Posts tagged taxpayers
Editorial: Against the Hollywood bailout
October 1, 2026 // The greatest job decline after Covid was in 2023, before Hollywood’s chief competitor, the U.K., expanded its film subsidies. That was the year of the industry’s “double strike,” when actors and writers simultaneously walked off studio lots for months. Hundreds of projects were delayed or outright canceled as filming rolled to a halt, costing the entertainment industry billions of dollars. When studios finally signed contracts to end the strikes, they had to accept unions’ core demands, ballooning their compensation in perpetuity. Is it any wonder they have looked to film elsewhere? The proposed federal tax credit would bail out the union workers who bargained for more than they were worth. It would subsidize almost all labor costs — for employees and contractors, both pre-production and post-production — of film crews, animators, special-effects artists, writers, actors, and even producers and directors. There are no limits on eligible compensation, so taxpayers would pick up a good chunk of the salaries of Christopher Nolan and Tom Cruise.
Government Unions Are Making a Comeback — and Taxpayers Will Pay the Price
September 15, 2026 // Taken together, those same four unions have added back more than 230,000 members since 2024, the Commonwealth Foundation reports. That’s a 3.5 percent jump, and it has wiped out most of what looked like a permanent decline. Two of the four unions, AFSCME and SEIU, now have more members than they did before Janus. Only one union, the NEA, is still losing members, but even that decline has slowed.
Op-Ed: Brigette Herbst: Congress should Investigate the National Education Association’s charter
September 15, 2026 // However, over the past several years, the NEA has supported divisive partisan politics and extremist ideologies. By way of example, the NEA Advocacy Fund, a super PAC, and the NEA Fund for Children and Public Education have directed much of their political spending toward Democratic candidates and aligned political organizations. According to filings, the NEA Fund for Children and Public Education has historically contributed more than 90 percent of its candidate-directed funds to Democrats, while independent expenditures by the NEA Advocacy Fund have similarly supported Democratic candidates and causes — a far cry from “promot[ing] the cause of education in the United States.”
Opinion: Californians owe $500 billion they never agreed to pay
September 14, 2026 // Everything works fine if the pension fund earns at least the expected return. But if not, there won’t be enough money to redeem the pension promises when they come due. Those shortfalls — called “unfunded liabilities” — must be paid, and under California law, taxpayers alone bear that cost. Hence, pension fund boards that owe their highest duty to employees — and none to taxpayers — have an incentive to set high expected rates of return, since doing so minimizes normal cost, the only cost employees share. That incentive produces unfunded liabilities, which are interest-bearing debts.
Chicago schools count on $435M in unrealized taxes to balance budget
August 7, 2026 // Stacy Davis Gates, president of the Chicago Teachers Union, asked the board before the vote to roll more assumed funding from other sources into the budget to prevent teacher layoffs and expand funding for schools. “The way that you're going to assume it for the mayor of Chicago. He signed up and he said, ‘yes,’ to the tune of a billion dollars. Who else can you assume as partners in this? Can you assume Maria Pappas? Can you assume Tony Preckwinkle? Can you assume J.B. Pritzker? Because we have people who assume it every day,” Gates said. The union repeatedly called on lawmakers to return for a special session to pass supplemental funding – a request made during the spring session, but not addressed before it ended.
NYC lifeguard ‘Boss of the Beach’ scores $570K pension on taxpayers’ tab: report
August 7, 2026 // A controversial former Big Apple chief city lifeguard nicknamed “Boss of the Beach” raked in a staggering $570,419 pension last year, according to the Empire Center for Public Policy, a nonprofit government watchdog. Ex chief lifeguard and union boss Peter Stein’s taxpayer-funded golden parachute comes after a longtime dual career where he also served full-time as a middle school gym teacher In Brooklyn — calling it quits while under investigation by the city Department of Investigation.
Op-ed: The Delphi bailout Congress shouldn’t pay
July 24, 2026 // Some media reports claim that 20,000 former Delphi employees lost their pensions, but the PBGC confirms that 14,300 of the plan’s approximately 20,000 participants have received every dollar of the pension benefits they earned. Only about 5,700 experienced any reduction, either because their benefits exceeded the $54,000 statutory insurance limit, or because they earned early-retiree benefits the PBGC does not insure. Most of those reductions were modest. About 60% of affected participants lost less than one-fifth of their promised pension,
Special Feature: How Public Employee Unions Built California’s Most Powerful Political Machine
July 13, 2026 // In California, public employee unions are often among the most influential organizations helping determine who becomes governor, mayor, county supervisor or school board trustee. They endorse candidates. They contribute millions of dollars to campaigns and independent expenditures. They provide campaign volunteers, voter outreach, mail programs, and political infrastructure that many candidates could not easily replace. By the time contract negotiations begin, the relationship between labor and management has often existed for months or years. That does not mean elected officials simply surrender to union demands. Many negotiate in good faith and work hard to protect taxpayers while fairly compensating public employees. But in government, the officials responsible for approving compensation packages are frequently supported by the same organizations representing the employees who will benefit from those agreements.
Opinion: Retirement Board, city unions prioritize members over taxpayers
June 23, 2026 // It was ironic. Some of the same union members that Lang could have legally laid off but instead saved their jobs by slightly reducing their pay, those same folks turned around and sued him. “Rocking-chair money,” Lang called the wages that the city workers demanded for not working.
More than 100 Oklahoma lawmakers oppose SQ 832
June 1, 2026 // Under SQ 832, after the minimum wage is more than doubled, the mandate would continue to grow at a rapid annual pace based on increases in the cost of living in the nation’s largest urban centers, as measured by the U.S. Department of Labor’s Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers. That would effectively tie Oklahoma’s wage mandate to the cost of living in places like New York City or San Francisco. As a result, while SQ 832 would initially mandate that entry-level jobs pay $15 an hour in 2029, an analysis by The State Chamber of Oklahoma and Oklahoma Farm Bureau found SQ 832 would put Oklahoma’s minimum wage on a fast track to $35.61 per hour and continue rising thereafter.