“They” Have Names

They are coming to get you. Even The New York Times says so.

Public Workers Face Outrage as Budget Crises Grow

”Across the nation, a rising irritation with public employee unions is palpable, as a wounded economy has blown gaping holes in state, city and town budgets, and revealed that some public pension funds dangle perilously close to bankruptcy. In California, New York, Michigan and New Jersey, states where public unions wield much power and the culture historically tends to be pro-labor, even longtime liberal political leaders have demanded concessions — wage freezes, benefit cuts and tougher work rules.”

If you think that unions somehow deserve this -- or worse, that their members do -- you’ve fallen for the propaganda. What propaganda? Come on folks, anyone that has read my blog for any length of time will tell you that I’m not a political genius. And if I can warn you about a trend six months before the story hits The New York Times, you’ve got to understand that somebody is selling it.

”I’ve been hearing these noises from some of my conservative pilot friends for months so I knew the right-wing think tank echo machine was ginning up the issue. When I pointed out that I was one of those lazy, no count, union-member-public-employees I was assured they weren’t talking about me. They were talking about those lousy local and State government employees. Yeah. Right. Sure they are.”

I even told you who was selling it.

”It makes you wonder if that isn’t the reason some have chosen this moment in time to vilify government employees. (Be sure to notice the quote from Cato -- the libertarian side of the conservative think tank triumvirate.)”

Now, remember boys and girls, it was less than a week ago that I was pointing out that the Koch brothers baked the Cato pie and they cooked up The Reason Foundation (“Let’s privatize ATC”) while they were at at it. And don’t let the “state and local” qualifier fool you. They are coming after all unions and all government employees -- even the Federal ones.

”"You're going to see the same things that happened at the state level happening at the federal level," said Paul Posner, a former Government Accountability Office official who teaches at George Mason University.”

”"There's going to be a lot more oversight of the cost of federal employees," said Brian Riedl, a budget analyst at the Heritage Foundation think tank, which has been a leading critic of federal pay practices.”

Cato, George Mason, Heritage, American Enterprise Institute, Reason -- “they” have names.


Don Brown
January 3, 2010