Public Union Tail Wags Dog

The Ohio Education Association (OEA) and American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) have no convincing arguments, but Ohio’s public unions also have no shortage of defenders. Let’s review…

• OneOhio Now: A coalition of unions, community organizers, and leftist think-tanks
• Proud Ohio Workers: An AFSCME boycott-protection racket
• We Are Ohio: An OEA front group
• Join the Future: Another OEA front group
• Policy Matters Ohio: A Progressive think-tank funded by the unions
• ProgressOhio: Another Progressive think-tank funded by the unions
• Innovation Ohio: A Progressive think-tank founded this winter to fill Ohio’s gaping demand for Progressive think-tanks
• Every Democrat in the state – Millions in AFSCME and OEA donations have nothing to do with their unanimous support

In short, the self-styled champions of Ohio’s middle class who demand powerful public unions are the unions themselves and the political groups reliant on union cash. They are professional class-warriors who increase the cost of government for a living, blaming "the rich" for Ohio’s structural imbalance between revenue and spending.

They lack even a shadow of credibility.

Data (view source worksheet) from the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services and US Department of Labor.

Politicians excel at creating mechanisms whereby a privileged few are shielded from fiscal reality by an even more privileged fewer. Public unions are a textbook case of this, and no amount of posturing from the unions or their allies in the Ohio Democratic Party should obscure that fact. Union bosses capitalize on a market for demonizing markets, and get rich by prying money from the working people they claim to represent.

Make no mistake: the full alphabet soup of unions and their comrades want to raise Ohio’s taxes. That’s the “moderate” alternative to the sort of spending cuts Governor Kasich and the General Assembly have suggested. If you’re a union boss pulling down six figures – or a union member covered by Jurassic tenure protections – a tax increase would be a good deal. If you’re anyone else, the even more stifled business environment that would result should worry you far more than the unions’ hollow class warfare routine.

Cross-posted at that hero.