Missouri Unions and Andy Stern on the Same Page: Raise Taxes
With nearly every state looking to balance its budget, most are running up a deficit, traditional battle lines have been redrawn. In Missouri, union-backed Democratic legislators looking to balance their states budget have proposed tax increases. Instead of addressing the real reason for the deficit, a bloated infrastructure filled with overly compensated workers, Democrats prefer to raise taxes on Missourians rather than agitate their most loyal constituents.
If you ask Democrats, balancing the budget means higher taxes. That’s why Republicans refused to participate in the Conrad-Gregg budget commission this year. Grover Norquist said of this commission:
“The proposal put forth by Sens. Conrad and Gregg is a bad deal for taxpayers. As written, it will almost certainly lead to a repeat of the debacle at Andrews Air Force Base, the infamous 1990 budget deal, in which taxpayers were promised $2 in spending cuts for every $1 in tax increases, but were left higher taxes and higher spending instead.”
Similarly, the tax hike position Missouri unions have taken is hardly surprising and is likely to be echoed by Andy Stern at the “Deficit Panel.” As Alliance for Worker Freedom’s own Brian Johnson wrote on the pages of the Daily Caller:
“Mr. Stern will use this position to push policies that skew the market towards private sector unions in an attempt to revive what is a dying movement.”
Apart from Mr. Stern’s troubling ideology, his appointment is problematic for a variety of other reasons – namely his pending criminal investigation. In November 2009, the Alliance for Worker Freedom and Americans for Tax Reform requested the acting United States Attorney Channing Phillips investigate Mr. Stern. Specifically to determine whether Mr. Stern was engaged in unregistered lobbying, violating the Lobbying Disclosure Act (LDA), 2 U.S.C. 1601, et seq. Mr. Stern was a registered lobbyist for SEIU through January of 2007 until early campaign speeches by the President indicating his unwillingness to work with registered lobbyists, forced him to terminate his registration. Evidence suggests that Mr. Stern continues to lobby extensively after he terminated his registered status, and in 2009 devoted enough time to lobbying and covered activities by the LDA that he should have re-registered.
Here’s a fair and easy suggestion that you won’t hear out of Mr. Stern’s mouth but would help states and the federal government save millions: Compensate public workers the same as private workers. Currently, public workers are paid $11,000 more in wages and $30,000 more in retirement plans than private sector workers, on average. Eliminating this disparity would go a long way to help states balance their budgets, but I won’t hold my breath.
