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Politics : A US National Health Care System? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: greatplains_guy who wrote (24461)	8/8/2012 8:14:53 AM
From: Lane3	1 Recommendation Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 42652

Good then you have witnessed first hand how elected officials and their appointees routinely change the way departments operate. I have. And I was personally involved in one incident where senators tried twice and failed. As for political appointees to federal agencies, they have opportunities for tinkering but their delegations of authority are limited to what's in the laws they implement. The President has greater opportunities via executive orders, but even with that he cannot contravene a law. General Counsel offices, Inspectors General, and individual bureaucrats keep an eye on such things. Should it get past them, there are the media, formal and informal, to sound the alarm. (That's at the federal level. I don't know anything about how state law works.) Government unions give big money almost exclusively to democrats. Not federal unions. They don't have any money. Union members pay dues but few federal employees belong to unions because non-union members are represented by the union the same as dues-paying ones so there's no reason to pay dues unless you want to be a union official. I worked in one federal agency that had only a few union members. It was a long time ago but I think that the number was six. Since unions cannot negotiate pay and benefits, there's really no point in joining. They also may not join because federal employees come in all political shapes and sizes and may not want their dues to be spent on contributions to candidates and causes that differ from their own. Furthermore, employees in a financial position to idealistically pay dues that bring them no benefits are mostly high enough up to not be in the bargaining unit so they're not eligible to join. In summary, there isn't significant money there for lobbying or contributions to candidates. That is close to the textbook definition of money laundering. Unions making political contributions or lobbying is not remotely within the definition of money laundering. Money laundering means taking income from illegal activities and "cleaning" it by passing it through a legal business so it does not have to be hidden. (Maybe you meant graft rather than money laundering.) That is because you are not the kind of ruthless individual who would rise to the top in a socialist utopia. It's because it's not feasible in our system of government and our culture to do that. Ruthless people who would want to do such a thing still have to find a way to pull it off before it can come to fruition. There are myriad obstacles to pulling that off. I may not be a ruthless person but I am an excellent system designer. If there were a way to do that, I could imagine it. But there isn't. Not in our system. The only way what you describe could happen is if our government was first overthrown, as in the communist revolution in Russia you mention, and a new system established. We have too many checks and balances and too much spirit for something like that to happen. The only way to overthrow our government would be with physical force and the only entity with potentially the power to overthrow our government is the military. Our military is neither unionized nor culturally socialistic, ergo not so inclined. Government unions from a majority of states working in tandem might be able to disrupt the workings of the country enough that the majority of people would throw up their hands in desperation and welcome an authoritarian savior to rule them but that's the only way I can see to connect the dots between unions and the outcome you predict. And you can be sure said authoritarian savior would not be a socialist. More like an old-fashioned, ruthless monarch. Historically, government overthrows have not been socialistic. Sometimes we lose sight of that. There is a difference between wanting something and making it happen. It's easy to take our worst fears about the objectives of our opponents and imagine them happening but, if they aren't feasible, then they are just fear. Or manipulative fear mongering. As government grows it more closely resembles socialism. That is a true--and moderate--statement. But slow, peaceful growth toward socialism doesn't beget the dystopian picture you painted.