Big Labor's Payoff

Big Labor's Payoff

Posted 05/25/2010 06:29 PM ET

Unions: Those who give to politicians expect a lot in return. That's clear from the budget-busting payoffs directed largely at organized labor by Democrats in Congress and the White House.

A bill making its way through the Senate would bail out union pension funds to the tune of $165 billion. The bill's author, Democratic Sen. Bob Casey of Pennsylvania, wants the public to pay for the gold-plated union retirement benefits that the funds have mismanaged into oblivion.

This has to be galling to average working saps who watch as their 401(k)s and IRAs plummet, only to be asked to pony up billions of dollars in subsidies for unionized workers — many of whom get to retire into the lap of unlabored luxury while still in their 50s.

Casey's bill isn't the only gift that the White House and Congress have for the unions. Last year, economist and columnist Ben Stein estimated that as much as half of the $862 billion stimulus would go to unions, directly or indirectly. Even that might underestimate organized labor's take.

And just last week, the White House proposed $23 billion in aid to states for education. For education? Well, in point of fact, increased federal involvement in education has had zero positive effect on test scores.

So this money has nothing to do with "the children" or schooling. It has everything to do with teacher unions, which will see billions in payouts from money ostensibly intended for school kids.

In short: bailouts for the unions; higher taxes and penury for you.

So beholden to the unions have the Democrats become, it's fair to say they are a de facto Organized Labor Party — a far more accurate name than "Democrats."

Don't agree? According to OpenSecrets.org, 12 of the 20 biggest spenders on public elections since 1989 have been unions. In just the 2008 election alone, unions spent $400 million dollars. Virtually all of it went to Democrats.

This shocks even those on the left. "Four hundred million dollars on one election cycle," wrote David Macaray of the lefty CounterPunch, a Web magazine. "What on God's earth were they thinking?"

Well, now they're getting their payback — kickbacks, if you will — in the form of massive, billion-dollar public projects that come straight from the pockets of nonunion taxpayers and add further to the fiscal ruin of our nation, now $13 trillion — and rising — in debt.