When union leaders negotiate with a politician, they’re negotiating with someone they can hire and fire. Public unions have numbers and money, and politicians need both. And politicians fear strikes because the public hates them. When governors negotiate with unions, it’s not collective bargaining, it’s more like collusion. Someone said last week the taxpayers aren’t at the table. The taxpayers aren’t even in the room.
As for unions looking out for the little guy, that’s not how it’s looking right now. Right now the little guy is the public school pupil whose daily rounds take him from a neglectful family to an indifferent teacher who can’t be removed. The little guy is the beleaguered administrator whose attempts at improvement are thwarted by unions. The little guy is the private-sector worker who doesn’t have a good health-care plan, who barely has a pension, who lacks job security, and who is paying everyone else’s bills. Peggy Noonan/WSJ
And then there’s this:
Last year, for example, the Open Society Foundation, backed by liberal financier George Soros, gave NPR $1.8 million to help support the latter’s plan to hire an additional 100 reporters. When NPR receives million-dollar gifts from Mr. Soros, it is an insult to taxpayers when other organizations, such as MoveOn.org demand that Congress “save NPR and PBS” by guaranteeing “permanent funding and independence from partisan meddling,” as the liberal interest group did last month. It was even more insulting when PBS posted a message on Twitter thanking MoveOn.org—the group that once labeled Gen. David Petraeus as “General Betray Us”—for the help. Senator Jim DeMint/WSJ
Diary of a Mad Conservative 