Freedom Line Blog

Early this week, the liberal group Americans United for Change and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees launched a $280,000 ad campaign targeting some Republicans who voted to extend all of the Bush tax cuts for all Americans.  The ad charges them with voting “to give people like Donald Trump a tax break worth $150,000 a year…” [Emphasis added]

In response, the Donald took to Twitter and fired back with the following:

To the geniuses at ‘Americans United for Change’: the more you tax me the less people I employ. Get it?

That’s the problem, Mr. Trump.  They don’t get it.

Rasmussen Reports is out today with some interesting survey results.  In the wake of severe budget deficits Americans’ support for public employee unions is sinking to new lows.  According to Rasmussen’s telephone survey, 45% of respondents oppose allowing public employees to unionize, while an equal number favor the practice.  Just last May, 53% of Americans favored unions for public employees.

The 8% drop in approval rating combined with the rise in outright hostility undoubtedly concerns the mandarins over at the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), the nation’s largest public employee and health care workers union.  This kind of growing opposition will surely earn more hysterical charges from AFSCME President Gerald W. McEntee’s like this one that 60 Minutes engaged in media bias when it granted air time to reform Governor Chris Christie (R-NJ).

It’s time to get serious.

Barack Obama has consistently failed to gain political traction with unseemly attacks against everyone from former President Bush to Fox News to John Boehner’s tan.  So Obama redirected his aim using illogical and baseless attacks against business groups whom he accuses of attempting to “sway elections” through sinister election spending.”  David Axelrod, Obama’s top political guru, has labeled election spending a “threat to our democracy,” and when pressed to identify a shred of evidence supporting Obama’s allegation of illegal foreign campaign spending benefiting Republican candidates could only reply, “do you have any evidence that it’s not?”

So which group has actually spent the most to influence this year’s Congressional elections?  The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), a 1.6 million member union of public employees.  According to The Wall Street Journal, AFSCME has now spent $87.5 million, which outdistances the demonized Chamber of Commerce by a cool $12.5 million.  Of the top five spenders, in fact, three of them are big labor unions (the other two being the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and National Education Association (NEA)).

One would hope for more ethical behavior from a President who based his entire 2008 campaign on bringing “change” to our toxic political discourse.  What will be his campaign theme in 2012?  Instead of “hope and change,” he’s building a legacy of “hypocrisy and impropriety.”