The public option is a vital step to the consolidation of the union’s strangle hold on the US taxpayer, but naturally the press has missed this issue entirely. The unions have over-promised a long string of benefits to their constituents, and all face massive unfunded liabilities. So if the public option dies in the senate, the unions will be facing an imminent fiscal collapse. Congress will then be forced to structure a more specific ‘bailout’ for them. And while that will be a more direct and more honest way to legislate the issue, it will be profoundly unpopular with the broader voting public.
It will also be wildly unpopular with those investors who are funding the dreams of the Obama administration. Labor unions reduce output and raise costs, making an economy less efficient. This is particularly true of civil service unions who since they are working for the government and are untouched by the incentives created by the profit motive, they are little enough interested in efficiency in the first place. Giving them a ‘bailout’ will be like throwing cash in the fireplace in terms of the return it provides and it will be seen as such by foreign investors in the US.
But team Obama and the radical Democrats in the leadership won’t let a little thing like that stop them. Obama is a ‘big labor’ president, so a bailout for the unions will be forthcoming one way or the other. It will be wrapped in rhetoric about how it’s really to ‘help workers’ or to ‘stand up for the little guy’… there really is no limit that the press is willing to stretch the truth when it comes to big labor. But it will be complete waste of money and energy. And in the end, I’d bet that it won’t even benefit the people in the union rank and file. But the labor leaders will all praise it as a triumph for American workers because it helps them personally.
By manipulating US labor laws, big labor has shattered the US manufacturing base, driven the airlines and the auto industry into bankruptcy, and still drives thousands of companies offshore every year. Now they are firmly in charge of government, and they are having the same effect on that institution’s efficiency. They finally have us all trapped, because there is no competition for government; no ‘non-union’ option for us to choose if we want to. They’ve finally got us where they have wanted us all along, and there isn’t all that much we can do about it.
2 comments:
The public option is obviously as dead as a doornail. My advice to the progressives is to take what they can get now.
I don't know what kind of health care reform will come out of this session, but I strongly suspect it won't be much. There is, however a silver lining behind this very dark cloud. I am reminded of the Civil Rights Act of 1957. Don't be embarrassed if you've never heard of it, there really isn't a hell of a lot to remember about it; a mere pittance, really - a scrap of leftovers tossed out to "American Negros" (in the parlance of the age) in order to appease them. But it made the passing of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 - the one we remember - all-the-more easier seven years later.
We'll live to fight another day.
http://www.tomdegan.blogspot.com
Tom Degan
Tom,
You may very well be right but as I see the issue today I’d bet against it.
The problem is that the people who want the public option want it for one reason and the people who oppose it oppose it for another. In the spirit of progressive unity, the opponents of the public plan are trying to offer a philosophical fig leaf. They know its supporters are all socialists, and if there is one thing that socialists hate (after personal liberty) its profits. So they are trying to get them to go for a ‘not for profit’ plan that takes the profit out but also removes the ‘do as your told’ teeth of a real government run plan.
But it’s the teeth that the proponents of the public option actually need because if the unions can’t dump their constituency on to it, then they will all go broke. And these far left politicians will have to watch their wealthiest, most influential, and most prolific campaign supporter go bankrupt. (Just imagine a world where the SEIU goes broke, leaving millions of public service employees with no medical benefits or cushy retirement packages.)
I think when they try to take a bill with no public option back to the house, the whole thing goes into the dumper.
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