Big Government Unions Hasten Collapse of the State

Public sector unions have an insatiable appetite for public funds. Governments cannot possibly balance their budgets and also keep big government unions happy. Something is destined to crash and burn, and if unions have anything to do with it, they will bring everything down with them when they go.

On the state level, public employment promises the full socialist ideal to a small minority-paid for with tax money looted from a larger, productive private economy. But the socialist utopia of public employment has crossed the Thatcher Line: the point at which, as the Iron Lady used to warn, you run out of other people's money.

The current crisis exposes more than just the financial unsustainability of these programs. It exposes their moral unsustainability. It exposes the fact that the generosity of these welfare-state enclaves can only be sustained by forcing everyone else to perform forced labor to pay for the benefits of a privileged few.

This is why the left is treating any attempt to fundamentally reform the public workers' paradise as an existential crisis. This is why they are reacting with the most extreme measures short of outright insurrection. _RealClearPolitics

Outright insurrection is not completely off the table, for these thuggish intimidators. They want to hold that option as a last resort. Before it comes to that, people who appreciate the advantages of a free, orderly, and lawful society may want to shut government down temporarily for some much-needed maintenance overhaul work.

America fast approaches several tipping points. Taxes have grown steadily more progressive across successive presidencies including numerous redistributionist credits ensconced in the tax code. Per the Heritage Foundation, “the country may be rapidly approaching a point where one-half of ‘taxpayers’ do not pay taxes, while receiving generous federal benefits.” These folks have no real interest in fiscal discipline.

Welfare, social security, food stamps and other entitlement measures have surpassed one-sixth of personal income. Entitlements of $2 trillion grow annually and promise to explode as Baby Boomers retire. Social Security has already crossed its tipping point and will henceforth remain forever in the red.

At all levels, governments now employ approximately twenty-two million workers. There are millions more dependent on government contracting for their livelihood. An unhealthy portion of us rely on government for sustenance. As the state’s reach smothers America, many millions are now nestled up to the public breast. Too many voters exhibit a keen interest in sustaining the unsustainable.

Frederic Bastiat observed, “The state is the great fictitious entity by which everyone seeks to live at the expense of everyone else.” _Forbes

With all government functions shut down except for the bare essentials, it will be easier for voters to see how unessential -- and downright counter-productive -- most government functions truly are.

Unions will have a harder time proving that their loss is American loss. That is partly because unions are a partisan issue. Gallup recently asked Americans whether government workers unions are generally more helpful or more harmful to their states. Two-thirds of Democrats said helpful. Two-thirds of Republicans said harmful. Independents split.

There is no longer a union mandate. Gallup regularly asks Americans about their confidence in more than a dozen institutions. Labor unions rank near the bottom, though still above big business. _RealClearPolitics

There are powerful forces seething just beneath the visible surface of everyday life, seeking to overthrow the established order in order to throw society into chaos. From the far left anarchists, to the lefty-Luddite green dieoff.orgy energy starvationists, to the budget-busting public sector unionists, to the pro-totalitarian leftist contingent controlling many university administrations and humanities faculties and media newsrooms -- the left is teeming with well-funded clusters of goons and zombies eager to "bring it all crashing down."

As long as Obama's regime is in power, the forces of chaos have friends in high political places. As long as the financial reign of big-money leftist agents provocateurs continues, these zombie-goons will have monetary resources to rely upon. In terms of sponsoring terrorism and societal sabotage within the US, there is no longer a need for foreign states such as the late USSR. Such sponsors of chaos have become the mainstream.