Clueless Corrupt Demonrats Controlled by AFSCME & SEIU

Demonrats are now the party of unions, liberals, trial lawyers and other special interest groups. "Liberals" are a tiny and diminishing minority of voters with less than 20% of American voters calling themselves liberals or Proglodytes. Here's a disillusioned Dem who believes that the death knell may be close to sounding if the party of cancerously-growing Big Government refuses to stop its addiction to taxing and spending:

If the Democrats want to be competitive in 2012, they must move decisively back to the center. And unless they're able to break the stranglehold that government-employee unions have on the party on policy, as well as in financial and political support, it will be virtually impossible for Democrats to restore fiscal health to states like New York and California.

Working-class families are fleeing the Democratic Party en masse, a trend that is likely to continue if their own economic situation remains weak in the face of ever-higher taxes, deficits and debt. These working-class voters see that public employees are continuing to receive more generous benefits and enjoy greater job security than they are. Support for the Democratic Party is now well below 40% with working-class voters who are unionized, and as low as 33% with whites who are not college educated.

Bureaucratic Authoritarianism is the sort of loose definition when the Nomenklatura of a country are high-level government functionaries appointed by a centralizing leader, as with Putin's attempt to modernize Russia and the South Korean experience as well as Chile, Argentina and Brazil. The petty functionaries of the country are given such complete control of a country's economic development through grants of exclusivity and alternatively the grandfathering of special interest industries that the country becomes a corporatist collectivity along the lines of Mussolini's Italy or Hitler's Germany. The unions' "mission creep" has now silently become a tumorous growth on the body politic:

By providing Democratic candidates the bulk of their campaign funding, public unions have essentially bought control of the party. This is particularly true when it comes to the politicians who control union contracts and pensions at the state and municipal level.

At the national level, public-employee unions spent more than $200 million to defeat Republican candidates during the 2010 midterm election. The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees—the main union of state employees—spent over $90 million during the campaign, and it was the top donor to the Democrats' efforts to win gubernatorial and state-legislative races.

In California, public-employee unions spent about $25 million to elect Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown. And they've seeded California's state legislature with union operatives from the highest levels on down. One union leader was caught on tape telling elected officials: "We helped to get you into office, and we got a good memory. Come November, if you don't back our program, we'll get you out of office."

In New York, public-employee unions effectively run their own political party dedicated to defeating measures such as wage freezes, benefit cuts and tougher work rules. The Working Families Party, an alliance of labor unions, community groups and politicians, has disproportionate influence in the state assembly. A majority of members were endorsed by and appeared on the Working Families Party ballot line. So far, assembly speaker Sheldon Silver has resisted all efforts to make the kind of cuts in public-employee benefits that would make a meaningful dent in the state's $9 billion deficit.

Democratic leaders are going to have to make hard choices in these states and others where public-employee pension systems are directly responsible for bringing treasuries to the brink of bankruptcy after years of reckless spending.

Now that the Lower House of US Congress and its power of the purse is in the hands of the GOP, the automatic underwriting of the states' profligacy of union benefits and pensions put in place by corrupt Dem politicians will predictably cease, and the states will have to seek financing for their growing deficits from elsewhere than the Fed govt. New York and California are both on the verge of fiscal collapse:

Mr. Brown in California and Gov. Andrew Cuomo in New York both spoke in their inaugural addresses about the need for public-employee unions to compromise and make some sacrifices. But talk is not enough. These governors, and the Democratic Party more generally, must develop and implement a new reform agenda that includes furloughs, layoffs, wage freezes and reductions in pension benefits—certainly for new workers, if not those currently in the system. This is not only essential public policy, it is essential politically for the Democrats to maintain their credibility.

Mr. Brown—who first gave California's public employees the right to bargain collectively during his first term as governor—promised during his inaugural speech last week to review the benefits received by government workers. But he has said nothing about the specific steps he plans on taking to close California's $28 billion budget gap or to address the growing labor contracts and swelling pensions of public employees. It remains unclear whether he will be able to negotiate the give-backs necessary to avoid bankruptcy. It's more likely that he'll push for a tax increase that will be unpalatable to voters if proposed and choke growth if enacted.

Mr. Cuomo has outlined a comprehensive plan to close New York's $10 billion budget gap with specific proposals such as a property tax cap and a freeze on state salaries. While Mr. Cuomo has demonstrated the will to take on both the state-employee unions and Mr. Silver—who have rejected any compromise that would reduce public-employee pay—it remains to be seen whether he has the political heft to succeed where his predecessor David Paterson failed. Mr. Paterson was unable to negotiate give-backs, such as reductions in scheduled raises and an extended pay lag for public employees, with New York's powerful labor unions, most notably the 1199/SEIU.

Mr. Schoen notes the precedent of Gov; Hugh Carey in New York, a powerful man of great moral character able to resist the siren song of the public unions, as a hopeful sign that resistence by the Dems is possible in that state. The weak and semi-moronic Brown of California was the originator of empowerment of public unions and his backbone is as flexible as a drunk on his third or fourth try at AA. Schoen ends on an ominous note for the spineless corrupt Dems:

Republicans are already making hard choices around the country: reducing union benefits, weakening their influence and limiting their right to strike and even their right to bargain collectively. Unless the Democrats engage in similar efforts, there will be a powerful new campaign issue for the Republicans to rally around going in 2012 and beyond.

The corrupt union thugs are attempting to strong-arm the country with their Brownshirt bully boys into some sort of socialist corporatist fascism. The American people must resist bureaucratic authoritarianism and not let the US fall into the Russian Slough of Despond, where public officials unelected and unresponsive to public will are allowed a free hand to pillage and rape the economic resources of the country under the guiding hand of an immensely 'popular' elected dictator.