Democrats, Republicans And The Union Vote

“What does labor want? We want more schoolhouses and less jails; more books and less arsenals; more learning and less vice; more leisure and less greed; more justice and less revenge; in fact, more of the opportunities to cultivate our better natures, to make manhood more noble, womanhood more beautiful, and childhood more happy and bright” – Samuel Gompers

When asked what unions wanted, Samuel Gompers – who is to unions what George Washington, the flag and apple pie is to America --replied, “More.” However, it should be noted that Mr. Gompers – no socialist he -- also said about profits, “The worst crime against working people is a company which fails to operate at a profit.” Mr. Gompers disdained pacifists and Wobblies.

Connecticut employee unions want more of what they have -- higher salaries and more benefits. The only open question among union members in the Nutmeg State is: Are they likely to reach the point of temporary satiation more quickly with Governor Dannel Malloy or Jonathan Pelto, the Leon Trotsky of the state employee union movement in Connecticut?

Mr. Pelto would and has answered the above question by pointing out that Mr. Malloy has committed himself, at least for the duration of the upcoming election, to a cost saving program similar to that fancied by Republican gubernatorial challenger Tom Foley. Mr. Foley has said he would not increase taxes, would not demand contractual rollbacks and would keep spending flat. State Senate Minority Leader John McKinney, Mr. Foley’s challenger in the upcoming August 12th primary, has said he would renegotiate union contracts, much to the dismay of union leaders who are Peltoists at heart but who may believe that Mr. Malloy’s resolve to raise neither taxes nor union salaries and benefits is just campaign buncombe.

We all know that the state of Connecticut had for decades been spending more than it taxes, which is what a deficit is: the negative difference between revenues and expenditures. The bookends in the “What to do about the deficit?” debate in Connecticut are Mr. Pelto and Mr. McKinney.

Mr. Pelto would attack future deficits by raising taxes on the rich, the last jar of revenue peanut butter in the state’s nearly empty pantry. Most of state’s rich are huddled together along Connecticut’s Gold Coast, though there are pockets of gleaming financial moguls elsewhere in the state.  For many decades in the tax and spend state, progressive Democrats and their left of center media enablers have hotly defended the notion that Connecticut had a revenue problem, not a spending problem. Translation: Any future deficits should be discharged through tax increases, not spending cuts. The bill on that fraudulent bill of goods has now come due.  The list of important economic indices in which Connecticut is last continues to grow, and the state’s debts continue to deepen.  Mr. McKinney would attack future deficits by reducing expenditures and forcing unions to bite the bullet.

State union leaders – mostly the upper crust of the State Employees Bargaining Agent Coalition (SEBAC), the conglomerate that has determined union contracts following friendly discussions with Mr. Malloy, who carries union banners in protest marches against private but not public employers   – would be more exercised against Mr. McKinney if SEBAC leaders thought he had a chance of unhorsing Mr. Foley in the Republican Primary and bumping off Mr. Malloy in the general election, a far-fetched possibility. The same unions have rebuffed Mr. Pelto pretty much for the same reason. The unions DO favor a permanent escalation of salaries and benefits without regard to the state’s ability to pay, and so does Mr. Pelto. However, since Mr. Pelto is a long shot and Mr. Malloy a more certain shot, union leaders have decided to bet on Mr. Malloy. Why pull the tail of the lion that is kindly disposed towards them?

The struggle among everyone else in Connecticut not affiliated with a union is to balance daily budgets, which are consistently diminished by an ever-expanding state (How does it happen that no one in the state ever talks about spending bubbles?) hold on to disappearing jobs, which are leeching South, and resist the urge to move to greener pastures elsewhere because they, unlike governmental preferred mega-companies such asAetna and United Technologies, have not received tax relief from their solicitous governor. During his first term in office, Mr. Malloy imposed upon Connecticut's middle class workers the largest tax increase in state history. 

The progressive state will continue to supply the paying populace with bread and circuses, when what people really need to survive independently is a more modest government that would leave untouched the indispensable resources they must have to survive in a world that is wicked, corrupt and very alluring. In a functioning Republic, you may have either an independent government or an independent people – rarely both; which is why, come to think of it, the constitutional architecture of American government carefully defines the limits of judicial, executive and legislative aggression.

Progressivism is on comfortable terms with the over aggressive state. John Olsen, the former President of the Connecticut AFL-CIO, supposes that Mr. Foley’s advisers are “…probably saying “Don’t antagonize labor, don’t antagonize the cities. He’s either afraid or unable to show where he would actually reduce spending within the state budget.”

Mr. Olsen’s former organization has endorsed Mr. Malloy over Mr. Pelto. Connecticut’s union leaders are probably saying, “Don’t antagonize Governor Malloy, who has pledged he will abide by the contractual agreements, favorable to state employee labor unions, the governor previously had arranged with SEBAC. Mr. Malloy’s cuts in spending are mostly temporary and cosmetic; his real agenda, for the foreseeable future, is to consolidate gains without rupturing the ties that bind him to unions.”

The grand thing about state employee unions, as opposed to private unions in the public marketplace, is that no one need frazzle themselves over the state’s profitability. An unprofitable rogue state government such as Connecticut’s may keep the tax top turning until, to revert to Maggie Thatcher’s formulation, the aggressive state “runs out of other people’s money.”