Union's Keep Pushing Taxes Higher in California

Who can forget the Chicago Teachers Union Activist above, but that attitude does not seem to be exclusive to Illinois.  California Gov. Jerry Brown is pushing a new scheme to force tax increases on the taxpayers in the Golden State and not surprisingly, it is the teacher's union pushing the plan behind the curtain?  From the OCRegister: Gov. Jerry Brown says the odds improved last week that voters will approve tax increases in November because he and the California Federation of Teachers merged their separate tax-raising schemes into one. This was not a compromise. Mr. Brown caved in to union pressure. Public employee unions were major financial backers of the governor's 2010 election campaign. In seeking huge tax increases to pay for government spending, he is doing unions' bidding. By merging initiatives, Mr. Brown agreed to reduce the increase he sought in the sales tax from a half cent to a quarter cent. But he agreed to seek a larger income-tax increase tax on more-affluent taxpayers. The new initiative would raise the top tax rate by 1 percent for those earning $250,000, 2 percent for incomes exceeding $300,000 and 3 percent on $500,000 and more. The state's top rate already is 10.3 percent, for those earning $1 million a year. The combined initiative is projected to raise $9 billion compared with the $7 billion the governor previously proposed. The tax increases would last seven years, rather than the previous five years.

Union's Keep Pushing Taxes Higher in California

Who can forget the Chicago Teachers Union Activist above, but that attitude does not seem to be exclusive to Illinois.  California Gov. Jerry Brown is pushing a new scheme to force tax increases on the taxpayers in the Golden State and not surprisingly, it is the teacher's union pushing the plan behind the curtain?  From the OCRegister: Gov. Jerry Brown says the odds improved last week that voters will approve tax increases in November because he and the California Federation of Teachers merged their separate tax-raising schemes into one. This was not a compromise. Mr. Brown caved in to union pressure. Public employee unions were major financial backers of the governor's 2010 election campaign. In seeking huge tax increases to pay for government spending, he is doing unions' bidding. By merging initiatives, Mr. Brown agreed to reduce the increase he sought in the sales tax from a half cent to a quarter cent. But he agreed to seek a larger income-tax increase tax on more-affluent taxpayers. The new initiative would raise the top tax rate by 1 percent for those earning $250,000, 2 percent for incomes exceeding $300,000 and 3 percent on $500,000 and more. The state's top rate already is 10.3 percent, for those earning $1 million a year. The combined initiative is projected to raise $9 billion compared with the $7 billion the governor previously proposed. The tax increases would last seven years, rather than the previous five years.
Wisconsin Reality vs. Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn's "Reality Rendezvous"

Wisconsin Reality vs. Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn's "Reality Rendezvous"

Imagine what would happen in Wisconsin if they gave private sector employees the same freedoms. "Our rendezvous with reality has arrived."  That is what Illinois Governor Pat Quinn said this week as he unveiled his state budget.  Their economic slap in the face comes nearly one year after we took steps to get our fiscal house in order. As we were passing legislation requiring state employees and teachers to make modest contributions to their health insurance and pensions to help offset necessary cuts, Quinn and Democrats in Illinois passed massive tax increases. I told you then that our path, although a more difficult one, was the correct path to take.  Now, it couldn't be more clear that we were right.  We closed a massive $3.6 billion budget deficit without raising taxes and without massive layoffs. Illinois, meanwhile, is in even more economic peril because of  tax increases that clobbered their families and businesses.  To try to fix the mess he created, Governor Quinn is out with a budget that proposes the closing of numerous prisons, 60 state offices, laying off 1,100 state employees and cutting Medicaid by $2.7 billion. It's so bad that $8 billion in bills would still go unpaid and state worker pensions costs will rise by more than $1 billion.  Even faced with that, Quinn and Illinois democrats are refusing to tackle the issue, instead calling on "task forces" to be created to look into ways to reign in skyrocketing health care and pension costs.
Wisconsin Reality vs. Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn's

Wisconsin Reality vs. Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn's "Reality Rendezvous"

Imagine what would happen in Wisconsin if they gave private sector employees the same freedoms. "Our rendezvous with reality has arrived."  That is what Illinois Governor Pat Quinn said this week as he unveiled his state budget.  Their economic slap in the face comes nearly one year after we took steps to get our fiscal house in order. As we were passing legislation requiring state employees and teachers to make modest contributions to their health insurance and pensions to help offset necessary cuts, Quinn and Democrats in Illinois passed massive tax increases. I told you then that our path, although a more difficult one, was the correct path to take.  Now, it couldn't be more clear that we were right.  We closed a massive $3.6 billion budget deficit without raising taxes and without massive layoffs. Illinois, meanwhile, is in even more economic peril because of  tax increases that clobbered their families and businesses.  To try to fix the mess he created, Governor Quinn is out with a budget that proposes the closing of numerous prisons, 60 state offices, laying off 1,100 state employees and cutting Medicaid by $2.7 billion. It's so bad that $8 billion in bills would still go unpaid and state worker pensions costs will rise by more than $1 billion.  Even faced with that, Quinn and Illinois democrats are refusing to tackle the issue, instead calling on "task forces" to be created to look into ways to reign in skyrocketing health care and pension costs.
Big Labor; Big Money; Big Lies

Big Labor; Big Money; Big Lies

Brietbart.com looks at the upcoming torrent of political spending fueled by forced union dues money: The largest American labor federation promised this week it would launch the most aggressive campaign effort in the labor movement's history, tapping at least 400,000 union members to fill the voter contact and get-out-the-vote voids in the larger Democratic operation. AFL-CIO chief Richard Trumka formally endorsed President Barack Obama on Wednesday, though it came as no particular surprise: labor's 2008 contributions to Democratic candidates neared a record half-billion dollar threshold. All while draining pension funds, the same groups have pledged to contribute another $400 million to the president's reelection effort later this year, putting Big Labor’s total contribution to Barack Obama’s political career at well over a billion dollars. But the presidential contest is just one front of a grand operation wherein a number of marquee statewide races -- gubernatorial and legislative bouts in Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio, Indiana and Minnesota are said to register atop their agenda -- will be targeted.
Teacher Union Local Hauled-in more than $139 million, Spent Lavishly on Staff

Teacher Union Local Hauled-in more than $139 million, Spent Lavishly on Staff

New York's forced dues have been very good to teacher union bosses according to a report release by the Education Intelligence Agency.  And, New York teachers aren't the only ones paying for extravagant union boss salaries and benefits: Top 36 Teacher Union Locals Took In $337.7 Million. For the first time ever, the Education Intelligence Agency has compiled in one table the finances of the highest-earning teacher union local affiliates in the nation. Using Internal Revenue Service data from the 2009-10 school year, the table, posted on the EIA web site, contains revenue information and employee compensation figures for each K-12 teacher union local affiliate that accumulated more than $2 million in total revenue that year. The 36 affiliates that met the threshold received $337.7 million in total revenue. Topping the list was the United Federation of Teachers in New York City with more than $139 million - a 1 percent increase over 2008-09. UFT also had the highest employee compensation expenditures - a 12.8 percent increase to $47 million. United Teachers Los Angeles ranked a distance second with more than $44.4 million in revenue, while the Chicago Teachers Union ranked third with almost $30.1 million. The top 15 locals were all either American Federation of Teacher affiliates or merged NEA/AFT affiliates, highlighting the difference in structures of the two organizations. NEA's state affiliates are the primary source of funds and services while in AFT the locals rule the roost. The highest-earning "NEA only" local was the Milwaukee Teachers Education Association at $4.3 million. Of the 36 locals listed, 27 saw boosts in revenue over the previous year, but some experienced financial difficulties. The Detroit and Cleveland locals were forced to use dues revenue to cover investment losses.
Union Bosses Raid Pensions

Union Bosses Raid Pensions

Taxpayers are footing the bill and business is getting the blame for the pension crisis in California but the real culprit is the union bosses of the Golden State, the Investors Business Daily reports: Reports from a variety of media reveal California state employees are spiking their pensions to stratospheric levels, leaving nothing for their brother employees. Sorry, can't blame Wall Street for this one. In a laudable instance of the mainstream media doing its job, the Los Angeles Times, the Sacramento Bee, Bloomberg News and City Journal have all exposed "pension spiking" by California public employees. Basically, they manipulate rigid unionized pay and promotion systems to raise their pensions well above what they earned during their working years. The Los Angeles Times on Saturday pieced together tough-to-get data from Kern and Ventura counties and found a fiscal horror story: In Kern, 77% of public employees with pensions greater than $100,000 actually get more than they did during their working lives. In Ventura, the figure is 84%. Kern has a $761 million pension shortfall, in part due to the practice. Both the practice and the lack of transparency are signs of a rotten system. Bigger counties like San Diego and Los Angeles also permit pension spiking.
It's a Civil Right to Join or Not Join a Union without coercion

It's a Civil Right to Join or Not Join a Union without coercion

The latest poll driven rhetoric from the union bosses is the claim that union compulsion should be a civil right under color of law.  Anthony Davies, a professor at Duquesne University looks behind the rhetoric noting that the problem with Big Labor's proposed law because it makes compulsory unionism a 'right' for Big Labor while taking away from employees' freedom to not join or be compelled to pay tribute to a union boss. A recent op-ed in The New York Times called for new labor laws that will ensure that workers have the right to organize labor unions. These laws already exist, so what are unions griping about? It’s not that workers are being prevented from unionizing. The problem, as unions see it, is that it is too difficult to force workers to unionize. Free workers have weighed the costs and benefits of today’s unions and most have freely chosen to do without them. It is this free will that unions — and their advocates on the country’s op-ed pages — seek to quash. Union membership in the private sector has fallen to 7% not because unions have failed, but because they have done so well that — at least for the present — they are no longer needed. The exploitation of employees by their employers is a thing of the past; in fact, nowadays it seems like we’re more likely to hear about union bosses exploiting union members than about employers exploiting employees. Today, no matter how much labor leaders and their advocates pretend otherwise, labor reform means reforming unions.