Stephen King sticks up for unions

Here's video of Stephen King addressing a pro-labor, anti-Tea-Party rally in Sarasota, Florida, explaining why he supports redistributive taxation policy and unions, and opposes the anti-union laws being pushed by Scott Walker and other right-wing governors.

Stephen King - Awake the State Sarasota, Florida

I write books. My latest is a YA science fiction novel called Homeland (it's the sequel to Little Brother). More books: Rapture of the Nerds (a novel, with Charlie Stross); With a Little Help (short stories); and The Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow (novella and nonfic). I speak all over the place and I tweet and tumble, too.

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Scooter

Wow!

Mr King is a bit loopy for my tastes. I’m sure he gives to charity, but I’m sure it is not the 22% shortfall in his 50% argument. Why bother giving to charity and make a check out to the IRS for the amount you want to pay in taxes? I’m sure that extra tax money will go to good causes, such as education, libraries and cowboy poetry festivals.

That is the problem. We all know that any extra taxes don’t go to the things that are important to us; it goes to the sustaining of a politicians power. C’mon Stephen, I thought you were smarter than this.
Anonymous

But of course “unions run the democrats”! It is why all the campaign promises that were pro-union were dropped promptly.

A more accurate description is Democrats actively seek middle class votes by promising to be pro-union, and then not delivering.

I love how Tea Baggers’ solutions to corrupt governments
isn’t lobbying reform, but to deregulate further and privatize.

Less corporate taxes and deregulation equals better living for the working class in their parallel universe.

1984.
Scooter

Actually thought of a tax plan for Mr King.

Pay your 28% in tax. Make charitable contributions to make up the 22% gap AND not deduct the charitable contribution from your taxes.

Now you can feel really good about yourself.
championselector

trade and lobbying organizations are the corporate version of collective bargaining for the wealthy.

and by wealthy i mean folks making over $1M u.s. per year. you are rich, whether you ground it out yourself or inherited it from someone who ground it out.

“the government is teh sux” argument does have traction, but lest we forget *we* are the government and when the representatives we vote into office to supposedly do our bidding and watch out for our interests essentially ignore our interests (or rationalize them away to the highest bidder) we have every right to feel frustrated and cheated.

these ongoing attacks on “public sector unions” (as if the 20-year career guy at the sewage plant making $46000 is the source of all our troubles) are attacks on the unionization altogether. unions won the weekend and the 40-hour week, on-the-job safety regulations, and ancillary benefits that non-unionized workforce can thank them for.

and if we’re willing to “trust the government” with socialized roads, fire departments, police departments, sewer and water service, public education, libraries, and (yes) defending our country, we should be willing to try and find rational ways to solve debt crises in ways that include raising taxes, limiting types of non-essential services, and generally working together to find solutions.

instead we line up on either side of an imaginary line while the masters of war pick our pockets.

cutting jobs, programs and benefits by $200,000,000 and then turning around and giving that $200,000,000 to those among us who need it least is what leaves the bad taste in my mouth.
- Wally Ballou
  
  i mean folks making over $1M u.s. per year. you are rich
  
  OK, if you want to cure the deficit by taking it all from someone who’s not you, you have to run the numbers and see if it works.
  
  According to the IRS there are something like 250,000 households in America with incomes of over $1 million per year.
  
  Now that includes incomes of $1,000,001 as well as Bill Gates, but this is the right most slice of the bell curve so let’s take a guess and say the average income of this group is $5m per year.
  
  If you confiscate every penny of their income, you get $1.25 trillion a year. Not enough to even balance the Federal deficit, much less the aggregate deficits of all levels of government.(1)
  
  So, what will happen is: we massively cut spending, or we extend confiscatory taxation to much lower income levels, or we just drive the bus till the wheels come clean off.
  
  (1) Exercise for the student: for how many years you can tax the rich at 91% or more of their income before this stream of revenue ceases to exist?
  - championselector
    
    wally, i am certainly not advocating taking every penny from the richest 2% of wage earners in the u.s.a..
    
    what i am saying is that if you make over one million dollars you are rich. because you are.
    
    i am also saying that the wisconsin union fights are the thin end of the wedge in a new attack on organized labor itself.
    
    i agree that if we want to get budgets under control we need to cut spending and also raise taxes. we might also quit conducting two expensive open-ended wars, and maybe cut military spending alongside cuts to other programs. if we cut a billion from, say, head start we could cut at least a billion from military expenditures. cutting a billion from the pentagon still leaves it with a yearly declared budget in excess of a trillion dollars. but that’s a different post, i guess.
    
    what i am saying, and please let me be understood, is that demonizing unions and calling for cuts to things like libraries, schools, and public works while encouraging lower taxes for the highest wages earners and corporations, while at the same time supporting endless warfare is a poor way to go about repairing our fiscal problems. because it makes no sense.
    
    “exercise for the student?” how kind of you to offer. here’s one for you…
    
    as you (and i) sit in nice climate controlled rooms, at nice expensive computers with internet access, likely not having to worry about where our next meal will come from, or where we are going to sleep tonight, in one of the wealthiest countries in the world, does our mutual sense of entitlement and indignation make us pricks all of the time, or is it something we can overcome?
  - jackbird
    
    Exercise for the student: for how many years you can tax the rich at 91% or more of their income before this stream of revenue ceases to exist?
    Well, the top tax rate was over 75% from 1936 through 1964, and again from 1968-1969. Then it stayed in the lower 70%s throughout the 1970s. Seems like a pretty good run, especially given that those years correlate pretty well with American economic dominance.
    
    Then Reagan comes along, cuts it from 70% to 50% in 1982, and it ends up at 28% by the time he leaves office.
    
    Bear in mind also that top-bracket tax policy is not just about how much money gets paid in directly, but about encouraging wealthy people to invest their wealth in things that grow the economy, thereby increasing the entire tax base.
    - Wally Ballou
      
      (1) given that those years correlate pretty well with American economic dominance — Well at least you used “correlate” which means you don’t necessarily think that correlation=causation. There were a number of factors correlated with “American economic dominance”.
      
      (2) The tax rates of the ’30s – ’60s had so many loopholes that the effective taxes paid were 50% or thereabouts. So if you return to the Eisenhower tax code on all the $1 million and up incomes, you can get rid of about five months’ worth of the Federal deficit, leaving open the question of what to do starting in June.
      
      (3) encouraging wealthy people to invest their wealth in things that grow the economy — I wonder if you are one of those who thinks that, absent government policy, the rich would build huge rooms full of coin and jewels in which they love to swim around a la Scrooge McDuck.
      - pauldavis
        
        … if you are one of those who thinks that, absent government policy, the rich would build huge rooms full of coin and jewels in which they love to swim around a la Scrooge McDuck.
        
        that would be silly. or stupid. the smart rich are happy to see trade agreements enacted that allow them to invest capital in places with better rates of return than the country where they live, and scoop up the profits with little or no extra cost. now maybe in the long run, where “long” is a bit hard to define given the way that technology so rapidly alters where those investment hotspots actually are, this approach might make the whole world better off and we can all thank the rich for their stunning insight and marvellous generosity in creating a world of liberty, dignity and meaning for all.
        
        but in the short run it means awful unemployment, underinvestment, crumbling infrastructure and political maneuvering based on the “we’re broke” idiom for those of us living here in the US.
Terry Karney

agate: I’d recommend more Kool-Aid to get the taste out of your mouth.
lisechen

Whatever, I will never stop loving Stephen King. GO UNCA STEVIE. \m/
Terry Karney

Jardine: if we had European-style labor laws here, we’d have permanent 10%+ unemployment and stagnant economies, like Europe. There are always tradeoffs.

Like Germany: with it’s presently stagnant GDP (what, it’s not? They had an increase for every quarter but four in the past four years?… oh). Well there’s always France… oh, you mean they’ve done the same? Crap.

Ok but there’s always Spain; Yeah… Spain had one more bad quarter than France and Germany… only 9 of the past 16 quarters have been positive.

And Holland, they’ve only had a 2.4 percent increase this year.

So yeah, I can see why you wouldn’t want that, much better to be in the US with it’s stunning 2.7 percent increase.
Julien Couvreur

He suggest 50% marginal tax rate for the rich. I wonder if he expects this to raise tax incomes in spite of historical evidence to the contrary: http://reason.tv/video/show/nick-gillespie-and-veronique-d

M. King should explain why the tax income has not broken the 19% of GDP mark between 1930 and now.

As a side note, I would love to know what M. King does with his money. Does he buy expensive items or services? Does he invest? Does he give it away?
Then the question is why does he expect this money to be put to more productive use by government?
- Ugly Canuck
  
  The Government may know better than he does, because of their better information, as to where the $$ are needed, and can deploy such in far far greater sums and much much quicker dispatch than any individual taxpayer could hope to command…..and thus be more effective in the operation, regardless of how “productive” the spend may be.
  
  In any event,”production” is not the sole aim nor function of Government, nor should it be.
  - Julien Couvreur
    
    Ugly Canuck,
    I’d recommend you read two economics papers: Mises’s “Economic calculation in the socialist commonwealth” (at http://mises.org/econcalc.asp ) and Hayek’s “The Use of Knowledge in Society” (at http://www.econlib.org/library/Essays/hykKnw1.html ).
    
    If anything, government has worse information. There are two reasons, one is that outside of the realm of voluntary exchange prices are missing to convey relative value (cost vs. benefit becomes political guesswork), also much of the relevant information is local and in people’s heads (data not captured or collected formally) and cannot be known to central planners.
    
    You point out to the speed at which government can deploy large amounts of money, I’d argue that the case is not as clear as you suggest. Private investors are capable of organizing themselves to pool resources and quick turn-around.
    
    Regarding the role of government, this is a longer discussion. But note that there are only two alternatives: productive or unproductive actions. Productive ones take things or a situation of lesser value and increase the value at the outcome. Unproductive ones in comparison are wasteful (take something of value and produce a result of lesser value).
God of DIrt

@steveatwater:

Complete the following syllogism:

Only Corporate Tools hold high elected office (with the exception of Dennis Kucinich).
Obama holds a high elective office.
PaulR

It’s cuz he lives so close to Canada. Our reasonableness is rubbing off on him.
PaulR

While we’re throwing out quotable nonsense about unions, here’s one:
“So, at this plant where my cousin is a manager, he tells me that when a unionized employee takes a sick day, 40% of the time, they either take a Monday or a Friday.” Makes you think, eh?
bcsizemo

For some reason whenever I picture Stephen King in my mind I always see Vincent Price…(or at least someone very much like that.)
mgfarrelly

Stephen King and his wife have been HUGE library advocates for decades. There are all manner of stories about how the King’s wrote huge checks, donated truck-loads of books and otherwise supported libraries in need all over the country.

The guy’s a stone-cold Mainer mensch. Right on.
agates

… nowhere near dead broke

Hmm..perhaps we need to define dead broke? I guess we can argue about semantics if you want…but I find it kinda of, well, deluded to ignore the math.

Under Obamas projections The Fed will be running under a 14 Trillion Federal debt, and that’s if things hold. Projections claim thais number will double over the next decade.

45 (!) states are looking at a a combined $125 billion shortfall for fiscal 2012. And theirs plenty of indicators that more states are getting in line.

Tax increases to pay for the inflated mess of the past decade is a patiently silly idea. Simply because the tax apparatus in America does not work like that. New York, New Jersey and yes, Wisconsin share some of the largest Tax burdens in the country and yet the services provided in these states are increasingly going broke, inefficient or beleaguered with debt. The idea that further taxing the Koch Brothers or Mr King will reduce our bewildering debt is simply fantasy. It may feel good to those screaming about the Class War, but it wont work.

The private sector suffers increasing taxation, reduction in services and people who are funding their own retirements while the Public sector has less unemployment, better play and less less work hours. How long can this disparaging and growing gap be sustained?

And you’re saying we are not broke?
God of DIrt

@WizarDru

The $64,000 question is how is the headline unemployment reported in the various jurisdictions? In the US, its horribly distorted, while the real figures that include the long-term unemployed and underemployed are buried in reports. Wikipedia doesn’t report this piece of information which would allow for a true comparison. My GUESS is that headline unemployment in Europe is probably a very different number from headline unemployment in the US.
Layne

So Steve King wants the government to take more money that people have earned? Wow, can’t argue with that. I’d love to see the powers-that-be in charge of more of private assets. What’s preventing him and like minded people from signing a check for 50+% of their net worth over to the IRS? Hell, give it all to the government!

It’s scary how quickly people sign on to this mentality simply because their side is promoting the platform. The same people who lamented Bush and the NeoCons dragging our country down are now only too willing to hand over a blank check to the new administration and trust that the money and the power will be responsibly used for just causes.

Never mind that it’s pretty easy to track the national debt, the yearly federal budget increases and the ballooning deficits – all we need is some drum circles and some protests and everything will turn out all right. And for every fire dept or a library that might be somewhat successful, there’s a Post Office or a DEA that’s flushing billions of our dollars away by redoubling misguided policies.

And arguing about root causes or how “the rich” deserve to be unfairly penalized just rings hollow. It sounds more and more like mob mentality – boiling down people to stereotypes and treating them like shit because a little revenge can be justified away. Saying that society deserves to seize what you’ve managed to achieve just because there’s more of it – that’s still just theft.

Gotta love these spirited debates.
- pauldavis
  
  And arguing about root causes or how “the rich” deserve to be unfairly penalized just rings hollow.
  
  who said anything about unfairly? they got the rules changed over the last 30 years so that they unfairly benefitted from major increases in productivity and from straightforward reductions in their overall rate of taxation. the result has been a massive, asymmetric and deeply unfair redistribution of wealth upwards to a tiny, tiny fraction of the US population.
  
  i’m not for unfairly penalizing anyone – i just want the majority of the population to be the beneficiaries of our social organization, our engineering prowess, our civic infrastructure and our political process. i resent being told that when a tiny fraction of the population sees their wealth and income (yes, both) grow during a period when everyone else sees it decline, that asking for the money back is “unfair”. despite a lifetime of dealing with conservatives, randians, propertarians and simpletons, i’ve never come across any reason why a tiny subset of the population should have any legitimate claim to such a deeply asymmetrical cut of the benefits of change and progress.
Anonymous

I’m not a fan of his books, but Stephen King seems like a pretty nice guy
Anonymous

I read the headline as “Stephen King sticks up for unicorns” this is good too I guess.
Jeff Vader

a bit rambly at times, but all in all i like it.

the “thank a union guy” part is particularly good, because the free market chanters denouncing unions apparently get away with ignoring history: its not a question of right or left bias – it is an historical fact that comparatively awesome modern western workers conditions are a direct result of union struggles since the beginning of industrialization.

free market my a$$. I’m sorry americans* seem to be still swayed by 19th century rethoric spouted by their leaders. Union = communist = anti-american, thought process halted. We Europeans get lied to by our governments just the same, but at least we dont get talked down to like the simpletons of 200 years ago. We like our lies a bit more sophisticated, thank you very much.

* = meaning those who react to buzzwords like socialist, communist, support the troops etc in this day and age, and who seem to be increasingly in power these days. I like the rest, I swear!

P.S. a bit rambly myself, I know. My point: look up unions in the history books. Try a internationally respected book (not a TV docutainment either!), so as not to risk picking one that your state educational board accepted but that would be ridiculed anywhere else on earth. You’ll find that the reason workers are no longer living in shared accomodations (day/nightshift housing), work 365 days a year without holydays or die from dangerous working conditions, are, by and large, unions. right or left, that in the year 2011 a government official in one of the richest and most advanced nations on earth can just try to abolish unions instead of being chased out of office by a pan-civilian mob for his antidemocratic behavior is nothing short of frightening to this german guy.
- PapayaSF
  
  Responding to criticisms of unions today with stories of their accomplishments in the distant past is like responding to criticism of the US military in Afghanistan by replying “But the Army saved us from the Kaiser!” Yeah, fine, but how many wonderful benefits have unions brought us in, say, the last 50 years? What benefits has the average American gotten from a public employee union, ever?
  
  lknope: I believe it’s a fallacy that Walker lowered taxes for corporations and that it caused their budget crisis. The lower taxes are tax breaks for companies setting up in the state. It’s the equivalent of a landlord offering a discount on the rent for new tenants: he is not losing income because there’s no guarantee he’d have those tenants without the inducement.
  - Jardine
    
    Yeah, fine, but how many wonderful benefits have unions brought us in, say, the last 50 years?
    
    Preventing (or at least trying to prevent) rich fucks from taking away those benefits.
    
    There’s almost always someone posting in comment threads about unions about how maybe at one point they were needed, but now they’re obsolete because apparently all the labour rights that are needed are here. Except I’ve checked the laws for a few different US states and they suck. No required meal breaks, no limitation on the number of hours worked, if the employer gives an employee a break, they can require the employee to stay on the premises and not be paid for it. No vacation pay required, no vacations required, no increased pay for working on a holiday. Why do you people put up with this shit?
  - Anonymous
    
    Terrible analogy. The Kaiser has been dead for, what, 100 years? And the Germany of WWI is obviously no longer a threat. However, there are still real threats to the rights of workers — rights to safety, equality, etc. Unions are as relevant today as ever; maybe even more so considering how the middle class is under attack by the GOP and their insistence on lower taxes for the rich.
  - Jeff Vader
    
    “Responding to criticisms of unions today with stories of their accomplishments in the distant past is like responding to criticism of the US military in Afghanistan by replying “But the Army saved us from the Kaiser!”"
    
    I see your point – but discussing whether or not a current labor dispute is justified (i.e. the merits of a specific unions actions in a given situation) is something else entirely to abolishing unions altogether – as is the case in Wisconsin, with the abolishing of collective bargaining. Just because *you* personally havent profited from something doesn’t mean that it is not doing the intended thing for someone else.
    
    “Yeah, fine, but how many wonderful benefits have unions brought us in, say, the last 50 years? What benefits has the average American gotten from a public employee union, ever?”
    
    Thats not the way history (OR democracy!) works. Just because the situation isn’t as bad as it was, say, 1850 doesn’t mean unions are done now. Social rights need *keep* being exercised, because otherwise the situation will revert itself. think of it this way: the reason workers conditions are pretty good in western society *today* is because we *keep* unions as part of the system, otherwise people in power (in private or public sectors) will *go back* to abusing their power unchallenged again.
    
    Again, that doesnt mean that every union struggle is justified or even in good faith. but resisting taking away the right to *be* a union, that shouldn’t even be a question of sides.
    
    Unions are *part* of the reason *any* american/western european, worker or not, lives in a society that is by and large *for* the people. Just because you personally don’t feel the benefits means neither that you are being unduly made to pay, nor that these unions don’t protect other people (and not just as a lobby, you know). Out of interest: are you dissatisfied that taxes are used for libraries, fire departments, theaters etc?
    - PapayaSF
      
      Collective bargaining wasn’t “abolished” in Wisconsin, just limited.
      
      It is not a coincidence that every unionized industry in the US eventually dies or declines: railroads, automobiles, steel, shipping, etc. Public employee unions can’t kill the host, though, because government never dies. It just goes bankrupt. E.g.: within five years one third of San Francisco’s budget will be going to employee benefits.
      
      I’m fine with taxes paying for essential public services (though “theaters” aren’t in that category). However, the rigged game of public employee unions using mandatory dues to elect politicians who give more taxpayer money to public employee unions was always doomed to crash, as positive feedback systems do. There needs to be more flexibility about work rules, ability to fire the incompetents, and generally respond to changing conditions, all the things unions fight against. Oh, and bring compensation more in line with the private sector: Milwaukee public school teachers make an average of 100K/year in pay and benefits. I doubt their private school counterparts do anywhere nearly as well, and they (horror of horrors) are liable to be fired if they don’t perform.
      
      Jardine: if we had European-style labor laws here, we’d have permanent 10%+ unemployment and stagnant economies, like Europe. There are always tradeoffs.
      - Antinous / Moderator
        
        if we had European-style labor laws here, we’d have permanent 10%+ unemployment and stagnant economies, like Europe.
        
        As opposed to the vibrant economy that we’re currently enjoying?
      - PapayaSF
        
        Antinous, Obama and Congress tried for two years to turn the US into Europe. Looks like they’re succeeding… at least in unemployment numbers.
      - Anonymous
        
        I only wish Obama and Congress had tried by adopting European policies, instead of older Republican ones.
      - pauldavis
        
        Obama and Congress tried for two years to turn the US into Europe
        
        <ObMC900ftJesus>
        what do you think this is?
        some kind of joke?
        give me 10 big macs and a small diet coke
        </ObMC900ftJesus>
        
        i’m from “europe”. i lived in berlin a couple of years ago. the notion that anything that obama and congress (presumably you mean the democrats there) did or tried to do moved the US even remotely closer to europe is just so pathetically devoid of any hope of truth that i don’t know why i’m even responding to this.
        
        are there democrats who actively support more “european” policies for the US? no question, though we might call such “policies” just more “fair” or more “equitable” or more “humane” rather than something as vacuously xenophobic as “european”.
        
        they don’t include obama.
        
        they also played no visible or successful role whatsoever in shaping the reform of health care, altering control of the financial markets, changing our predominant form of public subsidy for transportation, reducing the dramatic change in income inequality, or increasing investment in future technology.
        
        if you have only silly remarks to make about our politicians that have absolutely no basis in fact but simply serve to confirm your complete ignorance about how europe and the US are similar and also different, then i don’t know why you bother either.
      - Fifth
        
        within five years one third of San Francisco’s budget will be going to employee benefits.
        
        NEWS FLASH
        
        San Francisco spends its tax monies on… paying employees of the city of San Francisco!
        
        WHO WILL ANSWER for this SCANDAL
        
        hahahahahaha
      - PapayaSF
        
        Fifth, currently the city spends one dollar in six on employee benefits. In five years or so that will double. That amount does not include salaries, so the point is that the benefits are crowding out education, public health, law enforcement, etc.
      - pauldavis
        
        … currently the city spends one dollar in six on employee benefits. In five years or so that will double. That amount does not include salaries, so the point is that the benefits are crowding out education, public health, law enforcement, etc.
        
        a decent human being, and a decent employer, would look at such a situation and say “hmm, something needs to be done about the underlying causes of these crazy increases in the costs of benefits”.
        
        what’s being proposed by conservatives at present is something close to “hmm, we’d better cut the salaries of these people, and preferably the number of them, because there’s nothing we can do to stop the increasing costs of these benefits”.
        
        this country, supposedly the greatest on earth (either now, or in some accounts, ever) is powerless in the face of rising benefit costs. what a pathetic cop-out. not a suprise cop-out, though, since we know that a small number of people do in fact benefit from these rising benefit costs. hint: its not public employees.
      - WizarDru
        
        I guess that depends on how you compute those numbers. Over the whole of the European Union, it’s about 9.6% for 2009, but that’s due to some nations dragging the numbers up. And the US is experiencing the same numbers. Individual nations within the EU are as low as 5%: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_the_European_Union#Unemployment
        
        In fact, comparing to US figures, the EU does pretty well, from what I can see. Individual nations routinely beat the US and others continually have chronic problems. A nation like Poland started with 18% unemployment in 2005 and now enjoys a relatively modest 9%. Ireland used to enjoy the benefits of the ‘Celtic Tiger’…now it’s one of the EU’s disaster zones. France and Spain have had unemployment problems for decades….in France’s case, that may be the unions, but I don’t know one way or the other. A nation like the UK has lower numbers than the US. Nations like Slovenia have unions, but they’ve managed lower unemployment numbers than the US.
        
        I’m not seeing a direct correlation between Europe and the US and unions with unemployment numbers that you’re implying.
      - pauldavis
        
        It is not a coincidence that every unionized industry in the US eventually dies or declines: railroads, automobiles, steel, shipping
        
        argument by tautology is just lovely. especially when its wrong. railroads are in decline because … well, because the US has chosen to not invest in them (note that there are no railroads of any notable size anywhere in the world that are not recipients of substantial public subsidies). automobiles are not in decline by any measure except for (a) the relative status of US companies (b) the number of people they employ which has been mostly driven by factory automation. steel is in decline because US economic policy and the preferences of the capital class have driven it overseas. shipping … yes. lets consider shipping:
        
        (these quotes are from web sources, not the original poster)
        
        Shipping line operators bled money due to decreased trade, shipyards were flooded with order cancellations, banks tightened up lending regulations, and shipping companies’ stocks plummeted.
        
        The shipping industry is inter-linked with the state of the global economy. It is complex and notoriously volatile in nature. Shipping being highly dependent on trade flows across the globe has seen cyclic booms and busts following the fluctuations in the worldâ€™s economy. The recent economic turmoil has resulted in shrinking container trade as global demand for raw materials and finished goods dived.
        
        so basically, you’ve cherry picked 3 industries that popular folk economy holds to be in decline, at least one of which is not and those that are in fact in decline are that way because of historical factors and political policies more or less entirely outside the influence of unions.
        
        maybe we should check the decline of transportation, telecommunications, and construction – the three biggest private sector union “groups” … hmm, they all seem be not in decline. curious, eh? could it be that union status has less of a role to play than, oh, patterns of business development and the general boom/bust nature of a capitalist-inspired economy?
        
        if we had European-style labor laws here, we’d have permanent 10%+ unemployment and stagnant economies, like Europe.
        
        I’d suggest a review of the evidence:
        
        http://www.thenewfederalist.eu/Europe-vs-USA-Whose-Economy-Wins
        http://cia-world-fact-book.findthebest.com/compare/3-16/United-States-vs-Germany
        http://cia-world-fact-book.findthebest.com/compare/3-21/United-States-vs-France
        http://cia-world-fact-book.findthebest.com/compare/3-59/United-States-vs-Netherlands
        
        summary: there’s no clear evidence that the US economy is any more or less “stagnant” than those of 3 typically cited european economies, and the unemployment situation, while unarguable worse in europe, may have explanations that are more subtle than are typically suggested.
- AnthonyC
  
  Thanks you for excluding me from your definition of american… I think. Your analysis is correct.
Miak

If Stephen King wants to pay more the 28% taxes, he can. There is nothing preventing him from sending extra money to the IRS.
- travtastic
  
  That’s helpful.
- pauldavis
  
  presumably you didn’t listen. he noted that he and his wife donate the extra 22% themselves.
  
  donating to the IRS when its not a mass action effect is often less productive in the eyes of people who would like to see higher tax rates. if the goal is to have an economic system that generates sufficient revenues for various government entities to do their stuff, single individuals donating more does almost nothing to advance that goal. and that certainly sound as if it is king’s goal.
  
  so for now, he donates to existing 501c(3) organizations and other local entities.
  - Miak
    
    I did miss the 22% statement. I listen to it again. See Scooter Comment #87. I am sure Mr. King takes the deduction on his taxes when he donates to charitable organizations.
Fifth

It sounds more and more like mob mentality – boiling down people to stereotypes and treating them like shit because a little revenge can be justified away.

Yes the rich are really treated like shit.

I mean aside from being, you know

rich
lknope

One: There is redistribution of wealth and it is being distributed from the poor and middle class to the uber rich. Scott Walker lowers taxes for corporations and then busts unions to pay for the “budget crisis.” Which is no way near enough money to even begin to pay for the budget. The top 1% of Americans wealth has doubled in the last 30 years. The top what, 2%?, has 50% of the wealth in the entire country. Wake up, people!

Two: The Koch brothers and other rich political donors are the ones pushing the anti-union laws; Scott Walker and other right-wing governors have just been bought (cheaply) by them.
Fifth

It would be UNFAIR to blame our problems on

you know

people with money and power

THAT would be SCAPEGOATING

No instead, let’s just say it’s the teachers’ fault
agates

Wake me when all the luxuries of evil union contracts come within $1 trillion of the cost of the Iraq War.

Why are you making assumptions? I don’t support that “war”. It’s a festering wound.

Sure their was fraud in the banking communities. Also their was more fraud in our government that regulated those agencies.

In June 2003, Freddie Mac fired their tops executives and a new auditor, PricewaterhouseCoopers, identified issues especially related to its portfolio of derivatives. But whatâ€™s the kicker is just a few days before this shit hit the fan the Federal agency responsible for regulating Fred said this:

â€œ(The Freddie management) effectively conveys an appropriate message of integrity and ethical values.â€

Now theirs a beautiful feather in the cap of the Regulatory legacy!

And yet, philosophically how many people are lining up for yet more taxes that, and let me make a wild guess, will also be wildly mismanaged and extorted?

Anyway..I’ve said my share. I know many of you disagree on a basic philosophical level. And I see where most of you are coming from. I still cant get my head around supporting the Dems or GOP. They both remain hopelessly lost in my estimation.

But I maintain that all of this distraction (“we are not broke”) is just like polishing the silverware on the Titanic after the the damn thing sunk.
- pauldavis
  
  “the problem with corrupt, inefficient, ill-designed government is corruption, inefficiency and bad design, not government.”
  
  its really incredibly easy to pick on government entities and criticize them. its true that some do a very bad job, quite a few don’t do a good job, and most could probably do a better job than they do now. of course, its not like verizon or best buy or walmart don’t pull any stupid crap either, don’t destroy communities, don’t mis-allocate money. apparently i am supposed to console myself that because i theoretically have a choice of which US corporation i allow to screw me, its better than the irritation caused by the one-and-only government. sorry, i’m not consoled.
  
  and … even though i know that a good chunk of the taxes i pay will be mis-managed, mis-appropriated, mis-spent and generally mis-used, i’d far rather than they end up as part of a political process in which i and my neighbours theoretically have some control over than that same money being controlled by some version of soros, trump, buffet, koch or whichever massively wealthy person best personifies the top 1% for you.
  
  to drive home your titanic metaphor: and the “we are not broke” is not polishing the silverware. the capital classes want us to jump off a ship that hasn’t hit an iceberg, has a functioning engine and a full crew and passenger contingent because they say “its sinking”. what they really mean is “the rest of this trip is going to be even better if we get you all to jump overboard”.
Catoi

If Mr. King’s taxes rise substantially, I feel sorry for the organizations he currently gives 22% of his income to.

Studies have shown that people in high-tax economies tend to give less money to charity. Studies have also shown that private charities spend funds more effectively than government agencies do.

Incidentally, it seems that a lot of people in this debate are conflating public-employee unions with industrial unions. The Wisconsin legislature didn’t touch private-sector unions, their measure only impacted government workers.

There are many differences between public and private-industry unions, but one important one is that pay and benefits for public unions are controlled by politicians whom history shows usually don’t have the long-term interests of their jurisdiction’s fiscal health in mind.

The massive pension liabilities are exhibit one: it’s easier for a politician to approve such contracts, thereby earning the union’s gratitude (and donations), while future generations are saddled with the bills, the bulk of which don’t come due until long after the politician has left office.

Franklin Roosevelt, patron saint of the American left and champion of private-sector unionism, recognized the dangers of allowing government workers to unionize, saying, “The process of collective bargaining, as usually understood, cannot be transplanted into the public service.”
- Anonymous
  
  Studies have also shown that private charities spend funds more effectively than government agencies do.
  
  Studies by the Cato Institute don’t mean much. They always say the same thing, and find the facts to fit it afterwards.
  
  Roosevelt’s quote, and the relationship between public and private-industry unions, have been dealt with at length here. The short version is the former are what enables the latter.
- Neon Tooth
  
  Studies have shown that people in high-tax economies tend to give less money to charity. Studies have also shown that private charities spend funds more effectively than government agencies do
  
  The fact that charities need to exist at all just exposes how faulty a neoliberal/free market approach to policy is.
agates

Hell, why stop at 50 percent Mr King?

The Government has been so adept at responsibly spending our money, why it’s practically overflowing with credibility!

Does anyone know a good way to get the taste of vomit out of one’s mouth?
- grimc
  
  Does anyone know a good way to get the taste of vomit out of one’s mouth?
  
  Not spewing bile in the first place would probably be the most effective method.
  - jack5225
    
    Well done, sir or madam!
- mgfarrelly
  
  Indeed, like during those socialist days under Eisenhower with his tyrannical 91% top tax rate.
  
  What did we get out of that era anyway? Besides all that prosperity and infrastructure.
Shart Tsung

This union fiasco is a distraction from the real unanswered issue in America. WHERE ARE THE JOBS!? We demand more jobs! Fighting for unions is nice and all but that only helps some people. What about the majority? We need more jobs for all!

Putting this much effort forth for union labor is like fighting to only improve the education for fraternity and sorority members. We need better terms for everyone!

This is a perpetuated distraction to make people forget that the job market is worse for non-union employees! Union employees are just mad because they pay dues for this suckery.
jdollak

From a US History honors textbook -
“In 1882, an average of 675 American workers were killed on the job each week.”
hug h

Unions, class warfare, wealth redistribution! OH MY!

Look at this chart- “Historical Tax Rates for Lowest and Highest Income Earners” (since 1913)

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/49/Chart_1.png

Then consider the extent to which wealth and income distribution have shifted dramatically toward the top in the last 40+ years. If an increasingly small group of people enjoy an increasingly large portion of the national income and at the same time we tax those people at lower and lower marginal rates (AND concurrently experience a very predictable demographic driven entitlement tidal wave) GUESS WHAT HAPPENS? To the economy? To the national debt?

There has been a secular shift in income, wealth distribution and taxation taking place in this county that greatly threaten our future. Yet most “Conservatives” shout down any effort to correct course as “class warfare”.

“An imbalance between rich and poor is the oldest and most fatal ailment of all republics.” PLATO

(FULL DISCLOSURE- I am fortunate enough to be a very high income earner. Like most other people at high earnings level- when my taxes get cut I save and invest more- I typically don’t spend the difference. In contrast, cut a dollar in taxes from someone further down the income scale, they are far more likely to spend it!)
- Catoi
  
  “when my taxes get cut I save and invest more”
  
  And this is worse for the economy than the government spending that money, exactly how?
  
  If we stipulate that spending that money is better for the greater good than saving or investing it, I don’t understand why you insist that the government take more money from you by force and spend it (undoubtedly, much more inefficiently than you would), instead of:
  
  a) Spending the money yourself; or
  b) Contributing that money to the private charity of your choice; or
  c) Donating that money to the governmental program of your choice.
  
  Why do rich liberals bemoan the government not taking more of their money by force, when they always have the power to spend it for the greater good on their own?
  
  Let me put it another way: Do you think it would be better for Bill Gates and Warren Buffett to (a) continue their private foundation’s work, or (b) donate all that money to the government? Which would be a better use for that money?
  - pauldavis
    
    Why do rich liberals bemoan the government not taking more of their money by force, when they always have the power to spend it for the greater good on their own?
    
    probably because they believe that mass action is more effective and more efficient. the change that would occur in this country if tax rates went back to those of our recent history (you pick the era) would be massive, vastly bigger than anything that gates, or koch or ellison could accomplish (or want to accomplish). would some of it be mis-spent? absolutely.
    
    Do you think it would be better for Bill Gates and Warren Buffett to (a) continue their private foundation’s work, or (b) donate all that money to the government?
    
    clearly opinions vary on this. buffett believes that the government should have collected more of his income along the way. gates doesn’t. his father (not exactly a pauper himself) does. i personally think that the work gates has done with his foundation is absolutely stunning and might eventually make up for his personal contribution to the severe damage microsoft did to the personal computer revolution.
    
    but this is all a bit moot when foundations like this are not how the bulk of the rich use most of their money. most foundations are nowhere near as effective as gates’, often because they don’t have some anywhere nearly as smart or passionate as gates running them. and most of the rich don’t do this sort of thing till late in life, if at all – instead they buy luxury goods (as seen by someone at the median income) and invest in ways that typically fail to benefit their fellow citizens.
    
    the choice isn’t between well-intentioned, smart and driven people spending their money on things that benefit society and corrupt, inefficient stupid government. this misrepresents both the rich and the government as much as anything ever written in “socialist worker” (the weekly).
    - Anonymous
      
      “mass action is more effective and more efficient”
      
      Sorry, I haven’t seen much evidence of that. In my experience, individual action tends to be far more efficient. When you get to the governmental level, most action seems terribly inefficient. Certainly money is spent less efficiently. We always spend our own money more effectively than we spend someone else’s. It’s human nature.
  - hug h
    
    At what point in my comment did I imply that the government spending my money was better than me saving and investing? I was simply pointing out that a dollar in tax cuts for a lower income earner is more immediately beneficial to the economy tahn a dollar cut from my taxes- see the difference?? Yeah- I’m a rich liberal, and your not an idealogue!
    - Catoi
      
      I inferred it from two contentions in your comment. First, this quote:
      
      “Like most other people at high earnings level- when my taxes get cut I save and invest more- I typically don’t spend the difference. In contrast, cut a dollar in taxes from someone further down the income scale, they are far more likely to spend it!”
      
      The inference I get is that spending is better for the economy than saving/investing. I’ve never been convinced of that. It might be better in the very short-term, but in the long-term, I think savings and investment are better.
      
      Secondly, you write in support of higher tax rates on the wealthy. The implication I drew is that you believe it is better for the government to have (and spend) more money. The only other reason I can see for demanding higher taxes on the rich is some form of class warfare.
      
      If I’m wrong in my inferences, I apologize.
      - pauldavis
        
        The inference I get is that spending is better for the economy than saving/investing.
        
        when low-to-median people reduce spending, its a disaster for economy because their spending is a bigger fraction of all the spending that is going on, and is more diverse both in terms of product sectors and geography. when median-to-high income people stop investing in the US economy, its a disaster for the US economy because their investment is a bigger fraction of all the investment that is going on.
        
        so, if you want to crush the US economy, you take steps to reduce spending by low-to-median folks (for example, by slowly reducing their effective take-home salary, or by making 10% of them unemployed) and you try to reduce the investment of the median-to-high folks (for example, by making it easy for them to do it somewhere else, or by making them so scared of investing in real business that they park their funds in credit default swaps and US bonds). note that the “crushing” that occurs only has a profoundly negative impact on the low-to-median folks – the median-to-high folks still do nicely.
        
        hmm, do i see a pattern here?
        
        The only other reason I can see for demanding higher taxes on the rich is some form of class warfare.
        
        what term do you use when people demand (and get) lower taxes on the rich? if its not “class warfare”, where does the asymmetry comes from (and i do so hope that its not going to be that old canard “its their money and you’re taking it from them by force”).
      - Anonymous
        
        The obvious reason is that the rich both get more benefit from government services, and are better equipped to pay for them. Calling this warfare is disingenuous in the extreme.
      - Neon Tooth
        
        The only other reason I can see for demanding higher taxes on the rich is some form of class warfare.
        
        Very appropriate considering that the wealthy have waged a very successful class warfare on everyone else. People start crying about ‘class warfare’ when we start fighting back.
DDeery

Cory, from a WI native, thanks so much for all you’ve done to highlight what’s going on here. We need all the help we can get to spread the word!

Also, check out my statement on the mess:
http://youcannothavemystate.com
Anonymous

I don’t see how people can defend the rights of the extremely wealthy and sleep at night. The idea that they “earned” this money or “worked for it” is just plain stupid. These people built their empire of wealth with the blood,sweat, and tears of the laborer. These people became wealthy by manipulating a broken system called “capitalism”. The harsh truth that most people are unwilling to accept is the vast majority of the people are just slaves to the super rich. Sure we get pathetically meager salaries but that is more of an insult than a reward for a hard days work. It’s a hard pill to swallow but then again most truths are hard to accept. Paradigm shifts can be quite disturbing.
mrclamo

I am also grimc fan. Hilarious!
IronEdithKidd

That was…oddly uplifting.
Griefer

Stephen, Stephen, Stephen… please stick to writing horror stories!

Putting aside the economic disaster they cause, I think what irks me most about public employee unions is the innate political corruption involved. These are partisan organizations that use union dues to affect elections. And the democrats are owned by the unions.
- mrclamo
  
  Yeah, I would also prefer if giant corporations were the only ones who had a say in elections. That would be just great. Sigh.
agates

Not spewing bile…

Well I could extend the metaphor, but I’ll refrain.

Per my comment, are you taking the stance that our government has been fiscally responsible?

Look, I understand that this argument parses down what philosophical beliefs one subscribes to, and I’m not particularly trying to change any minds around here, but it seems that the harsh fiscal reality that we are dead broke never seems to enter into many of these debates.

This is for many reasons…But I maintain that Unions entrenched in the status quo are certainly partially culpable for this mess we are in.
- pauldavis
  
  the harsh fiscal reality that we are dead broke never seems to enter into many of these debates.
  
  that could be because its simply not true.
  
  this country is nowhere near dead broke. my state isn’t dead broke. your state probably isn’t dead broke. what we’ve seen over the last 25-30 years is a concerted and incredibly successful effort to move money out of the public purse and the wallets of most americans and into the pockets of the richest 0.5% – 2% of the population.
  
  the total size of the economy did take a bit of a hit from the 2008 debacle, but we don’t need to go into what caused that or whose fault it is or who should pay for it to notice that the economy didn’t shrink that much. the amount of money sloshing around within the borders of the US hasn’t altered much, and it certainly hasn’t declined in aggregate over, say, the last 15 years.
  
  but what has happened is that more and more of it is under the direct personal control of the rich and the wealthy, and is therefore not being spent in ways that would benefit the country as a whole. its not available to local, state and the federal governments and right now, with the major credit crunch experienced by the vast majority of americans, its not available to most small companies either as actual business or as credit to finance expansion.
  
  this talk of “we’re broke” is the biggest load of BS that i’ve heard from the right in a quarter century. we’re not broke – we’ve been robbed by the very same people who now claim “we’re broke”. its disgusting, its wrong and it ought to stop.
  - steveatwater
    
    Here’s a clip of Obama saying that, “We’re broke.” Go to 0:29.
    
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=339qi22oXwo&feature=player_embedded#at=37
    
    BUT…it must be a ploy of the Right…right?
    Any response to your previous spewing?
    - pauldavis
      
      no, obama is wrong too. at least, he’s wrong about the short term debt situation in the US.
      
      it seems that a lot of people really cannot distinguish between short term and long term debt. the US has some serious issues with long term debt, mostly because of the massive growth in what we spend on healthcare and defense. the problems we have with short term debt are entirely different, and amenable to short term fiscal solutions that have nothing to do with restructuring the economy or finding solutions for the crushing costs of providing health care to americans or maintaining an absurdly oversized military.
      
      are we broke with respect to long term debt? i entirely concede that long term is a problem. are we broke with respect to short term debt? no, we’ve been robbed by clever redistributive policies than have benefitted the rich and powerful elite of this country.
    - Antinous / Moderator
      
      Did you really just put in a link programmed to go to the 37 second mark and then tell us to go to the 29 second mark?
    - travtastic
      
      Do you think that Obama is a leftist?
      - Antinous / Moderator
        
        Do you think that Obama is a leftist?
        
        Well, we know that he reads Boing Boing comments. Although I suspect that his statement is meant to mock blogs that supported him during his election and now criticize him.
  - durfsmurf
    
    I’m tired of conservatives saying we can’t raise taxes (we have to) and of people such as yourself saying “we’re not broke”.
    
    People don’t seem to understand that our money supply comes from the level of debt that we take on, not wealth distribution. We’re not low on money because we gave it all to the rich; we’re low on money because we borrowed it from banks, the federal reserve printed money to give to banks to loan us, and we gave that money to overseas businesses and workers to make stuff for us. The super rich siphon money off in that process; but the amount that they take away won’t come anywhere close to replacing what is lost.
    
    Some money is overseas, most has evaporated in the form of home, bond and other asset values, and some is redistributed to the wealthy in this country. Even if we tax wealthy people more, we also have to cut spending, reduce borrowing and increase productivity.
    
    In a way, it would be better if we were “broke”, meaning we couldn’t borrow any more. But we can just keep borrowing until either interest rates skyrocket or inflation does.
    - pauldavis
      
      there’s no doubt that in order to get long term debt under control that in addition to doing something substantive about health care costs, we need to both raise taxes and reduce government spending. but as has started to be noted even in relatively mainstream media, messing around with the 12% of the US federal budget that is discretionary spending isn’t going to do a whole lot for the cutting side of that equation. In addition with the exception of a few people who seem to be labelled part of the lunatic left, even though one of them is a long term US Senator, i am not hearing very much of raising taxes on anyone in any substantive fashion, least of all those who have most benefitted from whatever growth and increases in productivity have occured over the last 3 decades.
      
      as far as short term debt, i don’t buy the notion that foreign debt has much to do with it at all. the reason why my state, like most others, is facing draconian cuts in public spending, is because of a major drop in public revenue. this is a combination of 2 factors: firstly (and probably foremost) the relatively recent, but massive, decline in revenue caused by the banksters fucking over our economy and causing the crash of 2008 with all of its fallout, which includes less people working, and thus less tax revenue for the states. but secondly, the steady slow erosion of public revenue as a result of clever moves by the capital class to reduce their level of taxation dramatically over the last 30 years. fixing the first issue is hard, but it certainly is not helped by these draconian cuts which could probably be avoided by a serious effort to tackle the second issue.
      
      my state (i don’t know about yours) is not “low on money because we borrowed it from banks”. its low on money because people who used to pay the state a higher percentage of their income have successfully engineered a substantive reduction in what they pay. on its own that didn’t break the bank of the state, but then top off the fallout from the worst depression in 70 years, and its enough to have capsized the budgets of most states, without any reference to foreign debt.
- grimc
  
  Wake me when all the luxuries of evil union contracts come within $1 trillion of the cost of the Iraq War. You know, that war that was completely funded by borrowing, the only war in US history that taxes were cut for, the one with billions of dollars lost to fraud and waste.
  
  There’s also the little matter of massive fraud committed by the banking and investment industry, and the refusal to raise taxes (read: revenue) to even St. Reagan levels, but I’ll stop there because I wouldn’t want you to end up like Bon Scott.
  - Layne
    
    Hmmm. So if war costs more money than unions, it doesn’t matter how worthless, wasteful or misguided they become *until* they surpass the price of a war?
    
    That seems to be an odd divining rod of prioritizing spending. Since Medicare and Social Security are on target to become the largest outflow of Federal dollars, that would make them more wasteful than our armed services and more deserving of paring down. Which I guess is true after all.
    
    But hey, if Obama wants to get around to ceasing engagements in Afghanistan, Iraq, Haiti, South Korea, etc., etc., that’d probably be a good way to save a few shekels here and there. When can we start?
    - pauldavis
      
      So if war costs more money than unions, it doesn’t matter how worthless, wasteful or misguided they become *until* they surpass the price of a war?
      
      no. it means that you put your “reductions in government spending” energy into reducing the money spent on war first, since that’s where the low hanging fruit is.
      
      anybody who insists that US unions are the paragons of social virtue is an idiot. but so is anyone who believes that attacking unions is some kind of social virtue itself, or likely to lead to any real benefits for society as a whole. what it will do, like most of the other changes and movements led by conservatives over the last 30 years, is to benefit a tiny minority of the population while the rest of us sit around bickering on forums like this.
abulafia

Griefer? Nominative determinism? Jeez.
Beldar

Hey, he writes scary books! I should model my politics after his!
- Snig
  
  Actually don’t really like too much of his writing, except for his autobiographical guide to writing “On Writing”, which is really excellent. But if most millionaires were more like him, and less like the Koch brothers, this would be a much better world.