Recently I’ve been poking fun at government’s attempts at “stimulating” the economy and creating jobs. You might remember the first food stamp debacle, then the unemployment insurance hilarity, and finally the second food stamp nonsense. Well, my jibes were mere child’s play compared to Amy Oliver’s TownHall.com article on the green jobs fallacy. Amy carefully picks apart the Obama administration’s “weatherization” program meant to “stimulate” the economy with new green jobs all while reducing carbon emissions and saving the planet! It’s like magic!

Unfortunately, down in the land of economic reality, government’s attempts at creating jobs always fails fantastically. For example, after receiving a federal grant of $20 million, Seattle went to work on its weatherization scheme. So what was the result of this massive influx of taxpayer cash over one year later? A whopping 14 jobs “created” and a rise in the unemployment rate. Sounds like success to me! Just imagine all the prosperity we could bring around the country if only the government could help “create” more jobs at nearly $1.5 million a pop. Cha-ching!

Amy reveals not only the massive waste that these jobs programs are, but also the fact that in order to execute these schemes, Washington, DC has to impose its will further into the purview of local affairs. In other words, some bureaucrat in DC has the authority to set the “fair living wage” that the local weatherization workers earn while pretending to do work. Because DC always knows better than you.

Please read Amy’s whole piece, but first put a hat on so you don’t pull out your hair.

What do public-sector unions, highway traffic jams and gun rights all have in common? These are all recent topics of Independence Institute writers in the news.

First, in Friday’s Denver Daily News, Independence Institute education policy analyst Ben DeGrow points out, among other things, that while private-sector unions organize against management, public-sector unions actually organize against their fellow citizens. Something that even as pro-labor a president as FDR warned against.

Then in the Sunday Denver Post, transportation research associate John Aldridge makes the case for the use of “hard shoulders” to address congestion problems on both C-470 and the I-70 Mountain Corridor.

Finally, get a double-dose of Independence Institute research director Dave Kopel in the March edition of America’s 1st Freedom magazine. First, Dave explains the “Dark secret of Jim Crow and the racist roots of gun control,” then Dave points out Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer’s recent misrepresentation of James Madison as part of Breyer’s anti-gun zealotry.

In case you don’t recall last fall’s ballot ransom, allow me to refresh.  Unions extorted $3 million cash from businesses in exchange for them pulling  four business-destroying initiatives from the ballot.  I was offered $800,000 of that $3 million to pull my Amendment 49, which apparently unions didn’t like.  And what a “principled” idiot I was not to take it (please note current recession and the failure of Amendment 49 anyway).

The always stylish State Rep. Amy Stephens, who like most people think ballots shouldn’t be up for sale, proposed House Bill 1069 which, and get this, only makes removing a ballot initiative for cash a misdemeanor offense.  After all, if she pulled one of her own bills for payment or traded votes, she’d go to prison.  I came down to testify for this common-sense bill and to tell my story, but unfortunately the other side brought the well-known lawyer for the unions and the Colorado Democratic elite.  The message was received; Democrats on the State Affairs Committee killed the bill (kudos however to Rep. Beth McCann for bucking her party and voting ‘yes’).

Let me lay this out.  This isn’t bad news for me.  Now the the legislature has made it clear that we can place dangerous initiatives on the ballot and blackmail well-heeled interest groups to pay us to pull them.  I just found a new profit center!  And I am NOT stupid enough to be “principled” again.  Lawmakers can’t make money from yanking their bills, but we can!  Recession, reschmession.

Get the whole lowdown by listening to Amy Stephens on my radio show explain the whole ugly thing.

Press coverage:

http://www.rockymountainnews.com/news/2009/jan/28/ballot-measure-fails-in-committee/

http://www.gazette.com/articles/prohibit_46989___article.html/bill_struck.html

http://facethestate.com/articles/13724-lawmakers-bills-defeat-leads-blagojevich-ization-colorado-politics

http://www.bizjournals.com/denver/stories/2009/01/26/daily23.html

Unemployment is up and revenues are down. What does 2009 hold in store for Colorado’s economy? How does Colorado’s economy compare with other states? For perspectives and predictions, tune in to Independent Thinking as I discuss the state of Colorado’s economy with guests Rob Rueteman, Rocky Mountain News business editor, and Neil Westergaard, editor of the Denver Business Journal. That’s this Friday night at 8:30 p.m. on KBDI Channel 12; repeated the following Tuesday evening at 5 p.m.

Labor Day weekend is approaching. For most of us that means taking a long weekend to slack off and enjoy the last gasp of summer. At least that’s what I plan to do.

But our friends over at the Evergreen Freedom Foundation in Washington State are a little more ambitious. Every year around Labor Day, EFF puts out a “State of Labor” report to highlight trends and developments in the world of unions. This year’s theme is “The Expansion of Public-Sector Collective Bargaining”.

We know a little bit about the recent growth of union power in government here in Colorado. That’s why EFF asked our own Ben DeGrow to get busy and write a couple articles to fill in observers across the nation on just what has happened in our own backyard. Ben’s two articles are “Colorado Supreme Court Exempts Union Activity from Disclosure” and “Employee Partnerships and Right-to-Work in Colorado”. On the second topic, Ben also has written a Denver Post op-ed and a two-page summary backgrounder that links to a full issue paper.