Warner Todd Huston
AFL-CIO union chief: we need to raise taxes to pay union members more
By Warner Todd Huston
You know the old saying, "stupid is as stupid does"? Enter the AFL-CIO's Richard Trumka, one of the most violence prone union presidents in America, who has come up with a brilliant strategy to solve America's troubles. He says we need to raise taxes to pay his union members even higher salaries and we need another giant stimulus package to chase after the other failed stimulus packages to "create" jobs.
Recently Trumka told Tech Ticker that we need a higher gas tax to put Americans to work and build infrastructure. He calls it a "dedicated revenue source," but a better name would be economy-killing waste.
Never mind that the higher gas prices go the less money the lower classes have to spend on food and lodging because higher gas prices hit them harder. Never mind that it has been clearly shown that the higher the costs of gasoline the higher the costs of food goes. Never mind that the higher gasoline goes the less people use it meaning that travel, tourism, and vacation spending suffers. Forget all that. Trumka sees a government piggie whose teat he wants to snuggly up to. Only that teat is connected to our wallets in tax money.
Trumka has made himself a further object of derision by proposing to Obama in his apparent daily discussion with the White House that the president perpetrate another giant stimulus plan, this one to the tune of $256 billion.
Forget that the last several multi-billion dollar stimulus plans did not stimulate the economy in any way at all. As Bruce McQuain notes, the last $800 billion stimulus did not help the rising unemployment rates at all. In fact, unemployment has gotten worse since the several stimulus packages have been approved.
As Trumka once again repeats the lie that federal dollars spent will "create jobs" echoing the obvious lie that Obama told when he first began his quest for one stimulus package after another and as Obama claimed that his stimulus deals were needed to keep unemployment under 8% we seen it rise instead to over 10%. And there is no sign at all that it is falling to more manageable levels, either.
So, all Trumka will end up doing is make life harder and more expensive for the middle and lower classes, he will be illicitly enlarging government, and he will be hurting the entire country. But, since that is all unions are doing at this point, I guess he's in keeping with standard union MO.
Of course, the big is will Richard Trumka take any cuts to his nearly $300,000 per year salary to join in the president's call to "sacrifice"?
© Warner Todd Huston
February 28, 2011
You know the old saying, "stupid is as stupid does"? Enter the AFL-CIO's Richard Trumka, one of the most violence prone union presidents in America, who has come up with a brilliant strategy to solve America's troubles. He says we need to raise taxes to pay his union members even higher salaries and we need another giant stimulus package to chase after the other failed stimulus packages to "create" jobs.
Recently Trumka told Tech Ticker that we need a higher gas tax to put Americans to work and build infrastructure. He calls it a "dedicated revenue source," but a better name would be economy-killing waste.
Never mind that the higher gas prices go the less money the lower classes have to spend on food and lodging because higher gas prices hit them harder. Never mind that it has been clearly shown that the higher the costs of gasoline the higher the costs of food goes. Never mind that the higher gasoline goes the less people use it meaning that travel, tourism, and vacation spending suffers. Forget all that. Trumka sees a government piggie whose teat he wants to snuggly up to. Only that teat is connected to our wallets in tax money.
Trumka has made himself a further object of derision by proposing to Obama in his apparent daily discussion with the White House that the president perpetrate another giant stimulus plan, this one to the tune of $256 billion.
Forget that the last several multi-billion dollar stimulus plans did not stimulate the economy in any way at all. As Bruce McQuain notes, the last $800 billion stimulus did not help the rising unemployment rates at all. In fact, unemployment has gotten worse since the several stimulus packages have been approved.
As Trumka once again repeats the lie that federal dollars spent will "create jobs" echoing the obvious lie that Obama told when he first began his quest for one stimulus package after another and as Obama claimed that his stimulus deals were needed to keep unemployment under 8% we seen it rise instead to over 10%. And there is no sign at all that it is falling to more manageable levels, either.
So, all Trumka will end up doing is make life harder and more expensive for the middle and lower classes, he will be illicitly enlarging government, and he will be hurting the entire country. But, since that is all unions are doing at this point, I guess he's in keeping with standard union MO.
Of course, the big is will Richard Trumka take any cuts to his nearly $300,000 per year salary to join in the president's call to "sacrifice"?
© Warner Todd Huston
The views expressed by RenewAmerica columnists are their own and do not necessarily reflect the position of RenewAmerica or its affiliates.
(See RenewAmerica's publishing standards.)
