Of course Prop. 32 would slam unions

Aug. 9, 2012

By John Seiler

Politics has balance. When one party gets too strong, other parties move to take it down. That’s as true of totalitarian countries, where the factions are unseen, as it is in democracies, where the factions usually operate in public.

In California, the government-employee unions’ power has waxed higher than that of any other faction the past 20 years. It has to go do down. Already, the number of public employees has declined because budgets have had to be cut during the Great Recession. Tax increases, such as Gov. Jerry Brown’s $8.5 billion in Proposition 30, actually would make matters worse by sticking a knife further into the private sector that pays for everything.

So it was inevitable that another attempt to restrain overweening union power would come forth. This time it’s Proposition 32 on the November ballot. Also inevitable was this:

“Unions representing teachers, firefighters and state workers are airing statewide radio ads this week that cast the initiative as ‘a deceptive proposition stuffed with special exemptions for the oil companies, Wall Street and those secret campaign super PACs who want to rig the system while the middle class pays the price.’”

Prop. 32 would restrict contributions from union members and corporate employees. But it would do nothing to stop independent PACs set up by rich people, a right protected by the notorious Citizens United Supreme Court decision.

But who else is supposed to oppose the unions? As things now stand, the unions easily can pluck massive dues from the tax-paid salaries of union employees, then use the money to fund political campaigns that rig the system in favor of the unions. In addition to high salaries, this system has produced the massive pension spiking of the last decade that is bankrupting cities and put the state itself in hock $500 billion.

The unions have gone on a long spending spree with the taxpayers’ credit card, but now the plastic is maxed out and the taxpayers don’t want to refill it, and indeed don’t even have the money to refill it.

What goes around comes around, comrades.