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How would the media and public react to the following fact pattern:

AIG, still owned by the US Government, is required to have the compensation and benefits of its Management Board (i.e the top 20 employees, including the CEO) set by a panel of 15 US Senators.

The 20 members of the Management Board decide to form the We Love Insurance Union (“WLIU”), and gain the right to collectively bargain with its employer, the US Government.

The WLIU collects dues from each member of the Management Board, and these dues are used exclusively to contribute millions of dollars to the re-election campaigns of the 15 US Senators who set their compensation and benefits.

When the WLIU negotiates with the 15 US Senator panel, they all agree to a contract that requires the US Government (i.e. taxpayers) to pay the WLIU members a competitive annual salary, mandates lifetime job security, and requires taxpayers to fund 95% of the lifetime costs of gold-plated health care insurance and a pension that guarantees the WLIU members 100% of their last years compensation, for life, after they retire at the age of 50.

I’m pretty sure this would cause Rachel Maddow, Bill Maher and Michael Moore to spontaneously combust from rage…and for once, I would agree with them.

This hypothetical story is ridiclous, but is it fundamentally different from the fact patterns surrounding the public unions we have today? No.

Government employees have formed unions (teachers, bus drivers, sanitation workers, etc.) which have been given the right to collectively bargain with the Government. The unions collect dues from its members which are used to contribute to (i.e. bribe) the campaigns of politicians who run the government. Those politicians accept the money, win their elections and end up on the other side of the bargaining table when the union comes in to renegotiate their contract. Since you don’t bite the hand that feeds you, the politicians give the unions whatever they want, because, hey, it’s just taxpayer money and they could really use those union contributions to help with the re-election campaign.

The Union helps the politician get elected, and the politician rewards the Union’s support with generous employment contracts.

It’s no wonder why collective bargaining for public employees is perhaps the costliest conflict of interest this country has ever seen. Over the last 50 years or so, Federal, State and Local government employees have purchased their right to collectively bargain with the taxpayer, reaping huge rewards along the way (incredibly favorable work rules and job security – regardless of performance -and above all, incredibly lucrative benefits packages for life). It’s taken 50+ years, but the bills are starting to come due, and, unsurprisingly, it turns out governments can’t afford all their promises. Unions served a very important purpose to protect workers at coal mines, constructions sites and similar environments decades ago, but as legislation has evolved to protect employees in the workplace, whether unionized or not, the usefulness of unions has run its course, particularly in the public sector.

My question to the protesters in Madison and the pro-public union pontificators on TV – would you support my fictional WLIU?

Be a Champion, Not a Finalist

Should the GOP get behind a candidate that has the best chance of winning the Republican nomination, or a candidate that has the best chance of winning the Presidency?

Seems like a simple answer, right? Not for Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, who in today’s Wall Street Journal Op-Ed, claims that Republican presidential hopefuls need to re-prioritize social issues in order to win...the Republican nomination.

This logic undoubtedly holds true when it comes to winning the Republican nomination, but it immediately falls apart once you realize that winning the semi-final match does not make you the champion.

As this site has mentioned numerous times before, whoever captures the independent center wins general elections – especially in a Presidential election. Democrats will vote for the Democrat, and Republicans will vote for the Republican, but luckily for our country, neither party holds a majority of the electorate, leaving Independents with the swing votes. Independents vote for candidates that best reflect their views, regardless of party affiliation, and in 2008, Democrats and President Obama rode the coat-tails of independents to victory, just as the Republicans did in 2010.

Independents care about the economy, they care about the size of government, and they care about unemployment. They will also have a view on abortion, gay marriage, and other “moral” issues, but in 2012, these will be overshadowed by the more pressing issues of the day - the economy and the role and size of government. In fact, independents tend to be more liberal on social issues, so prioritizing conservative views on social issues will only act to repel the ever-important independent votes.

If Republicans see the 2010 elections as a mandate to move further right on social issues, they are just repeating the mistakes made by the Democrats after the 2008 elections. It’s cliché, but relevant in this context - “those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it.” There is still time for Republican’s to realize this and push forward a candidate that appeals to independents as well as the Republican base. If they don’t, they have no one to blame but themselves when President Obama (or a strong independent) wins in 2012.

Escape from Democracy

State Senators in Wisconsin have fled democracy…literally.

They got in their cars, boarded planes, and, who knows, maybe even swam across Lake Michigan in hopes of derailing legislation that is offensive to Wisconsin’s government workers and their union. These Senators (every Democrats and two Republicans) know that if a vote were held the bill would pass despite their objection, and without any other means of stopping the vote, they skipped town.

The proposed legislation would require government workers to cover more of their health care premiums and pension contributions (still only 12.6% and 5.8%, respectively, of the total costs - a much smaller share than most private sector employees), would require collective bargaining units to conduct annual votes to maintain certification (if the union is strong they have nothing to worry about, right?), and eliminates the right of unions to have dues deducted from worker paychecks (dues collection should be the union's responsibility, not the taxpayers – Netflix doesn’t rely on my employer collect its subscription fees).  We'll save the entire public-sector collective bargining debate - the ultimate conflict of interest story - for another column.

In response, the Wisconsin government workers and their friends have stormed the Capitol in protest. Apparently having Wisconsin taxpayers fund 87.4% of the unions health care insurance bill, and 94.2% of the union pensions is so reprehensible that they are willing to sacrifice their children's education in order to highlight their plight (many of the protesters are teachers who called in sick - forcing districts to close schools). These protesters have every right to assemble; just as I have every right to call them out for their incredibly selfish and irresponsible denial of budget realities – not just the current temper tantrum that has caused schools to be cancelled, but for the long term effect of their demands on their children and grandchildren who will ultimately bear the costs of excessive union contracts.

In order to placate their most lucrative campaign donors, I mean, the union protesters, every Democrat Senator and two Republican Senators are staging their own sympathy strike by skipping town and preventing a vote by effectively shutting down the Wisconsin Senate.

Some have called this "strike" a courageous act or even democracy in action.  It's not.  It's a childish attempt by the loud, media-friendly and politically-powerful minority to short circuit a democratic vote. As a prominent former US Senator from Illinois once said, “Elections have consequences, and I won.” I absolutely agree. The proponents of this legislation were elected by the people of Wisconsin and have the right, in fact, the duty, to propose and vote on any legislation they deem appropriate. Senators are elected to legislate, not to skip town when a difficult or un-winnable vote is put to the floor.

Wisconsin laws gives the Senate Sergeant-at-Arms the means to round up the AWOL Senators and I hope he exercises that power, hiring Dog the Bounty Hunter if needed (talk about must see TV), to build a quorum and have the vote. If the majority of people in Wisconsin don’t like the result, they can vote out the State Senators who voted for the bill.

After all, elections have consequences.