By George Will
www.townhall.com/columnists/georgewill/printgw20041007.shtml
He has a multifaceted agenda for weakening crucial components of the Democratic Party, factions that depend on cosseting by the federal government. Consider trial lawyers and organized labor.
John Kerry's selection of John Edwards as running mate was a blunder, and not just because kerry probably will lose Edward's North Carolina. The Edwards selection ratifies
a provocative fact: trial lawyers have become Democrats' most important faction. This has energized small-business owners, the self-employed, doctors, and others who worry that they will live one lawsuit away from ruin. Such people, now aroused, may propel tort reform that will curtail the windfalls that make trial lawyers the Democrats' largest source of contributions.
Another Democratic faction, organized labor, profits from coercive laws that make mandatory some of the 8 billion it collects in members' dues. Substantial sums flow into Democratic coffers. Furthermore, organized labor is , increasingly, government organized as an interest group--public employess unions. The growth of organized labor is in most unions, whose members tend to vote Democratic, for government growth.
Bush is pressing to put hundreds of thousand federal jobs up for competition with the private sector. Grover Norquist of Americans for Tax Reform says: "The people who cut the Pentagon lawns are government employees. Why?" People listed in the phone book will do it cheaper. How many of the 15 million state and local government jobs could be privatized, with how many billions of dollars in savings?
www.townhall.com/columnists/georgewill/printgw20041007.shtml
He has a multifaceted agenda for weakening crucial components of the Democratic Party, factions that depend on cosseting by the federal government. Consider trial lawyers and organized labor.
John Kerry's selection of John Edwards as running mate was a blunder, and not just because kerry probably will lose Edward's North Carolina. The Edwards selection ratifies
a provocative fact: trial lawyers have become Democrats' most important faction. This has energized small-business owners, the self-employed, doctors, and others who worry that they will live one lawsuit away from ruin. Such people, now aroused, may propel tort reform that will curtail the windfalls that make trial lawyers the Democrats' largest source of contributions.
Another Democratic faction, organized labor, profits from coercive laws that make mandatory some of the 8 billion it collects in members' dues. Substantial sums flow into Democratic coffers. Furthermore, organized labor is , increasingly, government organized as an interest group--public employess unions. The growth of organized labor is in most unions, whose members tend to vote Democratic, for government growth.
Bush is pressing to put hundreds of thousand federal jobs up for competition with the private sector. Grover Norquist of Americans for Tax Reform says: "The people who cut the Pentagon lawns are government employees. Why?" People listed in the phone book will do it cheaper. How many of the 15 million state and local government jobs could be privatized, with how many billions of dollars in savings?
