Who is Funding the Left? Surprise – Thanks to Santorum, It Might be You!

Since my recent installment on Rick Santorum’s astonishing betrayal of blue-collar Americans when he worked to defeat the national Right-to-Work law in the Senate, much has changed. His quixotic campaign to win the nomination by appealing to a limited demographic is losing steam, and the delegate math has become practically impossible.

I don’t want to kick a guy when he’s down; truly, I think our days of writing about Santorum as an opponent are near an end.

And so, whether he elects to go gracefully or otherwise, I am inclined to write non-unpleasant things about him. I will certainly hope for him to assume a more positive and productive role in the battle for the White House, which he can still do.

But before his campaign fades into memory, his record points up a very important fact that absolutely must be aired before we all move on – especially in Wisconsin, which is Ground Zero for union influence over politics and political fundraising right now. Let this serve as a cautionary tale for other Republican office-holders who may get confused from time to time about “how things work.”

To recap the earlier post: Rick Santorum’s Senate votes against right-to-work legislation and for Davis-Bacon wages hurt both workers and taxpayers.

His vote to scuttle the national Right-to-Work bill effectively abandoned many American workers to “closed shops,” where they are forced to pay a portion of their hard-earned wages to union bosses who are neither truly accountable to them nor particularly interested in their workplace issues. Instead, large chunks of those forcibly-collected dues go to fund far-left politicians and radical social agendas.

His vote to perpetuate the pro-union Davis-Bacon Act ensured that American taxpayers frequently pay much more for goods and services than other consumers, adding to our rising deficits and soaring debt. More importantly, it has also pushed scores of American manufacturing jobs overseas to lower-cost countries. Sadly, as I reported in the earlier missive, even uber-liberal San Francisco is buying steel and having major portions of its new Bay Bridge manufactured in China (“Bridge Comes to San Francisco With a Made-in-China Label,” New York Times 6/25/11).

So if you’re a middle-class wage-earner stuck paying union dues, Santorum’s pro-union actions have picked your pocket not once but twice: first, when union dues were forcibly deducted from your paycheck, and again when your taxes went up to pay for bloated federal projects – all so that Rick could stay in the good graces of labor bosses in his home state of Pennsylvania. And if you’re one of the unfortunate many who have lost jobs in the manufacturing sector to overseas competition, well, Santorum’s fingerprints are on that one, too.

But there is a far more important – and much more disturbing – aspect of Santorum’s historical allegiance to Big Labor that needs to be dragged out into the light.

The Right-to-Work bill he defeated would have struck a profound and lasting blow for conservative principles in America. How? By significantly de-funding the political machine that keeps progressivism, liberalism, socialism and other evil “isms” alive from election to election, all to the great detriment of conservatism, America and you and me.

For example, of the near-billion dollars reportedly spent on Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign, hundreds of millions came from forced union dues – even though about a third of union members personally voted against him. In addition, tens of millions more went to fund far-left politicians in state races around the country, including a number of key state and congressional races. These union funds helped tilt the balance of power entirely to the Democrats in 2008 and gave us, among other things, Nancy Pelosi and Obamacare.

And if you are in one of those closed-shop union jobs, some of those funds very likely came from your own dues-diminished paycheck thanks, in part, to Rick Santorum.

Is it possible that Santorum, and the other fair-weather Republicans who broke ranks to vote down America’s two best chances at overturning repressive anti-worker laws, were just confused? Were they so clueless that they could not see that forced union dues are fueling the political machine that’s dragging our country into Eur-oblivion? Can they honestly say that they have no culpability in the continuation of the progressive assault on our society’s morals, values and pocketbooks, when their actions are helping to fund that assault in perpetuity?

Every Republican defector who killed Right-to-Work, and thereby effectively voted to continue union domination of the Left’s campaign funding, should have been exiled to the dungeons of political infamy, their treachery never to be forgotten or forgiven.

What do you think would happen to the Progressive Movement if one-third of its union funding suddenly disappeared? Why do you think the Democrats, the self-proclaimed party of liberty and free-everything, is so rabidly intent on un-democratically forcing you into one of the many unions that fund their existence and agenda?

Wait, I think I just answered my own question.

Without union funding, the hard left would quickly shrivel back to a status that reflects their approximate 30% support level in almost any poll you read. And without Democrat politicians (and sadly, a few Repubs) to continually prop up their anti-democratic closed-shop rules, union membership would continue to drop in America, probably to a mid-single-digit percentage of the non-government workforce.

So whether he knew what he was doing, or his votes simply represent willful ignorance on his part, Santorum’s lauded social conservatism cannot obscure his pitiful record of empowering the opposition.

Former Governor Sarah Palin recently opined that Conservatives are seeking a candidate who will “instinctively turn right” when faced with difficult decisions. If this is the criteria, Rick Santorum can never make the cut. His indefensible abandonment of Conservatives and conservative principles – in middle-America’s hour of greatest need – paints him as a desperate Washington insider, more interested in preserving his position than upholding the Conservative cause.

Santorum continues to defend his betrayal by saying that it was what his state wanted. Sounds reasonable – except that, ironically, in 2006 Pennsylvanians rewarded Santorum with an 18-point loss – the largest losing margin for an incumbent Republican senator ever – kicking him and his re-election bid unceremoniously to the curb. I guess they didn’t want it as badly as he thought.

Today, Rick Santorum plays semantics to hide his pro-Big Labor record, asking voters to believe that there is some mysterious difference between public employee unions (which he suddenly opposes) and other unions. Santorum’s public/private union distinction is the campaign-trail equivalent of a bad comb-over – everybody knows there’s nothing under there, but everybody’s too polite to point out that the argument is bald of any substance.

And one need only look to the current recall battle in Wisconsin to see that the unions themselves don’t recognize any such distinction. Unions of all types have invaded Wisconsin to go after courageous Governor Scott Walker using forced union dues – funds that Rick Santorum helped them obtain – to fund their relentless attacks on conservatism and fiscal responsibility. Where is Rick Santorum on states’ rights now?

Again for the record, neither I nor the Republican Party are anti-union; we are pro-right-to-work. Conservative-sponsored right-to-work laws rely upon and protect a critical Constitutional freedom: the freedom of association. Right-to-work laws safeguard the freedom NOT to associate, by prohibiting unions and employers from making union membership or the payment of union dues a condition of employment. However, these same laws are equally protective of workers’ freedom to voluntarily associate with each other and with unions if they wish.

By contrast, today’s closed-shop unions are denying their members’ rights to be free from unwanted associations, forcing them to pay dues that largely do not benefit them, and using those dues to empower radical union bosses who, in turn, are using those funds to elect equally radical politicians.

Politicians – of any party – who accept these ill-gotten funds, and who aid and abet these union-funded social engineers in their continuing larceny, are just as responsible for the current social and fiscal decay afflicting America as the union bosses themselves. If you are in one of those union jobs that unjustly requires your hard-earned pay to fund causes and candidates you oppose, my heart goes out to you, and we all share your anger.

America would be a very different (and much better) place today, if union dollars were not perpetually funding left-wing Democrats who oppose traditional values, fiscal responsibility and conservative principles. A national Right-to-Work law and a defeat of Davis-Bacon could have put a game-changing dent in that funding.

Santorum’s closed shops are the antithesis of workplace freedom, and the funds forcibly extracted from the pockets of their workers are daily turning us into the Land of the Ever-Less-Free. So whether it’s you, a family member, a neighbor or a friend whose pocket has been picked by the radical left’s union henchmen, and used against you and all you hold dear, remember who helped them mug you.

Washington would have been a better place without Santorum then. And it will be a far better place without him now.