Taxpayer Largess

During his State of the Union address, President Obama excoriated the Supreme Court for finding that associations of investors had equal free speech rights to associations of workers. He and the Democrats have been carrying that battle flag all year, accusing the Chamber of Commerce of channeling foreign funds and warning that Republicans were raising huge amounts of secret cash.

In spite of the pervasive myth that Republicans are the party of big money, who do you think is now the single largest source of campaign funds? Why, dear reader, it is you.

According to the Wall Street Journal, the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) is now “the biggest outside spender of the 2010 elections.” The AFSCME does not disagree. Larry Scanlon, their head of political operations, brags “We’re the big dog.”

The AFSCME, a public employee union with 1.6 million members, has entered the fray in a big way by donating $87.5 million in an effort to maintain the Democratic hold on Congress. Those funds came from member dues, member dues are collected from wages and you, dear reader, pay those wages by shelling out sales and property and income taxes.

So put down the book of fairy tales and forget the myths. The Republican cash machine is running a distant second to our own taxpayer-funded largess to the Democrats.