One of the themes of the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) movement is that disgruntled protestors, who resent the purported inequities between the “99 percent” and the “1 percent”, consistently direct their angst at the wrong people. In an interview with Teamsters Union leader Jimmy Hoffa, for example, the Big Government writer Christian Hartsock recently exposed the glaring hypocrisy of public sector union bosses. When asked if he would be willing to take a pay cut to redistribute his earnings to the due payers he ostensibly represents – Jimmy Hoffa makes at least $300,000 a year – his response was rooted in classic liberal ideology.
“Well, I think, the answer is we got to have more taxes on people," he said. "I think we ought to raise the taxes on the rich people in this country. And I think everybody should do that. And I think we should have more taxes. And let’s make sure that everybody has equality of sacrifice and we should be paying more taxes just like Warren Buffet.”
In other words, Hoffa believes that wealthy Americans – excluding union leaders – should pay higher taxes to compensate the public sector workers they unabashedly swindle. Indeed, considering the top 1 percent of income earners in the United States make roughly $343,000 a year, Jimmy Hoffa is, by all estimations, as much a part of America’s so-called corporate greed problem as the Wall Street executives he patently derides.
And yet, what makes matters worse is that educators, for example, are forced to join the teachers unions to secure employment opportunities. In Ohio, where these interviews were conducted, teachers pay hundreds of dollars each year in union fees that could be better spent on paying for their own health care and pensions. According to Laurie Kipfer – a veteran teacher who courageously spoke on the record with Hartsock to voice her grievances – it’s essentially impossible for public sector workers to audit the Ohio Education Association (OEA) and find out where their money is actually being spent.
When Hartsock called the OEA to get some answers, and to inquire about the misappropriation of union dues, he was unable to get any substantive answers. What a surprise:
