Big Lizards:Blog:Entry “Teachers Union Spending Tomorrow's Dues Today”

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October 11, 2005

Teachers Union Spending Tomorrow's Dues Today

Hatched by Dafydd

Both Daniel Weintraub, on his Sacramento Bee-blog, and Brit Hume on Fox News Channel report that the California Teachers Association, the state's largest teachers' union -- in fact, at 335,000 members, the largest union in the state, and the local affiliate of the National Education Association (NEA) -- has already blown the $50 million they had budgeted to fight against all four of Governor Schwarzenegger's ballot initiatives:

Proposition 74 - teacher tenure reform
Proposition 75 - paycheck protection
Proposition 76 - limit state spending growth
Proposition 77 - redistricting reform

(For an example of how unbiased is the union's political use of member dues, come gawk at their web site!)

That $50 million was taken from a union-dues surcharge; it is, of course, precisely the sort of political spending of member dues that would be banned under Proposition 75, paycheck protection. So now that they have spent all the money they could afford, and the initiatives are doing better than ever in the polling, what is the "poor" union to do next?

Simple: since they know they won't be able to spend dues tomorrow, after the initiative passes, they've decided to spend tomorrow's dues today. The CTA is arranging a $40 million line of credit to continue spending every dime of their members' money that they can shake loose, with complete disregard for the political leanings of those teachers.

But it's even worse than that: on Monday's Special Report With Brit Hume, Hume reports that the union has already borrowed as much as $34 million for their previous spending spree:

The group has already spent the $50 million it raised to fight the initiatives — which would make it easier to fire teachers with tenure and increase restrictions on unions using members' dues for political campaigns.

Now, the CTA is asking for an extra $40 million in credit to keep up the fight — on top of $34 million in loans the union is already paying down.

If maths were not your long suit, that works out to $90 million of union dues going to fight against a ballot initiative that would restrict the use of union dues for fighting ballot initiatives! Plus enough previous debt to raise the total debt to $74 million. Now that's what I call painting yourself into a hole!

And be sure to note that the CTA is not only opposing Propositions 74 and 75, which arguably affect teachers, but also 76 (which simply caps state spending growth) and even 77, which changes how the legislature is reapportioned; neither of these two have any direct connection with teachers, schools, students, or education whatsoever.

[Hat tip to Cloud Master for catching a typo in the last paragraph!]

They also support Proposition 79, one of the two prescription-drug price-control initiatives, and Proposition 80, to completely re-regulate the electrical grid. I have a hard time seeing what any of that has to do with teachers, either. The fact that both initiatives are heavily supported by the Democrats in the state legislature (and Schwarzenegger's initiatives are opposed) is the most likely explanation for the CTA's cheerleading.

The message is clear: never argue with a union that buys red ink by the barrel!

Hatched by Dafydd on this day, October 11, 2005, at the time of 4:51 AM

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Comments

The following hissed in response by: RBMN

With public school teachers, it always seems: different year, same pathetic excuses for their failure. I just hope I live long enough to see some real change.

From:
It's the Teachers, Stupid!
By David Horowitz
Front Page Magazine
February 17, 1997
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=1054

This is the simple (and unmentionable) fact: We produce functional illiterates and student dropouts because we employ large numbers of functional illiterates and irresponsible bureaucrats in our schools adults who have no business overseeing our children's education.
[...]

Unlike the rest of us, teachers are tenured after two years and thus have lifetime job security, are guaranteed raises and are not accountable for their performance (or lack of it). As far as the union-dominated public school system is concerned, there are no bad teachers.
Our school systems are mini-versions of the socialist states that collapsed from the sheer weight of their economic backwardness in 1989 and 1990. Why do we think the same crackpot Marxist economics can work to educate our children? If teachers are not expected to work hard, if their incentives do not reward them for educating our children and punish them for failing at their jobs, how can we expect anything better than the mess we have?

The above hissed in response by: RBMN at October 11, 2005 9:44 AM

The following hissed in response by: Cloud Master

"And be sure to note that the CTA is not only supporting Propositions 74 and 75, which arguably affect teachers, but also 76 (which simply caps state spending growth) and even 77, which changes how the legislature is reapportioned; neither of these two have any direct connection with teachers, schools, students, or education whatsoever.:

Actually, I think CTA is opposing these propositions.

The above hissed in response by: Cloud Master at October 11, 2005 11:53 AM

The following hissed in response by: Cloud Master

Actually, I think CTA is opposing these propositions.

The above hissed in response by: Cloud Master at October 11, 2005 11:54 AM

The following hissed in response by: beebop

Don't worry about the poor unions, the taxpayer will bail them out in the end; in 2002 the teacher's unions in Florida literally mortgaged their headquarters building in Tallahassee to beat Jeb Bush -- he won by 14 points. despite this I don't think the union officials are riding bicycles to work yet.

The above hissed in response by: beebop at October 11, 2005 11:55 AM