The Incredible Small-Mindedness of the Biden/Harris Administration

The recent port strike featured this Washington Post report: Biden may face tough choices as port strike continues. The subtitle read “The White House has firmly backed the union, but Democrats are eager to avoid economic disruptions weeks before Election Day.”

My emphasis.

But should the president be taking any side in a private contractual dispute? A statesman wouldn’t. But America has few real statesmen these days. And Joe Biden is as far from a statesman as you will ever see. I analyzed this issue in a Facebook post:

“Biden on Tuesday urged the port employers to produce an offer to the striking workers that includes a “meaningful increase” in their wages, citing the dangerous work they did during the pandemic.”

I find it an absolute obscenity the way the Biden Administration has reacted to the dockworkers strike. It’s true that America has long been short on political statesmen—politicians who recognize that, once in office, they put their fiduciary responsibilities to represent the entire nation before their personal political interests.

But this administration, in brazenly throwing the weight of the federal government behind the dockworkers and against the shipping companies, has sunk to an unbelievable low point. This is a private contractual dispute, and the government should not be pressuring one side or the other on the issues. True statesmen would maintain strict neutrality unless laws are being broken, which for now I don’t think is the case. 

This administration, from the President on down, is a gang of small-minded political hacks who can’t distinguish between a political campaign and the heavy responsibility of actually governing a great country. By taking sides, Biden and his ilk are likely lengthening the strike and its cascading hardships, likely inflaming the situation, and in the process throwing industries, businesses, employees, and consumers across the economy under the bus. They are a disgrace to this nation.

The Post also reported:

Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee for president, said in a statement Wednesday that “this strike is about fairness,” calling for “a fair share” of shipping profits for union workers and blasting her Republican opponent, former president Donald Trump, for his overall record on labor issues when he was in the White House.

So everything I said about Biden also applies to Kamala Harris. And why should the shipping companies share their profits with the workers? Those profits legitimately belong to the companies’ shareholders, just as the workers’ wages legitimately belong to the workers. If, in hard times when their profits are low or non-existent, someone suggested that the workers “share” their wages with the shipping companies, Harris and her ilk would no doubt scream bloody murder.  

Related Reading:

2018 SCOTUS ‘Agency Fee’ Ruling a Victory for the Rights of Working People

NLRB ‘Grants’ Students ‘Right to Unionize,’ Which Really Means Power to Coerce

The Future of Organized Labor Should Be Volunterism

End “Collective Bargaining Rights” and “Right-to-Work” Laws, my article in The Objective Standard

End Government Intrusion into Labor-Management Contracts

Law-Favored Unions are Quasi-Criminal Organizations

Should 16 year-olds vote in school board elections?

In Murphy pushes lower voting age for school elections, David Cruz reports on the push in New Jersey to allow 16 year-olds to vote in school board elections. This is only a wedge issue—part of a broader push to lower the voting age below 18. 

But school board elections are particularly concerning given that the public schools, being government schools, are dominated by a public sector union. “Advocates want to get younger people more engaged,” say the proponents. NJ Spotlight News doesn’t allow comments on its articles, one reason why I’m not a paid subscriber. So I did a Facebook post instead:

“Advocates want to get younger people more engaged.”

Yes—engaged in voting for the teachers union’s anti-liberty, taxpayer-exploiting agenda. The election-corrupting conflict of interest is obvious. The  teachers union is a government-empowered political action organization that massively engages in advocacy for political candidates who favor its agenda at public expense.* The union's political allies reliably push for more taxpayer funding “for public schools,” while at the same time denying those same taxpaying parents the right to school choice for their children with those same education tax dollars.

There are good arguments for NOT lowering the voting age—in fact, for RAISING it to 21 or higher. But this is the worst proposal I’ve seen. The teachers union’s members are in charge of the classrooms, and would be in a position of influencing the children they have under their authority toward the candidates they favor. It is corruption writ large. As long as the teachers union exists (it shouldn’t), the children under their authority for hours a day should never vote.

* [According to the New Jersey Election Law Enforcement Commission, the New Jersey Education Association (NJEA) topped special interest spending from 2000 to 2022, with $52 million, which is more than four times the second biggest spender, AARP, @ $16.5 million, and third, Verizon, @ 16.3.] 

Related Reading:

16 Year Old Voters? How About 21?

The Inherent Corruption of Public Sector Unionization

School Choice is About Freedom, not "Union-Busting"

Voting Rights are Not the ‘Most Fundamental Right’—or Even a Fundamental Right

Why It’s Time To Raise The Voting Age Back To 21—Robert Tracinski