Joe Biden, Schumer, Pelosi & Other Cronies Bail Out Big Labor with Your Money

Prosperous Right to Work States Punished For Their Success

Aided by a Democrat President they helped elect and 100% of the members of his party in the U.S. House and Senate, Big Labor bosses capitalized on the COVID-19 pandemic in a big way early this year. 

Using the widespread economic hardship caused by COVID-19 and the political response to it as an excuse, President Joe Biden and his D.C. cronies are now transferring hundreds of billions of dollars from hard-pressed federal taxpayers to union boss-dominated states and localities. 

These states and localities are fiscally struggling today primarily because of decades of budgetary and labor-policy mismanagement.

States That Have Succeeded In Keeping More People Employed Get Penalized

The gargantuan COVID-19 “stimulus” bill signed by President Joe Biden in March lavishly rewards Big Labor politicians like New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (pictured) for keeping unemployment in their states high. (Credit: Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images)

On March 11, the President signed into law a monstrous $1.9 trillion spending bill he and his allies brazenly sold as “stimulus” when the national economy was already roaring back from the COVID-19 recession, with first quarter GDP projected to expand at a 10% rate, according to the Atlanta Federal Reserve.

The $1.9 trillion in debt spending includes a flabbergasting $571 billion in state and local government bailouts.

And, as economist Stephen Moore explained in a recent syndicated commentary, roughly $400 billion is being allocated according to a formula that rewards forced-dues states like New York, California, and New Jersey that now have high unemployment because they continue to prohibit many businesses from reopening.

Meanwhile, Right to Work states like Florida and Tennessee, (in which businesses of all kinds have been allowed to reopen, without measurably contributing to COVID spread, and which thus have far lower unemployment) are being penalized. Mr. Moore specified:

“New York gets $2,799 per person, or twice as much money as the $1,355 per person that Florida receives. In other words, Floridians are paying for [Big Labor] Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s incompetence. . . .

“[Forced-dues] Massachusetts and [Right to Work] Tennessee are about the same size [in population], but somehow Massachusetts receives $1.5 billion more in handouts. 

“[Forced-dues] Connecticut gets twice as much bailout money as [Right to Work] Utah despite the fact that they are about the same size in population.”

How will politicians in bastions of compulsory unionism spend all the bailout money they will be raking in from current and future taxpayers across the country?

‘Much of the Relief Will . . . Flow to Government Union Pension Funds’

As a March 10 Wall Street Journal editorial bluntly put it: “Much of the relief will . . . flow to government union pension funds, which are underfunded in [Big Labor-ruled] states like Illinois, New Jersey and Connecticut.”

The so-called “COVID Relief and Response” package explicitly allows states and localities to spend bailout money to pay for day-to-day government services. 

They can then take money from their general funds that would have paid for such services to paper over huge shortfalls in government union pension funds.

Meanwhile, the $1.9 trillion scheme brazenly and arguably unconstitutionally prohibits the (overwhelmingly Right to Work) states that have managed their affairs relatively responsibly from using the funds they receive to facilitate tax relief for employees, families, and business owners.

Obvious Aim Is to Lessen Forced-Dues States’ Competitive Disadvantage

National Right to Work Committee Vice President Greg Mourad commented: 

“As much as they drone on in speeches and interviews about the supposed economic ‘benefits’ of monopolistic unionism, it’s clear President Joe Biden and other key Big Labor D.C. politicians know that forced-dues states are signally failing to compete for good jobs with Right to Work states.

“That’s why the putative ‘stimulus’ bill that was Mr. Biden’s first major legislative ‘achievement’ focuses so heavily on lessening forced-dues states’ competitive disadvantage by shoveling tax money in their direction and making it difficult if not impossible for relatively frugal states to cut taxes.

“The fact that every single Democrat member of Congress knuckled under to union lobbyists and the Biden White House by voting for this extraordinarily wasteful and counterproductive legislation is alarming.

“Fortunately, as unfair as the ‘COVID Relief and Response’ scheme is, it clearly won’t succeed in wiping out Right to Work states’ long-standing competitive advantage.

“All the tax money in the entire federal budget wouldn’t suffice to make union-boss dominions like New York, California, and New Jersey good places to buy a home and support a family.”


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