Filibustering Jobs

Yesterday Senate Republicans again filibustered a jobs bill – a plan to hire people to repair our country’s infrastructure. This is work that has to be done, and right now millions of people need work. But Republicans filibustered this bill. The corporate-owned mainstream media, however, largely refused to tell the public what is happening, instead blaming “the Senate.” The Washington Post headlined, Senate blocks $60 billion infrastructure plan, another part of Obama jobs bill. Politico blamed “both parties,” with Both parties block jobs bills. MSNBC: Senate blocks $60B part of Obama jobs plan. CNN: Competing infrastructure spending measures fail in Senate.

So the big-corporate media leads the public to blame “the Senate” and government, providing few clues that tell people where to apply the pressure that makes representative democracy function.

Big Corps Paying No Taxes, Not Just Low Taxes

From Citizens for Tax Justice report: Corporate Taxpayers & Corporate Tax Dodgers, 2008-2010,

280 Most Profitable U.S. Corporations Shelter Half Their Profits from Taxes.

“These 280 corporations received a total of nearly $224 billion in tax subsidies,” said Robert McIntyre, Director at Citizens for Tax Justice and the report’s lead author. “This is wasted money that could have gone to protect Medicare, create jobs and cut the deficit.”

30 Companies average less than zero tax bill in the last three Years, 78 had at least one no-tax year.

Financial services received the largest share of all federal tax subsidies over the last three years. More than half the tax subsidies for companies in the study went to four industries: financial services, utilities, telecommunications, and oil, gas & pipelines.

U.S. corporations with significant foreign profits paid tax rates to foreign countries that were almost a third higher than they paid to the IRS on their domestic profits.

Who Are “The Markets?”

Who are we talking about, when we talk about “corporate taxes?” Just who do we mean when we talk about “the markets?” See for yourself why the #occupy movement talks about the 1% vs the 99%.

When you hear about corporations and “the markets,” think about how that connects to this chart:

People In The Streets

Yesterday, in the post, Oakland Occupied — Will Washington Listen At Last?, I wrote about the large demonstrations that are spreading and growing: spreading to more and more cities, and growing with larger numbers in each city. I warned that this is starting to look like Egypt with the people in the streets protesting Mubarak’s cronyism:

A Warning Shot At Washington’s Increasing Irrelevance

As I said, this public protest is spreading and growing. People have had enough and are taking to the streets in increasing numbers. But Washington continues to ignore the public, debating a national motto, as Repubicans block jobs and an elitist “super committee” debates cutting the things government does for the 99%.

Poll after poll shows the public overwhelmingly supports increasing taxes on the wealthy, bringing corporations under control, and reigning in trade agreements that suck our jobs, factories, companies and industries out of the country. People do not want Medicare, Social Security and other essential government programs cut, they want the rich and corporations and Wall Street to start paying their share.

The public wants something done about these problems. They want jobs, they want something done about the increasing

If Congress continues to ignore the people of the country it will not be long before the situation is like Mubarak pretending he is still in charge of Egypt, while the people of the country are in the streets planning how they will run the country without him and his cronies.

Super Committee To Take Money Out Of The Economy

A representative democracy serves the 99%, a plutocracy serves the 1%. Currently in Washington Congress’ elite “super committee” represents the 1%, looking at ways to take more money out of the economy, discussing cutting Social Security at a time when many people have lost their pensions and savings. They are discussing cutting Medicare and other health services at a time when more and more people are in need. They are discussing cuts and cuts and cuts, when working people are falling behind and behind and behind.

But the actual causes of the deficits that have Congress so concerned are ignored. Reagan and the Bushes cut taxes on the rich and increased military spending, and the deficits and resulting debt soared. It is right there in front of our faces. But even with such “concern” about deficits the tax cuts for the rich continue and the huge increases in military spending are left alone. Instead Congress discusses austerity – making the 99% pay for the benefits and bailouts for the 1%.

People are fed up, and rightly so. Poll after poll shows that the public wants taxes on the rich increased to pay for the deficit, infrastructure, education, health care, retirement and the rest of the things We, the People need. But our captured government is only serving the top few when they talk about cutting these things in order to keep taxes low at the top. The 1% would be well-advised to pay attention to what has happened in other countries where government ignores the people and takes care only of the connected rich.

This post originally appeared at Campaign for America’s Future (CAF) at their Blog for OurFuture. I am a Fellow with CAF.

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The Report

The Republican House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform has release a 33-page report, How Obama’s Green Energy Agenda is Killing Jobs. This “report” is a stunning document that reads like an oil-company promotional piece raised to he level of Glenn-Beckian, conspiratorial hysteria. From the Executive Summary,

The Obama Administration’s green energy campaign has been pursued while it simultaneously implemented a regulatory agenda that is choking American businesses and restricting access to abundant domestic natural resources which have traditionally provided cheap energy that supports economic growth.

… By sacrificing domestic carbon-based resources upon the altar of an ill-fated “green energy” experiment, the President has put U.S. economic security in jeopardy and wasted billions in taxpayer money at a time when our fiscal health is in peril.

One “finding” of the report is that green jobs might help people who are members of labor unions, and that “payment of union-level wages” might be mandated! Along with this, a press release promoting the report warns:

It also points out that the guise of “green jobs” has become a rallying cry for a political coalition comprised of environmentalists and union leadership to consolidate an ideologically-based agenda, and notes that many federal green jobs programs have strings attached that require union workers, union-level wages and other mandates.

Shocking, Americans might want a clean environment and good pay. We must warn our constituents about this terrible possibility before communists take over!

Key Findings

Among the report’s “key findings:”

• Labeling an occupation as a green job does not mean it has any special economic worth;
• The guise of “green jobs” has become a political rallying cry aimed to unite environmentalists and union leaders in a deliberate effort to consolidate an ideologicallybased agenda;
• Labor unions are profiting from the many so-called “green” programs because there are often “strings attached” that require hiring union workers, the payment of union-level wages and other mandates;
• The metric of a “green job” is nothing more than a propaganda tool designed to provide legitimacy to a pre-determined outcome that benefits a political ideology rather than the economy or the environment…

The Conspiracy

The report lays out in detail a grand, Glenn-Beckian conspiracy theory, claiming that environmentalists and labor unions are working together to promote a grand, “green jobs” conspiracy. The section titled, PART I: OBAMA’S GREEN AGENDA DECONSTRUCTED lays out this conspiracy,

…union leaders support “green jobs” because much of the subsidized work is designated to be awarded to unionized workers. For their part, environmentalists benefit from having a broader base of support for policies that seek to “green” the economy. The outcome is a political alliance with incredible power.

The genesis of promoting so-called “green jobs” can be traced to a group known as the Apollo Alliance, which has been the center of gravity for the green jobs movement since 2001. … Accordingly, the Apollo Alliance and other coalition efforts like the Blue-Green Alliance bring together two major components of the Democratic political base – environmentalists and labor unions. …

Labor Unions are Profiting under the Pretense of Green Energy

While the green jobs movement clearly advances the interests of environmental special interest groups in the green jobs movement, the interests of labor unions may not be as readily apparent. However, a careful look at statutes passed in the Democrat controlled 110th and 111th Congresses reveal that unions stand to benefit from many of the so-called green programs because these programs have “strings attached … that require paying union-level wages, hampering lower cost, nonunion firms from competing for the jobs produced by the grants.” The left-wing magazine, The American Prospect, noted in September of 2007 that Leo Gerard, the President of the United Steelworkers, has played a major role in the development of the Apollo Alliance and its political influence…

The report goes on to make the case that one goal of this conspiracy is to promote American steel, and require other parts of this effort to be American-made, which would benefit members of the Steelworkers union.

Another reason why Gerard and the United Steelworkers, in particular, are drawn to this coalition is the amount of steel required to manufacturer green energy products, such as wind turbines. To the extent that manufacturers use American steel, the assumption is that the government subsidies and regulations would benefit their membership as well. As Gerard has stated, arguing for steel protections, “If we are not going to do solar panels and fluorescent bulbs and wind turbines here, the next generation of R and D will not be here.”

Oil Good, Green Bad: Promoting Oil Companies

Another section of the report, Fossil Fuel Use Has Been a Major Driver of American Prosperity, explains the benefits to America of promoting oil companies and getting rid of any green jobs effort to promote alternatives to fossil fuel use. You can almost hear the patriotic music welling up as you read this section.

The positive relationship between access to affordable energy sources and economic growth is undeniable; fossil fuels have been the backbone of American prosperity.

… The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) credits carbon-based energy with spawning “one of the most profound social transformations in history.” Fossil fuels currently meet more than 80% of U.S. energy demand, with petroleum satisfying half of that demand.

The expanded use of fossil fuels throughout history has facilitated the development of some of our nation’s most productive industries. …

Oil is credited with “the rise and development of capitalism and modern business” itself. Today, coal, oil and natural gas form the backbone that supports the American economy. [emphasis added]

Misstatements Of Fact

The report also contains what can politely be called “misstatements of fact.” The report talks about “a private investor—one who happened to be a prominent Obama fundraiser.” This is just flat-out false, In my post, Five Biggest Right-Wing Lies About Solyndra I pointed out the way this lie is used to create an appearance of impropriety:

5. The biggest investor in Solyndra was an Obama donor.
Conservatives (and now picked up by corporate “mainstream” outlets) make the accusation that there was corruption in the process by which Solyndra received its loan because a major Obama donor named George Kaiser is a major investor in Solyndra. The charge is that Solyndra only received the loan guarantee as a result of campaign contributions by people “connected to” Solyndra. The problem with this is that George Kaiser was not an investor in Solyndra. According to Tulsa World,

In an emailed statement to the Tulsa World, a representative of the George Kaiser Family Foundation said the organization made the investment through Argonaut.

“George Kaiser is not an investor in Solyndra and did not participate in any discussions with the U.S. government regarding the loan,” the statement said. “GKFF invests in a globally diversified portfolio across many different asset classes.”

The Kaiser Family Foundation is a philanthropic organization, which means Kaiser (or anyone else) could not personally profit from a successful investment by the foundation.

Please take the time to skim through this astonishing report. A copy of the Committee report is available by clicking here.

At Politico Darren Sameulsohn explains what Republicans are up to, in President Obama’s green losing streak writing, “Now, with Solyndra’s collapse, Republicans are promising to make the green jobs concept politically toxic for years to come.”

This Mark Fiore animation sums it up.

This post originally appeared at Campaign for America’s Future (CAF) at their Blog for OurFuture. I am a Fellow with CAF.

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A Functioning Democracy?

In a functioning democracy an informed public considers and debates its options and then comes to a decision on how best to proceed. In a representative republic our representatives are called “representatives” because they represent us, and vote to implement our wishes.

The founding idea of our country is that We, the People are in charge, and our country exists to promote the common good — “welfare” — of all of us. Elected officials take an oath of office to protect and defend our Constitution, which begins with those words, “We, the People.” Over time we have built up a system of institutions, processes, procedures, traditions and mechanisms to implement this founding idea. The oath they take is to protect and defend this system.

Oath Of Office: Protect and Defend Our System

Today all of this seems all to have fallen away from us. A fanatical but extremely well-funded minority is using a manufactured “crisis” to hold the country’s economy hostage. As ransom — if we don’t want the country to go into default, destroying our economy — they demand that we force fast and dramatic changes to the nature of our country and our social safety net. These changes will take effect before the public can react and gather the forces of opposition. They will be “locked in,” creating “facts on the ground” that we have to deal with, and which are extremenly difficult to undo, no matter what We, the People want or need.

Rather than honor their oath of office to protect and defend our We-the-People system from all enemies, foreign and domestic, and to listen to “We, the People,” and to promote the common good of all of us, our leaders have instead entered into negotiations with the hostage-takers. The act of entering into these negotiations is by itself an agreement to work outside of our established system, and the result of these negotiations will be to change the equation of who our system is for.

Crisis?

Is there really a “debt crisis” necessitating such a dramatic and immediate response? Just 10 years ago the “crisis” we faced was that we were paying off the debt too fast and it was claimed this would lead to socialism as government surpluses were invested in private assets. So taxes for the wealthy were cut. At the same time, enabled by another “crisis,” the military budget was dramatically increased — in ways that enriched “private contractors.”

The result of these changes was an immediate return from budget surpluses to the dramatic budget deficits initiated by President Reagan. Then-President Bush called these deficits “Incredibly positive news” precisely because they would bring on a debt crisis that would enable today’s stampede to change our system of government. The debt “crisis” was intentional.

Cause Of Deficits and Debt

The increase of deficits beyond $1 trillion occurred in President Bush’s last budget year — the consequence of the financial collapse and the resulting drop in tax revenue combined with increases in social safety-net program payments. But the underlying cause of the deficits was the Bush tax cuts and wars. Today, in How the Deficit Got This Big, the NY Times offers charts and figures that show that:

…under Mr. Bush, tax cuts and war spending were the biggest policy drivers of the swing from projected surpluses to deficits from 2002 to 2009. Budget estimates that didn’t foresee the recessions in 2001 and in 2008 and 2009 also contributed to deficits. Mr. Obama’s policies, taken out to 2017, add to deficits, but not by nearly as much.

As for the causes of the longer-term debt picture The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities has put together this chart, explaining:

Longer term most of our country’s future debt problem is from tax cuts, increases in military spending, and the effects of the economic downturn. Most of the rest is because of our private healthcare delivery system. These “debt-ceiling” negotiations are not addressing these causes of the problem at all. Instead they are about using whipped-up panic over those intentionally-created problems to move the common wealth into private hands.

Not The First Time

This tactic of whipping up panic over a “debt crisis” has been used before to stampede legislative bodies into making radical changes on short notice, moving common wealth into private hands. In the post Debt Crisis? Really? I hilighted a 1993 example from Canada that was very similar to today’s. From the source’s account,

By the time Canadians learned that the “deficit crisis” had been grossly manipulated by the corporate-funded think tanks, it hardly mattered – the budget cuts had already been made and locked in. As a direct result, social programs for the country’s unemployed were radically eroded and have never recovered, despite many subsequent surplus budgets.

There is example after of example of the use of manufactured “crises” to panic and stampede legislatures into privatizing public wealth, just as we are experiencing today.

Democracy Eroded

What is happening here is not supposed to be the process of decision-making used in a representative democracy. Instead what we are experiencing is designed specifically to engineer circumstances that persuade us to bypass established processes and safeguards. These safeguards are in place to protect us from making the very sort of panic-driven decisions that we are about to make. And they are designed to “lock in” the changes, so we can’t reverse the damage when we are able to catch our breath.

How can our leaders not recognize and resist what is being done here? Have our own leaders drifted so far from America’s traditional love of democracy that they accept this and fall into playing the game?

Elitist Mindset

It seems that our own leaders have fallen into an elitist mindset, which enables them to go along. Persuaded by decades of corporate-funded propaganda, many now believe that the public doesn’t know what is good for them, that the things democracy entitles them to — “entitlements” — will bankrupt the country, that taxing the wealthy and corporations — the “job creators” — will harm the economy. They do not seem to see how much of our wealth is now flowing to a very few at the top of the pyramid. The fact that taxes on the wealthiest have been cut from a top rate of 90% all the way to a rate of only 15% for hedge-fund managers making billions — far lower than many of the rest of us pay — is ignored. And the fact that we did not have budget deficits when the wealthy paid higher taxes is also ignored. In fact, today just 400 people now have more wealth than half of our population, and the trend is accelerating. But many of our leaders believe that the things We, the People do for each other are a problem, and we must be protected from ourselves.

One example of the slow drift away from love of democracy is the recent “Deficit Commission.” This was a commission of elites — there were no teachers or unemployed or plumbers or disabled or poor people in that room — that was assigned to come up with ways to lower our budget deficits. They did not come up with any recommendations, but the leaders of the commissions came up with a plan of their own — to cut taxes on the wealthy while cutting the things that We, the People do for each other.

Again and again our elites try to create bodies like this that act as an external force they have to submit to, allowing them to escape accountability to voters.

These commissions come up with plans that benefit the wealthy few but violate what the vast majority of Americans want. They are designed to come up with recommendations that benefit the wealthy few, and are presented to Congress with “up-or-down-vote” procedures that leave legislators and voters with no recourse – on purpose. Pre-ordained conclusions with non-democratic force-through procedures.

“Super Congress”

Another example of this kind of anti-democratic, elitist drift was a proposal floated over the weekend to establish a “Super-Congress” — a Politburo of elites, that sits above the Congress and is not accountable to the public. The idea is to save the people from themselves by creating a special 12-member panel of lawmakers who come up with proposals that the Congress must vote on, with no changes and an “up-or-down vote” to implement, thus bypassing the established, democratic system and keeping individual members from being held accountable for the results. The idea is to “tie the hands” of Congress, keep them from meddling, and get things done quickly before the public can rally opposition.

That this idea was even floated shows the extend of separation that exists between our elected officials and We, the People.

Public Will Revolt

Regular Americans are not currently following this, and are turned out because it is just one more Chicken Little coming out of DC. But the public will revolt when the final decisions are put in front of them. The public overwhelmingly supports Social Security and Medicare, and overwhelmingly want taxes increased on the wealthy.

So when the results are presented to them there will be trouble. And that is also part of the plan.

In the 2010 election Republicans campaigned on a theme that “Democrats cut $500 billion from Medicare” and won the election. In 2012 the public will be presented with hundreds of millions of dollars spent on campaign ads, crying out that “Democrats cut your Social Security and Medicare, while keeping taxes low for the rich.”

Think I’m kidding? They have already started.

This post originally appeared at Campaign for America’s Future (CAF) at their Blog for OurFuture. I am a Fellow with CAF.

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Soundly Defeated

Yesterday’s NY-26 Congressional election turned on Medicare and the candidate who supported Medicare won. The candidate who supported the Republican plan to privatize Medicare was soundly defeated.

House Republicans voted to change Medicare from a single-payer plan to a private-insurance voucher plan as a measure to “cut government spending.” Republicans had talked themselves into believing the public hates government as much as they do and therefore gutting it is what the public wants. Instead of working to control health care costs they just shifted those costs away from the government into “personal responsibility” land. In plain non-propagandized English personal responsibility means each of us on our own, alone, instead of all of us watching out for and taking care of each other.

The public figured it out and voted to keep the Medicare-gutter out.

American Majority

The American Majority understands what is going on. They know that our budget problems come from tax cuts, military spending and the lack of jobs. Those are the things the public wants the Congress to fix.

Where the deficits come from:

What the public wants:

Gallup Poll, January 14-16, 2011

• 64% oppose spending cuts to Medicare.

The Wall Street Journal/NBC News Poll, February 24-28, 2011

• 54% believe it will not be necessary to cut spending on Medicare to reduce the national deficit.
• 76% believe cutting Medicare to help reduce the budget deficit is mostly or totally unacceptable.
• 60% oppose turning the Medicare system into a government-issued voucher program, which would require the beneficiary to purchase private health insurance.

First Focus and Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research Poll, April 13-18, 2011

• 70% oppose cuts/changes to the Medicare system as described in the House Republican Budget.
• 49% support not reducing funds to Medicare.
• 53% believe replacing the current Medicare program with a voucher system in which retirees will receive vouchers to use to purchase subsidized insurance from private insurance companies for those 55 or older is totally or mostly unacceptable.

CBS News/The New York Times Poll, April 15-20, 2011

• 61% believe that Medicare is currently “worth the costs.”
• 76% think government has the responsibility to provide health care coverage to the elderly.
• 49% believe higher-income beneficiaries should pay more in taxes.

Bloomberg News Poll, March 4-7, 2011

• 54% oppose replacing Medicare with a system in which government vouchers would help participants pay for their own health insurance.
• 76% oppose reducing benefits for Medicare.

Pulse Opinion Research for The Hill Poll, April 28, 2011

• 53% said they would oppose a reduction in Medicare benefits in order to get the deficit/debt under control.

Pew Research Poll, March 8-14, 2011

• 65% oppose changes to Social Security as a way to reduce the budget deficit.

More recent polling shows the public has moved to an even strong support for Medicare, and will remove from office anyone who votes to cut it.

Social Security The Same

Those polls don’t just test public support for Medicare, they test support for Social Security as well. The public feels just as strongly that politicians had best keep their hands off our Social Security.

In order to reduce the national debt, would you support or oppose cutting spending on Social Security, which is the retirement program for the elderly?
Ohio: 16% support, 80% oppose
Missouri: 17% support, 76% oppose
Montana: 20% support, 76% oppose
Minnesota: 23% support, 72% oppose

Reality Restored

During the Bush years the idea of a “reality-based community” circulated after an article by Ron Suskind about a meeting he had with “a senior advisor to Bush.” In the article he described how the aide scoffed at people who bother with reality:

The aide said that guys like me were “in what we call the reality-based community,” which he defined as people who “believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.” … “That’s not the way the world really works anymore,” he continued. “We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you’re studying that reality—judiciously, as you will—we’ll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort out. We’re history’s actors…and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.”

Republicans and their corporate money tried to create a reality that let them gut Medicare without the public rising up to do something about it. It didn’t work.

Do The Right Thing

Well, reality is coming back. The public is figuring things out. Politicians should learn the lesson of NY-26: don’t mess with Medicare — or Social Security. To fix the deficit fix the causes of the deficit: invest in jobs through maintaining and modernizing our infrastructure, restore top tax rates to where they were before we had huge deficits and, by the way, the Soviet Union is long gone so cut military spending back to maybe only twice our nearest potential competitor.

This post originally appeared at Campaign for America’s Future (CAF) at their Blog for OurFuture. I am a Fellow with CAF.

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One wonders if Congressman Paul, or any of the Tea Partiers running on such a platform actually bothered to read the Constitution, or whether they just purchased worn, dog-eared copies to convey that impression.

The first power granted to Congress in Article I, section 8 of the Constitution, definitively dispels their belief.  Unlike the third power, the “Commerce Clause” that has been the subject of two centuries of Supreme Court interpretation to determine what is interstate commerce is in a growing, changing and increasingly integrated economy, Congress’s first power requires no such midwifery.

Clause 1: The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;

The first 14 words grant Congress the power to raise money—the 16^th Amendment added “income tax” to the means (Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises) allowed to raise money.

The next 17 words, “to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States”, specify what the money raised is to be used for.

Most simply stated, Clause 1 grants Congress the power to raise money to pay the debts and spend on the common defense AND the general welfare.

Common defense.  General welfare.  Where did we hear those phrases before?  They were part of the mission statement of the United States of America, as set forth in the Preamble to the Constitution. 

The general welfare.   There is no adjective or adverb qualifying that authority.  Article 1, Section 8, Clause 1 of the Constitution grants the United States government the unqualified and unlimited power to raise and spend money, for example, to:  provide healthcare for the elderly (or for everyone); provide old-age pension; build roads, bridges, train tracks, airports, electric grids, libraries, swimming pools, housing; educate our children, re-train the unemployed, provide pre-school and day care; fund public health projects; invest in and conduct basic research; provide subsidies for agriculture; save the auto industry; create internets; and, yes, Tea Party Senator Mike Lee (R-UT), even provide emergency aid from natural disasters, and so forth.  All subsumed under the authority to spend for the general welfare.

And, of course, the 18th power under Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution is by its own wording combined with each and every power in the Constitution: 

To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof.

Otherwise known as the “necessary and proper clause”, the 18^th power makes it as clear as the Supreme Court Justice’s financial disclosure rules that the Congress has the authority to enact any law to spend money in pursuit of the general welfare.

That that authority to raise and spend money for the general welfare is broad, deep and unqualified, does not, of course, compel that it be exercised.  But, the authority to do so is emblazoned right smack dab as the first of all the powers of Congress.

What about the 10^th Amendment, reserving powers not granted to the Federal Government to the States or its citizens?  For a specifically stated Article 1 power, the 10^th Amendment is irrelevant.  That power has been granted.  The “necessary and proper clause” provides additional authority to make all Laws to execute the granted powers.  One does not even need to address the history of this Amendment and the decision NOT to include the word “expressly”.

Anyone, of course, can argue the wisdom of this or that expenditure.  But, the authority to do so was conveyed by the States and its individual citizens when they ratified the Constitution.

It is not, oh Tea Partiers, “tyranny” or a “usurpation” to exercise that authority.

Perhaps you are sorry they did that.  But they did.  In the Constitution of the United States of America, dog-eared or not.

After all, what’s a Founding Father to do?

The controversial provision states if an eligible voter fails to vote for union representation, he or she will be tallied as an active vote against representation.

Such a policy, which puts an extra burden on union organizers to round up all voters, rather than a simple majority, existed up until last July, when the federal National Mediation Board, which adjudicates labor-management disputes, ruled that absent votes ought not be counted against unionization. Labor officials hailed that decision as one of their signature victories last year, and the proposal to strip it away has sparked an equally emotional reaction.

“This was the one advancement that you had seen in organizing rights and here they have launched an all-out effort in the House to go after unions again,” said Shane Larson, the legislative director for the Communications Workers of America. “Currently, this is the biggest issue federally right now in terms of organizing rights. There is nothing else that is on the table.”

Just to highlight how undemocratic this is, consider that 41.6 percent of eligible voters cast a ballot in last November’s midterms, and imagine a law that tallied all of those who didn’t go to the polls as votes for the GOP.

This is one of those things that’s bad in isolation, but utterly ridiculous when you consider some context.

First, it’s being pushed by the same union-busting conservatives who have waged a highly effective campaign against the Employee Free Choice Act based on the Big Lie that the “card-check” provision — which would make it much easier to organize — is undemocratic. As I wrote back in 2008:

[Union-busters seized] on a compelling talking point tailored to America’s political culture: that the “card-check” provision of the EFCA does away with the secret ballots that Americans have come to expect when casting their votes.

… the strategy is to depict management’s assault on the ability to organize as protecting “workers’ rights.” Seven out of 10 respondents said they’d be less likely to vote for a member of Congress “who voted in favor of taking away a worker’s right to have a federally supervised secret ballot election to decide whether to organize a union.”

Armed with their push-poll, the Right’s noise machine has been typically disciplined; all corners of the conservative movement are on message: Big Labor wants to do away with secret ballots, and it’s pulling the Democrats’ strings to make it happen.

But as Stalin said, “It’s not the people who vote that count. It’s the people who count the votes.” More importantly, it’s how the votes are counted and whether voters are being coerced. The secret-ballot election process is almost impossible in today’s anti-union environment, with a National Labor Relations Board — the body that’s supposed to protect workers’ rights — hopelessly stacked with anti-union appointees.

As journalist Jordan Barab noted, as a result of an elections process that disenfranchises millions of working people, “card-check campaigns — instead of secret ballot elections — have become labor’s main tool for organizing the unorganized.” According to AFL-CIO statistics cited by Barab, card checks were used to “sign up roughly 70 percent of the private-sector workers who joined unions (in 2006), compared with less than 5 percent two decades ago.”

So, they’re awfully concerned with the democratic process as long as it doesn’t lead to democratic workplaces.

The second bit of context relates to corporate governance. This proposal would impose on transportation unions the same undemocratic system that currently obtains with shareholders’ votes. If you own a few shares of stock in, say, AT & T, they’ll send you a proxy ballot to return by mail. Many small investors don’t bother sending those ballots back to the company, and their votes are automatically counted as siding with management.

So we have corporations holding shareholder “votes” that are rigged to come out on management’s side every time, and now they’re pushing a law that would rig transportation workers’ union elections to come out on management’s side every time and they’re screaming bloody murder about how card-check infringes on our sacred right to have a secret ballot.

In my book, I cite a poll conducted in 2005 which found that 53 percent of all American wage-earners would like to belong to a labor union. The union density that year was around 12 percent. That’s a result of systemic union-busting.