Also worth noting that the Taft-Hartley Act went in over Truman’s veto, so it had widespread support. Closed shops are not the result of free negotiations between an employer and a union, they can only exist when government has created special privileges for the unions.
Some special privileges are necessary for unions to exist at all, and that’s fine. However the set of special privileges allowing for widespread creation of closed shops was causing grave labor market problems for many people and society as a whole, so an overwhelming majority in Congress passed legislation to correct previous legislation that tilted things too far the other way.
But of course this is all irrelevant, the original NLRA didn’t allow for public sector unions at all, and Roosevelt himself opposed them. As did most Presidents Republican and Democrat who followed him.
So why then, for example, do low-income blacks vote in such vast numbers for the Democrats? Literacy rates are probably low in those communities so shouldn’t advertisements mean they will all be switching to the Republicans soon?
The key thing to me, is taxation is supposed to be the realm of elected officials, no one else has the right to tax me but a government I vote into office (however removed from the direct vote it might be.)
Almost every State (perhaps every) in the union has a section of its constitution mandating a balanced budget. This means that unlike the Federal government states can’t run a deficit year to year. (When people talk about State government deficits they’re basically talking about the shortfall between spending and revenue that has to be made up for by various mechanisms which comply with the State’s balanced budget amendment.)
If you have a State that has public sector unions that have collective bargaining rights, meaning you have to negotiate with them, they’re allowed to strike, and you’re not allowed to fire them for striking and all State employees must be in the union over time you get into a situation where the union taxes the citizens. If the Governor can’t do anything to reign in a recalcitrant union, he eventually has to give in to their demands, the only other alternative is to let government shut down.
We may not feel sorry for the CEO of U.S. Steel faced with such a prospect, because that only screws over millions of shareholders and the cities where the company operates. But we should probably feel very bad for the Governor of a state facing such a prospect, because the stakeholders there are the entire public.
So since the Governor can’t in good conscience just let government shut down, he gets forced into giving raises that he can’t afford and benefits the State can’t pay for…and since the state has a balanced budget amendment that essentially leaves the legislature as required to raise taxes to pay the benefits they were forced to approve with a gun held to the head of not the politicians but the government itself and the people it serves.
I’m sorry, but that is so dissimilar from unions fighting the “good fight” against coal companies and steel mills, with such different power dynamics and working conditions and compensation schemes that it’s not even worth trying to frame Walker’s fight as having anything to do with the union movement. It only has anything to do with the union movement because perversely public sector unions have become one of the last bastions of big labor, because the free market has mostly rejected unions in the private sector so big labor leaders have to have some political base to continue fleecing so they can buy nice cars and houses.
Strangely enough, I am neither pleased nor comforted by this compliment, though I do appreciate it.
However, do you realize what you said? If liberals were more reasonable, conservatives would be in real trouble. It’s good of you to acknowledge that conservative politics profits from the irrational.
Well, if you’re black, gay or Mexican you’d really have to be an idiot to vote Republican. But obviously entrenched interests aren’t going to sway strongly.
I don’t think that money will make all Republican elections forever. I think it will sway marginal cases, and since a lot of the country is marginal cases, it could be a future where Republicans have a permanent edge that isn’t based on bodies and votes, but is based on very, very rich people picking laws that make them richer.
Objectively, do you have any evidence to back this up? I just pulled an example out of thin air and you couldn’t really refute it.
I will try and get the Economist cite but likely tomorrow as I’m on my iPad and cutting and pasting is a pain in arse…or I’m just not that patient/bright
You’re not Mexican though. Republicans don’t have a lot of love for Mexicans.
Also, being born here to a professional who emigrated here doesn’t give you a lot of insight on the American-Mexican experience. You share nothing with them aside from an ancestral language.
In any case, voting Republican is actually against your interests, you just aren’t willing to face that yet.
Lots of Mexicans vote for very conservative Mexican parties. A majority of Mexicans voted against gay marriage in California. They can be a quite conservative voting block (and they did help elect a Republican governor in New Mexico).
Well, obviously no amount of advertising will unseat Pilosi, for instance. Of course there are limits.
What I’m saying, is that in a national election, there are marginal cases. Do you really dispute that having five to ten times or more money (from one or two billionaire-funded Super-Pacs) won’t have a huge effect?
Say it sways vote results by 2 percent. How many races would that change on the national scale? How many of the 500+ congress-critters would sway? Ten, twenty, a hundred? I don’t know the exact effect. But I do know that advertising works. And it will push marginal races in one direction.
Money favors the Republicans because Republicans favor cutting taxes and regulations. Why is Exxon gonna put millions behind a candidate that wants them to take more environmental precautions?
Like I say, I can’t cite this, since this is the first run of post Citizens United elections.
I have an iPad, I agree, it sucks for citing / message board arguments.
A lot of Mexican-Americans don’t like the GOP stance on immigration. However not all Mexican-Americans are immigrants, many are 2nd or 3rd generation citizens who aren’t stupid if issues other than immigration law might determine their political affiliation. Hell, I know a guy whose self-identified Mexican in culture and etc (and appearance for what it’s worth) whose family never immigrated here, they were here pre-annexation and never left.
This may have been the deciding factor in favor of Walker. From what I’ve been hearing, Democrats were pretty quiet about defending union rights and seized on the recall to run a fairly typical election campaign. That apparently didn’t go over too well with a lot of voters.
All this talk about Walker’s unfair advantage in spending has me concerned about the general election in November. Last I heard, Obama had raised a lot more dough than Romney. If Obama wins, will a substantial edge in money delegitimize his election? :dubious:
I don’t see the issue. Walker wanted to reign in public sector unions and get them on a scale equivalent to private sector employees.
I have a 401k, as do many of you. It will take us 40 years to retire, and hope the market treats us right. The public sector union employees can retire at 30 years and get an 80 percent pension.
How many private companies even offer pension plans anymore?
How many of you have had your company make you pay for more and more of your medical insurance?
Why should the public sector union employees get better benefits and wages than we do?
Its heartening to hear all this talk about how, really, money doesn’t actually affect elections. But it does raise some questions, doesn’t it? Buttloads of money rained down on Walker. But to no avail? It made no difference, none?
Well, then doesn’t that mean that these people who wrote all those checks are, well, stupid? Rich guys, captains of industry, CEOs, dumber than a dollar store hammer? Just pissing their money away?
