Check out the rest for some very unpleasant pictures.

There’s plenty of good material, but here’s the gist:

A candidate for public office in any contemporary democracy may have to consider what, if anything, to do about “global warming.” Candidates should understand that the oft-repeated claim that nearly all scientists demand that something dramatic be done to stop global warming is not true. In fact, a large and growing number of distinguished scientists and engineers do not agree that drastic actions on global warming are needed.

So, take a chill pill — and, politicians, get back to focusing on jobs.

Timmons briefed writers today on efforts to educate our nation’s policymakers to create a better environment with respect to taxes, regulation, energy, and torts — the “main drivers” of the excess costs that are making America less competitive. And since less competitive = fewer jobs and a slouching economy, it’s a message to which we should all listen, since as Timmons says, it’s “something we’ve done to ourselves.”

Timmons touched on one of our favorite topics: regulation. The agenda for red tape has “been highly aggressive” and “highly detrimental to manufacturers … and has added costs to cost of doing biz in United States,” he said.

On another of our favorite issues, Timmons said said flatly of the National Labor Relations Board, “their goal quite simply is to make a more hostile workplace.” And hey, who can argue otherwise with a straight face? (For more on his group’s lawsuit, click here — and for the lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the President’s recent appointments, click here).

Manufacturing — like construction and retail and energy and agriculture and so many others — is key to creating jobs. But it won’t work if manufacturers have to leave America because there are too many hurdles.

For more reading, check out NAM’s blog at Shopfloor.org or its Twitter handle, @shopfloor_nam.

Check out the details here.

The original claim of the Occupy Whatever Street (OWS) movement, that large banks got a bailout while middle class America struggled as the result of high unemployment, had merit. However, that legitimate grievance was cast aside as the OWS movement was taken over by Big Labor and the Democratic Socialist Party.

Their goal was to divert attention away from the prolific spending of the Obama administration that is threatening our financial future. Thanks to a sympathetic media, they were able to influence public opinion to reflect their view that the rich are not paying enough taxes, and this is creating our budget shortfalls. In reality, we should be looking at Washington and their outlandish self-serving spending of the American taxpayer’s money.

However since most people do not own a calculator with 13 digits or look at IRS data, their fraud has gone largely undetected and unreported. Let’s examine the facts.

The 2011 budget deficit is $1,300,000,000,000 or 1.3 trillion dollars and the accumulated National Debt is $15,000,000,000,000 or 15 trillion dollars.

Using the OWS definition, the top 1% or 1.38 million people (out of 138 million taxpayers) are considered rich. This group earned 17% of all income but paid 37% of all income taxes. Clearly that is not the message being spread by OWS and their supporters.

Their claim that taxing the rich will help to solve the budget deficit is even more preposterous. The top 1% already pays $320 billion in income taxes annually. To eliminate the 2011 Obama budget deficit of $1.3 trillion, they would need to pay 98% of their earnings in taxes. At that tax rate, they will not continue to own and expand their companies, which include hiring more employees. Even a 98% tax rate on the rich does nothing to reduce the remaining National Debt of 13.7 trillion dollars.

Unless there is an awakening in Washington by members of both parties that their spending is the cause of our budget deficits and no amount of taxes on the rich, or even the middle class, will solve the problem, we are destined to repeat the mistakes of Greece, Italy and most of Europe.

Promoting class warfare based upon misrepresenting the facts may help to get politicians elected, but it does nothing to put us on the path to prosperity.

Courtesy of the Wall Street Journal.

Naval Facilities Engineering Command (NAVFAC) Northwest has mandated a project labor agreement (PLA) on the construction of a $450 million to $550 million explosives handling wharf #2 (Solicitation No. N4425511R9004) at Naval Base Kitsap-Bangor in Washington.

The PLA mandate harms Washington’s experienced and skilled nonunion construction workforce and will discourage competition from qualified contractors that have successfully built federal projects in Washington and across the country without PLA mandates. It will also needlessly increase costs.

Unsurprisingly, labor’s deep political ties may be a driving factor in the PLA mandate, as Ben Brubeck writes that four Washington Democratic legislators wrote the Navy seeking to force a PLA onto the project. He also notes: “According to information obtained from opensecrets.com, construction trades unions have donated the following political contributions totaling $814,375 to the four Washington Democrats who signed the letter:

Rep. Inslee: $340,000 from 2000 – 2012
Rep. Dicks: $183,125 from 1998 – 2012
Sen. Murray: $279,250 from 1998 – 2012
Sen. Cantwell: $ 12,000 from 2002 – 2012
Total: $814,375″

That’s more than three quarters of a million dollars in donations—which could lead to tens of millions of dollars in extra costs to taxpayers, torpedo-ing our military budget.

Click through for more information.

The project Economic Freedom also has used an incredibly popular video to make its case:

And it released a sequel:

So we weighed in over at The American Thinker to explain the issue and our guy concludes, simply: “To those in Big Labor who argue that they will lose dues and power if people have the option to pay for their ‘service,’ I say, too damn bad.”

… bad rules are usually badly written, as seems to be the case here. Rather, quality refers to a deliberative process: defining the problem; measuring costs, benefits and risks; weighing alternatives, making trade-offs, avoiding duplication; and giving the public opportunity to comment. If all goes well a quality rule will promote or at least not impair “economic growth, innovation, competitiveness and job creation,” as Mr. Obama’s January 2011 executive order on regulation had it.

It’s too boring for the press corps to notice, but a growing body of evidence suggests that the Obamanauts are undermining these basic due diligence practices that have been commonly accepted by whatever party happened to be in power.

Definitely click through for more info.

So today, a couple more quotes along those lines. First, Walter Williams writes:

What human motivation gets the most wonderful things done? It’s really a silly question, because the answer is so simple. It turns out that it’s human greed that gets the most wonderful things done.

When I say greed, I am not talking about fraud, theft, dishonesty, lobbying for special privileges from government or other forms of despicable behavior. I’m talking about people trying to get as much as they can for themselves.

Then there’s this quiz, courtesy of the Institute for Humane Studies Facebook page:

“Half the harm that is done in this world is due to people who want to feel important. They don’t mean to do harm– but the harm does not interest them. Or they do not see it, or they justify it because they are absorbed in the endless struggle to think well of themselves.”

There is the “face” of greed:

And a better explanation:

The events of the 1980s clearly demonstrate that the middle class benefits from government policies that promote prosperity rather than programs that promote dependency at the expense of prosperity.

The real question going into to the 2012 election is whether middle-class voters will see through the marketing efforts of the Democratic Party and its media supporters to recognize that policies of prosperity, not redistribution and dependency, truly help the middle class.

Read more at The American Thinker.

Bob Bertsch’s story should make you mad, then make you angry:

Bertsch’s Kennewick-based Ashley-Bertsch Group went on the auction block Friday at 9 a.m. By 4 p.m., Booker Auctions had sold off almost two dozen vehicles and trailers, tons of power tools and supplies, even the gas-fired fireplace in the office.

Bertsch, 65, said he is down-sizing because the tax burden got too expensive to stay in business.
After a quarter of a century of building a successful enterprise at 5903 W. Metaline Ave., Bertsch sat back and watched as about 200 people bid on what was left of his company — boxes of electrical parts, a drafting desk, high-end office furniture, TVs, computers and even the phone system.
Anything that could be carried away, was.

“I am tired of carrying all the tax load,” Bertsch said. “I renew 13 licenses here every year just so I can spend money in this city.”

Bertsch makes no attempt to conceal his frustration with the costs government imposes on small businesses like his.

“Government is killing small business. We used to have 24 employees at our peak. Now, all of those people who used to work here are in unemployment lines,” he said.

Recently, the lone Republican NLRB member, Brian Hayes, took an unusual step of sending a letter to Congress saying Democrats on the board “plainly intend to contravene the board’s own internal rules regarding the circulation and issuance of majority and dissenting opinions.” By this, he meant the rules were conceived and promulgated without his input.

Mr. Hayes‘ letter confirms the worst fears about the overt, special-interest political agenda of the NLRB. Many of its decisions have tilted the scales so far as to effectively drop the pretense of fairness. The goal is simply to manipulate the rules of the game in order to increase unions’ market share. Those same unions bragged in the last election about the hundreds of millions of dollars they spent to get President Obama elected.

It’s more evidence that it’s so important to make your voice heard and tell DC to halt the assault on small business, jobs, and the economy!

UPDATE: See our article at Townhall.com explaining why your action TODAY is so important:

Many of us spent this weekend with families and focused on the thanks in our hearts for our blessings, but once again Obama’s job-killing National Labor Relations Board is giving us plenty to remain un-thankful about.

For those not entirely familiar with all of the Board’s recent havoc, you are no doubt aware of the NLRB’s most high profile job attack of going after a brand new Boeing manufacturing plant that dared to open up and hire employees in a “right to work” state where employees can work without being forced to pay for union representation.

While the Boeing case is definitely a telling example of the Big Labor agenda being driven by the agency, there are other structural attacks by the NLRB that seek to change the way the game is played by shortening the time period and process of unionization at a company. A shortened time period effectively filibusters management from ever getting to respond to concerns or issues raised by employees before a vote to unionize is held. A hearing is scheduled by the NLRB for this Wednesday to presumably enact these measures into law.

Wouldn’t you say the third has an awful lot to do with the first two?

Political genius, yes, because it found a third party — us, as taxpayers — to pay for costlier goods and services if they were designated as environmentally friendly. You know, it’s how we got into the business of loaning money to Solyndra. That way environmentalists got what they wanted and union bosses could fight off declining rolls of dues-paying members.

Of course, there’s a problem when we say we’re creating “new” jobs by having someone install a low-flow toilet instead of a normal john, as HTA spokesman and Miller and Long DC president Brett McMahon testified yesterday before a House Committee on Government Reform subcommittee on the issue of green jobs (see him starting at about the 22 minute mark).

Video of the proceedings:

Mr. McMahon’s written testimony can be found here.

Also testifying was highly esteemed economist Dr. David Montgomery. We’ve attached his testimony, but you can get the gist by his flat summation: “The entire concept of using stimulus money to create a Green Economy is unsound.” But if you’re one of those who like words and thoughts, Dr. Montgomery added that the rush of spending in a boom-and-bust mode is bad, but:

It is even worse when Green programs are authorized in a frenzy of spending that invites rent- seeking and political influence over the selection of projects. This process shortchanged basic research where additional funds could be put to good use but on a slower and less politically profitable pace, and pushed funding into areas of energy technology demonstration and commercialization where the role of government should be smallest and where we have had a long history of immense failures.

Learn more at the website for the hearing.

BONUS TREAT! Note the final panelist and moderator!

According to the letter, five big steps for small business would be:

1. Small businesses deserve a greater voice in the federal regulatory process
2. Providing assistance to small businesses before assessing penalties
3. Subjecting every major regulation to a rigorous benefit-cost analysis
4. Regulations should be based on objective data and hard science
5. The regulatory process should require more transparency and accountability

See the full letter here.

And he even has a great look back from Calvin Coolidge:

“After all, the chief business of the American people is business. They are profoundly concerned with producing, buying, selling, investing and prospering in the world. I am strongly of the opinion that the great majority of our people will always find these are moving impulses of our life. . . Wealth is the product of industry, ambition, character and untiring effort. In all experience, the accumulation of wealth means the multiplication of schools, the increase of knowledge, and dissemination of intelligence, the encouragement of science, the broadening of outlook, the expansion of liberties, the widening of culture. Of course, the accumulation of wealth cannot be justified as the chief end of existence. But we are compelled to recognize it as a means to well-nigh every desirable achievement. So long as wealth is made the means and not the end, we need not greatly fear it.”

Check out the whole article!

But here’s a memo to those who may be occupied with pressing matters: having union bosses pushing your cause is only ensures you aren’t really with the majority of Americans. That’s because union bosses continue to push a radical agenda that harms working Americans and the small businesses that should be creating jobs.

It’s not just us saying that; polls show Americans don’t trust self-interested union bosses:

In fact, Americans trust union bosses significantly less than they trust business leaders:

And the term “business leaders” doesn’t even delve into the real issue, which is that the small businesses that are harmed by Big Labor-pushed regulations and rules are more popular than any other major group in America.

Can’t wait to see how popular Big Labor can make the Occupiers!

Halt The Assault is constantly trying to get the word out to more and more Americans about the dire threat to our economy posed by increasing taxes, spending, and plain-old-dumb rules that make it harder for small businesses to operate. As such, we’ve taken to a leading online site to explain our nation’s “Leadership Recession“:

Government is always going to be many steps behind. Ideas, innovation, creativity, ingenuity, all the important ingredients to economic growth and job creation, are not found in government, only taxed and regulation by government.

Our current leaders would do well to heed the words of another President, John F. Kennedy, who said that “Leadership and learning are indispensable to each other.” Our leadership recession could be turned around by learning that as long as you assault the private sector it will continue to be stunted. Here’s hoping (and praying) for a leadership turnaround—for we only have until 2012 to avoid a “double dip” leadership recession.

Click here to read the entire article, which looks at the words of Harry Truman, and be sure to “like” it and share it to spread the word!

Photo courtesy of flickr, Bob Gorrell from Creators Syndicate www.creators.com/editorialcartoons/bob-gorrell/15857.html

President Obama yesterday sent three free trade agreements to Congress after years of stalling. A new report shows how the delay was a direct result of the administration’s efforts to appease labor union demands, at the expense of actual job creation in the U.S. It’s estimated that the three free trade agreements (FTAs) would lead to 250,000 new U.S. jobs.

Here’s the video recap — warning, not necessarily for all audiences:

So it caught our attention when the tagline of a video from Oregon is to the effect of “and you thought David Wu was nuts …” Here’s the video, which shows those seeking to replace Wu are kowtowking to union bosses and supporting the ill-conceived, unfair, job-killing Employee Free Choice Act, promising to do away with protections that allow workers to keep their jobs without paying for union representation, and generally bashing employers (which, sadly, will actually play well with a large section of the Oregon electorate).

Citing as an example a new, mean, anti-employer attitude from OSHA, HTA spokesman Brett McMahon writes:

Think of the impact as the difference between a felony and a misdemeanor. Every government inspector approaches their work now as if businesses are not just guilty, but that we are deliberately trying to break their increasingly onerous and bewildering regulations and probably are covering up other actions as well. It is as if we are merely organized conspirators, rather than honest Americans trying to run a business to feed our families and contribute to the community.

Ironically, this will lead to less-safe workplaces, as employers will be unlikely to want to seek out connections with OSHA and may accidentally run afoul of more important measures to protect employees. And it will, at a minimum, force employers into more costly litigation against the government—money that could be going to hiring, training, and ensuring the safety of employees.

Many thanks indeed to the fine folks at A Line of Sight, where you can read the entire article.

(UPDATE: Solyndra offices have been raided by FBI agents)

Solyndra is the California solar-cell company that received the president at their facilities and was more than happy to take in more than $525 million in federal loans to build a costly new plant. Now, they have declared bankruptcy and, as the Washington Examiner has reported, “not only has Solyndra failed to create the 4,000 jobs that Energy Secretary Steven Chu promised when he gave the company the very first Energy Department stimulus award of its kind, but the 1,100 employees that Solyndra had employed are now jobless as well.”

So before the president goes spending another $300 billion, it’s worth examining whether his (reported) plan will do much good.

1) Continuation of an employee payroll-tax reduction: It’s certainly good to allow people to keep more of their money, and raising the tax back to its previous levels will not be helpful, but it’s hard to argue that a simple extension of the current payroll-tax level for employees will boost jobs.

2) A reduction in employer-paid payroll tax: This is actually the only idea in the president’s plan as currently reported that has the potential for spurring private-sector job growth. The job-creating benefit comes from the simple truth that “if you want less of something, tax it.” That’s true for people and their jobs, which are made more expensive through the payroll tax. Lowering that burden makes hiring a new employee more attractive.

3) Throwing money at the states: Here’s the political payoff for the president, and it’s a big one. While some money would go to capital improvements such as bridges, roads, and school construction, expect a steady flow of cash to head to stopping layoffs of public employees at the city, county, and state levels—heavily unionized public employees that are a key financier of the president’s re-election.

All told, the president’s “jobs” plan is really just a recipe for more spending and more debt. And, as you might expect, “Obama will call on Congress to offset the cost of the short-term jobs measures by raising tax revenue in later years.” We will end up paying for unsustainable, Solyndra-like jobs that disappear as the private-sector shifts needs and spending and the public coffers are finally too bare to borrow against.

Throw in the administration’s war on domestic manufacturing jobs (see: Boeing and Gibson Guitars), and the looming threat of a strike against Ford, the one major U.S. automaker that wasn’t taken over by Big Government and Big Labor, and it’s unlikely employers will be bailing out the government by creating new jobs in a world of punitive regulation and uncertainty.

So as the president says “jobs” think “Solyndra.” And let’s ask Washington to think of better—real—ways to create jobs and get our economy moving.

Over at the Washington Times, Mike Whalen explains:

… as a business owner, I can tell you an additional stimulus would create more fear and further dampen demand in the private sector. Keynes was correct in focusing on aggregate demand as critical, but the confidence context and potential behavior responses have to be considered, and that requires real-world, Main Street knowledge – not just textbook theory. In this environment, if the federal government announced a real road map to fiscal soundness, the impact would be truly stimulating. If American businesses and consumers saw that Washington was really cutting, not just reducing future increases, there would be tremendous relief and an increase in confidence across the country. Job creators would sing “hallelujah”; they would get off their wallets, start hiring, and then you’d see that Keynesian multiplier kick in.

But that’s not the case, yet, as Washington has yet to get serious about getting its financial house in order.

Now, with the stroke of a bureaucrat’s pen, that understanding has been upset. A Labor Department regulator has ruled that Davis-Bacon covers the CityCenter DC project, a $700 million private-sector complex under construction downtown at the site of the former convention center. The decision is astonishing, both because it is such a stretch legally and because of its implications — which range from a financial hit for the District to higher costs for development across the country.

CityCenter’s developers, not the District or the federal government, are paying to build the 2.5 million square feet of office, residential and retail space — none of which will be occupied by government. Such considerations led lawyers for both the city and the developers to conclude during their negotiations that Davis-Bacon would not apply. Investors were assured of the same thing. And that common-sense understanding was confirmed a year ago, when a career Labor Department official denied the Mid-Atlantic Regional Council of Carpenters’ 2009 petition to apply the Davis-Bacon Act.

The paper takes the Department of Labor to task in no uncertain ways. While we will not reproduce the article in its entirety, we HIGHLY recommend you take a moment to digest the whole piece.

That’s the story for Dale Kaplan, who owns Kaplan’s Careful Cleaners, a dry cleaning company in Pennsylvania. Government regulators are looking to push new rules — unsubstantiated by science — that will cost Kaplan dearly, according to a report by the Washington Examiner’s Conn Carroll. Kaplan told the paper, “I would have a real tough time operating because I’d have to put up $50,000 for a new machine.”

But Kaplan’s not alone. The rest of us are in for a doozy of a bill from EPA regulations, with the paper reporting: “Seven proposed rules pending before the agency are poised to inflict more than $125 billion in costs on the U.S. economy annually, according to EPA’s own estimates.” That’s ANNUALLY. Not total. ANNUALLY.

He got picketed. And he got threatened. The response from a union official:

“We just wanted Mr. Kfoury to know if he’s going to be out there saying things that aren’t true about right–to-work, that unions are bad for business in New Hampshire, there’s going to be a price to pay for that,” said Kurt Ehrenberg, spokesman for the New Hampshire AFL-CIO, which organized the protest in response to the video.

But hey, these are just words right? It’s not like they shot the guy or anything.

Today, Warren Stephens takes to the pages of the Wall Street Journal with a specific example of how one major piece of regulation-by-legislation is affecting business: in fact, the Sarbanes-Oxley rule is preventing companies from going public. These are not the major goliaths that most of us have heard of, and Stephens argues: “If we ever expect to restart the American economy, we need to focus our attention on the forgotten middle—that is, “middle market” private and public companies, which are the true growth engines of our economy.” Be sure to check it out.

Over at the Washington Post, George Will declares it “Liberals Wisconsin Waterloo” and looks at the failed attempts to recall the state’s governor, Scott Walker. The union drive failed and Will notes:

Democrats furiously oppose Walker because public employees unions are transmission belts, conveying money to the Democratic Party. Last year, $11.2 million in union dues was withheld from paychecks of Wisconsin’s executive branch employees and $2.6 million from paychecks at the university across the lake. Having spent improvidently on the recall elections, the Wisconsin Education Association Council, the teachers union, is firing 40 percent of its staff.

The threat email occurred last week and got a significant amount of publicity. During the same news cycle, the King shooting occurs. We can therefore presume that the IBEW international condones the actions by both of their members in both incidents. If they did not condone the threatening email, they would have made it known directly to all of their Ohio affiliates. Presumably, their Ohio affiliates would take their scolding seriously and would not engage in other attention getting thuggery in the same geographical area. Therefore, the IBEW condones and in fact endorses these criminal acts. Their silence seems to be an approval of maintaining the status quo.

For the entire article, click here.

Until Wednesday, the worst of the union attacks on King and his business came in the mid-eighties during the UAW strike at AP Parts. During a lull during the lengthy strike, King’s business was picketed by more than 50 IBEW picketers. This was at a time when he only had eight or nine employees. One of his employees, whose car was trashed by the union picketers, was also beaten up by IBEW thugs.

Unfortunately, the vandalism has never stopped. This year alone, he’s had to report three incidents of damage to police. This doesn’t include the incidents of stalking he and his men have to go through while they’re working.
In one incident earlier this year, rocks were thrown through the front windows of his shop, one of which had the word “kill” written on it.

Last Wednesday, however, the attacks on Mr. King became much more serious when he was awakened late in the evening at his home in Monroe County, Michigan and saw that the motion lights in his driveway had come on. When he looked out his front window, he saw a figure near his SUV and went outside.

As soon as he got outside his front door, King yelled at the individual who was crouched down by King’s vehicle. As soon as King yelled, the suspect stood and, without hesitation, fired a shot at Mr. King.

Luckily for King, as he yelled, he also stumbled. If it weren’t for that, however, John King’s injuries might have been much, much worse. In fact, he might have been killed.

From the Journal (subscription required):

The National Association of Manufacturers asked its members last month how the National Labor Relations Board’s decision against Boeing’s Sourth Carolina plant case is affecting their decision-making. Some 60% said the government’s case already has—or could—hurt hiring. Sixty-nine percent said the case would damage job growth. And 49% said capital expenditure plans “have been or may be impacted by the NLRB’s complaint.”

That won’t be news to employers, but it still seems to be hard for Beltway bureaucrats to grasp.

UPDATE (8/13/2011 — 5:29 EST): More details on the NAM poll

Case in point, the major setback for organized labor strategists who spent $30 million trying to unseat several Republican state legislators in Wisconsin whose only sin was voting for Gov. Scott Walker’s efforts to rein in spending and the ridiculous power of public-sector union bosses. And a funny thing happened: voters weren’t buying what the union bosses spent tens of millions of their members’ money to sell. The lesson was clear to one insider:

“The unmistakable lesson is that every time labor makes it about labor, they lose,” said one senior Democratic strategist granted anonymity to speak candidly. “It’s a messenger problem.”

By “messenger problem” we assume he or she meant that fewer people trust paid power-mongers who tax their own small group of members to fund lavish lifestyles and massive political machines and then ask their political friends to pass opprobrium-worthy efforts such as “card check,” special exemptions for unions, socialized healthcare, and a rash of job-killing regulations … but we’re just guessing here. Certainly, polls show voters haven’t been pleased with organized labor in recent years.

And, just perhaps, it’s because Americans know that Big Labor really hasn’t outgrown its menacing habits. As a Halt The Assault spokesman wrote in The Daily Caller yesterday, “Big Labor is literally threatening businesses.” Building on other recent examples, we highlighted a threat from a union boss to a construction company whose employees remained union-free:

“We are aware that you chose a different path in the Toledo area,” read the message, which expresses displeasure at the business’s unwillingness to acquiesce to union demands, “and this has possibly led to some problems for your company.”

The email continues: “To be 100% clear, should you opt for the same business practices in the greater Cleveland area as you chose to use in the Toledo area, your problems will multiply exponentially.”

You can read the rest, including the other examples, over at The Daily Caller. With Big Labor bosses still acting like big … er, special interests, we imagine their approval numbers won’t jump up too much this year.

“These acts of sabotage are reprehensible,” said Verizon Chief Security Officer Mike Mason. “In addition to inconveniencing our customers, these deliberate disruptions of our network have affected hospitals, paramedics, fire fighters, law enforcement and other first responders. Verizon is working closely with local authorities to investigate these sabotage incidents, and identify and prosecute those responsible to the fullest extent of the law. And we will not hesitate to terminate any employee who may be involved in these acts.

1) Obama adds $9.5 billion in red tape in July: At Tuesday’s GOP Senate caucus lunch, the lawmakers said that they will renew their efforts, supported by business groups like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. In a memo Barasso handed out to the lawmakers, he claimed that the administration in July only has put in $9.5 billion in new regulatory costs by proposing 229 new rules and finalizing 379 rules. Among those he cited were EPA, healthcare reform, and financial regulatory reform rules.

2) Debt now equals GDP: US debt shot up $238 billion to reach 100 percent of gross domestic project after the government’s debt ceiling was lifted, Treasury figures showed Wednesday.

***Editor’s note: paying for the president’s campaign tour doesn’t seem to be helping

3) And the spending—we’ve told you it’s nuts!—is only encouraging the honey badgers:

This legislation had its origins in Jim Crow America, a time when the Democrat controlled Federal government openly discriminated against blacks by enacting laws that restricted opportunities available to them. An Alabama contractor used black workers to build a Veteran’s Bureau hospital in Representative Robert Bacon’s district on Long Island in the mid 1920’s. Starting in 1927, Representative Bacon introduced 13 separate bills to prevent black workers from working on Federal construction projects. Finally in 1931, he and Senator James Davis from Pennsylvania were able to pass a bill that required the payment of “prevailing” wages on Federal construction projects. Since the American Federation of Labor was instrumental in the passage of this bill, the term “prevailing” wages really meant union wages. The initial threshold for paying “prevailing” wages was $5000, but that was lowered to $2000 in 1935.

The Department of Labor was given the task of determining what the prevailing wages were in each county in America. In areas where over 30% of the construction workforce was union, the law mandated that “prevailing” wages were automatically union wages. Even in other areas of the country, this became the Department of Labor standard.

Representative Bacon achieved his goal of preventing black workers from working on government projects. Before the passage of the Davis-Bacon Act, black unemployment was at the same level as white unemployment. After the passage of this Act, as well as other New Deal legislation, black unemployment rose to double the rate of white unemployment. After being shut out of construction employment, many blacks were forced to rely on government assistance programs for their survival.

Even today, the close association between “prevailing” wages and unions, to ensure that construction jobs go to union workers, excludes minority workers from opportunities on government construction projects. The Federal government has created special contracting programs for minority contractors at the taxpayer’s expense rather than allowing minority contractors and minority workers to compete for work through the Free Enterprise System unencumbered by prevailing wages.

In addition to discriminating against minority workers, Davis-Bacon has cost the taxpayers billions of dollars every year. The estimated annual cost of Davis-Bacon legislation was 11 billion dollars for the year 2010 alone. This 80 year program has blatantly discriminated against not only minorities, as it was originally intended, but also against the taxpayers by forcing them to subsidize a 20-25% cost premium on every government construction project.

This abuse of the taxpayer is made even worse because of the enactment of similar legislation by 32 states that require the payment of “prevailing” or union wages on state and local funded projects. The net effect is that the taxpayers are paying 20-25% too much for every school, bridge, road, sewer line or water line constructed in those states.

After 80 years, isn’t it time to end government sponsored discrimination against minorities and taxpayers?

Good afternoon. My name is Brett McMahon. I am Vice President of Business Development for Miller & Long Company, Inc. I have been employed in the construction industry for 19 years.

Were it to adopt this rule, the NLRB will have firmly planted itself on the side of unions and in opposition to employers and workers and reason. Unions have been winning over 60% of the elections that are held, so what is the need for this change? What would a satisfactory percentage be? 70%, 90% or is it 100%? It is foolish to think that this body can force lasting change on the marketplace. It has never worked. All the Board is doing is increasing the risk of success of America’s employers. The NLRB is making itself a hazard to the economic well being of working people by chilling the entrepreneurial spirit of free enterprise that has brought more prosperity to more people than any other system in human history. It is not now, nor will it ever be, the single catalyst that causes large lay offs or stifles job creation. Rather it is the series of actions that this Board takes that add to the weight that hurts businesses today. Don’t adopt this rule. It is unwise in this economic climate and it is unfair to workers and employers.

We will add video when the NLRB makes it available.

Today’s article by ABC’s Geoffrey Burr, who serves as the chairman of the Coalition for a Democratic Workplace, coincides with today’s hearing at the NLRB for its rule that would dramatically reduce the amount of time that employers have to discuss key union issues with their employees when presented with a union organizing campaign. It will mean employers have a more difficult time talking to employees and employees won’t have the opportunity to hear both sides of the story before making a decision that will affect their pay, hours, work rules, opportunity for advancement, and the health of their company.

The story:

Before joining NLRB, Becker infamously wrote that it should be possible to “eliminate the formal role of employers in union elections,” and argued that “employers should have no right to be heard in either a representation case or an unfair labor practice case, even though Board rulings might indirectly affect their duty to bargain.”

Becker’s plan is clear: Remove, as much as possible, the ability of employers to talk to employees and operate their business.

It appears Becker is making manifest his radical vision in which employers have little ability to discuss core workplace issues, such as unionization and its attendant costs, with employees.

Thus the NLRB’s already-rushed hearing Monday on its recently announced effort to speed up the current workplace representation election process so much that it will leave employers as few as 10 days to respond to and discuss the issue with employees.

Click through for the entire article.

UPDATE: Be sure to not miss Bloomberg’s coverage of today’s hearing — Speeding Labor Elections Unfair to Companies, U.S. Employers Say — which includes this nice inclusion of HTA spokesman Brett McMahon:

The proposed rule will force elections “in 10 to 21 days after the filing” of a petition to unionize, according to a dissent written by Brian Hayes, the NLRB’s only Republican member. The board voted 3-1 to issue the proposal.

Deadlines that tight would be “patently unfair” because workers may be told falsehoods in an organizing drive, Brett McMahon, vice president for business development at Bethesda, Maryland-based Miller & Long Co., said in prepared testimony. Employers should have adequate time to provide a full picture, he said.

Union contractors, who are increasingly losing projects to non-union contractors, are intent on getting contracts that will enforce a fully productive eight-hour workday earning an eight-hour paycheck. This means abolishing the contractual overstaffing mandating that two or more workers do the work of one. Union workers are voting this week on recently negotiated contracts proposing work rule reforms.

Click through for the gory figures.

The truth is that the “independent agency” argument is a canard. The Board Members who have cried havoc and let slip the dogs of war against employers and employees (and, heck, common sense) were appointed by the President and would potentially be re-appointed by him at some point. This is *his* NLRB and he ought to halt its assault right now.

H/t: Business Roundtable

Author Iain Murray

Dear HTA readers,

We strive to bring you the best in intellectual and advocacy materials as you fight to halt the assault on free enterprise. Today, we publish an email interview exchange with Competitive Enterprise Institute’s Iaim Murray regarding his fantastic new book. We hop you enjoy! — Free Enterprise Alliance team

Halt The Assault: Hi Iain, tell our readers briefly about yourself and what you do at the Competitive Enterprise Institute.

Iain Murray: I’m originally from the UK, where I worked for the British government during a period when we were trying to slim down bureaucracy and make government good value for money for the taxpayer. That ended when I privatized myself out of a job and was able to come over here to get married to my long-distance girlfriend (we’d met at college). After specializing in energy and environment issues for a while, these days I head the Center for Economic Freedom at the Competitive Enterprise Institute. We look at how the government burdens the economy with regulations in areas like labor, finance, trade, transportation and the “nanny state.” We’re a little different from your average think tank – we like to have fun while we argue for limited government.

HTA: Tell us about your new book, “Stealing You Blind” (available at Amazon, or get a free chapter by visiting StealingYouBlindBook.com).

IM: The book is about the system that diverts over a third of our economy – close to half if you include the costs of regulation – away from private enterprise and into public administration. American government is out of control. It ignores the constitution and imposes massive burdens on the productive sector of the economy. If we don’t do something about it, it will consume more and more of our national wealth until it literally breaks the bank. Something like 1 in 4 Americans now works directly or indirectly for national, state or local government, and all the evidence suggests they make a better average living than their counterparts in the private sector – better wages, better benefits, better hours. But the private sector is the wealth creating part of the economy. The public sector has to reform – at the moment it’s just Stealing Us Blind.

HTA: What motivated you to write the book now? You touch on “evergreen” problems with Big Government types abusing taxpayers, but do you see things as better or worse now than in the distant or recent past?

IM: Things are much worse now, so much so that we’re approaching crisis point. For generations America has been able to cope with government taking around 18 percent of our economy, but we’re now reaching a stage where that isn’t going to be enough to cover the federal entitlement programs. To maintain anything discretionary, like the Navy for instance, we’ll have to raise taxes significantly. And there’s a similar problem in the states, where over-generous public employee pensions have left a $4 trillion unfunded liability. I don’t want my children paying half their wages so their teachers can retire at 50 on 90 percent salary.

HTA: How has the book been received so far? Any surprises?

IM: It’s interested me how many people have said that they don’t need a book to tell us that Government is stealing us blind! Yet the fact is that most people who know that don’t know quite the scale of the problem. I have an illustration in the book that shows that when we talk about a trillion dollar problem, it’s really something quite different from a billion dollar problem: “One million seconds is about 11.5 days, 1 billion seconds is about 32 years while a trillion seconds is equal to 32,000 years.” That’s concentrated a lot of people’s minds and I hope that people will realize that although they know government is a problem, many won’t know quite how much of a problem it is until they read the book.

HTA: What’s your level of confidence that Americans (and Britons) are knowledgeable and will take action to fight back against those stealing them blind?

IM: I think Americans have woken up from a national coma that afflicted them from around 2004 to 2010, which was the period when the problem went into overdrive. They want to see firm action and are prepared to punish those who promise action and don’t deliver. As for Britain, at least the government there is trying to reduce spending, but the Europeanization of the country may be too far advanced to let them do it. I have my fingers crossed for the old country, but unless America can solve its government issues, the world as a whole is in trouble.

Weep, weep for her! Of course, this is silly. Ms. Jackson is a professional political and bureaucratic fighter and while she may have a loyal band of lieutenants who support her, she lacks support from the basic tenets of economics — in other words, she is pushing a campaign that will have more negative tradeoffs than positive for taxpayers and workers in America.

When it comes to halting the assault on free enterprise, this is a good example of propaganda supporting a a regulatory colonel on the march for general pain.

The shift toward a more competitive economy has not hurt workers in general: Total employee compensation as a share of the economy held fairly steady during the second half of the last century even as unions were shrinking. (It’s true that wages as a share of the economy fell, but that was a result of the increased cost of benefits.) The shift has, however, increased inequality among workers, with more rewards going to those with higher skills.

If we want to reverse the unions’ decline, the kind of labor-law changes that the Obama administration’s appointees to the NLRB have in mind — such as speeding up elections — are unlikely to do the trick. We would have to reduce competition among companies, too, domestically and internationally. The economy would have to be far more regulated than anyone in the mainstream of American politics has advocated. And we would almost certainly have to be willing to be a poorer country. We shouldn’t want any of that.

Our country has plenty of economic problems. But we also have blessings, and the continued decline of labor unions is one of them.

Ronald Reagan: A Time for Choosing Speech and Election Clock

I’ve been warning anyone who would listen that the NLRB was out to do what the Employee Free Choice Act could not: force more employees into unions. The board’s proposed rule changes would speed up union votes so that voters have less time to learn about the consequence of unionization, hand out personal information so that union activists can find workers at their homes, and institute electronic voting so that labor bosses don’t have to worry about those pesky “private ballot” protections anymore.

And over at the New York Post, there’s a recap of some of the worst ideas the NLRB is pursuing:

* The board is pushing to give unions the right to enter a workplace even if their intent is to harass customers and employees. The NLRB says companies shouldn’t be allowed to treat union officials any differently than they do charitable organizations they let on their premises, such as the Girl Scouts or the Red Cross.

* It wants to force employers to post pro-organizing notices in about 6 million workplaces, most of which aren’t unionized, under the guise of informing workers about the National Labor Relations Act. But the posters wouldn’t inform these workers about aspects of the law the unions don’t like — such as the right to vote out a union or withhold union dues spent on politics.

* The board is moving ahead with lawsuits against Arizona and South Dakota over provisions in their state constitutions — enacted through ballot initiatives last fall — that require secret ballots for union-organizing votes. Labor unions, in an effort to expand their ranks, have been pushing hard for the opposite — a “card check” system that would let them know who has and hasn’t voted to organize. The NLRB’s lawsuit conveniently fits into this effort.

* The NLRB is also pushing to let unions cherry-pick groups of workers within a company to organize, without giving those who oppose the union the opportunity to vote, changing an established definition of a “bargaining unit” that has been in place for more than 50 years. The result would be a costly, chaotic mess for businesses trying to juggle multiple unions and different sets of work rules, benefits and wage rates.

Check out the video! (starts at 9:42)

RightOnline Job Creation from AFPhq on Vimeo.

Remember when “science-based policy” talk was all the rage? Heck, we’re all for making the best decisions available based on sound science, basic economic principles, and sticking to free enterprise.

And then there’s the EPA’s latest effort to push through costly new regulations based on interviews. Unfortunately, the interviews basically go like this: “Hello, I’m calling from the EPA … I’m fine, thank you. I just have a question for you. Don’t you wish everyone had access to ponies and rainbows? Don’t you think money should grow on trees and we shouldn’t have to worry about costs related to our regulations for clean air?”

Unfortunately, that little joke isn’t too far off. According to an article in Investors Business Daily, the EPA did a telephone survey and found out that people claim they’d pay $16,000 for cleaner air (whether they know how clean America’s air already is begs another question). But the main problem is that the EPA didn’t call and say “would you be willing to send us a check for $16,000 to carry out this regulation?” That would have been the question everyone in the marketplace must ask their clients: is the cost worth the benefit?

When government tries to push through costly regulation based on pseudo-economics, it should be a troubling sign for us all. Sadly, that seems to be happening on virtually every regulatory front right now, putting small business and job creators squarely in the crosshairs.

It’s another reminder that it’s time to halt the assault on free enterprise.

The man in the aisle seat is trying to tell me why he refuses to hire anybody. His business is successful, he says, as the 737 cruises smoothly eastward. Demand for his product is up. But he still won’t hire.

“Why not?”

“Because I don’t know how much it will cost,” he explains. “How can I hire new workers today, when I don’t know how much they will cost me tomorrow?”

He’s referring not to wages, but to regulation: He has no way of telling what new rules will go into effect when. His business, although it covers several states, operates on low margins. He can’t afford to take the chance of losing what little profit there is to the next round of regulatory changes. And so he’s hiring nobody until he has some certainty about cost.

Frankly, we’d love to rip the whole article but we’re believers in property rights so if you want to read the whole article — and we highly recommend you do — check it out here.

Unfortunately, it’s not just pro-union policies putting us at risk. This administration and Congress have helped make the long-term prospects for jobs and growth worse by vastly expanding the deficit, raising payroll taxes, fostering protectionism and creating massive new bureaucracies for health care. New ideas will bring America back to its rightful position as a global leader in economic strength and reliability. But in order for new ideas to flourish, we need to strip away the old, failing union policies that are holding us back.

We get so much innovation out of consumer electronics that Shapiro should know of which he speaks. Therefore his words, which should intuitively ring true, should carry all the more weight.

It’s another sign that it’s time to Halt The Assault on free enterprise.

You need to call Speaker Boehner’s office right now at 202-225-0600 and thank him for the extraordinary step he took this week to slow down President Obama’s radical agenda.

With the Obama legislative agenda stalled, the left has turned its attention toward using the Executive power to accomplish their socialist goals. The key to this strategy is to the pack agencies, boards, and commissions such as the National Labor Relations Board and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, with leftists like Craig Becker and Elizabeth Warren who will advance the collectivist agenda, regardless of whether there is any legal authority to do so.

The Senate has blocked several of the more radical nominees, but under the Constitution, President Obama has the power to appoint them during a Congressional recess.

Republican Senators warned Obama not to use his recess powers to appoint Becker to the NLRB. He did it anyhow. Becker didn’t disappoint, leading the NLRB to accuse Boeing of violating workers rights by opening a plant in South Carlolina.

Observers expect him to appoint leftists to the Obamacare Independent Payment Advisory Board, they expect him to appoint liberal Peter Diamond to the Federal Reserve Board, along with Warren, Becker, and a host of other leftwing radicals. He can even recess appoint Federal judges to rubber stamp his agenda until the end of the Congress.

Obama needs two things in order to do this – (1) a pen (or, I suppose, an autopen), and a (2) a Senate recess. The Constitution is unclear how long a recess is required. Most constitutional scholars say ten days is the minimum. However, there is almost universal agreement among scholars that a recess of less than three days does not trigger the recess appointment power. In 2007, Reid held “pro-forma” Senate sessions every three days, which successfully prevented Bush from making recess appointments.

Which brings us to another provision in the Constitution. Article 1, Section 5 says “Neither House, during the session of Congress, shall, without the consent of the other, adjourn for more than three days[.]”. This means that without the consent of the Republican-controlled House of Representatives, the Senate cannot adjourn for more than three days, and thus President Obama cannot make any recess appointments.

On Wednesday, 20 Senators led by David Vitter and Jim DeMint wrote a letter to Speaker Boehner asking him to use his authority under Article 1, Section 5 to block the recess appointments.

On Friday, the Examiner reported that Speaker Boehner did not pass a resolution giving the Senate permission to adjourn. Therefore, as he did in 2007, Harry Reid will convene pro-forma sessions today, on Tuesday May 31, and on Friday June 3rd, in order to block his own President from doing recess appointments.

Reid was forced to do this because of the leadership of Speaker Boehner. We must thank our Speaker.

Call Speaker Boehner at 202-225-0600 and thank him for his leadership.

Tell him to continue to refuse to allow the Senate to adjourn for the remainder of the Obama Presidency.

We concur.

Aside from creating full employment for all CPAs, the Internal Revenue Service’s latest initiative of applying “gift” tax regulations to donors of 501(c)(4) organizations is another example of an out-of-control government on so many levels (“The IRS Gets Political,” Review & Outlook, May 18). This policy suffocates free speech while adding significant administrative tax compliance burdens on all taxpayers. I am sure New York State as well as other states that have an estate tax will soon follow the IRS’s lead on this, too.

I am curious why the IRS hasn’t applied the same logic to union dues, which individuals are allowed to take as an itemized deduction notwithstanding the fact that a significant portion of those union dues end up as political contributions.

Personally, I would much prefer to forgo the extra work and the additional fees related thereto.

Lawrence E. Beck, CPA

Good point, Mr. Beck (who shares the same name, incidentally, with a key court case that ostensibly protects unionized employees from having their dues used for political purposes).

Could it be that the Administration is playing favorites by targeting its political adversaries and allowing its friends in organized labor to continue unfettered? Well, that’s the takeaway from this article, “Obama skirts rule of law to reward pals, punish foes,” by esteemed columnist Michael Barone, who notes that Big Labor is getting special breaks from the White House in the case of investigating its political adversaries, using the National Labor Relations Board to harm employers (as we thoroughly document at Halt The Assault), and more:

Punishing enemies and rewarding friends — politics Chicago style — seems to be the unifying principle that helps explain the Obamacare waivers, the NLRB action against Boeing and the IRS’ gift-tax assault on 501(c)(4) donors.

They look like examples of crony capitalism, bailout favoritism and gangster government.

Visit the Office of the Speaker’s website for more info.

“If we can get to universal school vouchers … that would do more for this country than any other public policy issue”

“I am a crazy cooky tea party freshman”

“we came here to stop what this president is doing”

“I believe our country is going through a revolution”

We are having a “seismic argument” about the nature of government and Obama’s presidency “woke up the American people”

The House is “just trying to stop what he’s done”

“I think my Republican Party has got to be bold”

“If you believe in freedom, you better believe we’re at war”

“unless we turn this thing around quickly … our kids and our grandkids may never speak to us again because the debt we’re leaving them with will be unforgivable”

Click through to watch Rep. Walsh’s thoughts on video.

Since the failing of that legislation, many have warned that the next fight would be in the National Labor Relations Board, a small Depression-era agency designed in large part to balance the interests of unions and employers (and, when they have time, look out for workers). Union bosses, you see, have placed their friends high atop this small mountain and are working their anti-employee, job-killing agenda through the NLRB.

But now President Obama’s Labor Board has gone so far that it’s being noted in campaigns for the presidency, with top GOP candidate Tim Pawlenty saying in his announcement:

The truth is, people getting paid by the taxpayers shouldn’t get a better deal than the taxpayers themselves. That means freezing federal salaries, transitioning federal employee benefits, and downsizing the federal workforce as it retires. It means paying public employees for results, not just seniority – from the Capitol to the classroom, and everywhere in between. And in the private sector, it means no card check – not now, not ever. It means no more taxpayer bailouts just because you gave lots of money to a campaign. And it especially means the National Labor Relations Board will never again tell an American company where it can and can’t do business

Look out: this is just the beginning for halting the assault by Big Labor’s Board!

Earlier this month, with much self-congratulatory fanfare, the Wage and Hour Division of the U.S. Department of Labor recently rolled out what it probably thought was an awesome idea: an iPhone app that “allows employees to independently track the hours they work and determine the wages they believe they are owed.”

It’s always good to ensure people get what they deserve, as the vast majority of employers do (though it can be maddening and near impossible for small businesses to keep up with the thousands of regulations that govern every dotted “i” and crossed “t”). But inherent in the DOL’s release of their iOS app was the accusation that employers treat employees badly and attempt to deprive employees of wages which are due.

EXCEPT, in some cases…

worked are not accounted for because the app improperly excludes certain breaks from the total — ironically, breaks that employers are not allowed to deduct under the same federal laws that the Wage and Hour Division enforces. In these instances, employees who use this app could be losing out on pay to which they are entitled.

Who knew the DOL was was the wage thief in chief?

Read our retort to the president over at The Washington Examiner.

The order would require any company bidding for a government contract, its political action committee – and its senior officers—to provide in a convenient single report a list of all of their contributions to political parties and candidates for the past two years. These disclosures currently are required, but made in various reports to different government agencies. In addition, for the first time ever, companies and individuals would be required to report donations to “third party entities” including membership dues and charitable donations made to organizations that may engage in political speech in addition to their other activities.

That’s for their political enemies. What of the supposed enemies of their allies in Big Labor? Union bosses view efforts by Boeing to expand their production beyond a unionized factory in Washington State to South Carolina, where the company believes it can avoid the devastatingly costly type of labor strife it has faced in the past. So the union bosses have run to their partisan friends sitting on the National Labor Relations Board, which has filed a complaint that could possibly stop the company from expanding its operations (and, of course, killing jobs slated for South Carolina).

But as Boeing CEO Jim McNerney explains in the Wall Street Journal, Boeing is pro-growth, not anti-union and the NLRB has taken a terrible step toward wrecking free enterprise:

The NLRB is wrong and has far overreached its authority. Its action is a fundamental assault on the capitalist principles that have sustained America’s competitiveness since it became the world’s largest economy nearly 140 years ago. We’ve made a rational, legal business decision about the allocation of our capital and the placement of new work within the U.S. We’re confident the federal courts will reject the claim, but only after a significant and unnecessary expense to taxpayers.

Unfortunately, this problem is part of a larger assault on jobs and the economy, particularly at the NLRB. As Halt The Assault spokesman Brett McMahon writes over at The Daily Caller:

The action against Boeing is not an isolated event; indeed, it is only the latest symptom of a greater problem. Obama’s board has curtailed the rights of employees to seek a secret ballot election, shortened the period of time employees and employers may discuss important issues before an election, granted paid union organizers unprecedented access onto private property, cherry-picked employees to form a swarm of micro-union organizing drives that will drive small businesses out of business, and opened charter schools to greater unionization.

The laundry list of attacks on the ability to operate a business free from coercion by Big Labor and Big Government continues on as strongly as the president’s first 100 days, when it appeared the president’s men had locked onto key corporate targets and were going to exact a pound of flesh. But with the pattern having continued so long, one gets the feeling that it’s not one company or two companies that are really the enemy for the administration, but rather the notion of capitalism, free enterprise, and allowing entrepreneurs to create jobs.

We have constructed a self-propelled job-killing machine that grows and grows and grows.

It is hard to overestimate the cost of this metastatic growth in government. We can total up the cost in lawyers and lost production, but we will never see the lost opportunities and the businesses that didn’t start because of these proliferating burdens.

Congress has to grapple with this quiet killer of growth, or we will never get back to low unemployment. Each of these job killers proceeds under the banner of good intentions, but they are collectively acting to smother the American dream.

Read more at the Washington Examiner.

Much of the economic success of the United States during its 235 year history is the result of the wisdom of the Founding Fathers and the documents they created. The Declaration of Independence provides the philosophical framework for America and the free enterprise system in the words, “All men are created equal and endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are the life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”. It further states, “That to secure these rights governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed”. In writing these words, the Founding Fathers had created a Republic, in which certain rights, they called unalienable rights, came from God as opposed to in a Democracy, where rights were granted by the actions of a majority of citizens or in a Monarchy where rights originated from a King.

When the Articles of Confederation became inadequate to repay the debts of the Revolutionary War and to effectively negotiate treaties with foreign governments, James Madison urged a gathering of delegates to consider amending the Articles of Confederation. While the Philadelphia Convention may have met in May of 1787 to amend the Articles of Confederation, what emerged in September was a new Constitution that established how the United States would be governed. In keeping with the philosophical principles established in the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution placed limits on the powers of the Federal government. This was further reinforced by the first 10 Amendments to the Constitution known as the Bill Of Rights, which ensured that inalienable rights of the citizens would be protected. Without the Bill of Rights, the Constitution would not have been ratified by the states, since many delegates opposed the powers granted to the newly formed Federal government.

Free Enterprise can not exist and prosper unless there is a government in place that protects the life, liberty and property rights of its citizens. Thomas Jefferson’s use of the term pursuit of happiness rather than property, avoided writing support for slavery into the Declaration of Independence, since slaves were considered property at the time. The 235 year economic success story that we call the United States is the result of a constitutionally limited government that protected the life, liberty and property rights of people that accumulated wealth through hard work and innovation within their chosen profession.

Henry Ford’s development of the Ford Model T is one of the best examples of how society benefits from the rational self interest of the individual business owner. When Ford started to produce the Model T in 1909, most autos sold for $2000 – $3000 dollars ($50,000-$75,000 in today’s dollars). Clearly, the automobile was just a toy for the rich, well beyond the economic means of most Americans. His Model T sold for $850, half the cost of most competing cars. By reinvesting the profits of the Model T into more efficient production methods, he was able to lower the cost of a basic Model T to $290 ($3,500.00 in today’s dollars) by the 1920’s. This cost was equivalent to 4 months pay for the average factory worker. Americans were no longer limited to living within walking distance of their employment or along a railroad line. In less than a decade, Americans society was transformed by the mobility that the automobile provided to the ordinary American.

Today we take the automobile for granted, but there are numerous other products that have made our own life better or easier, not because of the altruistic intentions of their inventors and manufactures, but because of their desire to profit from new or improved products. A generation ago computers were difficult to use and costly, consumer electronics were luxury items and expensive air fares restricted travel. So much innovation and cost reduction has occurred in the last 20 years that items that were considered luxury items just one generation earlier and only affordable by the upper middle class are now affordable by those living at the official poverty level.

The benefits to society are not just the result of radical new inventions like the automobile or the computer, society benefits from the more mundane contributions of millions of small businesses that provide jobs to their employees and products to the marketplace. Because our government guarantees the unalienable rights of its citizens, employees are free to seek the best return on their individual talents. Contrast this to life in a communist regime where the government dictates what job you will take and the salary you will earn. Because we are free to buy the best and most affordable products, producers with new innovations or lower prices prosper. As a small business prospers, so do the communities around it by employee spending and the purchases of raw materials and other supplies. These benefits seem so common that they are often ignored. However, one only needs to look at a city like Detroit to see what happens when a business is no longer prosperous.

However, there are individuals and groups in America that can achieve financial and intellectually wealth from subverting the Free Enterprise system. Because Free Enterprise is based upon the voluntary exchange of goods or services in which both parties to the exchange enjoy a benefit, a politically powerful group can circumvent this voluntary exchange by enacting laws or policies that force the exchange even if both parties do not equally benefit from it.

The effect those groups can have through distortion of the Free Enterprise system can be clearly illustrated by the depth and length of the Great Depression. FDR and his progressive supporters represented the interests of labor unions and farmers and resented those that achieved wealth because of Free Enterprise. Shortly after taking office, FDR instituted the National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA), which allowed businesses to form cartels to set prices and production quotas in exchange for favorable treatment of unions in their business. The NIRA kept prices very high when demand dictated that prices should be lowered. Consequently, very few products were sold at these high prices. Companies were forced to pay much higher union wages, which made many companies unprofitable. This program was especially harsh for smaller companies, since they now had to pay union scale wages and charge high prices or face prosecution for violating the provisions of NIRA Act. Workers that were willing to work for less than union wages were not allowed to work. The net effect was that businesses did not hire new employees for almost a decade, until America entered into WWII and the government started to award cost plus contracts to produce armaments that allowed companies to pay union wages to their workers and still make a profit.

One of the other programs that FDR established was the Agricultural Adjustment Act (AAA), which controlled the prices and production of agricultural products. The AAA was just as devastating to the American economy as the NIRA. At a time when millions of Americans were out of work and could not afford to buy food, the government was destroying livestock and burning crops to restrict the supply and keep agricultural prices high. Fortunately, the Supreme Court upheld the constitutional prohibitions against government intervention into the Free Enterprise system and both of these laws were ruled unconstitutional in 1935, but the damage to the economy and the American people was done.

When a majority of Supreme Court Justices ruled against progressive’s government intervention into the economy, FDR replaced them with activist justices that used the Commerce and General Welfare clauses of the Constitution to allow government intervention into aspects of the economy that the Founding Fathers never intended.

Groups that benefit from government intervention into the economy have created the impression that a government can create prosperity. However that concept is completely false. Government can only create an environment where individuals and businesses working within the Free Enterprise system can create prosperity. The only prosperity that government creates is for a select few politically powerful groups like labor unions, environmentalists, and some large corporations that lobby for special legislation that helps their group at the expense of the rest of society.

Because our nation is founded on the principles of Free Enterprise, we often take it for granted, however if those that make their living from the Free Enterprise system want to preserve it, they must become educated and educate their employees, their friends, and their colleagues on how hard work and personal sacrifice in pursuit of financial reward helps to benefit all of society.

History has shown that it is Free Enterprise, not government intervention that creates overall prosperity for society. Our Founding Fathers were well aware of this. Let us not have our vision clouded by those that use political power, rather than hard work and personal sacrifice, to achieve financial rewards.

Virginia is a proud right-to-work state, so the resolution passed last week by the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority requiring a project labor agreement for construction of Phase 2 of the Dulles Rail project was a slap in the face of all working Virginians.

Adding insult to injury, the MWAA board did not provide adequate public notice prior to the 11-2 vote. The precise terms of the PLA resolution remain undisclosed, but a draft indicates that contractors and subcontractors will be required to submit to union rules and working conditions as a precondition for bidding on Phase 2 – unlike Phase 1, in which Dulles Transit Partners agreed to a voluntary PLA after the bidding process was completed.

Since only about 4 percent of Virginia construction workers are unionized, about half of all qualified Virginia construction firms will be discouraged from bidding on Phase 2, Ben Brubeck, director of labor and federal procurement for the Arlington-based Association of Builders and Contractors, told The Examiner.

Thanks to dithering by politicians, our example child is born into a world in which every citizen already owes the federal government nearly $46,000. Republicans in Congress have pointed out that:

When children born today reach 40 years old, their share of the U.S. public debt will be $279,738 — an increase of 859 percent above what it is today. For a family of four, the total household debt share would be approximately $1.119 million.

She will walk into a school that spends too much to teach too little, with the failing educational system in Washington, D.C. spending as much as $25,000 a year to educate each pupil.

Upon graduation, our child will decide whether to enter a government bureaucracy that pays as much as 40 percent more than the private sector. And who could blame her if she does? Our tax and spending structures drain talent out of the private sector and continually increase the size, scope, and cost of government until our long-term obligations to public servants sink the ship.

Should our hypothetical child choose to enter the private sector, she will get the “opportunity” to pay more in taxes the more successful she becomes. The burden of federal expenditures will increasingly fall on her, as she becomes one of only half of working Americans who pay federal income taxes.

And should our imaginary child end up being successful, she may well see most of her life’s work taken by the Treasury in the form of the Death Tax.

Read the rest over at The Daily Caller.

Today, the Wall Street Journal focuses on the problem, looking at the issue from the perspective of Ohio taxpayers and at the national scene and writing “Lawmakers and governors in 21 states are seeking to curb union clout in government-funded construction projects by limiting the use of wage requirements that generally favor union workers.”

Lawmakers are taking an especially hard look at the rules because they drive up costs without really adding any benefit for taxpayers. That’s an obviously bad deal and the paper helps out with a great chart to visualize the issue:

From the report:

“Prevailing wage artificially inflates the cost of labor construction in the public sector,” said Bryan Williams, director of government affairs at the Ohio chapter of Associated Builders and Contractors, a trade group that backs bills curbing the rates.

Prevailing-wage rules have also come under fire at the federal level. Republicans have introduced bills to repeal the Davis-Bacon Act, which requires prevailing wages on construction projects that receive more than $2,000 in federal funding. At a House committee hearing Thursday, opponents of the law said it has inflated construction wages and hindered economic growth.

The hearing referenced is here, with a press release following the event and summing it up in part:

Chairman Walberg called the GAO report “deeply troubling,” and stated, “These are stunning conclusions for a law that governs how hundreds of billions of taxpayer-dollars are spent. In fact, the failed stimulus committed an estimated $300 billion to federal construction projects that could potentially be covered by Davis-Bacon wage rates. In 2009 alone, federal construction and rehabilitation projects totaled roughly $220 billion.”

Witnesses testified to the challenges plaguing the department’s implementation of the Davis-Bacon requirements. Tom Mistick, owner of Church Restoration Group in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, described his own personal struggle with enforcement of the law. In response to the GAO report, Mistick said the department “is simply incapable of implementing the Davis-Bacon Act’s provision in a fair and common-sense manner.”

For more about problems with Davis-Bacon, visit this page from Associated Builders and Contractors. For more information from the Heritage Foundation, visit here.

Davis-Bacon wage process can be bad for taxpayers. Not news, right? Some have been warning for years that the system by which the government sets wage rates on public projects is rife with errors and, sometimes, fraud. Now there’s a new voice sounding the alarm and it’s the … uhh … federal government.

As Bloomberg reports, a new Government Accountability Office investigation is documenting the problem:

Poor data collected by the U.S. Labor Department prevents accurate calculations of the prevailing pay rate required by law on the projects, the Government Accountability Office, Congress’s investigative arm, said in a report to be released today. The department “cannot have high confidence its results” are accurate, according to the report.

Labor Department officials in many cases base the wage rates on six or fewer workers, according to the watchdog agency. It also has failed to periodically update the information to assure the data represents current conditions, according to the report.

If “prevailing wage rates are too high, they potentially cost the federal government and taxpayers more for publicly funded construction projects,” according to the report.

As the service also notes, some in the nation’s capital are taking note:

“These inaccurate wage determinations may drive up the cost of federal construction projects” and discourage competition, Representative Tim Walberg, a Michigan Republican, who leads a House subcommittee on worker protection.

Representative John Kline, a Minnesota Republican and a member of the workforce protections subcommittee, said lawmakers aren’t sure federally funded projects paid wages that were accurate or fair.

“We can no longer accept a system that spends taxpayer dollars without any real accountability, accuracy or transparency,” Kline said.

The GAO report can be found here.

Halt The Assault in Wisconsin Radio Ad

Highlighting a recent story in which a local of public-sector union AFSCME has demanded local businesses put up a sign in their window to signal their support for the union position in the great fight in Wisconsin, these laws look pretty compelling:

943.30 Threats to injure or accuse of crime. (1) Whoever, either verbally or by any written or printed communication,
maliciously threatens to accuse or accuses another of any crime or offense, or threatens or commits any injury to the person, property, business, profession, calling or trade, or the profits and income of any business, profession, calling or trade of another, with intent thereby to extort money or any pecuniary advantage whatever, or with intent to compel the person so threatened to do any act against the person’s will or omit to do any lawful act, is guilty of a Class H felony.
943.31 Threats to communicate derogatory information. Whoever threatens to communicate to anyone information, whether true or false, which would injure the reputation of the threatened person or another unless the threatened person transfers property to a person known not to be entitled to it is guilty of a Class I felony.
History: 1977 c. 173; 2001 a. 109.
A threat to injure a manager’s reputation unless a job is offered violated this section.
State v. Gilkes, 118 Wis. 2d 149, 345 N.W.2d 531 (Ct. App. 1984).

And:

134.01 Injury to business; restraint of will. Any 2 or more persons who shall combine, associate, agree, mutually undertake or concert together for the purpose of willfully or maliciously injuring another in his or her reputation, trade, business or profession by any means whatever, or for the purpose of maliciously compelling another to do or perform any act against his or
her will, or preventing or hindering another from doing or performing any lawful act shall be punished by imprisonment in the county jail not more than one year or by fine not exceeding $500.

It would be impossible not to think of that term when reading this article over at The Washington Examiner by the Heritage Foundation’s Robert Bluey, who describes a bizarre encounter with a public employee and subsequently concludes: I suppose we should be accustomed to irrational behavior from the left. We’re seeing a lot of that these days, whether it’s the conniving liberal politicians in Washington or the angry union mobs in Wisconsin. Civility certainly isn’t their strong suit.

You don’t get that kind of behavior when the unions’ meal ticket is under attack — or, more aptly, under review by the taxpayers who foot the outsized bill for public services.

Thank You! This month, the Free Enterprise Alliance’s Halt The Assault campaign celebrates its birthday. Without your help, we could not have:

• Educated millions of voters about Big Labor and Big Government’s agenda before the last election
• Built a growing, passionate grassroots army on Facebook
• Appeared on more than 200 radio programs across the nation
• Taken our message to major educational outlets including Fox News Channel, CNBC, Fox Business Channel, BigGovernment.com, The Daily Caller, American Thinker, and countless others
• Positioned ourselves to help America finally Halt The Assault on free enterprise in 2011 and 2012!

Again, thank you for all you have done. Those who can give, please donate a few dollars to help us continue the fight. Those facing tough times, please stay active online and keep educating Americans who still don’t understand the mortal threat facing our fiscal future.

It’s astonishing that there are individuals such as Mr. Lerner and others in the Big Labor and “community organizer” movement who find the business community and a robust economy as powers that must be ruined and brought down as the means to enact their warped view of government. We should automatically be suspicious of anyone who rejoices at economic downturns and wishes they would hurt more, as they obviously don’t have the well being of Americans at heart.

Investors Business Daily this morning expands on the issue and helpfully expands on SEIU’s recent record:

Lerner’s had face time with high-level White House officials over the past two years, in at least two documented meetings. His close colleague Stern got even more.

And right about now, the SEIU, still furious about its failed Wisconsin strike, has begun to take on a radicalism that stands to take the rest of the economy hostage.

This week, a screaming union mob stormed ESSA Bank in Stroudsburg, Pa., over a banker’s hospital board stance on a labor issue. It had nothing to do with the bank — and everything to do with terrorizing the banker into submission.

A week earlier, food company Sodexo USA filed a suit against SEIU, accusing it of extortion and “dirty tricks.” Among other things, union thugs are accused of flinging plastic cockroaches over the company’s meals and terrorizing patients about rat droppings in their food to muscle Sodexo workers into its union.

Then there are the two SEIU leaders in Chicago whose close ties with terrorist groups Hamas and Colombia’s FARC are under FBI probe. Sound like a merger?

It also turns out you may hate the price tag. We hear, via The Playbook, that “The Andy Griffith ad promoting Obamacare last year cost taxpayers $3.66 million – including $404,000 in production – according to records obtained from HHS in an FOIA request earlier this year.”

The day after Obama’s election, the language of labor leaders sparkled. “This is our moment, a new beginning,” said one. Election Day 2008 “was one of the brightest days ever,” said another.

Who would have thought, such a short time later, that the President’s most loyal friend looks more like a scorpion trapped in the corner?

That’s the conclusion of a powerful article running recently over at CNN’s website. The gist of the article: Big Labor didn’t get card check and healthcare legislation — while terrible for small business — didn’t deliver on a full government option and now is facing public scrutiny for the harmful effect of unionized public employees on the taxpayer’s tab. In fact, the article has this quick and helpful explanation on that last point:

The biggest kink in relations between the public and unions comes from this fact: For the first time in history, most union workers are in government, not in the private sector. So taxpayers, not shareholders, are the ones footing the costs for generous pay and benefits packages — packages negotiated by legislators with no financial stake but much to gain by securing the political goodwill of union bosses.

It’s interesting that the analogy used is of a trapped scorpion, and the analogy is not entirely without merit. Despite seeming small to casual news viewers, Big Labor still holds enough toxic, poisonous power to negatively impact America’s picture on jobs, the economy, and free enterprise should labor officials continue to push an agenda that serves only their small, special interest. Unfortunately, there’s every reason to believe that union bosses’ agenda continues to be anti-employee, anti-employer, and anti-growth.

Photo credit: Flickr/Dave Stokes

Check out the latest from our album on Facebook.

Sowell uses the ever-unpopular “card check” scheme to work his way into the major problem facing America, which is out-of-control public sector compensation and benefits (largely pushed upward by union bosses who use hundreds of millions of dollars of their members’ money to elect friendly politicians with whom to negotiate):

It takes world-class chutzpah to call circumventing secret ballots the “Employee Free Choice Act.” To unions, workers are just the raw material used to create union power, just as iron ore is the raw material used by U.S. Steel and bauxite is the raw material used by the Aluminum Company of America.

The most fundamental fact about labor unions is that they do not create any wealth. They are one of a growing number of institutions which specialize in siphoning off wealth created by others, whether they are businesses or the taxpayers.

Check out the rest by clicking here.

On the surface, the fight between the governor of Wisconsin and organized labor is about balancing state budgets and collective-bargaining rights. Behind the scenes, hundreds of millions of dollars in compensation to top labor leaders as well as campaign contributions to Democrats could be in jeopardy.

The paper adds:

The reports show that assets of the various labor unions run into the hundreds of millions of dollars, and payrolls rival midsize companies. Among the Top 10 unions, dozens of top officials have salary-and-benefit packages that rank them among the top percentage of income-earners in the country.

“What’s very clear to union leaders is the huge threat this poses for the organizations they have built,” said John C. McAdams, political science professor at Marquette University in Wisconsin.

Think this is all about trying to harm public employees (for reasons largely unstated and unaddressed)? No less a (moderate) voice than Bill Gates boots up an alert to citizens to figure out their state budget problems and specifically mentions public employee pensions (which are frequently negotiated between government employee union bosses and the politicians they put into office):

… I wanted to share some of what I’ve been learning about state budgets. I got interested in them because states supply most of the money for public education in the United States. What I’ve been learning, though, is that states are under increasingly intense budget pressure, and not just because of the aftereffects of the economic recession, although that has made things worse.

There are long-term problems with state budgets that a return to economic growth won’t solve. Health-care costs and pension obligations are projected to grow at rates that look to be completely unsustainable, unless something is done. But so far, many states aren’t doing much to deal with their fundamental problems. Instead they’re building budgets on tricks – selling off assets, creative accounting – and fictions, like assuming that pension fund investments will produce much higher gains than anyone should reasonably expect.

Eventually they’ll have to make some hard decisions about priorities, and I’m worried that education will suffer, even more than it is suffering already because of budget cuts. The issues are complicated and obscured by the complexities of accounting, so most people don’t fully understand what’s going on. More people need to investigate their state’s budget and get involved in helping to make the right choices. My TED talk is sort of a call to action for citizens, taxpayers, parents, everyone.

So the score: Bill Gates for addressing state budget crises; rich union bosses and their political allies against addressing state budget crises.