Public+Employees+Unions

AFSCME - Budget - Business - Capitalism - Democrats/Leftists - Economy/Finances - Ethics - Government - Jobs - Liberals - Pennsylvania - Public Employees Unions - Taxes - Unions - Warner Todd Huston

We Need More of This: County May Break Union Picket Line

November 10, 2010 by

-By Warner Todd Huston

Officials of Northumberland County, Pennsylvania may be about to indulge some union busting. A proposed strike by American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) Council 86, Local 2016, prompted officials to seek bids from private companies to replace the recalcitrant public employees union members threatening a walkout.

County Chief Commissioner Vinny Clausi is unrepentant about pushing the plan to bust the union.

“If they go on strike, we want to make sure we have service,” he said. “The union will not put the government out of business.”

AFSCME union members recently rejected the County’s contract offer of a three-year contract. Naturally, the reason these greedy union thugs wanted to strike is because the county offered a smaller package rather than all the perks and raises the unionistas wanted.
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We Need More of This: County May Break Union Picket Line”

Budget - Democrats/Leftists - Economy/Finances - Elections - Government - Jobs - Liberals - Pensions - Public Employees Unions - Regulation - Taxes - Unions - Warner Todd Huston

The Best and Worst State Debt Disasters

October 30, 2010 by

-By Warner Todd Huston

Forbes created an interactive map where Americans can find out what sort of mess their state is in. All you need do is roll your mouse cursor over your state and get the good … or horrible… news.

Forbes finds that the best state is Utah. The debt per capita in the Beehive State is just $447 with an unfunded pension cost of $7,272. Utah is rated by Moody’s at Aaa and has an S&P rating of AAA.

Unsurprisingly the worst state is Illinois. Illinois is a disaster for sure. Illinois’s debt per capita is $1,877 and it’s unfunded pension obligations stands at $17,230. Moody’s rates the state an A1 and its S&P rating is AA-.
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The Best and Worst State Debt Disasters”

AFSCME - Chicago - Constitution - Democrats/Leftists - Elections - GOP - Government - Liberals - Public Employees Unions - Republicans - Unions - Warner Todd Huston

Unions Give More Campaign $$ To Dems Than Corporations To GOP

October 29, 2010 by

-By Warner Todd Huston

The left’s meme about campaign contributions since the Supreme Court beat down some of the McCain/Feingold Act has been that the Republicans are awash in illicit political donations from those eeevil corporations — and unfair donations at that — and this puts the poor Democrats at a disadvantage. Why all those evil rich corporate raiders are burying the Democrats, dontcha know?

The truth is a far different animal, however, as Democrats haven’t lost a step in fund raising due to the millions upon millions that their favorite special interest have given them. The fact is unions have donated far, far more to Democrat politicians than corporations have mustered for Republicans.
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Unions Give More Campaign $$ To Dems Than Corporations To GOP”

Anti-Americanism - Budget - Business - Democrats/Leftists - Economy/Finances - Elections - Government - Jobs - Liberals - Public Employees Unions - Taxes - Unions - Warner Todd Huston

Union Paid for By YOUR Tax Dollars Calls YOU a ‘Tea Bagger’

October 13, 2010 by

A government employees union just released a very hackneyed and amateurish video attack ad against all you “Tea Baggers” out there. Joe Schoffstall has the story today at Eyeblast.TV.

The American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) has released its new cartoon-styled ad showing a cheering section of Republicans marked as “Tea Baggers Section.”

Budget - Democrats/Leftists - Economy/Finances - Ethics - Government - Illinois - Illinois State Government - Liberals - Pensions - Public Employees Unions - Taxes - Unions - Warner Todd Huston

The Lies States Peddle on Pension ‘Savings’

October 8, 2010 by

-By Warner Todd Huston

Pensions are fast becoming the time bomb that will destroy the financial well being of our state budgets. Because public employee unions have been allowed to outrageously grow their retirement benefits by supplying billions in campaign donations to compliant politicians, most state pension plans are deeply in the hole.

Many states have at last begun to realize that the golden goose (or as we call them, the taxpayers) was long ago killed by this self-serving triangle of unions, bought and paid for politicians, and similarly bought and paid for courts that implement union demands.

So states have begun to employ some fancy accounting tricks to fool the voters into thinking they’ve begun to address the problem. One is called an “actuarial trick.” But this head-fake is starting to get real actuaries worried that the sleight-of-hand trick is making matters worse by hiding rather than fixing the mess America’s states are rushing headlong into.
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The Lies States Peddle on Pension ‘Savings’”

Democrats/Leftists - Elections - Government - Liberals - Public Employees Unions - Unions - Warner Todd Huston

Postal Workers Union Election on Hold Over Ballots Lost in the Mail

October 7, 2010 by 2 Comments

-By Warner Todd Huston

The incompetence of public employee unions strikes again. The American Postal Workers Union has been forced to extend its election because too many mail-in ballots have yet to get to their final destination. That’s right, the postal workers election is on hold because the post office lost the ballots in the mail.

The union’s election committee was supposed to be counting those ballots this week in downtown Washington, D.C., following a tradition mail-in election. But the union announced that only about 39,000 ballots were turned in — and that “a large number of union members had not received their ballots.”

Government workers doing their normal substandard work, eh?

And these are the same people that want to takeover our healthcare?
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Postal Workers Union Election on Hold Over Ballots Lost in the Mail”

Budget - Business - Capitalism - Congress - Democrats/Leftists - Economy/Finances - Elections - Free Trade - Government - Jobs - Liberals - Public Employees Unions - SEIU - Taxes - Unions - Warner Todd Huston

Unions: Democrat’s Own Extremists Taking The Local Parties Over?

September 27, 2010 by

-By Warner Todd Huston

Michael Barone, one of media’s sharpest observers of America’s political scene, has noted an interesting trend in Democrat politics: unions are knocking out regular liberal Democrats in America’s big cities. Barone calls it a civil war raging in the Democrat Party.

He points to several big city campaigns in which unions rose up to defeat the “gentry liberals,” as Barone calls them, and have replaced them in primaries with union backed, ultra liberals. For proof Barone points to several races in New York, Maryland, and Washington D.C.

In each there was a split between the public employee unions that do so much to finance Democratic campaigns and the gentry liberals who provide Democratic votes in places like Manhattan, the Montgomery County suburbs of Maryland, and Northwest Washington, D.C. And in each case the public employee unions won.

The most disastrous election result, at least for school children, is the loss of Mayor Adrian Fenty whose hiring of school chief Michelle Rhee gained accolades from school reformers across the nation and an equal amount of opprobrium from unions. Fenty lost to ultra lib Vincent Gray — a wholly bought union hack — who has promised to dump reformer Rhee and kowtow to all teacher’s union demands.
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Unions: Democrat’s Own Extremists Taking The Local Parties Over?”

Democrats/Leftists - Elections - Government - Liberals - Public Employees Unions - Unions - Warner Todd Huston

Unions Retreat on Criticism of Dems That Didn’t Support Obamacare

September 22, 2010 by 3 Comments

-By Warner Todd Huston

Earlier in this election cycle unions were pumped up with an assumed sense of supreme power, they had spent millions to elect their guy to the White House and they were ready to flex their muscles. Unions began to direct that assumed power against Democrats that were reticent to support Obama’s takeover of our healthcare system. In some early primaries unions spoke out against these so-called Blue-dog Democrats and said they would not support them but at the other end of this primary season unions are singing a different tune.

With the obvious downturn in support that Democrats have seen in these primaries and in the polls of American voters unions have gotten the hint (like a club over the head) that the arrogance they evinced of daring to attack Democrats for not having a pure enough devotion to union ideals was maybe not such a great idea.
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Unions Retreat on Criticism of Dems That Didn’t Support Obamacare”

AFL-CIO - Barack Obama - Budget - Business - Capitalism - Congress - Democrats/Leftists - Economy/Finances - Elections - Government - Labor Law - Liberals - Pensions - President - Public Employees Unions - Taxes - Unions - Warner Todd Huston

Unions Struggling to Get Members to Rally Behind Dems

September 18, 2010 by

-By Warner Todd Huston

When voters are not enthused even unions find it harder to get their supporters to rally to an election and this is one of the worst years for Democrats on record. Unions are finding their efforts hard slogging just like the rest of the Democrat Party is. It’s so bad even The New York Times is reporting the Union’s woes.

As we’ve repeatedly talked about here, The Times reports that Big Labor is pumping millions into the Democrat’s pockets in hopes of fighting off the conservative Tea Party enthusiasm out there this election year. Apparently, though, unions are finding that, like other Democrat constituencies, their members are not “feeling particularly enthusiastic about the party.”

Unions have been bitterly disappointed by Obama. When they voted for him only 2 years ago they thought that they had won the battle for all the freebies and payoffs that they’d ever want. But they’ve been frustrated by key losses — such as an inability to get cap and trade, green initiatives, and their most desired legislation the Employee Free Trade Act (EFCA).
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Unions Struggling to Get Members to Rally Behind Dems”

AFSCME - Budget - Business - Democrats/Leftists - Economy/Finances - Government - Health - Jobs - Liberals - Michigan - Public Employees Unions - SEIU - Taxes - UAW - Unions - Warner Todd Huston

Michigan Home Healthcare Workers Sue State Over Forced Unionization

September 16, 2010 by 2 Comments

-By Warner Todd Huston

So imagine that you are working out of your home or the home of a friend. Say you are helping care for your own developmentally disabled relative or that of another. You are working for a family, not a company, and you are not employed by the state. Then one day you get a letter in the mail that says you have been forced by the state to join a union and henceforth you will be paying dues by having some of your salary removed by the state and given to the union. Does this sound like you are living and working in America? It is if you are a home healthcare worker in the State of Michigan.

Because of a special deal made behind the scenes between Mich. Gov. Jennifer Granholm and two unions, the United Auto Workers (UAW) and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), Michigan’s 40,000 in-home healthcare workers were unionized by a shady “vote” of less than 20% of these workers in 2006 via a mail-in ballot that most workers had no idea even existed.

The forced unionization has been in and out of courts since 2006 and now it is about to go back in again as a group of in-home healthcare workers is suing the state for driving them into a union against their will.
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Michigan Home Healthcare Workers Sue State Over Forced Unionization”

Budget - Democrats/Leftists - Economy/Finances - Elections - Government - Jobs - Liberals - Oregon - Pensions - Public Employees Unions - Taxes - Unions - Warner Todd Huston

Members of Oregon’s State Employee Unions Get 5% Pay Raises… as Taxpayers Lose Jobs!

September 3, 2010 by

-By Warner Todd Huston

Unbelievable. In Oregon the reg’lar folks are losing their jobs right and left. And the bad luck for those actually paying the bills, the taxpayers, gets even worse because Oregon’s politicians have made sure that the state’s public employees unions get an automatic 5% pay raise starting this Wednesday!

5 percent pay increase for state union employees begins Wednesday

SALEM (AP) — A step pay increase of nearly 5 percent for Oregon state workers represented by unions goes into effect Wednesday.
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Members of Oregon’s State Employee Unions Get 5% Pay Raises… as Taxpayers Lose Jobs!”

California - Democrats/Leftists - Elections - Government - Liberals - Lobbyists - Public Employees Unions - Unions - Warner Todd Huston

Calif. Unions Already Spent $14 Million In Elections

September 2, 2010 by

-By Warner Todd Huston

The L.A. Times recently reported that in California unions have already spent $14 million to defeat Republicans in California’s coming elections. This is what any Republican has to face anywhere in the country, though not always at such a high spending rate.

The fact is that when Republicans run for office they face not only the campaign coffers of their Democrat opponent, but they also face the millions of dollars that public employee unions and other far left-wing advocacy groups will spend against them. Rarely do Republicans find much support from high-spending outside forces in anywhere near the same numbers that Democrats command.

While many of Californian’s Democrats have yet to put much of their campaign cash into the race, unions have more than made up for that lack of spending.
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Calif. Unions Already Spent $14 Million In Elections”

Budget - Business - Democrats/Leftists - Economy/Finances - Government - Jobs - Liberals - Pensions - Public Employees Unions - Taxes - Unions - Warner Todd Huston

The Arrogance of The Public Employee Union Member

August 31, 2010 by

-By Warner Todd Huston

In a recent story detailing the efforts of 3,000 postal employee union members marching against USPS management in Detroit, one quote by a union member stuck me as wholly emblematic of the arrogance of government employee union members and it shows the disconnect between the real world and the cushy world of government workers.

As the 3,000 postal workers marched against proposed cuts in the U.S. Post office, tucked at the bottom of the Detroit Free Press piece was a quote by post office employee Kim Sauceda, of Tallevast, Florida.

“People have gone from being very confident and sure that this is a lifetime career to now not being so sure.”

Notice how this government employee imagined that her position with the USPS is supposed to be a never ending, permanent job? This shocking sense of entitlement does not exist outside of public employees unions.
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The Arrogance of The Public Employee Union Member”

Budget - Democrats/Leftists - Economy/Finances - Elections - Government - Illinois - Liberals - Pensions - Public Employees Unions - SEIU - Taxes - Unions - Warner Todd Huston

State Pensions are Unsustainable, Taxpayers Left with Huge Bill

August 30, 2010 by

-By Warner Todd Huston

Once again Bill Zettler has a great piece on the mess that is public employee pensions in Illinois. He makes an extremely relevant point asking the question of why the taxpayers are stuck paying off government worker’s pensions to the tune of billions while the employees themselves only have to pay a measly 8% contribution to their own funds?

In the private sector, Zettler points out, pension contributions by the workers rarely dip below 11% but these government workers are asked to contribute a scant 8% for theirs leaving the taxpayers on the hook for most of the rest of the payouts.

Why is that? Well it’s because pliant politicians that have pockets full of public employee union members donations have fixed the contributions at the low 8% level.

This needs to change.
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State Pensions are Unsustainable, Taxpayers Left with Huge Bill”

Barack Obama - Budget - Democrats/Leftists - Government - Liberals - Pensions - President - Public Employees Unions - Regulation - Taxes - Unions - Warner Todd Huston

Now Democrats Want Another $34 Billion to Bailout Teamsters Pension

August 21, 2010 by 1 Comment

-By Warner Todd Huston

When will Obama’s gifts to unions (at the expense of the taxpayers) ever end? On the heels of a $26.1 billion teacher union bailout, now Democrats are attempting to get Congress to give $34 billion of the taxpayer’s money to the Teamsters because that union has mishandled its pension funds.

Senators Robert Casey (D., Pa.) and Rep. Earl Pomeroy (D., N.D.) are now pushing the bill that will bailout the Teamsters pension fund by altering the U.S. Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp. which currently charges insurance rates to the funds it helps to solvency. Under new rules the help the PBGC offers troubled pension funds will now just end up coming out of federal funds.

As Kevin D. Williamson of National Review informs us, as the PBGC law stands now the obligations that PBGC takes on to help “orphan pensions” are not obligations of the U.S. government. “Casey-Pomeroy would reverse that,” Williamson tells us, “mandating that “‘obligations of the corporation that are financed by the [fifth fund] shall be obligations of the United States.'” Yep, another gigantic bailout.
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Now Democrats Want Another $34 Billion to Bailout Teamsters Pension”

Anti-Americanism - Barack Obama - Budget - Children - Congress - Democrats/Leftists - Economy/Finances - Education - Elections - Government - House of Representatives - Jobs - Liberals - Lobbyists - Nancy Pelosi - Pensions - Politicians - Public Employees Unions - Stimulus - Taxes - Teachers Unions - Unions - Warner Todd Huston

Obama’s Union Bailout: A Good Crisis Going to Waste

August 20, 2010 by

-By Warner Todd Huston

Even the New York Times can’t ignore the fact that Obama’s latest union bailout cash isn’t going to help anyone keep their jobs, and The New York Times is really good at ignoring things that make Democrats look bad.

A few weeks ago Nancy Pelosi called the House of Representatives back into a special session because there was a crisis in education, don’t you know. It was a crisis that she didn’t want to go to waste, naturally. As Speaker of the House she had the power — one likely to evaporate with the 2010 elections — to help Barack Obama give his union pals another $26.1 billion of the taxpayer’s money and she couldn’t resist the urge to fill pockets with other’s people’s money at least one more time.

Early in August, Pelosi triumphantly announced on her Twitter feed, “I will be calling the House back into session early next week to save teachers’ jobs and help seniors & children.”

We’re helping old people, it’s for the children, we are saving teacher’s jobs. It’s a crisis that we can’t ignore, darn it! Yes, Rahm, it’s also a crisis that we can’t let go to waste.
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Obama’s Union Bailout: A Good Crisis Going to Waste”

Barack Obama - Budget - Crime - Democrats/Leftists - DOL - Economy/Finances - Elections - Government - Liberals - President - Public Employees Unions - Taxes - Unions - Warner Todd Huston

For the Third Time Obama Gives Unions A Break From Transparency Rules

August 19, 2010 by 1 Comment

-By Warner Todd Huston

The Obama administration and the Democrat Party has yet again instituted new rules to allow unions to get out of having to report their financial doings to the federal government by again rolling back reporting requirements.

Obviously as far as Obama is concerned “transparency” is one of those things that only enemies should be forced to observe. If you are an Obama friend, no transparency is required.

It is interesting to note the language that Democrats used to excuse their newest roll back of transparency requirements, too (my bold).
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For the Third Time Obama Gives Unions A Break From Transparency Rules”

Britain - Budget - Democrats/Leftists - Economy/Finances - Europe - Free Trade - Government - Liberals - Pensions - Public Employees Unions - Taxes - Unions - Warner Todd Huston

Even The Brits Realize Pensions Are Too High

August 16, 2010 by

-By Warner Todd Huston

Long ago the British stopped being a capitalist country and adopted instead a quasi-socialist system. But even they are beginning to realize that people cannot retire at 65 (or even younger) and live in luxury for another 20 or so years afterward all on the public dime. This month the Cameron government took another small and politically difficult step toward addressing the mounting pension crisis in England.

News of the newest fix to the British pension system is being sold to the public by the media as an alarming “25% cut in benefits” for pensioners. But the fact is that these pensions were too high for a long time and this new scheme was inevitable due to the falling number of workers, the rising number of retirees, and the longer life spans that retirees now enjoy — a situation nearly every western nation is confronting.
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Even The Brits Realize Pensions Are Too High”

California - Children - Democrats/Leftists - Government - Liberals - Public Employees Unions - Teachers Unions - Unions - Warner Todd Huston

Calif. Teachers Unions Endangering Kid’s Lives

August 15, 2010 by

-By Warner Todd Huston

Reason Magazine explores the appalling situation in California where teachers unions were able to strongarm the legislature to deny teacher training for the use of Diastat, an anti-seizure drug meant to keep kids afflicted with epileptic conditions from dying in school.

The drug has been approved by the federal government to be administered by non-medical personnel through the delivery system approved and widely distributed, but teachers unions opposed this safe delivery system and the brief teacher training program. The unions claimed it was because they were trying to make sure that kids were “safe,” but the real reason is that the unions were just trying to increase the number of union member’s jobs in schools. Far from helping save kid’s live, the unions were trying to create jobs for themselves.

You see, the unions feared that if this drug were approved to be administered to afflicted kids by non-medical personnel then schools might fire school nurses. It isn’t about kid’s health. It’s about union jobs.


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Calif. Teachers Unions Endangering Kid’s Lives”

Budget - Chicago - Children - Cook County - Democrats/Leftists - Economy/Finances - Government - Illinois State Government - Jobs - Liberals - Lobbyists - Public Employees Unions - Taxes - Teachers Unions - Unions - Warner Todd Huston

New Chicago Teachers Union Head is Same-Old-Same-Old

August 14, 2010 by

-By Warner Todd Huston

New Chicago public teachers union chief Karen Lewis could have come into office as a visionary that would bring some sanity to teachers union bloated demands in this era of the worst economy since the Great Depression. She could have seen the good sense of lowering expectations. She could have taken the stance of refusing to take pay raises for Chicago’s teachers as a motion of good faith in negotiating. Unfortunately, Lewis has proven herself to void of vision and stuck in the 1990s by continuing obscene union demands of constant raises and ever greater perks for union members.

In a day when unions are losing the last shred of good will that they once enjoyed in the public, Karen Lewis stood stiff-necked and refused to compromise with Chicago School head Ron Huberman. Lewis rejected giving up an automatic 4% raise in exchange for preventing layoffs.

She’d rather grab for the cash than save teacher’s jobs.
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New Chicago Teachers Union Head is Same-Old-Same-Old”

Budget - Democrats/Leftists - Economy/Finances - Government - Liberals - Pensions - Public Employees Unions - Taxes - Teachers Unions - Unions - Warner Todd Huston

Pensions That Exceed Base Pay, Blame Unions

August 12, 2010 by

-By Warner Todd Huston

For the New York Daily News Eileen Norcross and Todd Zywicki penned a piece taking public employees pensions to task for being “too rich for America’s blood.” Of course, they rightly blame unions and compliant politicians for the disaster.

The do, however, give the actual public employees a pass. On one hand you might think that the employees are practically innocent, but you can;t avoid the simple truth that they allowed their unions to run amuck. In fact, the members insisted that the unions grab all they could whether it was good for the nation or not.

The writers focus on cops and firemen and still deny that these workers had any part in the mess. But as public servants, cops and firemen especially should have realized that they were going badly off track and were not serving the public but raping them.
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Pensions That Exceed Base Pay, Blame Unions”

Budget - Democrats/Leftists - Economy/Finances - Government - Jobs - Public Employees Unions - Taxes - Unions - Warner Todd Huston

Win The Lottery, Work for the Government

August 11, 2010 by

-By Warner Todd Huston

It’s settled. People that play the lottery should lay down their scratchoff coins and take up an employment application to work for the government. After all, winning the lottery is a one-in-a-million proposition but if you get a job with the government your hitting the lottery seems to be a sure thing.

USA Today is reporting that federal workers are earning double their private sector counterparts these days. So, you see, all you have to do to get rich, apparently, is to go to work for government.

The reports tells us that federal workers have been the lucky recipients of bigger than average pay and benefit increases than those of the private sector for the last nine years in a row. It also finds that “the compensation gap between federal and private workers has doubled in the past decade.”
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Win The Lottery, Work for the Government”

Budget - Business - Democrats/Leftists - Economy/Finances - Government - Illinois - Illinois State Government - Jobs - Liberals - Lobbyists - Pensions - Public Employees Unions - Taxes - Teachers Unions - Unions - Warner Todd Huston

Outrageous Pensions Turning Ill. Teachers into Millionaires

August 10, 2010 by

-By Warner Todd Huston

Over at Champion News Bill Zettler has been doing a fantastic job of following and chronicling the completely out of control pensions of Illinois public employees and this week he asks why Governor Quinn wants to raise taxes just to make millionaires of retiring teachers.

Zettler found two teachers that will be making in excess of a million dollars in pension payouts.

Check out this obscene total:
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Outrageous Pensions Turning Ill. Teachers into Millionaires”

Fox News - Media - Pensions - Warner Todd Huston

Looks Like I’ll Be on Fox Business Channel at 3PM Central Today

August 5, 2010 by

-By Warner Todd Huston

As of right now I’ll be live on FoxNews Business Channel’s “Money Rocks” today at 3pm CT. We’re talking the Illinois pension mess.

Of course, you know how TV is. I may get down there and get all ready and they may bump my segment. So, we can only cross our fingers and hope it all goes according to plan.

**UPDATE**

Well, I just got back from the studio and the Show went well. Live video to New York for about three minutes duration.

I have to say that TV always makes me laugh.

Here is how it goes: I get contacted anywhere from 9AM to 11AM. I call back. They tell me what the show is and the topic and maybe ask for a few facts to be emailed back to them. They send a limo. I get in for the 1 hour trip to Chicago. I get makeup and wait for my spot. I get on the air for two to five minutes. I get back in the limo for another hour or so trip back home.

Yep, all that for about two to five minutes of live video. All that expense for two to five minutes.

What a racket, eh?

But I always enjoy it, anyway.

Budget - Democrats/Leftists - Government - Jobs - Liberals - New York - Pensions - Public Employees Unions - Taxes - Unions - Warner Todd Huston

Bought and Paid For Gov. Finds Doing Right Thing Hard

July 28, 2010 by

-By Warner Todd Huston

The unions in New York have the idea that they own state government. It’s not too easy to deny their claim seeing as how unions (all of them) have been paying the bills and filling the pockets of ruling Democrats for decades now.

But Accidental Governor of New York David Paterson is finding himself in a quandary, one that more and more politicians are finding themselves in these days. These pols are finding that doing the right thing is hard when all your financial backers don’t want you to do the right thing at all.

Like most deep blue states, New York is about bankrupt without having to say it out loud. Its financial responsibilities far out pace its treasury. From state pensions, welfare, Medicaid and healthcare, to the simple day-to-day operations of operating a government, New York State is unable to pay its way.
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Bought and Paid For Gov. Finds Doing Right Thing Hard”

Barack Obama - Budget - Business - Children - Democrats/Leftists - Education - Government - Liberals - President - Public Employees Unions - Taxes - Teachers Unions - Unions - Warner Todd Huston

Teachers Unions Spent $100 Per Teacher on Politics

July 23, 2010 by

-By Warner Todd Huston

Education Next undertook for the first time an effort to find out how much of their members dues money that teachers unions spent on political action. The results are very interesting. The analysis discovered that, “national teachers unions and their state affiliates spent more than $100 per teacher in five states, with Oregon at the top of the list at $360 per teacher during the 2007-08 election cycle.”

Much of this money was spent to attempt to control the political debate above and beyond mere issues of education. Teachers unions spent millions trying to affect the political debate on taxes, housing, healthcare, gay marriage, congressional redistricting, and a whole raft of issues that as teachers they have precisely nothing to do with.
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Teachers Unions Spent $100 Per Teacher on Politics”

Anti-Americanism - Budget - Business - Chicago - Cook County - Democrats/Leftists - Economy/Finances - Education - Government - Jobs - Lake County - Liberals - Public Employees Unions - Taxes - Teachers Unions - Unions - Warner Todd Huston

For All Teachers’ Whining, Almost Half of Chicago Area Teachers Make $100K a Year

July 19, 2010 by 1 Comment

-By Warner Todd Huston

As the Obama economy tumbles farther and farther down into depression, as states begin to face the reality of a budget crunch that can only be solved by layoffs of public employees, and as teachers find they are open to those layoffs, we commonly hear teachers claim that they are perennially underpaid and don’t deserve layoffs. Yet the Chicago Tribune has found that nearly half the teachers in many of Chicago’s ritziest suburbs are making over $100,000 a year in salary.

The Tribune reviewed the salary information of 132,000 Illinois teachers and in Highland Park, Deerfield, Park Ridge, Hinsdale, and other Chicago area suburbs it found that in some cases half the teachers — and in other cases over 40% — make $100K yearly (not including benefits) even as the educational system in Illinois crying poor and cutting staff.
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For All Teachers’ Whining, Almost Half of Chicago Area Teachers Make $100K a Year”

Business - Democrats/Leftists - Economy/Finances - Government - Jobs - Labor Law - Liberals - New York - Public Employees Unions - Unions - Warner Todd Huston

No Problems With Union Nap Time

July 15, 2010 by

-By Warner Todd Huston

Do you get paid to sleep on the job? The union employees of New York’s Metropolitan Transit Authority apparently do. And if caught sleeping on the job, the punishment seems to be just a slap on the wrist, a wink and a nod, and business as usual afterward. All at $33 dollars an hour of the taxpayer’s money.

Must be nice “work” if you can get it?

Arnold Ahlert tells us of parking lots filled with MTA employee’s cars many of which contain pillows and blankets, supervisors locking themselves in offices for a soothing nap, and unions fighting to prevent any attempt to stop the outrageous practice of union members sleeping on the job.

Ahlert is yet another voice echoing our contention that unions are antithetical to good government.
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No Problems With Union Nap Time”

Budget - Business - Chicago - Democrats/Leftists - Economy/Finances - Elections - Government - Illinois - Illinois State Government - Liberals - Pensions - Public Employees Unions - State Government - Taxes - Unions - Warner Todd Huston

Illinois Pension Problems and What to Do About Them, By Bill Zetter

July 15, 2010 by

The folks at ChampionNews.net have a series of articles about the mess that Illinois public employees pensions is in that is must reading. The articles are penned by expert Bill Zetter.

Of course, the pension mess is the single biggest trouble that Illinois (and most other states) face today. It is a ticking time bomb…. heck its a bomb exploding already, albeit in slow motion.

Here is what they’ve posted thus far:

Back To the Pension Future: What Did We Actually Guarantee?

Illinois Pensions: Rob the Poor and Give It to the Rich
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Illinois Pension Problems and What to Do About Them, By Bill Zetter”

Barack Obama - Business - Campaign Finance - Democrats/Leftists - Economy/Finances - Education - Elections - Government - Liberals - Public Employees Unions - Taxes - Teachers Unions - Unions - Warner Todd Huston

Another Sign of Unions Losing Allies

July 9, 2010 by

-By Warner Todd Huston

Again the New York Times reports on the confusion, anger, and loss of influence being experienced by shocked unions, this time teachers unions. Like the psychotic that lashes out at everyone around them when things are going wrong, at a New Orleans teachers union convention there is a lot of harsh words for former friends in the Obama administration the Times reports.

Listen to this falderal from Dennis Van Roekel, president of the National Education Association, as he spoke to the assembled, “This is not the change I hoped for… Today our members face the most anti-educator, anti-union, anti-student environment I have ever experienced.”
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Another Sign of Unions Losing Allies”