Monday, August 02, 2010

Public Servants are our Masters

It's August. Will Dems hold townhall meetings? More public sector piggishness revealed. More Big Government running and ruining our lives. Via Capital Fax: Chicago ranks 2nd in U.S. in percentage of union workers

About 17.5 percent of employees in the Chicago area belong to a union, according to 2009 data from the Union Membership and Coverage Database. Most Chicago members are in the public sector, which is 54.7 percent unionized, while the private sector is 11.4 percent union.

And this: City discloses $655-million 2011 budget hole

Is there a connection here? And then you have a big Dem Chicago suburb ripping people off:Park district pension ploy pays off handsomely Park executives in Highland Park collected huge salaries, bonuses — even a free SUV — during height of recession

Back in the day unions made some sense to protect vulnerable individuals from large corporate entities. That pretty much doesn't make sense any more as most private sector unions have gradually driven companies out of business, or as good as, like GM. But these days, most union members are in the public sector. Do they need protection? Michael Barone looks at another dismal state:

The defunct economist in this case is Keynes himself, who argued in the 1930s for the government to hire some men to dig holes and others to fill them up. Political Class voters, who wouldn't dream of digging holes themselves, still think this is a good idea. Most Americans don't.

Further evidence comes from a poll conducted by Magellan Data and Mapping Strategies in the always key state of Ohio, where unemployment is well above the national average and job growth has been minimal for a decade.

Registered voters were asked to choose responses to Ohio state government's $8 billion budget deficit. Only 16 percent favored increasing taxes, while 27 percent wanted to cut government services and a whopping 50 percent favored reducing the compensation packages of government workers. [snip]

These responses suggest a vivid awareness of the fact that while some 8 million private sector jobs have been lost in the recession, the number of public sector jobs has remained almost completely steady. The Obama Democrats' stimulus package, which directed one-third of its money to state and local governments, in effect insulated the public sector from the economic hurricane that has swept through the private sector.

It's time, Ohio voters seem to be saying, for government workers to share the pain the people who pay their salaries have been suffering.

Who looks out for taxpayer interests? Certainly not these "public servants". We don't get to award ourselves a pay increase at someone else's expense.

And as we know, these selfish slavering hogs are not just robbing us--they're robbing our children and grandchildren of a future.

...

Public servants are our masters, up to a point. Things fall apart: East St. Louis, Illinois

Unemployment Soars. Forbes

Pete Stark: ‘The Federal Government Can Do Most Anything in This Country’
The townhalls begin. More commentary at Breitbart and Memeorandum.

Christopher Hitchens: Hugo Boss. Well, at least we're not Venezuela with an openly crazy person in charge. [Or Russia yet.]

From the UK: When our servants are really our masters

Pushback. Legal Insurrection:Virginia Fed Ct Denies U.S. Motion To Dismiss Health Care Challenge - Copy and Analysis

More pushback. Via Doug Ross: Cuba Says It’s Planning on Scaling Back Its Communist Economic System…: WZ

Let the American Revolution begin again.

One more: Projection Alert: Obama Warns Against … Demagoguery!
HT Pundit & Pundette

OK, finally:) Kevin Williamson, NRO warns against hubris (too late):

For instance, I’d like to know whether he took any economics and how he did in those classes. I’m also curious about what his literary studies were: especially, I’d like to know whether the man who wrote two self-important memoirs before he’d done much of anything interesting with his life is sufficiently conversant with the concept of hubris that he might take a moment for self-examination — because, as the economy slows and the government debt stacks up, the hubris is not the only thing around here looking Greek and tragic.

Well, I think he probably learned his economics from Bill Ayers.

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