Warner Todd Huston
Obama's pleas for civility don't apply to union leaders
By Warner Todd Huston
Michael Barone, one of America's premier political analysts, unleashed a corker this week looking over how sold out to unions our president as been. It is something that union watchers such as myself have been saying since day one.
It's bad enough that Obama has been so bought and paid for by union bosses, but his hypocritical calls for "civility' while he encourages unions, some of the most uncivil voices in politics, to continue their bellowing their rage and hatred is hypocrisy unmatched in any White House.
Barome says that Obama acts less like a president of the United States and more like a "shop steward in chief" as he panders to unions at every opportunity. He doesn't just pander, either.
"Fully one-third of the $820 billion stimulus package passed almost entirely with Democratic votes in 2009 was aid to state and local governments," Barone reports.
Barone also notes that one of the reasons that there weren't too many "shovel ready jobs" for Obama's first giant, union soaked stimulus was because he put in a rule that all construction jobs had to pay "prevailing wages."
It also means that Labor Department bureaucrats must calculate "prevailing wage" rates for as many as 3,141 counties. That takes time, and it's one reason there were not nearly so many shovel-ready projects as presidential rhetoric led some, including the president, to think.
So, why all this attention to unions by this president?
It's simple, really.
Unions have for a very long time had a disgustingly parasitic relationship. Unions give money to Democrats so that Democrats will make better laws, regulations, and rules to favor unions. Politicians take the money and follow their orders and give more taxpayer money back to unions... then unions give even more money to Democrats to start that cycle all over again.
Worse, much of this cycle of mutual payoffs are between government employees and politicians and guess who is wholly cut out from any influence on the double dealing? Yep, the taxpayers. They are treated like patsies by both. Government unions are antithetical to good government.
Go on over and read Obama Acts as Shop Steward in Chief, by Michael Barone.
© Warner Todd Huston
September 20, 2011
Michael Barone, one of America's premier political analysts, unleashed a corker this week looking over how sold out to unions our president as been. It is something that union watchers such as myself have been saying since day one.
It's bad enough that Obama has been so bought and paid for by union bosses, but his hypocritical calls for "civility' while he encourages unions, some of the most uncivil voices in politics, to continue their bellowing their rage and hatred is hypocrisy unmatched in any White House.
Barome says that Obama acts less like a president of the United States and more like a "shop steward in chief" as he panders to unions at every opportunity. He doesn't just pander, either.
"Fully one-third of the $820 billion stimulus package passed almost entirely with Democratic votes in 2009 was aid to state and local governments," Barone reports.
Barone also notes that one of the reasons that there weren't too many "shovel ready jobs" for Obama's first giant, union soaked stimulus was because he put in a rule that all construction jobs had to pay "prevailing wages."
It also means that Labor Department bureaucrats must calculate "prevailing wage" rates for as many as 3,141 counties. That takes time, and it's one reason there were not nearly so many shovel-ready projects as presidential rhetoric led some, including the president, to think.
So, why all this attention to unions by this president?
It's simple, really.
-
But unions do have one positive characteristic from Obama's point of view: They funnel taxpayers' or consumers' money to the Democratic Party — $400 million in 2008. So they get one payoff after another in return.
Unions have for a very long time had a disgustingly parasitic relationship. Unions give money to Democrats so that Democrats will make better laws, regulations, and rules to favor unions. Politicians take the money and follow their orders and give more taxpayer money back to unions... then unions give even more money to Democrats to start that cycle all over again.
Worse, much of this cycle of mutual payoffs are between government employees and politicians and guess who is wholly cut out from any influence on the double dealing? Yep, the taxpayers. They are treated like patsies by both. Government unions are antithetical to good government.
Go on over and read Obama Acts as Shop Steward in Chief, by Michael Barone.
© 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.)
