Sheilbh's Scott Walker Lovefest and Union Bashing Megathread

[Valmy]

How is such a conflict of interest any different from, say, easing regulations affecting your corporate campaign donors?

It is not different at all.

[DGuller]

The only claim that it is selective has been made by Seedy though - nobody arguing against public sector unions has actually made the distinction Seedy as invented.

Scott Walker did.  Well, he didn't argue it, he just did it.

[frunk]

I would agree if the only type of corporate lobbying were over the price of an F-35.

I didn't mention corporate lobbying, just campaign contributions.  That is another can of worms.

[Admiral Yi]

Scott Walker did.  Well, he didn't argue it, he just did it.

I agree.  It undercuts his claim to be working on principles.

[Admiral Yi]

I didn't mention corporate lobbying, just campaign contributions.  That is another can of worms.

Their impossible to separate in my mind.  Substitute contributions if you like.

[frunk]

Their impossible to separate in my mind.  Substitute contributions if you like.

So what is different about F-35s and anything else a corporation might want from a government?

[Berkut]

However, the issue with public sector unions is not the same thing at all. They are a special case since there is such a obvious "quid pro quo" in that the very people responsible for negotiating the employment agreement with the public sector unions are in fact the exact same people who are getting elected (and largely beholden to these powerful public sector unions), so there is a problematic and significant conflict of interest. And the results pretty much speak for themselves. States with large and powerful public sector unions get into a position where it is nearly impossible to be elected without the support of those unions, and the price for that support is a abandonment of any actual attempt to rationally negotiate on behalf of the non-union citizens when it comes to labor agreements.

How is such a conflict of interest any different from, say, easing regulations affecting your corporate campaign donors?

I think conflating the two is frankly bullshit. Whether it is the same or different isn't relevant to the point that public sector unions are a perversion of market economies combined with democratic principles. If in fact there are other problems that need to be addressed, then fine, those other problems ought to be addressed as well. And like I've said (and you've studiously ignored) I am fully supportive of attempts to reduce the influence of money in politics. I am perfectly consistent on these issues.

Public sector unions have been terrible for states where they have become powerful, and are clearly distortions of the labor market.

Whether or not the entiore scope of the rest of politics works perfectly has no bearing on this issue.

[Admiral Yi]

So what is different about F-35s and anything else a corporation might want from a government?

Because other things like the regulatory environment don't involve a pure transfer of wealth to the corporation.  Just to take one example, more stringent pollution regulations impact employment, investment, energy prices, etc.

[DGuller]

However, the issue with public sector unions is not the same thing at all. They are a special case since there is such a obvious "quid pro quo" in that the very people responsible for negotiating the employment agreement with the public sector unions are in fact the exact same people who are getting elected (and largely beholden to these powerful public sector unions), so there is a problematic and significant conflict of interest. And the results pretty much speak for themselves. States with large and powerful public sector unions get into a position where it is nearly impossible to be elected without the support of those unions, and the price for that support is a abandonment of any actual attempt to rationally negotiate on behalf of the non-union citizens when it comes to labor agreements.

How is such a conflict of interest any different from, say, easing regulations affecting your corporate campaign donors?

I think conflating the two is frankly bullshit. Whether it is the same or different isn't relevant to the point that public sector unions are a perversion of market economies combined with democratic principles. If in fact there are other problems that need to be addressed, then fine, those other problems ought to be addressed as well. And like I've said (and you've studiously ignored) I am fully supportive of attempts to reduce the influence of money in politics. I am perfectly consistent on these issues.

Public sector unions have been terrible for states where they have become powerful, and are clearly distortions of the labor market.

Whether or not the entiore scope of the rest of politics works perfectly has no bearing on this issue.

I was just trying to see what exactly is so special about public employee unions that isn't so special about other forms of influence.  I don't know whether their sameness or lack of it is relevant or not, but I am trying to understand why you made such a distinction.

[Berkut]

The results speak for themselves.

Trying to throw in other problems seems dishonest to me - like we cannot try to solve problem A, because problem B exists. And we can't solve B because of C, etc., etc., etc.

So let's just not do anything about anything.

Well... yeah, the results do speak for themselves. The thing is, there are places where there are public sector unions with little corruption and those results speak for themselves as well.

In my personal view, the private and corporate influence on politics in the US appears to foster plenty of corruption as well.

Thus I conclude that the problem in the US is campaign finance rather than public sector unions per se. Public sector unions are, I'm sure, part of a messed up system, but the messed up thing is that giving money to politicians with the expectation of political quid pro quo is an overt and expected part of the process in the US.

Public sector union are not even about money, necessarily - they are voting blocs as well, and even absent the money, it is fucked up that people are basically selling their votes in return for more money in their paycheck. At least, it is fucked up for everyone who is not in the union.

Those are the results I am talking about - how some segment of the population basically is agreeing to vote into power people who will agree to siphon money from another segment to them in return for their votes in a perversion of the labor market.

And there is no actual problem that these unions are needed to address, other than the problem of public employees wanting much more money than they could get in a fair labor market. It isn't like there has ever been any evidence that public employees are somehow unfairly dealt with by their bosses or exploited in some fashion.

[Valmy]

I was just trying to see what exactly is so special about public employee unions that isn't so special about other forms of influence.  I don't know whether their sameness or lack of it is relevant or not, but I am trying to understand why you made such a distinction.

Well corrupt public employee unions impacts services people rely on and really impacts local governments. Corruption in Northrup Grumman is not quite so direct.

[Berkut]

However, the issue with public sector unions is not the same thing at all. They are a special case since there is such a obvious "quid pro quo" in that the very people responsible for negotiating the employment agreement with the public sector unions are in fact the exact same people who are getting elected (and largely beholden to these powerful public sector unions), so there is a problematic and significant conflict of interest. And the results pretty much speak for themselves. States with large and powerful public sector unions get into a position where it is nearly impossible to be elected without the support of those unions, and the price for that support is a abandonment of any actual attempt to rationally negotiate on behalf of the non-union citizens when it comes to labor agreements.

How is such a conflict of interest any different from, say, easing regulations affecting your corporate campaign donors?

I think conflating the two is frankly bullshit. Whether it is the same or different isn't relevant to the point that public sector unions are a perversion of market economies combined with democratic principles. If in fact there are other problems that need to be addressed, then fine, those other problems ought to be addressed as well. And like I've said (and you've studiously ignored) I am fully supportive of attempts to reduce the influence of money in politics. I am perfectly consistent on these issues.

Public sector unions have been terrible for states where they have become powerful, and are clearly distortions of the labor market.

Whether or not the entiore scope of the rest of politics works perfectly has no bearing on this issue.

I was just trying to see what exactly is so special about public employee unions that isn't so special about other forms of influence.  I don't know whether their sameness or lack of it is relevant or not, but I am trying to understand why you made such a distinction.

The problem here is that I've made no such distinction, and it is bizarre that you keep insisting that I have. Kind of suggests that perhaps your motives are not really about the distinction at all.

I've said it like five times now - I fully support efforts to reduce the influence of money in politics. In fact, overall, I think it is a much more dangerous (and topically relevant) issue than public sector unions.

[Berkut]

The only claim that it is selective has been made by Seedy though - nobody arguing against public sector unions has actually made the distinction Seedy as invented.

Scott Walker did.  Well, he didn't argue it, he just did it.

So?

What a shock, a politician took action on the issue that he cares about, and not on the issues he doesn't care about.

[frunk]

Because other things like the regulatory environment don't involve a pure transfer of wealth to the corporation.  Just to take one example, more stringent pollution regulations impact employment, investment, energy prices, etc.

I'm still not seeing the difference.  Does it really matter if lobbying/contributions will get a company X dollars more through a better price for an F-35 or through changed taxation/regulation, when that taxation/regulation change would cost the government just as much as the F-35?  If there is a difference, which is the superior form of lobbying/contribution?

[Admiral Yi]

I'm still not seeing the difference.  Does it really matter if lobbying/contributions will get a company X dollars more through a better price for an F-35 or through changed taxation/regulation, when that taxation/regulation change would cost the government just as much as the F-35?  If there is a difference, which is the superior form of lobbying/contribution?

Well yeah, I think there's a huge difference between saying give me more of your money and saying don't take as much of my money.