Even as Mitt Romney inexplicably flip-flops on his past very accurate observation that President Obama has made the economy worse, liberals in the mainstream media are now underscoring the former Massachusetts governor's initial charge.
The left-leaning and Democratic Party-friendly Associated Press is now waving the largest red flag it can find to trumpet that our nation's fragile and plummeting economy is actually worse than generally thought.
Ironically and quite telling, the liberal AP has decided it needs to point out the danger of "... expensive but long-untouchable public employee benefits."
Ironic because it has been mostly the Democratic Party and the liberal mainstream media who have made such outlandish benefits "long-untouchable."
Telling, because it seems even the liberal mainstream media have finally woken up to the financial disaster about to befall us all.
According to the suddenly impartial AP, "all 50 states have combined unfunded pension and retiree health care obligations that top $1 trillion." That would be trillion with a capital "T." As in more than one-thousand billion dollars.
As most of us just paused to celebrate the birth of our republic, it's safe to assume that our Founding Fathers could not even imagine one-thousand billion dollars. Let alone that amount of hard-earned taxpayer money being diverted to corrupt unions and spoiled beneficiaries who not only don't want to pay a fair share for those benefits, but are more than willing to thuggishly pour into the streets to protect that which is destroying the financial foundations of almost every city, county and state in the nation.
The AP next warns, ""Illinois and California are also in dire straits with each owing more than $100 billion in promises to state and local public workers."
Again, to put it in more basic language, each state owes more than one-hundred thousand million dollars to the purposely bloated public-employee ranks.
Gee, let me think here for a second. Which political party has defended these economy-busting pensions and corrupt unions every step of the way? To which political party do the union "leaders" and rank and file members donate almost every dollar of the hundreds of millions given every campaign cycle? To which person currently in the White House will these unions and members enthusiastically and aggressively work to re-elect during the 2012 presidential campaign?
Make no mistake, these unions and the public employees who luxuriate in these unconscionable and unsustainable benefits, have declared war on common sense and all Americans who seek fiscal sanity.
As those of us in the private sector pay more and more for our dwindling health care, consider this: Michigan, under the leadership of then-Democratic Gov. Jennifer Granholm, tried to make its teachers and state workers start paying 3 percent of their salaries toward their massive retiree health care costs. How did the unions who represent these teachers and state workers respond to that incredibly reasonable request? They sued the state and so far have been successful in stopping the meager contribution.
As more and more Americans in the private sector choose to not get health insurance simply because they can't afford it, keep this in mind: According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, in 2009, at least 14 states offered free health benefits to some or all state employees with at least seven states also paying for family plans.
Of course we also need to keep in mind that the Democrats and their union supporters define "free" as money taken out of the pockets of their fellow citizens.
While Romney may have reversed himself on the damage Obama has done to our economy, the evidence speaks for itself. Just with his backing of these beyond-greedy public employee unions and their fiscally irresponsible benefits, the president has made the situation exponentially worse.
Don't take my word for it. Ask the liberal AP.
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