Sunday, August 31, 2025, 6:22 pm | Randy Thomasson
Have you noticed how California cities and counties are incrementally costing you more in higher taxes, fees, and bonds, while providing fewer or slower services?
The dirty little secret of California local governments is how their budgets are being eaten up by pension liabilities created by police unions, firefighter unions, and other government unions.
And they’re deceptively passing off the costs to you — telling voters they can’t have a library, or sewer lines, or a functional police or fire department without “increases.” And they do this with without disclosing to voters that these “higher costs” are all due to overly-generous and ever-growing pension contracts with local government unions.
And meanwhile, your local government tax bill keeps going up, and local government services keep decreasing. Does this concern you enough stop “feeding the beast” however you can?
The American public at large, and unionized workers in particular, want a free choice when it comes to affiliating with a union. Around eight in 10 Americans consistently express agreement with the Right to Work principle, and polls of unionized workers show similar sentiment. The truth is, American workers by and large want to make a living free from coercive union power: Most say that they have “no interest at all” in joining a labor union. American workers thrive on freedom, and policymakers who claim to care about them should be prepared to defend workers’ freedoms. Mark Mix, National Right to Work Committee, August 31, 2025
Have you considered why California has such bad government? There are powerful forces supporting the New Communist Democrats, who are now three-fourths of both houses of the State Legislature, and who control all the statewide constitutional offices.
Yet the evil forces leading here aren’t the “useful idiots” (foolish voters dumbed down by the “public” schools, illegal aliens, self-centered government employees, etc.).
No, the wealthy, influential entities sustaining the iron-fisted rule of New Communist Democrats in California are both government unions and private unions. Don’t believe it? See how unions fund the Democrat Party Machine:
SEIU, California’s largest private- and public-sector union, nearly exclusively supports Democrat Party candidates and liberal causes. SEIU has also been the top union contributing to federal campaigns, donating $232,694,670 between 1990 and 2016, 99 percent of which went to Democrats.
As reported in late 2023: “Democrats and their causes receive 95.7% of the cash from unions’ political action committees. In 2021-22 the Big Four gave more than $29 million to the SEIU’s United We Can super PAC and the NEA Advocacy Fund super PAC which support federal candidates for office. Another $16 million went to wealthy climate crusader Tom Steyer’s leftwing For Our Future Pac. Some $3 million went to Fair Share Massachusetts which supports a state wealth tax.
“Big money also flows at the state level, where public unions all but run many state capitals. In 2021-2022, the four largest government unions spent $27.9 million in Illinois, $24.9 million in California, $13.2 million in Minnesota and $12.1 million in Pennsylvania.
“Nearly 60% of unions’ annual political spending, or some $400 million, came from membership dues and about 40% came from unions’ political action committees for which workers make voluntary contributions for politics. While unions can’t send dues money directly to candidates, workers might be surprised to see their paycheck deductions funneled to outside groups that spend money on politics (including those that deploy the money out of state).”
As reported in 2021 after Gavin Newsom “won” his recall election, “Organized labor donated at least $25.7 million — or more than one-third of the total the governor raised to keep his job. Unions, of course, have deep ties to the Democratic Party and a stake in nearly every aspect of state government.”
Because of how unions and their “owned politicians” put deceptive tax hikes on the ballot, and since union bosses regularly spend union dues to elect and re-elect corrupt Democrat Party politicians, if you’re a union member, please resign from your union.
Remember, you have strong, fundamental free-speech rights to not be coerced into supporting objectionable union politics. Now that you’ve unpeeled the onion and found the rotten core, will you stop “feeding” the beast?
See how to resign from the union and still keep your job and benefits:
The biblical view of man is work-oriented. It affirms that man was placed on the earth to subdue it to the glory of God (Gen. 1:28; 9:1-7). It is not each man’s right to work. It is his duty to work. What is his lawful right is his right to compete for the job he wants, his right to compete for the labor services he wishes to purchase. No one has a right to my job, including me. Anyone should have the right to compete for my job, including me. And I have the right to compete for his. “A Christian view of labor unions,” Gary North, July 1, 1978
If you’re like me, your big cultural concern is the next generation. Because we’ve seen an explosion of foolishness and evil from the current one!
So join me in being very glad about the movement to rescue children from anti-family, low-academics, “woke,” godless, government-controlled schools!
This is where states enact a “universal” education choice policy giving parents a paid scholarship funding most or all of a private school — or even home school — for their children.
Already this year, the Republican governors and Republican legislatures in Idaho, Indiana, Tennessee, Texas, and Wyoming have set the children free.
Texas is now the 16th state offering a universal choice. This is huge, because 1 of 10 students in the nation lives in Texas!
The number of universal educational choice states keeps growing, which will eventually make parents in “blue states” jealous as they hear how family and friends in school choice states are enjoying the difference.
I expect more states to offer more families this lifeline to rescue their children. And because the Left’s objections are without merit, within a decade from now, I would not be surprised if California voters approved it here.
Meanwhile, the Democrat Party is losing voters, even in California. The pain of Covid tyranny and Bidenflation awakened many in their twenties!
May 3: Former L.A. County Sheriff: “I’m leaving the party of paid protests, purple hair, and pronouns, and joining the party of faith, family, and freedom”
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