-By Warner Todd Huston
We all know the drill, right? Unions curry favor with compliant politicians, the unions then donate campaign cash to them hoping for political favors later down the line. Yes, that’s the drill… unless you are the Montgomery County, Maryland teachers union. See, in that case candidates are expected to pay the union for its favors, not the other way ’round, apparently.
As the Washington Post says, this upside down relationship “distorts and perverts the political process.” Folks, if even the left-wing Washington Post understands that unions are bad for our democracy, you have to know things have gotten horribly out of hand.
In some unusually harsh language, the WP takes after these union thugs big time:
As far as we know, this arrangement is unique; in elections elsewhere, unions and other special interests contribute to candidates, not vice versa. But such is the overweening power of the teachers union in Montgomery that the usual rules are turned upside down. And it’s no coincidence that the union’s toxic influence in local elections is matched by its success in squeezing unaffordable concessions from the county in contract negotiations — at taxpayers’ expense.
The Post also goes on to explain why our constant refrain is the gospel truth:
Teachers are a bedrock of any community, and they deserve good salaries and benefits for doing a tough and important job. The problem in Montgomery is not its teachers. Rather, it is that the MCEA, the largest union in the county, is in effect hiring its own bosses — members of the school board, who vote on the teachers’ contract, and County Council members, who approve the overall county budget — and is getting paid for it in the bargain. This twisted system has fueled skyrocketing payroll costs — including a 23 percent pay raise for a typical teacher over the past three years, plus extraordinary health and retirement benefits — even as private-sector wages have stagnated.
Say it with me, folks: Unions are antithetical to good government!
Public employees unions need to be eliminated.
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“The only end of writing is to enable the reader better to enjoy life, or better to endure it.”
–Samuel Johnson
Warner Todd Huston is a Chicago based freelance writer, has been writing opinion editorials and social criticism since early 2001 and is featured on many websites such as Andrew Breitbart’s BigGovernment.com, RightWingNews.com, CanadaFreePress.com, StoptheACLU.com, TheRealityCheck.org, RedState.com, Human Events Magazine, AmericanDailyReview.com, and the New Media Journal, among many, many others. Additionally, he has been a frequent guest on talk-radio programs to discuss his opinion editorials and current events and is currently the co-host of “Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Conservatism” heard on BlogTalkRadio. Warner is also the editor of the Cook County Page for RedCounty.com.
He has also written for several history magazines and appears in the new book “Americans on Politics, Policy and Pop Culture” which can be purchased on amazon.com. He is also the owner and operator of PubliusForum.com. Feel free to contact him with any comments or questions : EMAIL Warner Todd Huston
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