I am at a loss as to what to write about. Its not that there is nothing going on, but instead that this administration and Congress are doing so much…and doing it so poorly. After watching Pelosi say that giving out welfare is the best job creator out there, I have to agree with one commenter that said this would be a great SNL skit. The only problem is that it is real life and real damaging to our liberties. Drawing our attention away from all of the current disasters was Obama warning us about future disasters he plans on bringing on. That would be his speech where he promoted the Dream Act and amnesty to illegal aliens.
Perhaps he hoped it would take pressure off of his obvious incompetence in the handling of the Oil Spill. The Heritage Foundation has put out 10 simple steps to clean up the mess. It appears that after 70 days, the administration is finally going to follow one of these common sense ideas and allow outside help. The administration recently released the following statement.
“The National Incident Command and the Federal On Scene Coordinator have determined that there is a resource need for boom and skimmers that can be met by offers of assistance from foreign governments and international bodies. The United States will accept 22 offers of assistance from 12 countries and international bodies, including two high speed skimmers and fire containment boom from Japan. We are currently working out the particular modalities of delivering the offered assistance. Further details will be forthcoming once these arrangements are complete.”
It is incomprehensible to me that it would take over 2 months to come to this conclusion when help was offered within days of the accident. The lifting of their drilling ban should be the logical next step, but they do not appear to be doing that. The ban is literally putting people out of business, but instead of seeing the error of their knee-jerk reaction, they are now telling the newly appointed pay czar to use BP’s money to pay off these small companies as well. BP is understandable upset over this as these companies are not affected by the oil spill, but rather by a misguided and overbearing government decision. And let’s not pretend that this 20 billion will not be passed on the tax payer…that’s just how it works.
But maybe I am wrong; maybe Obama’s speech was meant to draw our attention away from his ultra liberal activist judge nominee. I have written quite a bit about Kagan, but there is always more. Yesterday she refused to give an opinion on a Thomas Jefferson statement. A statement that is the basis for the founding of our country. The statement that all men are “endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights.” I know statements by the Founders make liberals cringe, but this is on another level of liberalism. If you do not believe that the Constitution and our government are bound by a higher authority, then you believe it is up to the state to determine what these basic rights are (legal pluralism). That is a scary thought.
But then again, maybe I am wrong still. We are still at war, and there was a war funding bill that was recently passed. Problem is less than half of the $75 billion or so was for war operations. This statement from Rep Mike Pence gives you an idea of what Congressional Democrats did to it.
“Before us today is a $75 billion spending bill. But less than half of this legislation will be used to support the Defense Department’s war operations. Less than half. The military funding measure will spend almost $5 billion, supposedly on a temporary bailout for Federal Pell Grant programs. This so-called military funding measure will spend $50 million on the Port of Guam and $18 million for emergency re-forestation and $15 million for a highway safety study. This military funding measure will also even spend, as we’ve heard in earlier debate, $10 billion on teacher jobs. Now, I have been married, as of a month ago, for 25 years to a teacher. I support teachers. I believe education is a state and local function. But anyone else remember that we just spent $53 billion in a supposedly one-time spending for education in the president’s failed stimulus bill? And now, on the backs of our soldiers, comes another $10 billion that has to be appropriated to save teachers’ jobs. We can do better, men and women. To top it all off, $63 billion isn’t even paid for. Just more deficits and more debt. One of the ways the Democrats are saving a little money here is by $3 billion in cuts to the Defense Department. We can do better. Our soldiers deserve better. Let’s reject this legislation. Let’s do right by our soldiers, Military spending bill should be about military spending and nothing else.”
One thing he did not mention is that Democrats attached the Public Safety Employer-Employee Cooperation Act to this defense authorization bill. I did not catch this myself but saw it in a blog post at the Foundry. As the post says, this bill “would force state and local governments to collectively bargain with police officers, firefighters, and emergency personnel-whether or not collective bargaining would improve local public safety.” Surprise, surprise…a kick back to a liberals best friend…unions.
So you can decide for yourself; what disaster was Obama trying to draw our attention from. The scary thing is I do not think he understands that these policies are disasters… disasters to our environment, to our finances, and to our freedoms.
{ 5 comments }
As we have been ramping up our efforts to push the Public Safety Employer-Employee Cooperation Act (S. 3194) through the Senate within the next couple of weeks, we have seen and heard misleading and often blatantly wrong facts about the bill being produced by our opponents. Most of these ads, articles and letters claim that the bill would create a “one-size-fit-all” federal labor relations law that takes away states rights, that it would be detrimental to national security, it will bankrupt state and local governments already struggling with budget crises, and finally, the most preposterous fabrication, that under this bill “union-bosses” would be running the local police and fire departments.
IBPO is working to dispel these rumors and ensure that members of Congress know the truth. We know that public safety is best protected through effective partnerships between the first responders on the front lines and the agencies that employ them. We also know that the Public Safety Employer-Employee Cooperation Act simply establishes a basic framework for states to use to grant first responders the right to sit down and talk with their employers regarding wages, hours and safe working conditions.
The Public Safety Employer-Employee Cooperation Act will guarantee the right of public safety officers to form and join a union, if they choose to, and bargain collectively over hours, wages and working conditions. State right-to-work laws are explicitly protected under this legislation. As we know, public safety collective bargaining and right-to-work CAN coexist. For example, fire fighters and police officers currently enjoy collective bargaining rights in right-to-work states such as Florida, Oklahoma and Idaho.
The legislation outlaws strikes and does not call for mandatory arbitration. Chiefs, sheriffs and state and local governments will not be forced to accept contract provisions they cannot afford. Additionally, states are given maximum flexibility to craft their own public safety collective bargaining laws, allowing them to tailor their law to meet the needs of their state and local public safety officers and the agencies they serve. The bill even goes as far as to assure that states do not have to bargain over pensions. In fact, many states that currently allow public safety collective bargaining do not allow bargaining over pensions.
The Public Safety Employer-Employee Cooperation Act exempts all states with a state collective bargaining law for public safety equal to or greater than the bill’s basic minimum standards. The bill presumes that existing state laws are in compliance with the federal standards established by this Act unless the Federal Labor Relations Authority (FLRA) affirmatively finds they are not. The FLRA can only evaluate state laws based on the minimum standards of the bill and nothing else – the FLRA cannot create new requirements and then impose them on states. To further protect state laws, the bill states that the FLRA, when deciding whether a law complies with the Act, must give maximum weight to an agreement between management and labor that a state law complies with the Act.
IBPO hopes that lawmakers hear and recognize the truth about this important legislation and are not swayed by the deceptive tales of opponents of the bill. State and local public safety officers put their lives on the line every day to serve and protect our nation and its communities. The least we can do is grant them the basic American right to sit down with their employer and discuss how best to do their jobs.
Nice Propaganda Mike, but that particular legislation has nothing to do with safety. You should actually read the article I linked to that discusses the damage that this act can have with 2 real world current examples. The unions, which you have pasted these talking points from (probably from a union newsletter) are only growing in numbers within the government. not in the private sector. More union members means more money. This legislation is meant to increase union membership for that purpose. In return these unions provide millions of dollars to get more liberals elected. We have seen the effect that unions have on the car industry. The article I linked to shows how the same concept applies to governments and how destructive these policies can be.
The most telling part of the true reasons for this legislation is that they put it in the defense spending bill. If the legislation had any merit, they could have passed it as a separate bill, but they could not. Even with a majority in Congress. In the end this is just another part of an agenda that promotes an overbearing federal government and one that shows no faith in the people or the principles that this country was founded upon.
Yes, it’s that the purpose of the Unions to gather money and put elected officials in office to help the working class and who are pro-union..no duh. No they are not looking out for BIG BUSINESS.
The car industry, LOL, yeah it was the $35.00 per hour line worker who broke the company, it could not have been CEO Wagnor and his cronies making 135 million dollars a year plus bonuses who broke the car company, give me a break.
Your way of thinking started with President Reagan 30 years ago, now look at the condition of this country after following that path. Solidarity Forever!
Oh by the way this bill had over 224 co-sponsors in the House and over 67 votes in the Senate with at least 7 Republican Senators co-sponsoring this bill. This was no B.S. bill, this bill has merit.
Steve,
Again I would ask you to read the actual article and see the effects of what you are promoting. I believe you are pretty naive if you believe that the unions really are out there to help the working man. The data really does not support your claims. The Unions hold a large portion of the responsibility for the car industry failure. Because of things such as the job bank, the car companies did not have the flexibility to adjust to the recession. Most telling was that the car companies who were hit the hardest were the ones that were union driven. Once again the facts do not support your claims. The executives made poor business decisions as well so I am not absolving them of any blame, but their hands were tied due to the unions. I would add that the ‘CEOs’ of the unions are no better than the big business leaders that you attempt to demonize. When you think about it, it is the same concept from the Great Depression replaying itself…except it was country-wide. The government stepped in stopped companies from laying off or reducing wages. If you know anything about history, then you understand the effect that had…a ten plus year depression.
It does not surprise me that the bill had over 224 co-sponsors, most of which where Democrats. There were a few Republicans in there which does not surprise me either as not all Republicans are as conservative as I would like. Small point…there were no co-sponsors to the bill in the Senate with Harry Reid as sponsor. If they had 67 votes in the Senate then they would have already voted on it and passed it as a separate bill. Instead they chose to hide it in a defense spending bill. I think we can agree that attaching things that have nothing to do with the bill being voted on is not very transparent and a poor practice.
As a final thought, in response to your Ronald Reagan point. My way of thinking did not start with Reagan. The conservative way of thinking started with the Founding fathers and if that is too far back in history, then you can go forward in time to the likes of Calvin Coolidge. It blows my mind that liberals are not capable of looking past 1929, or in your case, 1980. There also seems to be a selective history for the times in between as well. Excluding Reagan and a few others, our country has become more and more progressive since around 1900. There in lies the problem. I can see no conceivable way to defend your big government position in context of our founding principles. If you think there is, then please comment again and try to explain that position.
Fully aware that I did not give any numbers yesterday, here are some.
The actual compensation for employees of the Big 3 is not $35, but $73 an hour. This takes into consideration benefits that the company has to pay, which union supporters fail to bring up. This is compared to $48/hour for non-union autoworkers. That is a 52% difference, which is significant. (Source: Mark Perry, professor of economics and finance at the University of Michigan)
In 2007 legacy costs of these benefits were $1,700 a car. These costs have now increased to $3,000 a car because of the recession. This is also a significant cost that other automakers were not facing. (Mark perry again, with the increase noted by Jenny Gold at NPR)
Data shows that private sector job growth is approximately 2/3rds less in heavily unionized states (source: Labor department data 2003-2008) This is evident today when you look at current unemployment data for red and blue states.
From 1997 to 2004 private sector employment grew by 37 million to 103 million workers. During the same period union membership shrunk by 6.1 million members to 8.2 million. (Research paper by Barry and Jeffrey Hirsch) This just shows that unions are not necessary to provide good working conditions and benefits nor do they provide enough benefits to be an incentive to join one without coersion. There are a significant amount of laws to protect workers that were not around when unions first started. Their purpose now is not to protect workers, but to influence government for the union’s benefit and to the detriment of our country.
The treatment of workers by unions is another thing that can be discussed. In my opinion, they are worse than anything done by big business. I won’t go into that now.
All of this infomation can be found in Chapter 5 of Glenn Beck’s Book, Arguing with Idiots. Say what you will about his methods, but this book is filled from cover to cover with pertinent facts that address the falacies of the left. That is why I have it in my library.
Comments on this entry are closed.