Unions out bid big oil for influence with Democrats
Government employee unions — through their employees and political action committees — have contributed more money to congressional candidates this election than all the PACs, executives and employees of the entire oil industry, according to data from the Center for Responsive Politics. Because 92 percent of public-employee union money goes to Democrats, President Obama’s party has raised more money from these unions this cycle than Republicans have raised from Wall Street.
When gov’t lobbies gov’t for more gov’t money
By: Timothy P. Carney at Washington Examiner
Along the same lines, local and state governments have spent more on lobbying this year than the health insurance industry or defense contractors.
By any measure, local and state governments and public sector unions are an entrenched special interest. By any measure, they are also the prime beneficiary of President Obama’s latest $50 billion spending proposal.
Obama’s proposed $50 billion aid package for local and state governments is yet another instance of Obama’s reform talk evaporating in the light of concrete proposals and real dollar amounts. Whatever the supposed virtues of this huge handout to profligate politicians and bloated bureaucracies, it is, objectively, a proposed $50 billion transfer of wealth from ordinary taxpayers to a politically connected special interest that overwhelmingly and aggressively favors the party in power.
Public employee unions’ political activism and Democratic partisanship have been well documented. The PAC of the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees had, through the end of April, already spent $10.2 million this election cycle, between contributions to candidates and independent expenditures. That’s three times as much as the PAC spending of Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, Morgan Stanley, Bank of America and Wells Fargo combined.
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