As I've said, public-sector unions lobby for more government--and the taxpayer loses.
No where is that more evident than in Illinois, which appears to be on the verge of raising its income tax by 66 percent. But AFSCME, which represents more state workers than any other union, is protected from layoffs until July 2012 in a deal it reached with Governor Pat Quinn--one made a few days after the union endorsed him.
In October, as I noted on Sunday, AFSCME contributed $450,000 to the governor's campaign.
Early in his term, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported last fall, Quinn's predecessor, the disgraced Rod Blagojevich, received $377,000 in contributions from the same union.
The pay-to-play tactics of public-sector unions is so entrenched even FactCheck.org is jaded by the spectacle, commenting last fall, "AFSCME did indeed donate $450,000 to Quinn’s campaign, but that’s not unusual for a big financial supporter of Democrats."
That's the way it is. And the way it is stinks.
Related post:
The pay-to-play score in Illinois since '95: SEIU $22 million--AFSCME $12 million
Technorati tags:
labor 
unions 
organized labor
Democrats 
Illinois 
illinois politics 
AFSCME 
Blagojevich 
taxes 
Patrick Quinn 
pat Quinn
No comments:
Post a Comment