Another Story of Corruption – From Democrats

Jo and I were driving home this evening when we heard a story on the radio. Neal Boortz, who is a talk show host, was relating the story of how a lot of the Democratic Party politicians in power work to further the aims of the unions, and thus the Democratic Party via campaign donations from those unions.

Anyone who understands the nature of how much arm-and-arm the unions and Democrats knows that an extremely high percentage of union campaign donations always go to the Democrats. Here is one way they do it.

The unions have gotten state legislators to pass laws that force the state to automatically withhold the union dues of state employees and send those funds to the unions directly. That way, the rank-and-file members of the unions don’t notice how much of their money is deducted right away. They may notice if they look at their pay stubs, but I would venture that a lot never even look at those pay stubs.

The Governor and Republican controlled legislature has been battling the public sector unions in Wisconsin this last year in an attempt to diminish the power of the unions. Wisconsin also had the law for the state to automatically deduct the state employee’s dues. I think a lot of people may remember the news stories coming from Wisconsin this year after the state’s Democratic Party Senators left the state to avoid voting on a House passed measure restricting bargaining rights for the unions.

Anyway, this news story brought out a surprising aspect in Michigan as to just who is a state employee.

It seems that Michigan grants Medicaid funds to parents who are caring for adult dependent children. The federal government gives block grants to the states for Medicaid to be administrated by the states. Michigan then considers those funds to be state funds, so those “family caregivers” are state employees, since they are accepting money from the state.

In Michigan, state employees are thus automatically considered union members and their dues are automatically deducted to give to the unions. Specifically in Michigan, and perhaps elsewhere as well, those dues go to the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), a staunch supporter of Democrats, and of Barack Obama. They are as devoted to Obama as ACORN was.

Those “state employees” then see the dues deducted from the actual Medicaid payments to them, leaving them with fewer dollars to use to care for their adult children in need of care. Oh, by the way, those “state employees” do not get any other benefit as a state employee. No insurance, no pension plan, or any other benefit that other state employees receive from the state as a part of their employment.

According to the news story out of The Washington Examiner, it was Jennifer Granholm, former Democratic Governor of Michigan who was instrumental in passing legislations to make “family caregivers” the classification as state employees. Here is a link to that news story:

http://campaign2012.washingtonexaminer.com/blogs/beltway-confidential/seiu-siphons-dues-mich-medicaid-payments

There is a national effort to enact a National Right to Work law that would be like all the state Right to Work laws in that no one would be required to be a union member to have a job. Any citizen could work at a company that did have union negotiating, but they would not be required to join the union nor pay any kind of dues or fee to that union.

Businesses today are looking for states that have Right to Work laws. They know that with less union influence, they can provide better products, cheaper products, and be able to attract better employees. Those businesses are looking to build or expand their businesses in states with Right to Work.

We had an example of that this year in the fight between the unions and Boeing, who was trying to build their new factory in South Carolina. With the unions being unable to do anything to stop them, they went to the National Labor Relations Board to get a ruling from them that Boeing could not build where they wanted to build. The directors on the NLRB are people who were appointed by Democrats and Barack Obama.

Now, for those who will try to say that the unions are essential for safety concerns to keep the companies from making their employees work in unsafe conditions, I have but one question.

Are the unions really needed for controlling safety concerns when there is a federal agency that does the same thing? Have you ever heard of OSHA? In fact, I might be just a bit bold here and say that there are probably a number of state and federal agencies that are redundant to what it is that the unions say that their mission is all about.

The Democrats and the media really cried “Foul” when the Supreme Court allowed businesses to donate more to political parties. Yet, why is it that unions can donate to political parties and candidates, but they don’t like for businesses to have the same options?