James A. McClure

When radical Muslims commit acts of terrorism or mayhem, we are assured that the Jihadists do not represent the billions of moderate, law-abiding Muslims around the world. I am sure these folks exist, but can’t help wondering why we hear so little from them when their religion is used as an excuse for violence.

Although the Islamic Society of North America held a news conference condemning the attacks on U.S. embassies in the Middle East, most of the Muslim authorities interviewed by the news media have been quick to explain why Muslims’ feelings are hurt but tepid in their condemnation of the violence. We also have seen little or no reaction from mainstream Muslim clerics around the world, or from the leaders of moderate Muslim nations like Turkey and Indonesia. The U.N. has been pretty quiet, too.

I would like to believe that the majority of Muslims are as peaceable as your average Methodist, but I have to wonder why they allow the Jihadists to represent their religion.

Christians have been pretty quiet, too. Everyone agrees that the Koran-burning Rev. Terry Jones and the sinister folks who produced an obscure YouTube film have a right to free speech. But I have yet to hear any condemnation of these wingnuts from the National Council of Churches, or from leading Evangelicals such as Rev. Franklin Graham or Mike Huckabee. Their silence plays into the hands of the Jihadists who want their followers to believe that all Americans go around trashing Muhammad.

We also need to clarify that the right to free speech does not confer immunity from its consequences. No one wants the government to go after whoever produced the film, and the government’s request to YouTube to “review” the offending video is a little creepy. But I’ll bet a lawyer for the families of the murdered diplomats would have no trouble convincing a court that these folks have blood on their hands.

Finally, I’m getting a little tired of hearing that we should be sensitive toward Muslims’ fragile religious feelings because they tend to kill people when they get riled up. Perhaps it’s time to communicate that Americans are just as passionate about our flag as Muslims are about their Prophet. And we have cruise missiles.

We’re hearing a lot of complaints from the punditry about class warfare in the current presidential campaign. Get used to it. We’ll be seeing a lot more class warfare in the next few years.

John Edwards started it in 2004 with his “two Americas” speech that demonized the wealthy, and President Obama made it his signature issue with a boost from the Occupy movement. But conflict between rich and poor is mostly political fiction.

The real class divide is between people who work for the government and those who do not. Government employees have evolved into a privileged class thanks to powerful unions, irresponsible public officials and the good intentions of voters. Public employees, once underpaid, have become significantly more prosperous than their counterparts in the private economy.

Now the cumulative impact of public employee pension and benefit largess is forcing cities to reduce services to pay their retirees. Some have been forced into bankruptcy, and this may spread to states like California and Illinois.

At the same time, the recession wiped out millions of private-sector jobs while the vast majority of public employees kept theirs. Diminished retirement savings are forcing more private-sector employees to defer retirement while state and local government employees continue to retire early with defined-benefit pensions.

The public-private divide is becoming a dominant force in politics, with public employee unions supporting the Democratic party and business interests aligned with the Republicans. A Wall Street Journal column characterized this as a fundamental conflict between two economies.

The Obama administration sharpened the class divide by devoting most of the 2009 federal stimulus to state and local government jobs rather than infrastructure projects that would have increased private sector employment. Some politicians are calling for a second stimulus to re-hire government employees who were laid off when the first stimulus ran out.

The public-private disparity is erupting into conflict as voters push back in places like Wisconsin and California. Unions are compromising in a few cases but largely resist any attempt to ask their members to share the community’s sacrifice. The high esteem in which teachers, firefighters and police officers are held may erode as the intransigence of their unions drives cities into bankruptcy and blocks school reform.

Whooping up the voters to increase taxes on the wealthy may score a few political points. The more potent pocketbook issue is how much voters are willing to sacrifice to support government employees who are wealthier and more secure than they are.

Okay, the Supreme Court upheld ObamaCare, sort of, and health care reform is back on the political front burner. That’s a good thing. The first attempt at fixing the health care system was bound to turn out like the first pancake. Now it’s time to discard the imperfect result, turn down the heat and try again.

When Congress initially began working on this issue I was delighted. For many years I was a poster child for health insurance reform: self-employed with an unhealthy wife and monthly insurance premiums the size of a mortgage payment. We changed insurance carriers every year or two when the insurance company either went broke or dropped whatever group we were in. Over the years I joined two unions and a fishing club to get group coverage.

I studied the health insurance issue when I worked with a state hospital association a few years ago, and learned about the potential for reform and the wide range of possible solutions. As I watched the sausage-making in Congress, however, I was appalled at the outcome.

The good news is that the law will change because it’s unsustainable in its present form. This will happen sooner if Republicans win in November, or later (and more painfully) as unintended consequences and soaring costs drag down what’s left of the economy.

Gov. Romney can’t repeal Obamacare if he’s elected president (and I wish he’d stop promising to do so). But since the law gives the administration sweeping authority to write the rules, the next president can make significant changes – such as granting waivers to states and Catholic hospitals rather than unions.

If we are lucky, a balanced Congress and moderate president can give the Unaffordable Care Act some needed body-and-fender work while keeping special interests in check. Perhaps they will have the freedom to consider options that were off the table in 2009 such as:

• Limitations on medical malpractice lawsuits;
• Allowing health insurance companies to compete across state lines;
• Expanding health savings accounts and competitive Medicare Advantage plans;
• Allowing Medicare to negotiate lower drug prices;
• Making it easier for small businesses to join together in group plans;
• Low-cost catastrophic insurance for healthy young people; and
• Allowing uninsured people to “buy in” to the group plans government employees have.

Fortunately, my personal stake in health insurance reform is less than it used to be because I am now covered by Medicare, Tricare for military retirees and the Veterans Administration. (That’s three kinds of socialized medicine, which makes me feel conflicted when I watch Fox News.)

Still, I will rest easier if Congress gives back the $500 billion it took out of Medicare to pay for Obamacare.

Why do the politicians who oppose government regulation of business want the government to regulate marriage and pregnancy?

I never thought much of President George W. Bush. Didn’t vote for him. Now I’m starting to like the guy. I guess President Obama really has transformed the political landscape.

If we re-elect President Obama, will he continue to complain about the mess he inherited from President Bush? Or, if we elect Gov. Romney, will he complain about the mess he inherits from President Obama? Can we get both candidates to make a no-whining campaign pledge?

My brother had a great idea a few years ago: require elected officials to wear the logos of their contributors the way NASCAR drivers do. That would sure liven up the Senate.

No politicians are pandering to me and I resent that. President Obama is pandering to Hispanics, women, gays and college students. Gov. Romney is pandering to the Tea Party and the evangelicals. Being pandered to is becoming a civil right and I feel discriminated against. My vote has to be worth something.

Now that Joe Biden has redefined the role of the Vice President as the crazy uncle of the administration, Newt Gingrich could make a great running mate for Gov. Romney. I’d buy a ticket to that debate.

Should there be a statute of limitations on calling existing tax rates a tax cut? I guess ending a tax cut, even after 12 years, sounds more palatable than raising taxes.

If we’re serious about separation of church and state, why do we allow the government to perform marriages? The only thing the state needs to care about is a contract between two people. Calling that contract a marriage – instead of, say, a spousal agreement – means that people get the state mixed up with their churches and seek to impose their religious beliefs on the rest of the population.

When politicians complain about special interests, why are they talking mostly about big corporations and not about unions, trial lawyers, farmers, realtors and environmental groups?

It’s surprising to hear that President Obama’s reelection campaign is operating at a deficit, spending more than it’s taking in. (Okay, maybe that’s not surprising after all.) The obvious solution is to get the rich to pay their fair share. Warren Buffett and George Clooney need to come up with bigger campaign contributions to spare the Prez the embarrassment of asking the Chinese for a loan.

Reaction to the recall election in Wisconsin will be reverberating for a while.

For the record, my roots are on both sides of the controversy. My father was a union organizer in the 1930s. I worked in corporate public relations on the management side of a half-dozen strikes.

Unions can check stupid managers and keep people like office-building janitors from being exploited. Unions win more than half of certification elections and companies whose employees vote for a union – in a fair, secret-ballot election — usually deserve what they get.

The larger impact is that the threat of unionization gives smart businesses an incentive to treat employees well. Whether WalMart has a union is irrelevant (except to union bosses) so long as WalMart continues to give its employees a better deal than the union offers.

Collective bargaining works when there’s a balance of power and a level playing field. Workers are at a disadvantage when management holds all the cards, and they lose jobs when unions have enough power to make a business uncompetitive (as in the steel and automotive industries).

The market forces that balance labor and management in private business do not exist in the public sector. Collective bargaining for government employees is a stacked deck: Unions contribute to the politicians who negotiate their contracts and usually control both sides of the bargaining table.

State and local governments have no competition, cannot go out of business and are unwilling to take a strike. Government officials are under pressure to preserve labor peace by giving in to the unions… and besides, it’s not their money.

For many years public employees were not well paid but were guaranteed job security instead. The “right” to collective bargaining for government employees was considered redundant and did not emerge until the late 1950s. It’s worth noting that federal employees do not have the same “right” to bargain for pay and benefits. You don’t see downtrodden employees from the GSA picketing the Capitol.

Paying teachers and firefighters a little more sounded fair enough. But now government employees, on average, get higher pay and dramatically better benefits than private-sector workers. Years of exponentially unsustainable pensions and benefits have brought some states to the debt levels of Greece:  forcing them to cut public services to support lavish pensions for youthful retirees. Taxpayers were bound to push back sooner or later.

Pushing back is difficult because public employee unions are a self-perpetuating political engine. Revenue from union dues purchases political influence to create jobs and privileges for government employees, all at taxpayer expense. Government, in effect, has become its own special interest that dominates the political landscape.

It may be no accident that much of the 2009 federal stimulus went to “create and save” local and state government jobs. A percentage of the borrowed billions went for union dues and was contributed to the politicians who voted for the stimulus. Sweet! 

Ultimately, the donnybrook in Wisconsin was about regime change and not workers’ rights. The existential threat was that union membership for public employees became voluntary instead of mandatory. Dues collection dropped sharply and that hit union bosses and their pet politicians in their pocketbooks. Wonder how many public employees who chanted outside the state capitol last year have quietly stopped paying their union dues?

At the same time the people of Wisconsin were retaining their governor, two California cities overwhelmingly voted to reduce pensions for city employees because skyrocketing pension costs were forcing cuts in services.

In the weeks to come we will hear a lot about the woeful plight of government workers in Wisconsin. Taking something away from people, however privileged, is a legitimate cause for anger — especially if their leaders tell them they have a constitutional right to all those perks. There will be a lot of emotional hyperbole because picket-line theater is what unions do and they’re good at it. I found it challenging to be a management spokesman during strikes because unions have all those great songs about solidarity.

If it’s any consolation, these unfortunates will still be paid more than their private-sector counterparts. They will contribute more to their pensions but not as much as their neighbors who work for private business. Government workers will still be mostly fireproof, though some agencies may hold them accountable for performance. (Oh, the injustice!) Most important, they still have jobs because the new reforms have enabled local governments and school districts to avoid layoffs. They also may have more money in their pockets because they no longer have to pay union dues and their property taxes aren’t going up. Armageddon it’s not.

The union explanation of the Wisconsin recall is that Republican money won the election, which implies that voters had nothing to do with it. Including, I suppose, the 37% of union members who voted for Gov. Walker.

In election-night TV coverage, one of the union supporters wailed that Gov. Walker’s victory is the end of democracy. It looks to me like democracy is working just fine.