The Unions vs the Greedy Capitalists

Though it pains me to say it, because I generally find her to be irritating at best, Ann Coulter is right-on in her "Look For the Union Fable" article:

Quoting Ann Coulter:

The need for a union comes down to this question: Do you have a boss who wants you to work harder for less money?  In the private sector, the answer is yes.  In the public sector, the answer is a big, fat NO.

Government unions have nothing in common with private sector unions because they don’t have hostile management on the other side of the bargaining table.  To the contrary, the "bosses" of government employees are co-conspirators with them in bilking the taxpayers.

Far from being careful stewards of the taxpayers’ money, politicians are on the same side of the bargaining table as government employees -- against the taxpayers, who aren’t allowed to be part of the negotiation.  This is why the head of New York’s largest public union in the mid-’70s, Victor Gotbaum, gloated, "We have the ability to elect our own boss."

Democratic politicians don’t think of themselves as "management."  They don’t respond to union demands for more money by saying, "Are you kidding me?"  They say, "Great -- get me a raise too!"

Democrats buy the votes of government workers with generous pay packages and benefits -- paid for by someone else -- and then expect a kickback from the unions in the form of hefty campaign donations, rent-a-mobs and questionable union political activity when they run for re-election. [...]

Anytime there is the slightest suggestion that perhaps in the middle of a deep recession, public school teachers should pay 1.5 percent of their salaries toward their extravagant health care plans for their entire families, suddenly we get television ads of hard-working men doing dangerous jobs on docks and in foundries while being abused by their greedy capitalist overseers.

The unions must be desperately hoping that no one will notice ... Wait a minute!  WE’RE TALKING ABOUT TEACHERS!  This isn’t the Discovery Channel’s "Dirty Jobs" -- it’s Mrs. Cooper’s seventh-grade "values clarification" class. [...]

But government workers think the job of everyone else in the economy is to protect their high salaries, crazy work rules and obscene pensions.  They self-righteously lecture us about public service, the children, a "living wage" -- all in the service of squeezing more money from the taxpayer to fund their breathtakingly selfish job arrangements.

There’s never a recession if you work for the government.  The counties with the highest per capita income aren’t near New York City or Los Angeles -- they’re in the Washington, D.C., area -- a one-company town where the company is the government.  The three counties with the highest incomes in the entire country are all suburbs of Washington.  Eleven of the 25 counties with the highest incomes are near Washington.

For decades now, the Democrats have had a good gig buying the votes of government workers with outrageous salaries, benefits and work rules -- and then sticking productive earners with the bill.  But, now, we’re out of money, no matter how long Wisconsin Democrats hide out in Illinois.