Ken Vogel at Politico, who seldom misses a chance to bash conservatives, does his best to convince us that the effort to eliminate collective bargaining is the result of a long term right wing conspiracy.
The conservative assault on public sector unions that seemed to explode out of nowhere in Wisconsin and spread across the Midwest was in fact months – if not years – in the making, the result of methodical polling, lobbying, messaging, grassroots organizing and policy crafting by a coterie of well-funded conservative groups.
Vogel claims that Americans for Prosperity has spent more than $340,000 for TV ads to support the efforts of Governor Scott Walker. He cites TPM as the source of the monetary claim but their site provides no source for the claim.
$340,000 is penny ante in contrast to the big bucks spent by other institutions, namely unions.
The top 20 political donors of 2010 are
The top political donors from 1989-2010?
Feel free to add it all up and see who spends the really big bucks.
Michael Barone points out that public sector unions force taxpayers to subsidize their political donations- to Democrats.
Follow the money, Washington reporters like to say. The money in this case comes from taxpayers, present and future, who are the source of every penny of dues paid to public employee unions, who in turn spend much of that money on politics, almost all of it for Democrats. In effect, public employee unions are a mechanism by which every taxpayer is forced to fund the Democratic Party.
Barone notes that Barack Obama’s whining about the poor unions took both sides:
So, just as the president complained in his 2010 State of the Union address about a Supreme Court decision that he feared would increase the flow of money to Republicans, he also found time to complain about a proposed state law that could reduce the flow of money to Democrats.
It’s worth saying again- American taxpayers are forced to fund the Democrat party.
The New York Department of Education pays teachers to do work for unions and must pay for substitutes.
Unions have so much money that they can send members from Illinois and New York to help protest in Wisconsin.
And if there’s anything left over from political donations, how do union biggies spend money?
Credit union spending controversy
“It was not educational. They may have attended a couple of classes, but this was not educational,” Lazarra said. “It was an excuse to take the family and get away…. There was more money spent by board members than I spent on my employees for the year and my employee staff is 31.”
Lazzara’s invoices show, for example, that Board Chairman Edward Sinning went on a Scandinavian credit union conference cruise with his wife in 2007. Total price was nearly $13,000. They reserved the most expensive cabin possible — an oceanfront suite with a balcony.
UFT spends millions on dinners, parties, parking, coffee as thousands of teachers face layoffs
Free-spending United Federation of Teachers brass last year spent nearly $1.4 million for the UFT’s 50th anniversary gala at the Hilton – complete with a movie, a book and a paperweight.
Records show they:
* Ponied up $514,000 to 16 separate caterers.
* Dropped $278,417 on the annual Teachers Union Day ceremony at the Waldorf-Astoria.
* Bought $6,100 in gift baskets from a lower East Side candy store – and plowed $179,000 into training retreats at a Connecticut resort boasting golf, scuba diving and aqua aerobics.In one amazing feat of spending, they shelled out $114,870 for annual “coffee supplies” at their five offices across the city – paying the Coffee Distributing Corp. on Long Island $324,000 over three years, records show.
Dallas Independent School District training sessions and meetings at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel, the landmark Infomart and the Anatole Hotel cost district taxpayers more than $66,000 last year, WFAA News 8 in Dallas is reporting.
Rena Honea, president of the teachers’ union, offered up alternatives to a $250 million budget reduction plan for the district that would cost 4,000 current district employees their jobs, a plan Honea finds unacceptable. The district has plenty of space on its 225 campuses for administrators and teachers to meet for free.
Was lavish life built on backs of teachers’?
Former employees say he charged the Miami-Dade teachers union for $2,000-a-night hotel suites and trips to Europe and the Far East. According to published reports, he used his union credit card to buy tailored suits in Hong Kong, jewelry in California and python-print pajamas from Neiman-Marcus. He is even accused of using union dues to pay his maid.
Tornillo and his wife, Donna, also own property around the state valued at more than $1-million. Their most recent purchase: a $300,000 home under construction in an affluent Tallahassee neighborhood.
Report Shows Teacher Union’s Extravagant Spending
An analysis of federal reports detailing 2006-07 spending show that the state’s largest teachers union spent more than $184 million on itself for items ranging from retreats at luxury resorts to compensation to employees totaling $52.1 million. The New York State United Teachers also owns a fleet of automobiles and other vehicles valued at $2.2 million, and listed $3.5 million in expenses associated with political activities. The federal report revealed NYSUT as having $22.1 million in cash on hand and $50.1 million in investments.
And union dues?
They’re tax deductible.
Your political donations are not.
DrJohn has been a health care professional for more than 30 years. In addition to clinical practice he has done extensive research and has published widely with over 70 original articles and abstracts in the peer-reviewed literature. DrJohn is well known in his field and has lectured on every continent except for Antarctica. He has been married to the same wonderful lady for over 30 years and has three kids- two sons, both of whom are attorneys and one daughter on her way into the field of education.
DrJohn was brought up with the concept that one can do well if one is prepared to work hard but nothing in life is guaranteed.
Except for liberals being foolish.
http://www.unionrefund.org/
ANY union member who desires to can get his portion of dues that go to politics back.
The process is simple.
Choose your labor state.
Fill out some basic information and UnionRefund will automatically generate a letter that you can print and mail to your union representative to claim your individual refund.
UnionRefund will also send a courtesy notification letter to your union to ensure a quick resolution for your request.
It’s that easy!
As to our tax money going to dues then to politics.
We can only stop that if, like Gov. Walker is doing, we get collective bargaining out of gov’t employee unions.
This is why the unions would MUCH rather see afew members laid off.
They can get them back later.
But if they lose collective bargaining……
Recommended Reading: Saul Alinsky, The American Organizer
From the NEA.
http://www.nea.org/tools/17231.htm
Ever wonder where those Funny Ideas that are placed in Your Children’s heads come from?
They come from those that Your Children spend the day with at Tax Payer expense. They are most likely getting more Alinsky than Leahy.
I pay taxes. Income, sales, property, and numerous other “fees” that are nothing more than a taxation due to where I live, how I live, etc.
Those taxes go to pay for infrastructure for the city, county, state and country I live in. Those taxes go go pay public sector employees from the city’s road workers all the way to the President. Those taxes go to pay subsidies to companies and seasonal jobs, such as state-wide roadwork.
Many of those jobs my taxes go to pay for are held by union workers, from the teachers to even secretaries for state congressional members.
Those jobs, and the inclusive benefits and wages, are lobbied for, and represented by, unions who take dues based on wages and other items pertinent to the jobs themselves.
Those unions use those dues to pay for extravagance amongst the union management, and political contributions(nearly always to democrats).
Those democrats, receiving those campaign contributions, run for offices encompassing city, county, state, and federal elective offices.
When those democrats gain office, they are lobbied by those same unions, and others, who gave them campaign contributions, to pass, or vote against, legislation, always in the favor of the unions. For public sector jobs, particularly those represented by public sector unions, the democrats vote in favor of higher wages, increased benefits, and other perks, paying for it out of the taxes I pay in.
When the public sector employees gain higher wages and benefits, their union dues go up as well, meaning more money for political lobbying by unions, which means more money for democrats campaigns, meaning more pull the unions have over those in office, resulting in higher wages, and on, and on, and on, and on, and on………………….
In short, I pay taxes so that democrats, who do not share my views on social and fiscal issues, can get elected and vote to take more of my money to help themselves get elected. It is a vicious, never-ending cycle of greed and corruption, all enabled by ordinary, average citizens believing a teacher crying out, “it’s for the children”. And it is time for it to stop. Here. Now.
Our cities are in budget crunches. Our counties are in budget crunches(parishes in a few states). Our states are in budget crunches. And our federal government is so far under water now it is nearly unbelievable. And in many of those cases, unfunded pension and other liabilities are coming due, driving budgets even further into the red. It’s not because I don’t pay enough in taxes. It’s not because companies aren’t paying enough in corporate taxes. It’s because greed and corruption amongst politicians, union management, and union members themselves, have driven government payouts to retiring workers so high as to be unsustainable.
And yet, the greed continues, egged on by shills in the MSM and ignorant voters(Greg, I’m looking at you). Soon, other people’s money, which includes my own tax dollars, is going to run out. Unless public sector unions are broken, that is the only way the greed and corruption will end.
I realize my last post was long, but I need to add this as well:
For all the screaming from the left about the “rich” not paying their “fair share”, they certainly come down on the side of unfairness when discussing the WI issue. Why is it “fair” that I, and other taxpayers, should have to pay more taxes to fund teacher’s salaries that are well above the average workers’ salaries, and that have benefits that far exceed the average taxpayer’s job benefits?
Or is it, as we conservatives have noted, that “fairness” in fiscal matters, where liberals are concerned, simply means that we give more of our earned income to them for disposition amongst groups only with the liberal stamp of approval?
@Old Trooper2: I don’t see how where they give equal time to Leahy.
When unionized gov’t workers cannot get any more money out of taxpayers via taxes, they turn to more creative techniques.
In Commerce, CA, the police played a game.
They’d stop you and rate their income either #1,#2 or #3.
To get to #1 the police cited you.
To get to #2 the police went over your car and you with a fine tooth comb and piled on many citations.
To get to #3 the police impounded your car, costing you a month’s worth impound fees, that was the minimum charge!
In Atlanta, GA it was the pipe fitters for the Water department who ripped you off.
By connecting your water meter incorrectly (a 1″ fit to a 3/4″ ) they were able to bump up the amoung of water it looked (to your meter) like you used.
Some customers saw bills go from $200/month all the way up to $1,805 a month!
Cute.
What is happening in your community?
In LB, CA., we have a city hall that rips off the port of LB for hundreds of millions a year.
@Nan G, #1:
Yep.
Try to get a refund of any contributions you’ve made to an organization supporting the right’s political agenda, and see where that gets you.
@Greg:
Sorry, greg?
Are you saying right-wing organizations with hold involuntarily from worker’s paychecks?
Examples?
@Nan G, #8:
I’m simply saying that the bulk of union dues that are used for political ends are generally spent to directly support the political interests of the working people who have paid those dues. If you can claim the money back, the contribution isn’t involuntary–your money isn’t unrecoverable if you believe your interests aren’t being served.
Political contributions to the right are of course entirely voluntary, but unrecoverable. If you don’t like the results that you’ve paid for, you can’t get back a nickel.
@Greg:
The teachers union just doubled what comes out of dues monthly to political areas from $10 to $20.
And, yes, you are right.
When you give to a teachers union they use your money to coerce the politician to side with them.
BUT If you oppose that particular politician you were out of luck before a court case went all the way to the Supreme Court in the 1988 Supreme Court decision Communications Workers of America v. Beck.
Before 1988 you were also s#!+ out of luck even if you were a union member who didn’t want to pay extra beyone your representation issues.
So, if you GIVE to a charity or a political party, or a Co0nservative group, you might have more difficulty getting your FREELY given money back than you nowadays do after your dues are taken against your will by your union to be used on politics.
Response to Wisconsin Teachers’ Union
It’s for the Children…
@Greg:
Typical. Trying to argue in defense of a wrong, with a perceived wrong from the other side.
What’s with the Credit Union story?
Mostunions do not advise new members that they can be a “dues paying only” member. They simply sign you up, and then what you think are simply dues include a portion to go to the union PAC. Of course, this is illegal (ruling in CWA vs. Beck) but no politian in D.C. has the cajones to go after the unions.And then, of course, we hear the mantra “it’s for the children” or “its for worker’s rights.” So let’s take a look at what is really at stake (besides millions of $$ being dumped into the political coffers of Democrats by unions):
Salaries of union presidents:
AFSCME (who represents a lot of the Wisconsin state workers and teachers) – Gerald McEnett – $479,328/yr + benefits
SEIU – Andy Stern, frequent visitor to the Oval Office – $306,388/yr + benefits
American Federation of Teachers – Antonio Cortese – $320,136/yr + benefits
National Education Association – Reg Weaver – $417,858/yr + benefits
IAFF (firefighters) Harold Schaitberger – $318,574/yr + benefits
AFL-CIO – John Sweeney, Int. pres.- $309,472/yr + benefits and Richard Trumka, $260,781/yr + benefits.
Benefits do NOT include other percs like travel and expenses, union paid for vehicle, union credit card where the tab is picked up by the union.
So let’s be honest here; what is really at stake is the union thugs who claim they are working for the “little guy” but who are knocking down tony paychecks themselves as well as having their expenses paid for by union members. If there is not a constant flow of union dues into union coffers, the thugs will not have such tony salaries and the unions will not be able to continue to buy Democrats.
When the French historian Alexis de Tocqueville wrote in Democracy in America,
“The same equality that allows every citizen to conceive these lofty hopes renders all the citizens less able to realize them; it circumscribes their powers on every side, while it gives freer scope to their desires. Not only are they themselves powerless, but they are met at every step by immense obstacles, which they did not first perceive. They have swept away the privileges of some of their fellow creatures which stood in their way, but they have opened the door to universal competition; the barrier has changed its shape rather than its position,” . . . he could never have foreseen the power and influence which Unions came to be allowed in the year 2011, in the great America social contract.
He certainly could never have imagined the privileges enjoyed by public service employees at the chagrin of lesser paid, and lesser benefitted, taxpayers funding them.
@retire05:
The ones you listed are small potatoes. Try these:
-Don Hunsucker President and CEO United Food and Commercial Workers Union Local 1288 Salary: $679,949
-Gerald McEntee President State, County & Municipal Workers Salary: $629,291
-James P. Hoffa General President Teamsters Union – $413,234(2007 salary, most likely much higher now)
Just a few of the outrageously paid/compensated union bosses. One has to wonder how they can discuss any issue about CEO’s salaries and compensation when they are pulling in the money they are simply by “managing and organizing” people. At least the CEO’s are responsible for the actual building of wealth for their companies. What wealth are the union bosses’ responsible for, other than their own.
RT @FloppingAces: Unions- that’s where the big money is http://bit.ly/hZqESp #tcot #teaparty #rightnetwork
@johngalt, #17:
There’s a slight problem with that one, I’m afraid. The $825,262 figure comes from a 2007 editorial published by the Wall Street Journal. They were having some problems with decimal points.
Jimmy Warren, treasurer of a United Steelworkers local in Arkansas, acutally received a salary of $8,252.62 (8,252 dollars and 62 cents).
WSJ ran a short paragraph correcting the error, but the $825,262 figure has been repeated again and again in anti-union articles ever since. It’s one of those “facts” that’s just a bit hard to check, and just a bit too useful to give up on.
@Greg:
Correction made, and thank you for pointing it out.
You’re welcome.
BTW, I do agree that the documented compensation of many union officials is way out of line, and no more justifiable than the compensation some private industry CEOs have received while running a company onto the rocks. The abuse of power and the betrayal of trust for personal gain isn’t confined to people working in any one sector, or to people of any one political persuasion.
Unions- that’s where the big money is [Reader Post] | Flopping Aces http://bit.ly/grIbup
@Greg: Hypocrisy: it’s what liberals eat for dinner. It has to be.
@Greg:
This comment portion is agreeable only to the extent of demonizing private industry CEO’s who fail their companies’ shareholders in the job they are tasked to do. Do not, however, demonize those CEO’s who pull in hefty multi-million dollar salaries AND turn profits at the same time.
Union management produces nothing. They do not create wealth. They consume it, by taking some for themselves and giving much to their democrat lackey’s, who in turn, force the taking of more wealth to feed the unions.
Re my #6.
I wrote Commerce but it was Bell, CA., not Commerce, CA.
Bell, Vernon, Commerce all melt together as tiny ”cities” serving Los Angeles.
But they are very different.
@Nan G:
Do you ever wonder why we can admit to our mistakes, publicly here, while other people who I won’t name just run away from the discussion?
I don’t, really. Liberals wouldn’t know the truth if it bit them in the a**.
Greg
Remember that stat you bought up about unions and test scores?
Labor union supporters say Wisconsin test scores vastly outpace those in five states without collective bargaining for teachers
False.
@DrJohn:
That’s a terrific and honest link, DrJohn.
Obviously the makeup of the student bodies contribute to how their state ranks.
Poverty, lack of English language skills….. well, duh!
But good for Wisconsin for doing as well as it is doing, even if it is not as good as HuffPo claimed.
TOO many BOSSES in the UNIONS, will EVENTUALY end up in them starting to eliminate each other,
claiming they are becoming too violent in defending the cause of UNIONS, therefor creating a danger for other BOSSES to control their existing number of loyals which are starting to have much problem to empower their number of workers which are getting louder in exposing their group leader’s violent rhetoric and thugs actions on gathering in public site exposing the said union worker to hate attack at their individual home by their nonunions neighborhood
@johngalt, #23:
Think of them as a service industry. The service they render and are paid for is to further the interests of working union members–who obviously are doing something that is productive and has economic value, or no one would bother to negotiate a payment for their work the first place.
GREG, what get me puzle, is the worker pay big and still are ask to rally and act mean and play the game of thugs, for negociating purpouses, CAN’t those NEGOCIATERS do their job without using the workers
WHO pay their salary to be negotiated
@Greg:
Wow! Talk about having to stretch the truth. I liken them more to the traditional mob, extorting money from people for “protection”. This is particularly so when they force unionization upon condition of employment, or when they extort upwards of 75% of normal union dues from those not wishing to join the union. Either one is indefensible when speaking about freedom and liberty.
@DrJohn:
Stats that compare apples to apples are somewhat hard to come by between states.
States have very different proportions of minorities.
Take Texas vs Wisconsin.
Texas public schools include 12% black, 30% Hispanic students.
Wisconsin’s schools are only 4% black and 4% Hispanic.
So, an ACT or SAT score average is not apples to apples.
But the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) can be.
This is because the NAEP is an annual standardized test given to 4th and 8th graders around the country to measure proficiency in math, science, and reading…..and it is broken down according to ethnicity.
So, 1st state mentioned has higher score:
2009 4th Grade Math
White students: Texas 254, Wisconsin 250 (national average 248)
Black students: Texas 231, Wisconsin 217 (national 222)
Hispanic students: Texas 233, Wisconsin 228 (national 227)
2009 8th Grade Math
White students: Texas 301, Wisconsin 294 (national 294)
Black students: Texas 272, Wisconsin 254 (national 260)
Hispanic students: Texas 277, Wisconsin 268 (national 260)
2009 4th Grade Reading
White students: Texas 232, Wisconsin 227 (national 229)
Black students: Texas 213, Wisconsin 192 (national 204)
Hispanic students: Texas 210, Wisconsin 202 (national 204)
2009 8th Grade Reading
White students: Texas 273, Wisconsin 271 (national 271)
Black students: Texas 249, Wisconsin 238 (national 245)
Hispanic students: Texas 251, Wisconsin 250 (national 248)
2009 4th Grade Science
White students: Texas 168, Wisconsin 164 (national 162)
Black students: Texas 139, Wisconsin 121 (national 127)
Hispanic students: Wisconsin 138, Texas 136 (national 130)
2009 8th Grade Science
White students: Texas 167, Wisconsin 165 (national 161)
Black students: Texas 133, Wisconsin 120 (national 125)
Hispanic students: Texas 141, Wisconsin 134 (national 131)
TEXAS 17, Wisconsin 1
And……IF you are a minority, you are better off being schooled in Texas over Wisconsin!
More here.
Why did somebody leave 41 rounds of ammunition stashed all around the Madison, Wisconsin capital building?
Here I thought ”civility” was dying as the unions and their commie buddies had such nasty signs and screams, but this???
Heh, the Milwaukee Journal is stirring up a hornet’s nest by publishing details of the unions including the salaries of the head honchos, number of members and who they donate to. Folks are going crazy in the comment section. All in all, a good write up:
Largest unions pay leaders well, give extensively to Democrats
http://www.jsonline.com/news/statepolitics/117290533.html