Republicans Get It: Shrinking Unions Key to Defeating Progressive Agenda

[Ian David]

Republicans Get It: Shrinking Unions Is Key to Defeating Progressive Agenda

When Karl Rove, George W. Bush’s key political adviser, was asked by the New Yorker magazine whether shrinking unions was a major goal of his administration, Rove replied, “Absolutely.”

In an article in the Washington Monthly that appeared just before the 2004 election, another key Bush ally, Grover Norquist, went into more detail.

Norquist, who is president of Americans For Tax Reform and serves on the boards of director of the American Conservative Union and the National Rifle Association, wrote that the “smaller government” Republican theme is really about attacking the pillars of the Democratic Party.

“Labor unions…cannot maintain their $8 billion in compulsory union dues without the laws that make such payments mandatory. Both wings of the dependency movement – those locked into welfare dependency and the bureaucrats who get paid well to manage others’ dependency (and make sure none of them get jobs and become Republicans) are wholly dependent on legislators halting further welfare reform. Big city political machines thrive on federal grants and state-granted powers. And the coercive utopians – the radical environmentalists, animal-rights activists, feminists, and others who would use state power to force on us tiny non-flushable toilets and cars too small to hold families, take away the circus and our pet cats, and otherwise impose more fussbudget impositions on our lives than Leviticus – all depend on government grants to use and misuse federal and state power.”

“Shrinking the government workforce” also has a direct political benefit, Norquist wrote, because it “tends to be 10 percent more Democrat and less Republican.”

More:
http://www.ibew223.org/node/212


Tiny non-flushable toilets?

Why are Conservatives constantly concerned about what goes into or comes out our asses?

[ohtransplant]

1. Good catch.

Anyone who works for the federal government have seen how these guys are trying to reduce the workforce, neuter our representation and dismantle any protections provided by the civil service system.

I recently sat in the audience and heard a federal executive explain that they no longer negotiate because they don't have to - that all the political appointees are Rs and as time goes by more and more arbitrators and positions at the FLRB are Rs. In other words the deck is now stacked (my interpretation).

I think unions need to communicate with more Americans about we really mean to the USA - like health care, education, vocational training, retirement security and weekends - all things under attack in this country. It's not about PACs (although they're necessary)or "frivolous" (This is the perception although unions win a large proportion of these cases )litigation.