National Education Association to Double Members’ Dues Spent on Politics

-By Warner Todd Huston

Even as it tops the list of organizations spending money on political causes, the National Education Association (NEA) is planning to double the amount of its members’ dues spent on politics so that it can spend yet more on political campaigns — and all left-wing causes to boot.

Last year the NEA teachers union spent over $56 million on left-wing political causes but that is not enough according to union’s leadership. They want more. In 2010 the NEA took $10 from each member and spent that amount on its political activism. Going forward the NEA has announced that it will hike that amount to $20 per member.

The spending hike supposedly has a five-year sunset time limit on it, but as Mike Antonucci notes, the last time such a hike was proposed it also had a sunset provision but that provision was never implemented.

This raise in political spending comes at a time when the NEA has seen membership fall by some 54,000 members and found a $14 million shortfall in its general operating budget.

One wonders how members feel whose organization can’t even pay its bills but is doubling its spending on politics?

____________
“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. He has been writing opinion editorials and social criticism since early 2001 and before that he wrote articles on U.S. history for several small American magazines. His political columns are featured on many websites such as Andrew Breitbart’s BigGovernment.com, BigHollywood.com, and BigJournalism.com, as well as RightWingNews.com, RightPundits.com, CanadaFreePress.com, StoptheACLU.com, AmericanDaily.com, among many, many others. Mr. Huston is also endlessly amused that one of his articles formed the basis of an article in Germany’s Der Spiegel Magazine in 2008.

For a full bio, please CLICK HERE.


Copyright Publius Forum 2001