Tag Archives: Politics

News

Harper would ban political contributions from unions and corporations

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Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper
Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper

From PostMedia News.

Excerpt:

Stephen Harper says scrapping taxpayer subsidies for political parties could help break Canada’s cycle of holding federal elections every few years, but his political foes say it’s another attempt to financially cripple the other parties.

On Friday, Day 7 of the campaign, Harper said he will ban the subsidies if the Conservatives win a majority government on May 2. Any party that receives more than two per cent of the vote in a general election receives a subsidy of roughly $2 per year for each vote the party received.

Harper said the system funnels taxpayers’ money to political parties they don’t necessarily support, and allows parties to operate in perpetual campaign mode.

“We think money should come from voters. Not from corporations, not from unions and not from government. (It) should come from the voters,” he told reporters.

[…]In January, Harper revealed for the first time, in an interview with Postmedia News, that a ban on the subsidies would be a “clear plank” in his party’s platform for an election.

Shortly after winning the 2008 election, the Tories proposed to end the subsidies, but that sparked anger from the opposition parties and they rallied to form a coalition that nearly defeated Harper’s government. On Friday, Harper made it clear he hasn’t changed his mind. However, in an apparent bid to take some of the sting out of the move and to reduce criticism, he revealed there would be a three-year transition.

“I’ve wanted to change this, but we’re very clear: Unless we have a majority government, we’ll never attempt to change it, because we know that in a minority government you could never move this forward. So if we get a chance to change it, we will,” Harper told reporters.

Basically, there should only be ONE WAY for parties to get money in my view. Individual contributions from workers and small businesses. Anyone who can use government to grant it a monopoly (unions, big corporations) should NOT be allowed to contribute money to politicians. Get the big money from left-wing unions and left-wing big corporations out of politics.

Here’s the latest poll, showing the Conservatives steady at 41.3% support. (H/T Jeanie)

News

Wisconsin governor’s union regulation bans automatic deduction of dues

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From Human Events.

Excerpt:

How much will the union bosses’ income stream fall, when dues money no longer flows from employee paychecks directly into their coffers?  Writing in the New York Post earlier this month, Rich Lowry laid out the worst-case scenario for Big Labor, based on some previous examples:

“When Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels ended collective bargaining and the automatic collection of dues in 2005, the number of members paying dues plummeted by roughly 90 percent. In 2007, New York City’s Transit Authority briefly stopped automatically collecting dues for the Transport Workers Union, and dues fell off by more than a third.”

The financial damage to unions will actually be even worse than the amount of dues withheld by defiant, or delinquent, public employees.  The state of Wisconsin has actually been performing an extremely valuable service by collecting these dues automatically and handing the bundled loot over to the union hierarchy.  Private companies pay a great deal of money to maintain Accounts Receivable departments and collections agents.  Imagine the WEAC was a private concern with 98,000 customers.  The amount they would spend on collecting fees from those customers would be a significant line item on their budget.

This will all leave the unions with much less money to slip into Democrat pockets – but again, the damage is even worse than the total amount of campaign dollars lost.  Many union members are not Democrats, and some of them will likely begin demanding more control over how union money is spent, now that the dues don’t magically disappear out of their paychecks.  This will greatly reduce the unions’ ability to make promises to Democrat politicians, in exchange for political services.

Money is a very important thing. You can encourage people to do all kinds of things when you give them the right financial incentives. And policies create those financial incentives. That’s why we need to win elections.

News

Obama covers 44 million more Americans under Disabilities Act

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Note to regular readers – don’t forget that the William Lane Craig vs. Lawrence Krauss debate is tonight at 7 PM Eastern time. And you can watch it online here. It is also being live-blogged here.

From Fox News. (H/T Gateway Pundit)

Excerpt:

Millions of Americans may be disabled and not even know it, according to some legal experts.

That’s because sweeping new regulations from the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission offer new guidelines on the issue of how to define “disability” under the Americans with Disabilities Act.

The ADA, originally passed in 1990 and updated by Congress in 2008, originally defined disability as “a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits a major life activity.”

When a worker satisfies the definition, employers must provide reasonable accommodations. For years, employers and employees have clashed over who truly qualifies for the sometimes-costly modifications to workplace duties and schedules. Attorney Condon McGlothlen says the new regulations could have a profound impact on that debate.

“Before, perhaps 40 million people were covered by the ADA. That number will increase significantly,” McGlothlen told Fox News. “Some people might even say that a majority of Americans are covered as disabled under the law.”

His solution to unpopularity due to excessive spending is more excessive spending. When will he learn?