Hypocrite in Chief Obama to governors: Stop vilifying public employees!

You will have to go to RCP to view the Hypocrite in Chief's video because I don't want to log on here and see a big picture of Obama.  Call it a petty but I cannot stand to listen or watch him speak.  His speeches are lectures plus I find um's and ahh's, annoying  while he looks from side to side of his teleprompter.  If I wanted a lecture, I would go sign up for a class at OU.  From Hot Air comes this gem:

Barack Obama addressed the nation’s governors today with sympathy over budgetary crises, but a warning not to solve their shortfalls by infringing on the rights of public employees.  He also scolded governors for vilifying and denigrating PEUs, which raises the question of whether Obama has bothered to look at the protests in Wisconsin and elsewhere.  Besides, the governors in question are mainly fighting to limit collective bargaining rights to a standard that the federal government prohibits for its own employees. RCP has the video.

Finally someone has figured it out that Federal Employees have NONE of the benefits of the State and Local public service union employees -- no bargaining, no striking, paying an average of $400 a month for healthcare, and 7.5% for a pension plan plus you can contribute to Thrift Savings which will be matched by the Government, or never make more than 80% in retirement if you work for 70 years.

Maybe because our family has been involved with Federal Civil Service for years that I took such a burn at the coddled public service union employees.  Too many people lumped them all together but it is vastly different at the Federal level.  If the Feds want to freeze salaries and step increases, they can do it at will.  This is the second year of no raise yet the healthcare costs went up both years -- this time by almost $60 so instead of getting any increase, there has been a decrease.  Will Obama and his people freeze health benefit payments to the insurance companies for our policies -- no way -- they made sure that OPM approved the increase in charges while no pay raise.

Kimberly Strassel pre-emptively explained the hypocrisy in her column Friday at the Wall Street Journal:

It will no doubt surprise you to learn that President Obama, the great patron of the working man, also happens to be the great CEO of one of the least union-friendly shop floors in the nation.

This is, after all, the president who has berated Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker’s proposal to limit the collective bargaining rights of public employees, calling the very idea an “assault on unions.” This is also the president who has sicced his political arm, Organizing for America, on Madison, allowing the group to fill buses and plan rallies. Ah, but it’s easy to throw rocks when you live in a stone (White) house.

Fact: President Obama is the boss of a civil work force that numbers up to two million (excluding postal workers and uniformed military). Fact: Those federal workers cannot bargain for wages or benefits. Fact: Washington, D.C. is, in the purest sense, a “right to work zone.” Federal employees are not compelled to join a union, nor to pay union dues. Fact: Neither Mr. Obama, nor the prior Democratic majority, ever acted to give their union chums a better federal deal.

Scott Walker, eat your heart out.

For this enormous flexibility in managing his work force, Mr. Obama can thank his own party. In 1978, Democratic President Jimmy Carter, backed by a Democratic Congress, passed the Civil Service Reform Act. Washington had already established its General Schedule (GS) classification and pay system for workers. The 1978 bill went further, focused as it was on worker accountability and performance. It severely proscribed the issues over which employees could bargain, as well as prohibited compulsory union support.

Democrats weren’t then (and aren’t now) about to let their federal employees dictate pay. The GS system, as well as the president and Congress, sees to that. Nor were they about to let workers touch health-care or retirement plans. Unions are instead limited to bargaining over personnel employment practices such as whether employees are allowed to wear beards, or whether the government must pay to clean uniforms. These demands matter, though they are hardly the sort to break the federal bank.

Obama wants the State/Local public service unions to have rights he won't grant the Federal Employee Unions.  I, for one, in my almost 13 years with Civil Service NEVER joined a union -- waste of money and not one dime of my money was going to Democrats. 

Remember the steward in one of the directorates who was recruiting for new members in our office when one of the guys asked why would anyone join and the steward said to help fund the Democrats who look out for us.  Can still remember him launching at that time about the union and how the union members were the laziest workers in the Federal Government.  He also told the steward to walk miles around me because they were not going to allow me to be intimidated by him or any other union jerk.  That was so funny to watch that union steward get put in his place.  Never would have joined the Union but they were making sure he wouldn't come near me.  I had all of three months as a Federal employee when that happened and all these years later I still chuckle. 

Must admit I was shocked to learn about the benefits of public service union members in Wisconsin and their benefits.  For some reason I assumed that they were similar to federal employees -- not even close as the Democrats in states like Wisconsin have taken great care to coddle their public service union employees in exchange for political donations.  The gravy train is about to stop for state public service unions in Wisconsin and other States -- about time is all I can say!

Guess Union organizer is another hat this President wears but he needs to stay out of State business once and for all.  Looks like when the SEIU tells Obama to jump, he asks 'how high?'