(Source: OpenSecrets.org)
I am not sure if I really explained the importance of Scott Walker’s plan to rein in public sector unions in my last post.
Basically, public sector unions generate a lot of money from forced collection of union dues, and they turn around and use that money to donate to politicians who are in favor of growing government. Unions want bigger government, because they make more money if government grows.
This Wall Street Journal article explains that unions donate mostly to Democrats.
Excerpt:
Corporations and their employees… tend to spread their donations fairly evenly between the two major parties, unlike unions, which overwhelmingly assist Democrats. In 2008, Democrats received 55% of the $2 billion contributed by corporate PACs and company employees, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Labor unions were responsible for $75 million in political donations, with 92% going to Democrats.
So how much money are we talking about?
To see how much unions control government, take a look at this story from National Review, written by economist Veronique to Rugy.
It says:
- The top campaign donor of the last 25 years is ActBlue, an online political-action committee dedicated to raising funds for Democrats. ActBlue’s political contributions, which total close to $100 million, are even more impressive when one realizes that it was only launched in 2004. That’s $100 million in ten years.
- Fourteen labor unions were among the top 25 political campaign contributors.
- Three public-sector unions were among the 14 labor groups: the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees; the National Education Association; and the American Federation of Teachers. Their combined contributions amount to $150 million, or 15 percent of the top 25’s approximately $1 billion in donations since 1989.
- Public- and private-sector unions contributed 55.6 percent — $552 million — of the top 25’s contributions.
Where does the money go? The Daily Caller notes:
“Nearly all of labor’s 2012 donations to candidates and parties – 90 percent – went to Democrats,” the report from CRP concluded. “Public sector unions, which include employees at all levels of government, donated $14.7 million to Democrats in 2014.”
But someone has a plan to do something about this: Scott Walker.
This Investors Business Daily article by economist Veronique de Rugy explains what he would do to the unions if elected President in 2016.
She writes:
Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker just proposed a plan to overhaul the country’s labor laws, called “My Plan to Give Power to the People, Not the Union Bosses.”
It would do that by expanding employee choice and holding unions accountable to their members.
One of the main underlying themes of the Republican presidential hopeful’s private-sector reforms is transferring power and decision-making from unions to their members.
For instance, the plan would guarantee employees’ rights by strengthening secret-ballot elections. Under current law, unions have ways to work around the protections, making such elections less than secret. The change would protect workers from retaliation by not disclosing their choices to unions during workplace elections.
Though federal laws outlaw extortion, the Supreme Court has ruled that they usually do not apply to unions. Walker’s plan would change that to protect workers from threats, violence and extortion from unions.
Similarly, his reforms would protect whistleblowers who report wrongdoing on the part of a union from being fired or discriminated against.
[…][Public sector unions]… also make the government less effective and more expensive.
That’s why a President Walker would work with Congress to prohibit public employee unions altogether. Meanwhile, he would implement taxpayer and paycheck protections.
As Heritage Foundation labor economist James Sherk explained for National Review, “Walker proposes cracking down on the use of ‘union time’ — that is, allowing federal employees to work for their unions at taxpayer expense.
“He also wants to stop unions from using federal resources to collect the portion of dues that they spend on political causes and lobbying.”
Walker’s plan also would establish a nationwide right-to-work law, making voluntary union dues the default option for all private- and public-sector workers. It would give workers the freedom to choose whether they want to be in a union or not.
States that want to take this freedom away from their workers would have to affirmatively vote to opt out of right-to-work status.
[…]The Walker plan includes many more reforms, such as a repeal of the Davis-Bacon wage controls, which alone could save taxpayers nearly $13 billion over the next 10 years. If implemented, it would be a giant step toward freeing businesses, employers, workers and taxpayers from the incredible burden imposed on them by federal labor laws and union bosses.
Why should we believe that he’ll really do it? Well, unlike some of the talker candidates, Walker has already done it in his state. And it worked – a $3.6 billion dollar deficit was erased.
If you are concerned about the growth of government, and all that that entails, e.g. – higher taxes, massive spending, bloated welfare state, huge levels of corruption, government waste, abortion, gay marriage, etc – then you should know that all of that is driven by the political donations of unions.
And I don’t want anyone to think that union workers are the same as union bosses. In Wisconsin, as soon as the union workers got the right to work without having the pay union dues, the vast majority of them chose not to pay union dues.
WINTERY KNIGHT 