I was reading Matthew Kaminski's column in the Wall Street Journal today and was struck by the newspaper's complete ignorance of the facts and of history. I don't think that any editor would ever consider publishing an article like this with this many errors in fact.
While I do understand that the Wall Street Journal might just have a bone to pick with the Occupy movement, as they have singled out the Journal's readership for the majority of their protests, but Kaminski has decided that it's the unions who are the reason why we are in this economic downturn. But he won't come out and say this himself. Instead, he wants to stand behind Fred Siegel.
Firstly, I do not recall unions creating collateralized debt obligations. I also don't remember them selling adjustable-rate mortgages with no credit checks or encouraging banks to do that. I also don't recall them begging the federal government for a bailout when their insurance companies were toppling after they bet against America and in favor of creating the housing bubble.
Kaminski uses Siegal's inaccurate arguments of other countries' successes as a means by which they "cut into their welfare states":
Other countries have managed to find a way out. During its own "lost decade" after 1993, Canada shaped up its finances and it has weathered the latest economic crises well. New Zealand's Roger Douglas in the 1980s and Germany's Gerhard Schröder in the early 2000s cut into expensive welfare states. In all these cases, Mr. Siegel notes, center-left parties carried out painful reform. "They did this out of necessity." Sooner or later, American politicians will face the "unavoidable" reckoning, he adds. "It's not the mean tea partiers who force this. It's the facts on the ground."
Let's see. Canada's fix during their "lost decade" was to adopt a "pay as you go strategy" in government; called "pay-go" and adopted by the Democrats during their brief majority in the House and Senate and rejected by Senate Republicans with a filibuster. Canada also has a nationalized healthcare system, something we don't have. They also are supporting their social insurance system. Go to Canada and you will see a Value-Added Tax as well as an income tax and provincial taxes. Canadians pay more in tax than Americans because Canadians believe in paying for their government. Of course Canada funds their military operations at a rate of 1.4% of Gross Domestic Product (figures from 2009, according to the World Bank). The US funds military operations at a rate of 4.7%, according to the same sources.
New Zealand also has a national health system which is largely based on the one in the UK. They also have a national Social Security system that pays 80% of wages to persons aged 65 and older. Additionally, they have a "workfare" program and government-supported state housing to those in need. Our Social Security system pays a lot less than 80% of wages and Republicans want it to start at age 67 for people my age and want it to disappear completely for those under 50.
Germany continues to have a very good national health system, which Germans like a lot. They also offer state pensions, unemployment benefits and considerable housing help. Schröder's "cuts" into their welfare system were minor and they all included tax increases. Germans top tax rate is assessed on persons who earn €250,730 on single people, €501,460 on married couples. It's 45% of income. The top income tax rate in the United States is 35% of earned income (excepting Capital Gains, dividends and unearned income) and the top tax bracket is $379,151. Americans also do not pay Value-Added Tax, our gasoline prices are well under $4.00 per gallon (Germans in Frankfurt at this writing are paying $5.57 per gallon). These high gasoline prices are designed to keep air clean, cars small and government revenues up.
So it's clear that the argument that other countries have "fixed their welfare system by cutting it out and cutting it back" is not true. Fixes to the welfare systems of the countries described included taxes, something that Republicans, Grover Norquist and the Tea Party simply will not abide.
Kaminski says Siegel says that only Wisconsin Governor Walker has had the will to make real changes. I note that Governor Walker is presently facing a recall petition that will most certainly mean a special election will follow. That may be the "will" of a governor, but it's hardly the will of the people.
Governor Walker created his budget shortfall by reducing taxes on large corporations and the wealthy in his state. Walker's anti-union ploy here is really clear: He wants to end any union contributions to political parties. The reason for this is self-serving. Unions have not ever contributed to any of his campaigns. And, as a county executive, he never had a good relationship with unions. Walker knows that the Democratic Party gets support from unions and, if he is able to take that support away from them by destroying them, he can set up his state to remain Republican for a long time.
Other Republicans in other states have found themselves rebuffed by this kind of overreach. Ohio voters soundly rejected Issue 2, which was designed to cut unions out of the political system by sharply curtailing collective bargaining.
Demonizing unions rejects what unions were created to do, which is provide a check on corporations and Capital from their excesses and to share some of the profits from what workers provide with those workers. For the past twenty years, the trend has been to reject this profit-sharing ideal to favor investors and owners over the workers. We have seen the Middle Class in the United States lose ground while wealthy people simply grow more wealthy.
You see a very strong Middle Class in Europe. And the reasons are simple. Everyone has access to health care. Everyone will receive a pension. Everyone will be protected from disability and nobody will go homeless who wants a home. These were standards governments set for themselves in the wake of World War II and they have kept to it.
I have voted for Republicans in the past. I have thought that, in the case of many of them, their goals were good ones and that they would run things well. But what has happened to the Republican party is that it has been taken over by Libertarians who want no regulations at all whatsoever. And they want everyone to row their own boat. And if you don't have an oar, you simply fall over the cliff there with the waterfall. "Survival of the fittest, you know," (despite many Republican voters' aversion to Darwin.
Here are what Unions really want (despite what Kaminski would have you understand):
- A Middle Class wage that lets workers pay for a home and college for their children.
- Corporations who will take care of their employees and make an investment in them.
- Corporations who will make workplaces safe for employees and work to prevent accidents.
- Workers who will get a fair share of the profits they earn.
- An electorate that will understand these goals and elect representatives that will not be beholden to corporate interests to the exclusion of the workers they represent.
- An electoral process that will not try to disenfranchise individuals on basis of ethnic background, class or economic standing.
- An electoral process that is not distorted by large multinational corporations that will use foreign money and foreign profits to influence American elections.
As far as I know, unions are made up of individuals who are workers, not MBAs or "wise guys." You cannot join a union if you are a member of the Communist Party—in fact, you have to sign an oath stating that you are not a member of the Communist Party in order to join a union.
But I see money from Communist China coming over in the millions through multinational corporations now that the US Supreme Court has decided that it's allowed. And there is no reporting on this money. Nobody in the media or in the government is allowed to know where the money that will influence the next electoral outcome came from and how much.
So, as far as I can tell, these Republicans and the Wall Street Journal as well as Kaminski and Siegel are all in the pay of Communists. I'm not allowed to know otherwise.
