Free Republic

'We spent a fortune to elect Barack Obama," declared Andy Stern last month, and the president of the Service Employees International Union wasn't exaggerating. The SEIU and AFL-CIO have been spending so much on politics that they're going deeply into debt.

Exposing Public Sector Unions Several years ago a consummate Sacramento insider told me “unions run this town,” and subsequent research and observations have confirmed to me the truth of this statement. Slowly, very slowly, this reality, and the disastrous fiscal consequences of this reality, are being recognized. Criticizing unions is still something responsible people do with some reservations, after all, in the 19th and through much of the 20th century, unions played a vital role in securing basic worker’s rights. These contributions should not be dismissed. But unions today, especially in the public sector, are a different beast entirely. In...

http://ecoworld.com/blog/2009/03/04/carbon-taxes-public-sector-pensions/

http://ecoworld.com/blog/2009/03/04/carbon-taxes-public-sector-pensions/

http://ecoworld.com/blog/2009/03/04/carbon-taxes-public-sector-pensions/

http://ecoworld.com/blog/2009/03/04/carbon-taxes-public-sector-pensions/

About a year ago I participated for a few months with an industry group that was attempting to insert some rationality into what is probably the most irrational, extremist, dangerous, job-killing, regressive laws in the modern history of the United States, AB32, California’s Global Warming Act. Unlike renewable portfolio standards, which can at least be justified by virtue of their potential to improve the U.S. balance of trade and promote energy independence, California’s global warming act is based on uncertain science and propelled by political opportunism. It is an utterly futile gesture, and even if it weren’t, most of the...