Here is a government agency that sounds like a good investment of our tax money: “In the past six years, the Office of Labor Management Standards, or OLMS, has helped secure the convictions of 775 corrupt union officials and court-ordered restitution to union members of over $70 million in dues.”
Everybody’s in favor of exposing and rectifying corruption, right? Particularly when the victims are working class Americans? Er, maybe not everybody:
The House is set to vote Thursday on a proposal to chop 20% from the OLMS budget. Every other Labor Department enforcement agency is due for a budget increase, and overall the Congress has added $935 million to the Bush administration's budget request for Labor. The only office the Democrats want to cut back is the one engaged in union oversight.
The Democratic leadership’s proposal to eliminate secret ballots in union organizing elections failed, but this new exercise in pandering to a limited constituency of union bosses has much less visibility and is thus pretty likely to be enacted. Another proud achievement of The Most Ethical Congress Ever™!
Update (7/19/07): As anticipated, the Democrats successfully defended the OLMS budget cut on the floor of the House. As reported by OpinionJournal Political Diary (subscription only, but a mere $3.95/month):[W]hen GOP Rep. John Kline of Minnesota offered an amendment to restore the $2 million to OLMS’s budget [still less than the Administration’s budget request], he ran into a buzz saw of criticism. After he began reading a list of union officials convicted of corruption, House Appropriations Chairman David Obey interrupted him: “Is that list longer than the number of members of Congress guilty of corruption?” he sneered, no doubt referring to recent GOP corruption scandals involving a handful of members.
In the end, the OLMS budget cuts were retained by a vote of 237 to 186, with only eight Democrats voting for greater oversight of unions. Sixteen Republicans, most of them from Northeastern districts where union retaliation could cost them their seats, sided with Democrats in weakening the one federal agency charged with making sure that the $22 billion in assets held by unions are spent properly on behalf of their members.It’s quite a contest to see whether the AFL-CIO or CAIR has more clout with Congressional Dems. That ordinary taxpayers, workers and travelers have less has been amply demonstrated.
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