What's Your Beef with Teachers, Warren?

For the record: I have no ax to grind with teachers. Teaching is a noble profession. NOBLE. Some of my closest friends are teachers. We NEED teachers. I also have very high respect for policemen and firemen. In fact, I have no problem with anybody out there making an honest buck. I do, however, have a huge problem with the incestuous alliance between the government & public sector unions, and have recently found myself paying close attention to what’s going on in Wisconsin under the watch of new governor Scott Walker.

AFSCME: 1.6 million members.
American Federation of Teachers: 1.5 million.
National Education Association: 3.2 million.

Barking about billionaire CEOs is good watercooler talk, but with these three unions alone, here are over 6 million people represented by public sector unions, and over the last 50 years or so, public sector unions have conspired with our friends in Washington to form a perfectly legal way to help themselves to YOUR DOUGH.

It sounds innocent enough: Boy meets union, boy joins union, boy pays union dues, union takes on management, better lives for union members. This story has been written millions of times over the last 100+ years. What is incestuous about that, Warren? Well, the dynamic is different when government plays the role of management, and here’s how:

When faced with union negotiations, private companies bargain with their own money. With public sector unions, the government bargains with OUR money. What motivation does the government have to go toe to toe with a union? There’s no earnings per share number they have to hit. What government official loses their job if they overspend? Nobody. They just tax us to fill the gap. Or simply allow the gap to grow (the term “unfunded pension liabilities” is as simple as it sounds, folks) and let the next guy worry about it. The result is larger salaries, better benefits and pension packages for public sector workers than people performing similar work in the private sector, and an increased burden for all taxpayers, either immediately or down the road.

It should surprise nobody that the government doesn’t negotiate as hard as the private sector, because it turns out that caving into the unions is good politics. Public sector unions dump millions into election campaigns (all but about 2% of it to the Democratic Party), so giving the unions what they want when they want it will help come re-election time, and in Washington, the point of all of it is to keep getting re-elected. That’s the incestuous part. Term limits, anyone?

Back to my original point: we NEED teachers. We need policemen and firemen. We needed them before they unionized, and we need them now. What we DON'T need is to be bullied by their union leadership to keep their members whole while the rest of us have to live with LESS. We have grown weary of the “kabuki theater” of so-called negotiations between unions and the government where everybody wins except the only party with no seat at the table: the American taxpayer.

With the Democrats safely tucked away in an undisclosed location somewhere in Illinois, Governor Walker is being painted as the villian in Wisconsin, and that is ridiculous. It would be WAY easier just to make a deal with the union and let the unfunded pension liability grow unchecked. After all, it won't be HIS problem when the pension fund runs completely out of money years from now. Walker is showing TRUE LEADERSHIP taking this on, and in my opinion, a discussion over deficit reduction that does not address the collective bargaining power of public sector unions is not a discussion worth having.

8 Tips for President Obama

I’ve said it before, but it bears repeating: I am a committed conservative (fiscal and social) who is rooting like hell for President Barack Obama. We don’t have 4 years to waste, so to President Obama in his first week in office, I offer 8 tips for leading our nation to a better place. First, here are 4 things he can do that will almost ensure that President Obama will be a very unsuccessful 1-term President:

(DON’T) Pursue investigations of Bush & Cheney. I can’t think of one thing that would be more damaging to an Obama presidency than spending one moment contemplating the lawfulness of the Bush administration in its prosecution of the war on terror. Throughout his campaign, Obama’s message and tone was optimistic and forward-looking, and not once did he even hint that he would support an investigation. Even as unpopular as Bush was exiting office, an investigation would be political suicide.

(DON’T) Close Gitmo. I almost left this one off the list because he signed the order to close on Day #2 in office, but he still has nearly a year to reverse the order. There is no place in the world to put these 245 prisoners that will make Americans more safe than where they are today. And bringing them onto U.S. soil and try them in our criminal justice system is the worst possible option.

(DON’T) Issue tax rebates to people who pay no taxes. By any reasonable definition, such a practice is “redistribution of wealth”, something our tax code has enabled for generations. Checks for the non-tax-payers out there is welfare, no more, no less, and putting into action the “spread the wealth around” comment that brought fame to Joe the Plumber, will spell doom for President Obama.

(DON’T) Roll back the Bush tax cuts (or let them expire in 2011). After running as a “tax cutter”, increasing the tax rates on the majority of Americans is tantamount to the “Read my lips: No new taxes” campaign statement that sunk Bush #41. Saying one thing and doing another almost never works, and screwing tax-paying Americans will cost him in November 2012.

Here are 4 things that will help him earn a second term:

Capture or kill Bin Laden. This one is a no-brainer. While we can debate the long-term impact it would have on Al Qaeda, or the war on terror in general, nailing Osama Bin Laden would be jet fuel for President Obama’s re-election campaign.

Enforce the law, which is what the Executive Branch of the government is supposed to do. Hire an Attorney General who will go after Immelt, Madoff, O’Neal and all the other corporate crooks who have not yet been introduced to the world. Nothing will restore Americans’ trust in government more than nailing to the cross people who are even less worthy of our trust.

Back off nationalized health care. Tom Daschle is going to go after this hard, just like Bill and Hill did 16 years ago, but as financially over-leveraged as our nation is, there could possibly be no worse time in our history to pursue such a program. Didn’t make sense 16 years ago, makes even less sense now.

Drop this Fairness Doctrine nonsense. Like the 43 guys before him, Barack Obama took an oath (twice!) and pledged to uphold the Constitution of the United States. I don’t you can do that and pursue the idea that government has any role in the programming of talk radio stations. Being President of the U.S. means respecting and protecting the freedoms and rights of all Americans, even Rush Limbaugh, Hugh Hewitt and others you don’t agree with.

Welcome to Barack Utopia

As a committed conservative who last voted Democrat in 1984, I was very disappointed with the outcome of this year's Presidential election. I will readily admit that I wasn't crazy about either major party's nominee (McCain was my 4th choice coming out of the GOP behind Romney, Huckabee and Thompson), but evaluating the content of both their messages, thought the choice was very clear.

In my opinion, Senator McCain and his campaign made several mistakes that cost him votes, including avoiding the Jeremiah Wright issue, their mis-handling of Sarah Palin, and voting for the bailout. To be fair, I'm not sure that McCain could have won even with the "perfect campaign". 2008 will go down as the Year of the Donkey I guess.

In the end, Barack Obama won the White House at least partially through very skillful delivery of the standard boiler plate Democratic Party message: country's going the wrong way, Bush did it, we can fix it, blah blah blah. During the campaign, especially in the 3 debates, he came across as a "plausible" President among voters who had not yet made up their minds. The financial crisis that emerged in September pretty much sealed the deal for Obama and the Democrats.

The thing I like about blogging is it allows the blogger to establish a permanent, time-stamped record of what he's thinking at that very moment. The election is over, my guy didn't win, but here are 3 thoughts from a John McCain supporter 3 days after Senator Obama became President-Elect Obama:

1. Barack Obama will take office with a clean slate with me. None of this "not my President" garbage that we heard 8 years ago. I had my reasons for picking the other guy, but 60 million Americans have spoken, and I am ready to see what he can do. The voting record, the "spread the wealth around" comment, Jeremiah Wright, Bill Ayers, Joe the Plumber are all in the rear view mirror, and none of it moves our troubled country forward. Clean slate. Clock starts NOW.

2. I want Barack Obama to succeed. If he can lead us out of this financial mess, keep our nation safe, respect and protect our freedoms, protect U.S. interests abroad and not tax us all into oblivion, I will be first in line to re-up President Obama for another 4 years. If it turns it into the Harry Reid / Nancy Pelosi / MoveOn.org Show, he's going to lose me fast and he will be a very unsuccessful one term President. We are a center-right country, and if President Obama has the courage to stand up to the far left moonbats who claim responsibility for President Obama, he has a chance to lead us to a better place.

3. Barack Obama demonstrated real class on the eve of the election when he offered very kind remarks about John McCain after McCain contacted him to offer sympathy after the death of his grandmother. He did not have to do that in the hours leading up to the opening of the polls, but doing so speaks to the kind of stuff I want my Prez to be made of.