Leftists and union supporters love to point to the salaries of corporate bosses and claim them an excess in order to goad regular people into fits of envy and hatred, stirring that class warfare that leftists love so much. But the folks at LaborUnionReport.com thought it might be interesting to turn the tables and calculate what could have been done with all that money were it not wasted on union dues.

LUR notes that with 14.7 million union members nation wide, that is a “substantial amount of dues money flowing to unions.” It is, indeed.

Before we get to LUR’s calculations, though, we should note that most dues money goes to fund the excessive lifestyles of union bosses who routinely make well over $200,000 a year, dues go to shore up the bloated staffs of union offices, and let us not forget that millions go into the pockets of compliant Democrat politicians to help them get elected over and over again. Many millions more go to create political issue advocacy efforts, like moves to raise our taxes so that union members can get even more of our tax money.

Now let’s take a look at LUR’s calculations:

If we were to use a conservative figure of $50 per month for union dues, in 2010, unions collected $735,000,000 per month in union dues from America’s unionized workers. Multiply $735,000,000 by 12 months and you get a whopping $8,820,000,000 that was collected in union dues in 2010.

That is a lot of cash, indeed. Now let’s see what could have been done with all that money:

Divide $8,820,000,000 by $33,227 and you’ll find that if unions did not take union dues from workers in 2010, 265,447 workers’ jobs could have been supported.

But don’t forget, government union bosses think you are selfish for not wanting to give them millions to allow their members to retire in their fifties (unlike the rest of us), to have better healthcare than the rest of us, and to have generous pensions that we have to pay for through our taxes.

Still, it is interesting how unions want to point to the salaries of industry executives claiming they are somehow illicit yet the dues they’ve stolen from millions of workers could pay the salaries of so many thousands of Americans who are now out of work.

Which is excessive again? The salaries of people actually creating wealth and job or those simply stealing it for union thuggery?

In the worst kept secret in D.C., White House Chief of Staff Rham Emanuel officially left his post in a tearful press conference on the morning of Oct. 10.

Most of what Mr. Emanuel had to say was your normal, average, everyday puffery that a junior member of a team says when he is leaving his position. Emanuel’s thanks-for-the-memories address was all perfectly innocuous… except for one thing.

Early in his remarks Emanuel issued some hortatory for his boss, President Obama. “I want to thank you for being the toughest leader any country can ask for in the toughest times any country has ever faced,” Emanuel said.

Now, some may think that this is just glad-handing of the sort that one might expect of an underling leaving his beloved boss. But this is far more revealing than that.

Just think of what Emanuel said, here. He claimed that his president has led through the “toughest times any country has ever faced.” Tougher than the Revolution when we weren’t even sure we’d make it as a nation? Tougher than what Madison faced in the War of 1812 when the White House was nearly burnt to the ground? Tougher than the Civil War that Lincoln faced? Tougher than WWI, the Great Depression, WWII?

Worse, those historical episodes I mention were only America’s tough times. Emanuel said that we are in the worst any country ever faced. ANY country? Worse than the utter collapse of the Soviet Union? Good or bad that the U.S.S.R. collapsed, having a country collapse isn’t an easy time? Worse than the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of the Austro-Hungarian Empire whose death began the turmoil of WWI? Worse even than the wholesale destruction and death caused by the 2010 earthquake in Haiti in which some 92,000 Haitians were killed? Come on, Rahm. You are making yourself look foolish.

But this is how these historically illiterate Democrats of our modern era really think of these times in which we live. They hyperbolically and ridiculously feel that today, this era, is worse than any era America or any other nation has ever seen. It is an arrogance of imagining they are the center of the universe. This is the arrogance of today’s Democrats placing themselves above history and all of humanity.

Now there is no doubt that America is in bad shape today. Much of that is due to the Democrat’s own misguided efforts, too. But partisan politics aside, it is flat out absurd to say that today’s crisis is worse than previous crises under Washington, Madison, Lincoln, Wilson, and FDR or the trials and travails of some of history’s other great upheavals in other lands. Only the supreme arrogance of the left — or the foolishness of the historically ignorant — would imagine that today is worse than ever.

My bet is on their arrogance.

Finally, wasn’t it Rahm Emanuel who was so gleeful to have a crisis that he wouldn’t “let go to waste”? As my friend Lorie Byrd said to me via email, “Emanuel should have been thrilled if these were truly the ‘toughest times.’ Hey, and just how many times is it appropriate to go on vacation (or to go golfing) in the toughest times in the history of the country?”

I guess things haven’t been so awful as to prevent Obama from golfing, eh?

Even as supporters claim they won’t need subsidies, it is more likely that L.A. is about to plunge itself forever into debt with a new stadium, the Staples Center. A look at just about any other convention center, or stadium in the country easily shows that these projects seldom pay for themselves as builders insist that they will do. Yet, every time you turn around another city is falling for this false hope.

Unfortunately it is almost impossible for the average citizen to track where the budget money is going in any particular city budget. As we learned from Bell, California people have even been duped into making city politicians millionaires and millions have been misspent.

Cities shift funds from one department to another with such regularity that tracking it is difficult. If the City of Bell is any lesson we need far more transparency in city budgeting.

But it shouldn’t be any surprise to the city fathers of LA that the Staples Center will never pay for itself. After all, the Convention Center has lost millions every year, too, and now they intend to tear down part of that losing venture to build yet another losing venture. According to the L.A. Almanac, in 2005 the convention center brought in $9,130,000. Appropriations for the convention center, however, were 21,608,518. That is an operating loss.

Even if LA wanted to ignore the constant operating loss of its own convention center, they have but to ask San Francisco whose own Moscone Center also operates at a perpetual loss. The Moscone Center takes in about $10 million annually yet has an operating cost that runs at least three million more than it takes in.

LA’s administration expects people to continue to patronize the convention center choking on the construction dust and stumbling over debris, finding little parking and confronted with constant crime in the area, as supporters build a new stadium that itself will not likely end up paying for itself.

Already news has leaked that the cost of this stadium will be over $1 billion. But even that price tag is likely two or even three times too small. After all, even if the stadium “only” costs $1 billion won’t the city have to end up replacing the square footage lost to the convention center?

Also if the city does not replace the square footage, another problem arises. The larger conventions, those that bring in the most money, will have to be canceled because the city has lost the floor space that the convention center originally had. Some that are already booked may have to be canceled and the city will be at a competitive disadvantage with other convention center across the country for future events. This all constitutes a hidden cost to the taxpayers later on.

This is all a familiar tune being played out across the country. It isn’t a new thing, either. Most people are familiar with the famous Houston Astrodome that now sits empty and unused because the city lost its national sports franchises. The stadium was built with much fanfare in 1965 and at this time far removed from its initial construction, one would assume the thing was paid for long ago. But that would be a false assumption.

As Steve Malenga reveals to us:

Take Houston. The Astrodome… There’s still $32 million in debt on a stadium originally constructed for just $35 million, thanks to some $60 million in obligations floated on the dome in the 1980s for upgrades. With no current revenues, the dome must be supported entirely by local taxes, which cover about $2.4 million in annual debt payments (which stretch for 22 years) and another $2 million in upkeep. The solution? More debt, of course. The Harris County Commissioners, who control the stadium, are looking at a plan to turn the whole place into a giant conference and meeting center, at a cost of $900 million in new debt. Either that or spend $128 million to tear the place down.

Malenga also notes similar losses in other cities. Giants Stadium in the Meadowlands, for instance, is still costing the taxpayers millions even after the complex was torn down. Further the Seattle Kingdome offers similar deficits, upwards to $100 million, to Seattle’s taxpayers and Three Rivers Stadium in Pittsburg is also in hock for $23 million, or rather the taxpayers are in hock for that obscene amount.

As we can see, even as bodies of government are tearing down stadiums and convention centers and/or proposing new construction, debt service on these and other “abandoned” stadiums (like those built all over for the Olympics) are still saddling the taxpayers with debt. It’s the worst of all worlds as taxpayers are left holding the bag for stadiums that are already not producing revenue they are forced to pay for it all ad infinitum.

Yet LA’s politicians continue to stumble toward this never ending waste of the taxpayer’s money.

In July liberal Republican DeDe Scozzafava was tapped by the 11 Republican county chairmen of New York’s 23rd Congressional District to run for the seat being vacated by John McHugh, who resigned to take Obama’s offer to become Secretary of the Army.

The NY GOP made a huge mistake with this smoke-filled-room choice. Scozzafava has made a hash of this campaign and should withdraw her candidacy immediately and allow Conservative Party candidate Doug Hoffman to take her place.

Her lousy campaign aside, the prime reason we want to Dump Dede is because she doesn’t seem to be much of a Republican in a District that could elect a Republican candidate (and traditionally has). Scozzafava has all the wrong positions for a Republican. She is an abortion supporter, supports same-sex marriage and her hubby is a bigtime union leader. Even worse, groups associated with the criminal, left-wing organization ACORN have endorsed her candidacy — not the sort of company a Republican should keep.

Her primary opponent is New York Conservative Party Candidate Doug Hoffman who is most certainly far more like a Republican than Dede. Hoffman has picked up the support of several high profile Republicans such as former GOP Sen. Fred Thompson, Campaign for Working Families founder Gary Bauer, and the Washington D.C. based Club for Growth. It also looks like Former Congressman Dick Armey is coming out for Hoffman, too.

Hoffman is a small government supporter he is against raising taxes and opposes both the stimulus and Obamacare. Hoffman’s message suits the mood of a tea party going nation that is sick of insider politics and big spending liberals.

As I mentioned, Scozzafava is proving an inept candidate. One of the absurd incidents of this campaign happened this week when Dede’s Hubby called the cops on a correspondent from the conservative magazine Weekly Standard. Apparently the candidate did not appreciate writer John McCormack’s questions and decided that his efforts to get the candidate to answer them constituted “harassment.”

The Scozzafavas claimed that McCormack “repeatedly screamed questions” and carried on in a manner “that would make the National Enquirer blush.” Of course, audio of the incident shows that McCormack was only speaking at a level loud enough to be heard and otherwise carried himself in a professional manner. The police even said that the incident was overblown.

“I don’t believe it ever escalated to anything that would ever be classified as an emergency,” (Lowville Village Police Chief Eric) Fredenburg said.

Strangely, this has become a hill that Newt Gingrich has decided to die on. He insists that only Scozzafava can win in this District and is standing behind his quixotic backing of the liberal Republican.

Gingrich says that he believes Scozzafava when she says that she won’t vote for more taxes and he claims that she came out against Obamacare. But a look at what Scozzafava actually said about Obamacare shows less outright opposition to Obamacare and more calculated dancing around the question. In a recent news report, Scozzafava said:

Any meaningful health care reform must reduce costs by expanding competition across state lines and by implementing much needed tort reform to curb the frivolous lawsuits that have been driving up costs on the entire system.

Where in that artful dodge did Gingrich see actual opposition to Obamacare? As for Hoffman he was unequivocal, saying, “(T)his legislation is not about health care reform. It is simply about loading down the taxpayers with more debt and more costs.”

The main question here is can Hoffman beat the Democrat to win this District? For sure he cannot if Scozzafava stays in the race (and she can’t win if Hoffman does). Still even Washington Post writer Chris Cillizza — NO Republican supporter he — thinks Hoffman can win.

Ominously for a GOP win, Scozzafava has already faded to third place in the polls despite being the official GOP nominee and she is out of steam in fund raising while Hoffman has surged with his.

Lastly, I’d like to comment on the selection process by which New York Republicans pick their candidates. We are in a day when few people of any political ideology trust those in power and party loyalty is at an all time low. To regain the confidence of the people the GOP should be initiating a process of getting back to the people and trusting the rank and file to become an integral part of the party. Yet the NY GOP goes behind closed doors and chooses the candidates for the voters? This smacks of cronyism and the good ol’ boy network. To essentially tell the voters, as this selection process does, that their opinion isn’t wanted is precisely the wrong message to send.

Today I join a whole retinue of conservative bloggers and writers to say let the voters choose. Dump DeDe. Vote Doug Hoffman.

As RedState.com moves into its more activist political phase, I find myself in the unenviable position of having to step off the proverbial train. RedState has been an important part of my daily writing routine, but as in all things, the end of the line has come. So, it’s time for me to move on to my own next phase so that I can put more time and attention to the blogging that I am contracted for elsewhere.

Simply put, due to my own personal times constraints, I simply cannot keep up on the goings on in Washington in the fresh and timely manner demanded by this conservative blog of record. RedState will continue to be an important stop for those that need to know of the daily business in D.C. and will also continue to serve as the one place where conservatives and Republicans can go to find out how to become involved.

I want to thank the many RedState readers that have emailed me over the years with their kind words about my past work here and I want you to know that I appreciate your encouragement. I also want to thank the many comments that have been left on my RedState diaries. You have all been wonderful and I am humbled. I leave you all with the archives as a fond memory.

Also, I want to thank the many RedState front page contributors that made me feel so welcome. You guys are a heck of a bunch.

I will, of course, continue to write for my own blog and the several other blogs for which I work. I’m not leaving the blogosphere, for sure. I will also drop an occasional diary here when I can. I just won’t be front paging any more.

Thanks again and please do follow me on PubliusForum.com, my own personal blog.

Yours in service,

Warner Todd Huston

We are speeding headlong toward a time when our Congress will have become just like Mad King George’s Parliament, that body from which in 1776 the American colonists separated with the rallying cry of “no taxation without representation.” Our national government is fast becoming just as unrepresentative of the people as far off Briton was when we went to war to become the United States of America.

Does that seem like a hyperbolic statement to you? At first blush, it might. But a considered look at the direction in which we are quickly heading will prove that, compared to the British Parliament that raised the ire of our forefathers so long ago, today’s Congress shows many signs of the same, oppressive, haughty, disinterested politicians that considered their national government more important than the local’s interests and needs.

Representation is the key word, here. What does it mean? What did it mean then? Of course, the problem was that it meant two different things to the opposing sides of the Revolutionary era, hence the conflict. In England, representation meant that Parliament “represented” the whole of the country and that each member of that body was elected from their home to go forth and become a member of the whole. British politicians generally did not imagine that they were representing their hometown when they went to Parliament.

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The Hill newspaper is reporting that Speaker Pelosi is finding that the tough slog that the healthcare debate is having in the House of Representatives is the “price” she is paying for the arrogant rushing of the Cap and Trade bill that the Democratic leadership earlier forced through the House. The way that bill was rammed down the throats of Democrat moderates rankled them and they are getting payback by slowing progress, even opposing parts, of the healthcare bill.

Pelosi rushed the climate bill through without giving her own members time to read the bill and come to understand it. The result was a vote that has gotten moderates beaten up pretty well by constituents that were never given an opportunity to voice their opinions before their representatives voted.

Since the climate bill, moderates are “once bitten” on rushing to vote on an issue before they’ve had a chance to digest the thing and bring it back home to get a feel from their voters as to which way they should go. With that experience, they don’t want to rush into healthcare in the same way they did the climate bill that has caused so many of them so much heartburn.

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We can at last mark one small victory against the Orwellian named Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA). The card check feature of the bill has been successfully cut out of the bill in the Senate.

The card check feature would have allowed unions to eliminate the ages old democratic practice of allowing prospective union employees the benefit of a secret ballot to vote “yes” or “no” for organizing their work place.

Removal of this feature of the EFCA proves that our Senators can be moved by pressure from constituents. But, let’s not imagine that the war is now won. This one small victory still leaves a bill jammed full of anti-business, economy killing aspects and we need to keep the pressure on to kill this mess.

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It looks like Time Magazine’s Karen Tumulty is getting scared that we could be losing the healthcare battle so she is urging Obama to “step in” and fix it all for us. Why, only the dulcet tones of The One could save us all from… wait, isn’t this whole thing his deal in the first place?

What is curious with this piece is the fact that Tumulty seems oblivious to the possibility that if healthcare is failing to win the day, that failure could be squarely laid at the president’s feet. After all, it is his campaign promise and his “highest priority” that we tackle healthcare. Yet Tumulty, while mildly scolding Obama for not being hands on enough, is all too willing to blame everyone but Obama for the floundering of the debate.

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OK, is it just me or did the Democrats on the Senate’s health committee make their healthcare plan out to be …well, poo poo? It can’t be just me. Look at the name they’ve chosen for their healthcare plan. They have called it the Quality, Affordable Health Coverage for All Americans plan. The acronym for that would be QAHCAA. How else can one pronounce that but cahca? And what is that closest to but ca ca? That’s a little Spanish lingo for… well, poo poo.

Yes, the Senate is raining QAHCAA down upon us with its healthcare bill. Soon we’ll be knee deep in QAHCAA. QAHCAA will be coming out our ears. The whole thing is a pile of QAHCAA. The Senate has jammed 10 pounds of QAHCAA into a 5 pound bag. We are all in deep QAHCAA.

Nice going Democrats. That is one fine acronym for your bill. Very fitting. Right on. Props to what ever half-witted staffer you let come up with that one!

(H/T P.J. Gladnick of Newsbusters.org)

I’m sorry, I’m not much for name calling but this woman is an idiot. She is claiming that the oppressive surtax can “also” go to retire the Obama $1 trillion deficit if there is any “left over” after Obamacare is “paid for”!

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Thursday that Democrats could use a proposed new tax on the wealthy to pay down the deficit, if there’s money left over after funding healthcare reform.

But, the CBO is claiming that Obamacare will cost in excess of $1 trillion and the surtax is “only” going to raise $544 billion. How, exactly, is there supposed to be anything “left over” after Obamacare is “paid for.”

I know, I just used a lot of quote marks, but they are deservedly derisory.

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Senator Olympia Snowe is the Democrat’s one great hope for “bi-partisan” healthcare. Of course, by that Democrats mean that Snowe is the only one that will give them any cover at all that what they are considering could possibly appeal across party lines. But, even Snowe is saying that the healthcare train needs to be slowed down despite Obama’s cries for full speed ahead.

Snowe has recently begun to say that a vote on the bill before the August recess, as Obama keeps pushing for, is way too soon and that the Senate needs to slow down considerably.

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Is it any surprise that the historians that attended a secret White House dinner with President Obama last month are nearly all well known for a leftist outlook on history? Is Obama programming his “historical” coverage already?

Was there a Richard Brookhiser in attendance or a Larry Schweikart? Was there someone like Forrest McDonald at Obama’s secret dinner? Nope. Except for one attendee, the invited historians have all used their status as historians to make all sorts of ahistorical proclamations about modern politics which is quite un-historian-like of them.

The fact is, no real historian would comment as an expert on contemporary events. A real historian knows that it takes decades of time to go by before history can be written. It takes decades for records to become available, generations of biographies and autobiographies need to be written and much time must pass before actions made in one decade can bear their ultimate fruit. All this information has to be reviewed and weighed before history can be written and very often the words of participants cannot be taken for gospel. Any real historian will know that commenting on contemporary events can only be opinion and guesswork not FACT.

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Here’s another one of those wonderful examples of how the Old Media will use a headline that makes a stark claim about how rotten Republicans are for opposing a Democratic plan while at the same time conveniently ignoring the opposition to the same idea among Democrats.

This time it is the “partisan divide” in the healthcare debate. The Times tsks Republicans for solidly lining up to oppose Obama’s wild grab for nearly 20 percent of the nation’s economy through his healthcare plans. Yet not once does the Times mention the many areas in which Democrats are disagreeing with Democrats on Obamacare. The Times makes it seem as if there is no dissent among Democrats and it is only those meanie Republicans holding up the wonderfulness of Obamacare.

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Salon.com has a disheartening story about the troubles at the national cemetery at Arlington, Virginia, those sacred grounds were thousands upon thousands of our nation’s heroes and notables have been buried. Infuriatingly, it seems that cemetery records are a mess, some of them not corresponding to headstones, many garbled or lost.

This is the nation’s most revered cemetery yet some soldier’s names are lost to the permanent record, some burials are unknown because of failed record keeping, it is even thought that some headstones are on the wrong graves.

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It’s an emergency, they tell us. We NEED it NOW, the Democrats insist. No time to mess around, it’s time to get serious Obama told us. If we don’t get Obamacare quick the world will topple around us we are assured. So what is the Senate doing instead of taking the time to consider these important issues? Instead of worrying about healthcare, the Senate is spending its time larding the bill billions of dollars in pork projects.

As the Boston Globe reports, added to the bill is “billions of dollars for walking paths, streetlights, jungle gyms, and even farmers’ markets.” This spending is supposedly to improve the country’s “health infrastructure” – a laughable rhetorical device if there ever was one.

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This week and last we’ve seen some firmer ideas from House Democrats on how they expect to pay for Obamacare and from those ideas it is becoming increasingly, painfully obvious that small businesses will be hit hard with tax increases and this during one of the worst economic downturns in decades. Right when we need economic growth from small business, the backbone of the country, Democrats are making to punish them thereby pushing any economic recovery far off into the future… if at all.

Not all Democrats want to tread this suicidal path, granted. We’ve discussed the efforts of the 40 self-professed Blue Dogs several times before (Here and here) as last week they sent a letter to Speaker Pelosi and Majority Leader Stenny Hoyer of the Democratic leadership in the House warning them that they weren’t necessarily on board with the current direction that Democrats in the House were going on healthcare.

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You know when a liberal has lost any capability to understand the common American when they completely miss the pain that liberal tax hikers cause the average citizen in this country. Charlie Cook recently showed this elitist attitude in a National Journal column on the outrageous costs of the Cap and Trade bill – better called the Cap and Tax bill. Of course, to him, the tax hike on the average American is not a big deal and he doesn’t understand how anyone could be upset over it all.

Cook is perplexed why Washington pols were “getting an earful” from constituents over the energy tax hikes that the Cap and Trade bill will force on the nation. He just couldn’t figure why adding “only” an additional $175 a year to the average citizen’s electric bill was such a big deal.

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Want to see a full list of the earmarks in the Energy and Water Bill that the House is about to begin debating? Well, I hope you have some stamina because there are 1,866 of them to read.

You’ll notice that many of them are being requested by “the President.” That would be the Barack Obama 2012 re-election campaign project you are seeing there.

For some reason, my list is causing trouble with the code here, so the full list was posted by Jamie Dupree.

A new article on Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal policies has been published by the Milken Institute Review. The piece reveals how FDR’s strengthening of labor unions contributed to the continued economic downturn experienced during the Great Depression and how the country’s disastrous economic condition was exacerbated by the failure of the New Deal. As time passes more and more honest economists and historians – those not sold out to Roosevelt sycophancy – are coming to terms with the simple fact that FDR was a failure as president with everything except his prosecution of WWII. Here is yet another historical review in that vein. (See .pdf file of article)

The Article, titled “Where the New Deal Went Badly Wrong,” was written by Harold L. Cole and Lee Ohanian. Harold L. Cole, Ph.D. Economics, University of Rochester, 1986, is a professor of economics at the University of Pennsylvania. Lee E. Ohanian, Ph.D. Economics University of Rochester, 1993, is a professor of economics at UCLA.

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