There is another problem with the Democrats’ healthcare legislation that hasn’t been talked about much. It makes a heck of a tradeoff.

In exchange for universal healthcare under a government run plan, Donald Luskin points out an independent analysi that says we’ll see wage stagnation.

That’s right — in exchange for healthcare, don’t expect to ever get a pay raise.

If we expanded health insurance coverage but our current health cost inflation rate continued unabated, the higher overall costs would result in falling wages at the bottom of the earnings spectrum and very slow wage growth on up the earnings distribution. These dismal wage outcomes would persist over at least the next couple of decades, possibly longer.

In other words, only the rich will benefit. The poor and middle class will see their earning power reduced, their disposal income cut, and their potential to rise up from the lower and middle classes cut off.

All of this will be thanks to Obamacare.

Last week, the New York Times reported that the inaptly named “Employee Free Choice Act” was losing the most controversial and highest-profile provision: card check. Card check legislation, contrary to the title of the act, would take away fair choice for employees by doing away with the secret ballot, opening workers to intimidation from both the unions and the employers. As has been belabored at Redstate, destroying the secret ballot takes away the worker’s freedom to vote his conscience without fear of retribution.

The labor unions, special interests, and Democrats pushing for it not only know this, it’s the point. Intimidating workers into voting to unionize would vastly increase the size and power of the unions and, by extension, the Democratic party. These are all things you already know.

So in light of the Times article, is card check dead? Are workers rights being protected? Don’t answer too quickly.

Read More →

Fresh on the heels of his appearance at the G-20, Barack Obama next week ventures to Trinidad and Tobago for the Summit of the Americas. Prior to that he’ll stop in Mexico to try to improve damaged relations with that country. As I’ve written elsewhere, Obama triggered a low-level trade war when he kowtowed to the Teamsters and canceled the program that formerly allowed some Mexican commercial trucks to operate in the U.S. This put the U.S. in unilateral violation of NAFTA, and Mexico retaliated by raising tariffs on 90 products imported from the U.S. Mexican sourced have also made clear that more tariffs are likely if this dispute is not quickly resolved.

Obama deputized Ray LaHood to solve the problem - and bring the U.S. back into compliance with NAFTA - by creating a new trucking program. Last Friday however, Nancy Pelosi told Obama to go pound sand:

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi cast doubt Friday on the possibility that Congress would revive a program that allows Mexican truckers to operate in the U.S…

“I don’t see a change coming,” Pelosi said Friday in a roundtable discussion with regional reporters. “The president may have some other views, and we’ll see what he has to say about it. But I don’t see any change.”

Read More →

Former RSer Pat Cleary has been checking up on the United Auto Workers and has some thoughts on the need for shared sacrifice. He also observes that the UAW no longer seems so proud of the great deal it got for its members in 2007; in fact, they’ve sent their press release down the memory hole:

So 6 months ago we moseyed on over to The Google and typed in “UAW.” On their site was a link to summaries of their most recent contracts - a link that’s mysteriously gone now. Luckily, we saved it. So here it is, a link to what they said when they inked the most recent agreement with GM back in 2007. Mind you, this was as the company was by everyone’s reckoning speeding headlong into a trough. The UAW release says in part:

Read More →