Barack Obama has now handed Big Labor the ultimate prize in its decades-long push to force workers into unwanted unions: the power to bludgeon employees with government taxes.
That is real purpose behind the backroom deal conjured up between the president and the union bosses late last week. They want to require non-union workers to foot the bill for a massive 40% excise tax increase on health care benefits. Union workers need not pay. And the only way union workers can escape the onerous tax is to meekly cave in to union demands.
Obama and the union bosses call it a “Cadillac Tax.” A “Right to Work Death Tax” would be more accurate – because its ultimate goal is to gut the 22 state Right to Work laws and turn those sovereign states into union serfdoms.
Now, all that is standing between the union bosses and the targeted workers are the 44 U.S. Senators and 167 members of the House from states protected by the highly popular Right to Work laws. Thirteen of those Senators and 73 of those House members are Democrats.
For them, it is a time for choosing: they can either side with Barack Obama and the union bosses, or they can stand up for the right of their constituents to continue working free of union coercion. It is one or the other. They can’t have it both ways.
If they vote for the Obama government health care takeover with the “Right to Work Death Tax” included, they will have betrayed the trust of more than 90 percent of their constituents who have chosen to remain independent. They will have condemned their states to the same union thuggery that has destroyed the economies of non-Right to Work states throughout the once prosperous Northeast. And they will have consigned the industries within their states to the same fate as America’s now-defunct auto industry.
If, on the other hand, they stand up for workers rights – if they say a resounding “No!” to the Obama-union boss attempt to force their workers to pay thousands of dollars more for benefits union employees get free – they will have put the people of their state before party dictates. And they will have earned the lasting gratitude of tens of millions of workers who want only to work free of government oppression and union coercion.
It seems like an easy choice – for those who put principle before politics. And, so, this paper echoes the words of the prophet Joshua to say, “Choose ye this day whom ye shall serve.”
