RUSH: I want to pose this as a little think piece for you. ‘Cause I find this fascinating. I ran across this at PJMedia.com, PajamasMedia.com. There’s a guy there by David Goldman who writes under the name of “Spengler.” We have always focused on the tipping point in this country being where net takers from the government begin to outnumber the payers.
People getting government assistance outnumbering those of us who pay taxes to pay for it. That’s always been what we’ve looked at as the tipping point, that the country’s lost once there are more of them than there are of us. But
The biggest net takers are the municipal unions, federal and state employees.
Now, this dovetails with… I mean, everything they have comes from taxes. It’s not called “welfare.” It’s called their salaries and their pensions and their health care and their benefits package. But every dime of it comes from taxpayers. Government doesn’t produce anything. Every federal worker, every municipal employee, every union in every state, is who Mr. Goldman says are the biggest net takers. Now, Snerdley’s in there frowning because he’s so rooted in this notion that the food stamp crowd and the AFDC crowd and all these others are the biggest net takers.
But this guy’s got the chart data. Again, it does me no good on the radio to show you. But just stick with me on this. It’s not very complicated. The biggest net takers are municipal unions. The biggest net payers are owners of property. Because it’s much easier to raise property taxes than it is to enact brand-new taxes. You get your property tax bill, what recourse do you have? It goes up; you have no recourse. Even when your property value is falling, your property taxes are going up, are they not?
So, the biggest net takers are municipal unions and the biggest net payers are property owners. Now, fortunately property owners still significantly outnumber municipal union workers. So the tipping point in this way of looking at things is a little down the road. We’re not quite as close to it. And added to this, property owners are ticked off. Their property values are way down, and yet their taxes are way up. And this could be one of the best things that we have going for us that’s not commented on, not reported on.
This could explain, in part, the origins of the Tea Party.
The Tea Party are property owners. Not all of them, but many of them are. Their home values are plummeting. Property taxes are rising. Everybody… I mean, this Wisconsin recall and the whole contretemps over the past two years is focused on this. Now how many people, largely because of this program (ahem), do you think for the first time really understand how municipal employees are paid? And how many people, for the first time, understand they’re earning more than the people who are paying them?
And how many people, for the first time, understand the circuitous money-laundering route that union dues take before they end up in the campaign coffers of Democrats? It’s a never-ending cycle. Here’s how it works. It’s very simple. Taxpayer Joe Snerdley pays his taxes. A portion of Joe Snerdley’s taxes goes to pay Melva Snerdley, the union employee that works at the city. It goes to pay her salary and her pension and her benefits. She’s a member of a union. She pays dues.
The dues goes to the union leaders, who do what with it?
Spend it to reelect Democrats.
It’s a money-laundering scheme. It’s a way to get people to donate to Democrats who have no control over the money. It’s not very many unions that allow their union members to direct how their dues are going to be spent. By the way, an added source of contretemps in Wisconsin was the option for people not to join a union if they didn’t want to. And that takes the dues out of the whole thing. And the money-laundering scheme takes a hit. And that’s another reason why the unions were fit to be tied in Wisconsin.
How many people, largely because of… Well, forget why. (We all know why.) And in the midst of this, the Tea Party is born. And people, property owners, their taxes are going up. And they finally figure out what their taxes are doing. They’re funding all these union people who are showing up and beating up people at Tea Party rallies and so forth. And they’re saying, “We’re paying these people? It’s our taxes paying these people? It’s our taxes paying their pensions, and we don’t have a pension?
“It’s our taxes paying their health care after they retire, and we don’t have anything like that? It’s our taxes paying them? And they’re out there saying, ‘Gimme more! Gimme more! Gimme more!’ They’re out there with a sense of entitlement. ‘It’s mine, it’s mine, it’s mine.’ And they’re tearing things up like state capitol building if they don’t get their way like a bunch of spoiled-rotten kids?” People are finally saying, “No more,” and, “If we’d-a known this 30 years ago, we’d-a stopped it then.”
And that’s why it’s not gonna go away. That’s why the Tea Party’s not gonna vanish. That’s why it’s not going to dematerialize. It’s only gonna intensify, as more and more people have a hands-on understanding of it.
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