From the vomitorium
(BTW the title is sarcasm in case you missed it)
You have heard it all before……especially from conservs……the American auto industry is NOT competitive because of those damn unions or unions are destroying our economy or …… well you get the idea.
Today is the day that the House is in session to vote on a bill that will save jobs in education as well as police and fire and help states with their deficits….but as usual the GOP is hot on this accusing the Dems of paying off unions for past support…..
The legislation provides $10 billion to school districts to rehire laid-off teachers or ensure that more teachers won’t be let go before the new school year begins. The money could keep more than 160,000 teachers, including 16,000 in California and 14,000 in Texas, on the job, advocates say.
The other half of the bill has $16 billion for six more months of increased Medicaid payments to the states. That would free up money for states to meet other budget priorities, including keeping more than 150,000 police officers and other public workers on the payroll. Some three-fifths of states have already factored in the federal money in drawing up their budgets for the current fiscal year.
But House Republican leader John Boehner contended, “The American people don’t want more Washington ‘stimulus’ spending — especially in the form of a payoff to union bosses and liberal special interests.”
(Thanx to the AP for above excerpts)
So according to these dipsticks it is all unions fault that the public sector jobs pay better than the private sector……is it the union’s fault that a raisin sizer at the USDA makes $100,000 or that congress people make $400,000+? No it is NOT! And let us talk about the unions and the auto industry….now that the unions have given back so much to the auto makers then the price of cars should come down, right? So far we are still waiting…..the reason that the public sector pays better is that it does not have the greed factor built in……
The truth of the matter is that unions are a toothless beast in the US…okay they throw money at candidates but what has it gotten them? Not much return on their investment then why are unions the political demon for the conservs?
So will Repubs vote against keeping teachers working as well as firemen and policemen? If they do….who side are they really on….this vote could be telling no matter how they try to spin it……
I can understand where you’re coming from here, but then that’s the problem with the whole system (and as it happens, most unions), isn’t it? They all endlessly play politics and the very PURPOSE of all their existences is lost, so the PEOPLE they represent get what they usually get – f*ck all…!
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The problem is that the US unions are NOT a political organization…they play politics on the financial level but never get truly involved…….
Personally, I think that must be the only GOOD thing that can be said about them – if only they were not involved in politics on ANY level AND the bloody corporations were the same and they all concentrated on business and the jobs they’re paid to do – their raisons d’etre – then there might never have BEEN any recession to speak of in the first place!
Good point….and if we had elected some other person instead of Clinton…it might not have happened either….it was he and his cronies that eliminated the controls over the derivatives and we know they played a major role in the meltdown…..
We-e-ell… As you probably know, I don’t believe that controls work, not least because they rely on the appointed controllers to impliment them – and THEY are usually, for one reason or another, UNreliable.
However, I take your point…