Yesterday, you saw how the union-controlled National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) is using taxpayer money to buy ad space on Google on how to start a union. While this is only the latest activist-oriented action the NLRB has taken to promote unions [more here], it is but one small reminder of waste must be cut from government—waste that union-bosses and their agents in government don’t quite seem to grasp.

As the House’s failed to defund the NLRB in February, another amendment was voted on that would reduce the NLRB’s spending for the rest of FY 2011 by $50 million.  The spending reductions are currently within H.R. 1, the Full-Year Continuing Appropriations Act (page 303, lines 17-19) and only take the NLRB’s budget down to 2003 levels, when there were actually more cases for the NLRB to deal with.

Following the introduction of the $50 million spending reduction proposal, former Teamster attorney and current NLRB Chairman Wilma Liebman and pro-union NLRB General Counsel Lafe Solomon issued an alarmist statement which said (among other things):

Nearly all of the agency’s budget is spent on salaries and rents; there are no programs to eliminate or postpone. The only way to meet this extreme and immediate reduction would be to furlough all of the NLRB’s 1,665 employees for 55 workdays, or nearly three months, between now and the end of September. The great majority of these employees work far from Washington D.C., in 51 local offices, where every NLRB case begins. The economic impact of this cut would be felt by families and communities in 33 states.

Now, if you went to the link (above and here) to view Liebman and Solomon’s statement, you probably saw this:

The content in this statement has been removed. For further information on this subject, please see the President’s Statement of Administration Policy (SAP) regarding the budget, which can be found on the OMB website.

That’s right. The content has been removed from the NLRB website.

On Thursday, U.S. House Education and the Workforce Committee Chairman John Kline (R-MN), and Subcommittee on Health, Labor, Employment, and Pensions (HELP) Chairman Phil Roe, M.D. (R-TN) sent a letter (below) to NLRB Chairman Liebman asking for the data supporting her and Solomon’s claim regarding the purported NLRB staff layoffs. In their release, Congressmen Kline and Roe noted:

“At a time of high unemployment, every agency, department, and board of the federal government must set its own agenda aside and work toward accomplishing the agenda mandated by the American people – getting this economy back on track and getting the unemployed back to work,” said Representative Roe.  “This includes the evaluation of NLRB’s budget. Since tough questions need to be asked and tough choices need to be made, it’s essential we make informed decisions and not use inflammatory rhetoric. It’s the only way we can begin to clean up the fiscal disaster that is before us today.”

Letter_to_Liebman_from_Kline_and_Roe_3-3-11_NLRB_Budget

[Note: There’s no word yet whether or not the OFA and AFL-CIO will be releasing protesters from Wisconsin in order to picket Congress.]

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“I bring reason to your ears, and, in language as plain as ABC, hold up truth to your eyes.” Thomas Paine, December 23, 1776

X-posted.