse financial shape than the federal government, if that's possible. They're literally broke, with some facing default. How are these state and local governments dealing with these shortfalls? Among other measures, they're attempting to curb spending on their largest expenditure; employees (that would be AFSCME members).

Secondly, most of the legislators (those who control the spending) of those state and local governments are Democrats, who the AFSCME is spending $87.5 million to assist on local, state and federal levels. AFSCME seems to be succeeding in not only screwing its own members, but more importantly, the American people.

I would submit that the very existence of AFSCME gives government employees unhealthy influence over their employers - The People.

The idea of public sector employee unions is distasteful to me. After all, these people are public servants, are they not? Governments are not (or should not be) autonomous entities; they are duly elected representatives of The People. All of the money to operate government ultimately comes from The People. The idea of these public sector unions using employee dues to affect the political constitutions of the governments (The People) for which they work seems a form of dangerous political incest, since the money originates not from free enterprise, but from taxation of The People, at large.

If one worked for a private corporation, one would not have a say in how that corporation's money is spent unless one was on the board of directors or was a direct owner of the enterprise. Why should public sector employees be any different? It could certainly be argued that, in a private corporation, employees can belong to unions and those unions can utilize union money (alas) for political purposes. The difference is that in the corporate example, the money is ultimately the result of private enterprise, not public taxation.

The political inbreeding that unions and Democrats have fostered in this country is odious, and particularly so in the case of AFSCME. Union meddling in the affairs of private enterprise is one thing, public employee unions meddling in the affairs of The People is quite another.

If you think I'm off base, just ask France how that public employee union is working out for them.