By Allan Sanford

A few months after I was hired for my first job, I started thinking about how nice it would be to find a job that didn’t need me to do it, yet paid me handsomely. I didn’t think that there was such a situation out there, so I stayed stuck on the treadmill that most of us are tied to. Up early, go to work, get paid on Friday, barely get by, and so it went. Years later I read about my dream job, but by then it was too late to get it.
 
I was shocked to see that my dream job was located on every train that rolls across America, because there must be a fireman in the cab, along with the Engineer/driver of the train.  On diesel trains, or electric, (which all trains are now), there’s no fire in the cab, burning coal or wood, so what does the fireman do? He takes a ride to wherever the train is going, doing nothing, because there’s nothing for him to do. Damn, now THERE’S the dream job I had looked for, years earlier. Does the fireman make minimum wage for doing nothing. Hell, no. His Union demands and gets top dollar for their members. Where, eventually, does the railroad get that top dollar to pay the fireman? From the travelers on their railroad, meaning you and me. They raise fares.
 
When it comes to similar situations of top dollar being paid to public sector employees, such as teachers, cops, legislators, etc., it goes more directly from our pockets to theirs, stopping momentarily in the tax collector’s treasury before being distributed to the public employees. How have these people gotten their grossly inflated salaries and pensions? Unions, that’s how.
 
The governor of Wisconsin, Republican Scott Walker, had promised to balance the state budget, if he was elected. The citizens elected him and are now expecting him to keep his promise. One area he saw that was extremely bloated as far as dollars, pensions and perks, is in an area that he controls, which is public employees.
 
What he recently said that has caused the state to continue to erupt in demonstrations against his proposals, was that he might lay off 1,500 employees if his bill limiting public-employee union collective bargaining of salaries is not passed this week. Their ability to collectively bargain/negotiate in all other areas, such as pensions, is not touched.

The layoffs would happen if the state misses a chance to refinance bonds and save more than $100 million, the Republican governor said. In addition, when predictably our budget busting, union supporting president, stuck his nose into Wisconsin’s business, Governor Walker said that President Barack Obama doesn’t need to meddle in the affairs of the state of Wisconsin. Appearing on “Fox News Sunday,” Walker said, “The president ultimately should stay focused on fixing the federal budget because they’ve got a huge deficit.”

“And believe me they’ve got their hands full,” Walker said. “They’re far from getting it accomplished in Washington.” He was too polite and kind.
 
Big labor Unions have killed a gaggle of geese that used to lay golden eggs. A host of various industries have been forced to leave America because the Unions forced them to leave, and they set up shop in other countries where labor is cheaper. We can’t compete with foreign goods manufactured in cheap labor countries, so Closed signs sprout on the front doors of what used to be thriving businesses in America, killed by Unions. In the early 1900’s, poor working conditions and low wages were the norm, and workers banded together to change things. They formed Unions and when the Unions saw that business owners were caving in to even their most outrageous demands, they asked for more and more, and got it. Today, even in small rural communities, like the one in which I live, Elementary school teachers, in some cases, are paid over $100,000 a year, for about 8 months work. If you try to chip a nickel off that, you are attacked unmercifully by Union executives, and uninformed, non Union Americans, like those in Wisconsin, who are walking the streets with signs that support the people and organizations that continue to take money out of their pockets, in obscene amounts, and put it into the bank accounts of Union people.
 
What insanity!
 
And then they attack a brave Governor, Scott Walker, who is trying to slow down this theft from hard working American families, this goose killing theft from their own non union families. This Alice in Wonderland scene is made even more unbelievable when the attacking hordes are led by the ruler of the country, the president of all the people, once again missing the point, once again barging into areas that he has no business being in, continuing his Bull in a China Shop method of ruling the country from ignorance, not directing the country from a morally correct base. The Unions support him. He supports the Unions. The people are left dead in the streets, along with the geese.
 
What insanity!!!
 
So, Americans, we are now sitting with our feet to the fire, with dead geese piled up high around us in almost every state in the Union, and treasuries bare from, in large part, having to pay bloated salaries and pensions to their Union workers. Get this…THERE IS NO MORE MONEY TO BE STOLEN FROM US, the citizens of America, by the Unions.
 
It really doesn’t make a difference whether you understand this. That Steamroller of Reality is going to make you into squirrel meat on the road, whether you are Union or not. Listen to Scott Walker.

Allan Sanford is a passionate writer, artist, and entrepreneur. With any thoughts, ideas, comments, or questions, please email Allan, at a.sanford@thedcpost.com and always visit him at www.TheDCPost.com