Everybody’s Scratching Somebody’s Back

Some of the mes­sage com­ing from var­i­ous Repub­li­cans late­ly is that the pub­lic employ­ee unions give the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty an edge since the Democ­rats are sup­pos­ed­ly hap­py to give the unions what­ev­er they want and then the unions pro­vide the dol­lars and the votes to elect the Democ­rats. A fine cir­cle of back scratching.

In the first place, if this was such an effec­tive dynam­ic, how did a Repub­li­can get elect­ed to the Wis­con­sin gov­er­nor­ship? Why are there any Repub­li­can office hold­ers any­where? And, why is it that

over the last fif­teen years the pay of pub­lic-sec­tor work­ers, includ­ing teach­ers, has dropped rel­a­tive to pri­vate-sec­tor employ­ees with the same lev­el of edu­ca­tion — even includ­ing health and retire­ment benefits.

(Yes, I just used that a cou­ple of posts previously…)

I sup­pose it is all hunky dory that big busi­ness and the wealthy give loads of cash to Repub­li­cans who vote to give them tax deduc­tions and tax cuts, and to ease the reg­u­la­to­ry bur­den. It is so much eas­i­er to make mon­ey when one is free to pol­lute the envi­ron­ment, treat employ­ees as expend­able assets, and cus­tomers as peo­ple to swindle.