Populist Candidates Still Ignore Government Unions

Nearly every objection that supporters of presidential candidates Trump and Sanders raise to the establishment are intimately associated with government unions. But neither the people’s voice, or that voice as it is reflected back to them by their populist heroes, articulates this fact.

(1) Do you want to reform Wall Street?

You’ll have to go through the government unions. Their union controlled pension funds are the biggest players on Wall Street. The union controlled cities that issue hundreds of billions in municipal bonds every year are a close second. Government unions benefit from the financialization of the American economy, even as it has wiped out the middle class. Low interest loans elevate prices for homes, which stimulates borrowing and consumer spending, which enriches corporations and the pension funds who invest in their stocks. High home prices raise property tax revenues. Low interest loans mean families can borrow more for college tuition – so unionized professors can continue to make six figure salaries for teaching a few hours a week, a few months a year.

(2) Do you want to restore reasonableness to America’s environmental regulations?

You’ll have to go through the government unions. In California, state and local jobs, from bus drivers to code inspectors, are being redefined to incorporate “global warming mitigation.” This is so they can share in the plunder associated with “carbon emission offset auction proceeds,” billions, soon to be tens of billions, in annual taxes by any other name, hidden in your utility bills and in the cost of manufactured goods – all ran quietly through a Delaware corporation. And why widen a freeway, when you can create thousands of government union jobs in mass transit?

(3) Do you want to reform campaign finance laws?

Forget about it. The government unions are by far the biggest single political spenders. Thanks to their legislated opacity – less disclosure is required for government unions than for private unions, believe it or not – we can only guess, but government unions collect and spend at least a billion dollars per year, just in California. Depending on how you define it, you can argue that ALL of that money is spent on politics. A billion per year – put to very effective use. And by the way, unions have benefit from the supposedly infamous “Citizens United” ruling just as much as corporations and wealthy individuals.

(4) Do you feel that big business exploits consumers?

Do you resent crony capitalists monopolizing entire industries and artificially raising the costs of goods in a market where they’ve used government rules to eliminate emerging competitors? In California, you can blame the government unions. Businesses doing business anywhere in California know that if they adhere to the union’s political agenda, they will get favorable legislation passed, and if they don’t, they will be targeted. Government unions are the brokers and enablers of corporate abuse.

(5) Do you support immigration reform?

Specifically, do you think it is reasonable to limit most immigration to skilled individuals, at a pace that will not challenge the ability of our society to culturally and economically assimilate the newcomers? Do you feel there should at least be a meaningful discussion on this issue? Forget about it. Because you’d have to go through the government unions, who want unlimited immigration; especially those most destitute and unlikely to assimilate. The more dependency there is in America, the more unionized government jobs are created. Police, prison guards, social workers – and an entire crony corporate infrastructure to support them. All paid for by the middle class.

(6) Do you want to rebuild America’s roads and bridges?

Are you even one of those heretics who believes, gasp, that we should develop our energy resources, build more power plants, store more storm runoff, and recycle 100% of our sewage, so that we can have energy and water abundance? Dream on. Government unions want scarcity, because with artificial scarcity there will be more government jobs enforcing what is effectively rationing. And never forget, if we were to spend tax revenue on infrastructure, there would be less money to cover pay and benefit packages for unionized government workers that average, in California, TWICE what the average private sector worker earns.

(7) Do you want to see the next generation properly educated?

Fat chance. Unionized public schools protect incompetent teachers instead of putting children first. And they promote curricula designed to alienate young people from American culture instead of encouraging them to feel proud and privileged to be American. If you want to have any chance to fix America’s public schools, you have to take down the teachers union.

(8) Do you fear America’s federal, state and local governments drifting towards authoritarianism?

You’d better, because not only is that the common thread underlying this entire litany of government dysfunction, but technology is making it easier than ever to enforce authoritarian laws. Where you drive. How far you drive. When you use electricity. How much water you consume. What products you buy. Who you know. And of course, every detail of your interactions with the internet or cable television. It’s all monitored. And who protects the corrupt enforcers, the bad apples? The unions. And who has an inherent interest in bigger, more intrusive government, no matter if it’s good or bad for the public at large? The unions.

If Bernie Sanders or Donald Trump had the courage and the vision to tell that truth, they might ignite a populist uprising that would be utterly bipartisan. But that revolution will have to wait for another day.

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Ed Ring is the president of the California Policy Center.

Public Safety Unions and the Financial Apocalypse, May 17, 2016

Unionize the Personal Assistants to the One-tenth-of-one-percenters, May 3, 2016

California’s Economically Illiterate Legislature, April 5, 2016

Practical Reforms to “Right-Size” Government Unions, March 29, 2016

The Challenges Facing Conservatives Who Support Public Safety, March 22, 2016

Public Unions ARE the Political “Establishment”, February 23, 2016

The Future of Unions in the Post-Scalia Era, February 16, 2016

In Search of a Legitimate Labor Movement, January 19, 2016

The Alliance Between Wall Street and Public Unions, December 1, 2015

How Government Unions Are Destroying America, September 22, 2015