WWGWD?Video:
12/31/10
The Audacity of GolfMatters
The Presidency is a terrible thing to wasteImage:
Video:
HOW MUCH DID OBAMA’S FAMILY VACATION COST TAXPAYERS?
The Hawaii Reporter compiled an estimated account of expenses for the Obama vacation and found that, before factoring in unknown costs, taxpayers forked over almost $1.5 million. Here’s how the paper broke it down:(full story at theblaze.com)
- Mrs. Obama’s early flight to Hawaii: $63,000 (White House Dossier)
- Obama’s round trip flight to Hawaii: $1 million (GAO estimates)
- Housing in beachfront homes for Secret Service and Seals in Kailua ($1,200 a day for 14 days): $16,800
- Costs for White House staff staying at Moana Hotel: $134,400 ($400 per day for 24 staff) – excluding meals and other room costs
- Police overtime: $250,000 (2009 costs reported by Honolulu Police Department)
- Ambulance: $10,000 (City Spokesperson)
TOTAL COST: $1,474,200
Then there are the unknown costs:
- Rental of office building in Kailua on canal
- Security upgrades and additional phone lines
- Costs for car rentals and fuel for White House staff staying at Moana Hotel (Secret Service imports most of the cars used here to escort the president)
- Surveillance before the president arrives
- Travel costs for Secret Service and White House staff traveling ahead of the President
Yes, the president deserves a vacation. But the paper suggests that the Obamas could have used housing on military bases to save on costs such as security and housing for support personnel.
Mugabe, USSR, Putin, Panama Canal
On this day: December 31Robert Mugabe assumes office as President of Zimbabwe (1987)
The Soviet Union is officially dissolved (1991)
Boris Yeltsin resigns as President of Russia, leaving Prime Minister Vladimir Putin as acting President (1999)
The U.S. hands Panama Canal over to Panama (1999)
d: Joseph Yablonski (1969), Michael Kennedy (1997)
Community Organizing for the New Progressive Era
12/30/10
The Era of Constitutional Gov't Is Over
Ruling Class Progs declare antiquated document uselessVideo:
Alabama Smacks Down Corruption
Right-to-Work state moves against oppressive union bigsVideo:
Teacher Unions Must Collect Their Own Dues
(from nrtwc.org)Now a week old, Alabama Senate Bill 2 is being double and triple-checked by the legal departments of the state’s teacher unions.
SB2 ends the practice of deducting union dues from paychecks.The unions say it's political payback. Governor Riley calls it an end to financing political activity by special interest groups.
How To Bankrupt The States
BigGov and BigLabor set the mother of all bailoutsVideo:
Unions keep bankrupting the states
(from nj.com)New Jersey public employee unions have to change their policy of extracting money they do not deserve from the taxpayers. That policy’s result will be a net loss for every citizen living here.
We cannot support the unions’ demands which, in my opinion, are an abuse of the taxpayers.
Union members call each other “brothers,” but from what I can see, those who are working would not give up a dime to help those brothers who are out of work.
Union Rollback
(from investors.com)A guest on Fox Business Network said last week that public employee unions are bankrupting state governments. Isn't it time that legislators outlaw collective bargaining for public-sector workers?
Working for the government as a member of a union is an easy path to prosperity. On average, the yearly compensation for a public sector worker is, according to Bureau of Economic Analysis data, $67,812. In the private sector, that average is $59,909.
To understand the problem created by high wages and gold-plated benefits for public sector workers, one needs only to read the work of Chris Edwards writing in the Winter 2010 issue of the Cato Journal.Why this happened is no mystery. The gap has coincided with increased unionization in the public sector that followed what Edwards characterized as "a rash of state legislation encouraging or requiring collective bargaining" in the 1960s and 1970s.
In a more reasonable day, public-sector workers could not collectively bargain. Princeton economics professor Henry Farber documented in a research paper that in 1950 only one state let its public sector workers bargain as a group for compensation.Sixty years on, it's hard to argue the public is better served by the unionization of state and local workers. Given that the public is liable for their lavish compensation, the opposite is true.
What the country needs are nonunionized state and local workers who serve the public, not themselves. Today's lawmakers need to unravel a series of grave mistakes made by their predecessors.
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