Heritage Foundation: Employee No Choice Act

Unions Rally against Democratic Elections

* Card Check: The Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) would replace secret ballot organizing elections with publicly signed union cards, allowing union organizers to deceive, harass, and threaten workers into signing these cards and thereby unionizing.
* Stripping Away Privacy and Freedom: A worker may vote “no” against a union behind a curtain but may be less courageous if pressured in public. This is why most union organizers currently don’t call for elections until between 60% and 75% of a shop notes interest, knowing that there will be drop off once the votes are tallied.
* Union Workers Oppose: A recent Zogby poll found that 71% of union members believe that the current private-ballot process is fair. A McLaughlin & Associates poll found that fully 74% of union members favor keeping the current system in place over replacing it with one that provides less privacy.
* Liberals Opposed It … in Mexico: In 2001, labor-friendly Members of Congress, including EFCA sponsors, pressed Mexico in a letter to increase its use of the secret ballot, saying it was “absolutely necessary in order to ensure that workers are not intimidated into voting for a union they might not otherwise choose.”

Card Check Creates Government-Run Workplaces

* Collective Bargaining: Under current law, no contract takes effect until both workers believe they get a fair deal and management believes the contract will not bankrupt the firm. If negotiations end, the workers can strike or management can lock them out, but neither side must work under an unworkable contract.
* Putting the Power in Washington: Section 3 of EFCA gives government officials the power to impose contracts on workers and firms. After a union organizes a business, there would a short period of time for management to offer them an “acceptable” contract. If the union does not agree, the matter would be sent to a federal arbitration board.
* Bureaucrats in Charge of Your Workplace: Instead of mutual consent, the federal government would then impose working conditions on both employers and employees, whether they were workable or not, and these conditions would be binding on the business for two years until the negotiations are reopened.
* In Summary: So after the unions strong arm employees into their union, they would then have government-backed authority to tell business owners how to run their business, including wages and bonuses; employment levels; retirement and health care plans; business operations; promotions; assignments; subcontracting; and closure, sale, or merger of a business.

Increase Opportunities for Employees

* There IS an Alternative: There is a better way to help workers earn more money. Unionized workers are not allowed to earn more than their union contract calls for, no matter how hard they work. Unions keep wages of above-average employees down so that workers will look to the union—instead of their own efforts—as the way to get ahead.
* Let Workers Earn More Money: By allowing employers to pay individual workers more than a collective bargaining agreement calls for, Congress would eliminate union wage ceilings and allow workers to earn more money and be rewarded for outstanding performance.
* Don’t Kill Jobs: Unions reduce job opportunities in the economy. Conservative estimates show that EFCA would reduce employment opportunities by 765,000 potential jobs in the economy over the next seven years. Other studies estimate even greater effects.

PDF available at: Heritage Foundation

Stop Nationalized Healthcare Petition

The current administration is is attempting to push through nationalized health care as quickly possible before people find out the true facts. The government has trouble running other programs why would we want them to run a program equal to 15% of our GDP. (see blog entry below) Please go to the HealthCare Petition and sign to let your representatives know that you do not want socialized medicine.

Healthcare Reform

What is it that makes people think that the government is capable of running the healthcare system? The reason I ask this is because they can’t even run a cafeteria without losing money.

The Senate cafeteria lost over two million dollars in 2008 and more then 18 million since 1993 and yet these monetary geniuses want to run national healthcare. The senate foodservice gross sales is roughly 10 million dollars a year with expenses of 12 million. Healthcare expenditures were $2.2 trillion in 2007 if the Federal government was to run the healthcare business as well as they did their foodservice operations that number would be increased to $2.64 trillion for the same amount of services.

Let’s look at another couple of well run government programs, social security and medicare, whose projected unfunded liabilities are a combined total of $72 trillion dollars by mid-century. By 2050 Social Security and Medicare will require 3/4 of all income taxes just to pay benefits currently promised.

Can our children and our grandchildren really afford another government program? Is our current healthcare system so bad that we are willing to turn it over to the government? Yes, reform is needed but we can start by getting the government out of the way.

Democrats On An Escalator

You Didn’t Inherit It, You Helped Create It Sen. Obama

I am tired of hearing about the deficit that President Obama inherited. He didn’t inherit it he was part of the Senate that helped increase it by 25% over the last two years. So tell me how can he be pointing the finger at others when he was part of the problem?

Here are a few facts. In the two years that the Democrats had control of the two houses the deficit increased from $8.6 to $10.7 trillion or by 25%, which is a 12.5% per year increase. From January 20, 2001 until December 31, 2006 the national deficit increased from $5.7 to $8.7 or 53% which equals 8.83% per year. This is the time that the Republicans had control of both houses and the Whitehouse.

So how can Obama imply that this huge deficit is the former President’s fault? From what I can see the Spendocrats out did the Republican Congress by about 45% per year when it came to increasing our deficit. Both parties are out of control but the Dems take the gold when it comes to spending. At the rate the Democrats spent if they had been in control the whole eight years our deficit would be $12.1 trillion instead of the $10.7 we now have.

President Obama let’s get it straight this deficit belongs to everyone on Capital Hill not just the former President. After just six weeks into the year you have already increased our deficit by about 10% with this so called stimulus bill. Doesn’t look good for future Americans.

Two Sides Of The Coin

Current economic events have got me thinking about why there always seem to be people who need to be supported by others or the government. I know politicians love it when people look to them for help. This is how they keep their jobs, by providing support to the “less fortunate”. This is one of the many reasons that our current President got elected. He promised change and by change he meant more government support of the constituency. Promises were made for better health care, better schools, more jobs, higher wages, fairer rates of taxation, you name it and it was promised.

Unfortunately too many people have come to the belief that they cannot succeed without the help of others. It is not their fault that they are failures. There is always someone or something else to put the blame on. I couldn’t afford college or trade school, I had a lousy home life growing up, I lived in a bad neighborhood, just name the problem and they will find an excuse.

I don’t hold with these excuses, from personal experience I know that the only thing a person’s success depends on is their self. I know of a person who I will call Amanda she had everything going against her. She came from a large family in which the parents were both physically and emotionally abusive. They succeeded in pitting one sibling against the other so there was no closeness among the children. Upon graduating from high school she left home to be on her own and enrolled in a community college. With no family support and virtually no money she was able to live on her own while attending school. She did this by working and attending school at the same time. By working hard and with some small government grants for school she was able to graduate with a professional degree. She has gone on to be a successful professional and raised a fine family. The one thing that made this possible was her determination to be an independent person.

Amanda does not see herself as being very successful because she feels that maybe she could have done better. I disagree, once she started her family she always put them before herself, she is one of the most unselfish people I know. Her children know it and she has done a fine job of raising them. She has through her children provided this country with another generation of achievers. This is what I call success. It is people like Amanda that have made this country great.

On the opposite side of the coin is a person who grew up in a loving family, I will call him Rick. Rick had all the support a person could ask for. A good loving home life, sent to good schools, supportive brothers and sisters and yet almost the opposite of Amanda. He makes bad decisions and then fails to own up to them. Looked out for himself and expected others to be there for him. Rick obviously did not have the determination that Amanda had. He was more of a burden then a help to society. Rick must realize that he needs to be more like Amanda: tough, courageous, determined and above all else selfless.

That is why I believe that it is not government that can help us, it is only ourselves.

Global Warming Ad

American Whiner

The election of our new President and his more recent town hall meetings have given me a great idea for a new reality show.  It seems like every cable channel has one.  We have Dancing With the Stars, Survivor, American Idol, Celebrity Rehab and even American Loggers. So I thought why not have one that really reflects what America has become.

My idea for this new reality show was inspired by President Obama’s Florida town hall meeting last week.  Everyone there had something to complain about. Life was unfair for some reason or another. So I thought we could get a crew and hit the road and travel across the country to town hall meetings and look for contestants to participate in the new reality show American Whiner.

I would hire Michael Moore and Cindy Sheehan to be the co-hosts.  They could travel to the different cities and interview people. It would be set up just like the meet and greets the president has been doing. Like the president, we would find as many losers as possible to attend and Mike and Cindy would interview them and we could hear all their sad stories. For instance how they where forced to drop out of high school because they were expected to attend classes and forgo the booze and drugs. Then when they finally got a job at McDonalds they were expected to show up on time and that just wasn’t fair. We might hear how when their 17 year old girlfriend gave birth they were expected to help support the baby on a part time job at Mickey D’s. It’s not their fault that they are barely employable and can’t take any responsibility.

Finalist would be picked from each meeting and would be brought to Washington, DC for the finals which would be judged by Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, Charlie Rangel and Barney Frank. They would be scored in three categories: self pity, poor decision making and responsibility avoidance.  They would also be hooked up to heart rate and respiration monitors and those showing significant increases upon seeing pictures of the First Couple would receive extra points. Of course to really get people jazzed we would need to promise them a chance to meet the Obamassiah in person. That would be part of the grand prize. The rest of the prize would be a thousand dollars in food stamps and one way tickets for the winner and their family to Argentina.

I honestly think this would be quite entertaining, I don’t know about anyone else but I certainly enjoyed Julio Asequeda the McDonalds worker from Ft. Myers. Could he have been any more entertaining? If we have to support these people we might as well get something in return.

The Reagan Obama Debate