By Fred Wszolek
Big Labor spent so big in favor of President Obama’s campaigns that we’re still trying to put our hands around it. But, for the guy in the White House, that’s not such a hard thing to do.
Eventually, Big Labor chiefs would want some kind of return on their massive electoral investment. Unions went well over the billion dollar mark in assorted political activities from lobbying to candidate contributions since 2005. Notes the National Institute for Labor Relations Research:
Using data compiled from U.S. Department of Labor union financial disclosure (LM-2) forms, Political Action Committee (PAC) filings with the Federal Election Commission (FEC), 527 group reports to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), and state campaign finance reports, unions spent an estimated $1.7 billion on electioneering and lobbying during the 2012 election cycle.
Unions were apparently going for broke in 2012 when it involved Obama. For example, nearly half of the Top 10 super PACs and outside groups that spent more than $88 million combined to defeat Obama’s challenger were brought to you by Big Labor. The AFL-CIO’s own super PAC spent $2.5 million alone on their friend in the White House.
AFL-CIO head Richard Trumka wasted no time in boasting shortly after the president’s re-election. “We did deliver those states,” the union boss supreme told The New York Times.“Without organized labor, none of those states would have been in the president’s column.”
So, it shouldn’t come as much of a surprise that labor bosses would be asking for a good old fashioned payback in return for their help. Despite being hammered by bad news about the flawed ObamaCare rollout, nothing stopped the administration from scrambling to fashion a nicely-carved exemption for their Big Labor buddies. Reports Elsie Viebeck in The Hill:
The labor movement appears likely to dodge a key tax under ObamaCare less than two months after the White House refused to make union plans eligible for subsidies.
The Obama administration indicated last week it will propose exempting certain self-insured, self-administered insurance plans from two of the healthcare law’s three-year reinsurance fees.
The policies that would escape the fees include the multi-employer or “Taft Hartley” plans that are commonly held by union members.
While millions are stuck on the homepage of a HealthCare.gov website that won’t work and millions more are discovering their policies are being canceled because of ObamaCare, union bosses are getting the spa treatment from the Obama White House. Small businesses either can’t hire or are being forced to trim their operations, yet union bosses get to skip out on the obligation virtually untouched. Reports Jay Hancock in The Washington Post:
Unions, a key Obama ally, have increasingly criticized the Affordable Care Act as threatening the generous medical plans held by many members.
Eliminating the reinsurance fee was one of several resolutions adopted at the AFL-CIO’s September convention, along with giving union plans access to ACA tax credits for lower-income members.
We have finally found one tax the Big Labor bosses weren’t in favor of: the one that applied to them.
This entry was posted in Big Labor Bailout, Big Labor Bosses, Campaigns & Elections, Politics, Unions and tagged AFL-CIO, Barack Obama, Big Labor, big labor bosses, elsie viebeck, Federal Election Commission, healthcar.gov, national institute of labor relations research, New York Times, Obama Administration, obama campaign, obama white house, obamacare, President Obama, Richard Trumka, taft hartley, The Hill, Union Bosses, union pacs. Bookmark the permalink.