Money talks as anger grows

Government takeover looking more bigger

by Michael Graham
DNN Staff - EXCLUSIVE!
Tuesday, Apr. 6, 2010

Want to know the real reason Washington and Beacon Hill are so afraid of the Tea Party movement?

Follow the money.

If you live in Salem, follow it to one of the 45 city employees earning $100,000 a year or more - up from 34 just two years ago. The median household income in Salem is less than $60,000.

At the state level, follow it to the MBTA worker at “The Ride” - a door-to-door ride service with the noble goal of helping handicapped folks get around. But as the Boston Globe-Democrat reports, spending in just 10 years has gone up 400 percent - from $21.4 million to $84.8 million. Every time someone uses this service, Deval Patrick is digging $41 out of our pockets.

And at the national level, it’s worse. From the Wall Street Journal:

“It turns out there really is growing inequality in America. It’s the 45 percent premium in pay and benefits that government workers receive over the poor saps who create wealth in the private economy.

“And the gap is growing. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, from 1998 to 2008 public employee compensation grew by 28.6 percent, compared with 19.3 percent for private workers.”

As a result, government workers today earn about $1.45 for every dollar you earn doing the same job in an “I pay taxes and compete for customers” business. Think about it: If you earned $10,000 in wages and benefits, someone getting paid out of your taxes earned $14,500. Your $50K translates through the magic of government into their $72,500.

For the same work. No, that’s not even true, because when you go to work there’s a chance you could get fired for doing a lousy job. Those $100K Salem workers know they could pass out drunk in front of a supervisor and still be on the payroll.

And it’s driving the rest of us crazy. Listen to the tea partiers or talk radio callers and you’ll hear that their enemy isn’t a single politician like President Barack Obama or Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Their real enemy is government. And at the risk of being declared a terrorist threat - or worse, a Sarah Palin fan - I’d say the tea partiers have that target in their sights.

Nobody’s protesting the idea of everyone having health insurance. What they’re protesting is government-run health insurance, which by the way is already turning into a mess less than a week in. Companies like John Deere and AT&T are projecting huge increases in health care costs.

The government response? Haul the heads of these companies before Congress to beat them up for the sin of committing accurate Obamacare math in public. “Why can’t you just do the right thing and lie,” congressional liberals gripe.

At every turn, Obama has stepped forward on behalf of government and the people who get rich from it. With public union members earning record amounts of your money, Obama used a recess appointment this weekend to stick a radical union activist on the National Labor Relations Board.

Who were the top beneficiaries of the $860 billion (and climbing) “stimulus package”? Government workers, of course. And while the impact of Obamacare on the private sector is still being debated, everyone agrees that the more than 100 new boards, panels and commissions it creates are going to need new boarders, panelers and commissioners.

And being goodhearted, public-spirited liberals, they’ll expect to be well paid.