By Rick Manning
Want to know what is wrong with Washington, D.C.? Well a big window opened last week when the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU) endorsed Hillary Clinton for President. While you might not recognize the NTEU, even though they are big money players in D.C., you will remember the systemic abuse of conservative groups by the IRS employees who they represent. While Lois Lerner, the chief IRS imbedded culprit, was too high on the food chain to be a member, the astonishing part of the IRS targeting was that none of the lower level employees ratted Team Obama out for doing something that was clearly wrong. Now, to be fair, the NTEU represents public employees in 31 agencies (the EPA for one) by their own count.
In 2012, the NTEU gave 96 percent of the $583,912 they doled out to Democrat candidates running for federal office. The money was well spent as Democrats successfully fought off attempts by the House GOP to hold anyone accountable for what in previous administrations, would have been an impeachable offense.
The original purpose behind the creation of the District of Columbia was to limit the electoral influence of those who worked for, and benefitted most from government. One of the first actions a new president should do would be to end the automatic dues deduction that public employee unions are provided by the government. If these big government stimulators are going to wield such extraordinary influence over federal policies, the least they should do is collect their own dues.
The author is President of Americans for Limited Government
