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>I think the issue here is that public employee union proposals for wages and benefits are negotiated and approved by public officials whose campaigns for reelection are largely supported by the same unions.
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And here, Ken, you have stated the essence of the issue. Rhetoric about "the working man" may get everyone singing "Joe Hill" but that is not the issue. This is exactly akin to awarding government contracts to big businesses in return for campaign contributions. It is about corruption, not labor practices.
Charles Hankey
Though a good deal is too strange to be believed, nothing is too strange to have happened.
- Thomas Hardy
Half the harm that is done in this world is due to people who want to feel important. They don't mean to do harm-- but the harm does not interest them. Or they do not see it, or they justify it because they are absorbed in the endless struggle to think well of themselves.
-- T. S. Eliot
Democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for lunch.
Liberty is a well-armed sheep contesting the vote.
- Ben Franklin
Pardon him, Theodotus. He is a barbarian, and thinks that the customs of his tribe and island are the laws of nature.