Round Up

Lorie Zapf's staff left me a phone message today, but I wasn't available to take the call. I will try again tomorrow, I'm highly interested to hear what her position on the new city hall might be. At least the caller was apologetic for not getting back to me.

I could barely believe that I had tuned in to a memorial service today. Whistling, cheering, themed t-shirts? Really? Could we respect the dead?

IMAO nails it in dissecting the left:

That’s why so many on the left were so excited by the Giffords shooting. They were convinced here was finally the proof of their religious faith about the right’s “dangerous rhetoric” and they could hardly contain their glee at the tragedy. When the facts came out and they didn’t get the prize they hoped for, they just couldn’t let go of their narrative because to them it’s so true no matter what happens in reality.

At least the President said something decent:

Scripture tells us that there is evil in the world, and that terrible things happen for reasons that defy human understanding. In the words of Job, "When I looked for light, then came darkness." Bad things happen, and we have to guard against simple explanations in the aftermath.

For the truth is none of us can know exactly what triggered this vicious attack. None of us can know with any certainty what might have stopped these shots from being fired, or what thoughts lurked in the inner recesses of a violent man's mind.

Locally, I missed that Carl DeMaio has taken the first steps to run for mayor. I really like DeMaio, but I holding fire on any endorsement for now. His rhetoric and policy proposals over the last year have been very Tea Party-esque, but I haven't done much research on his overall record. DeMaio is the only one who seems to be serious about legally challenging the actuarial realities of the pension crisis in the city.

Also, in local news, I am saddened to see Coach Brady Hoke going to Michigan. He did a great job in turning around a moribund SDSU football program. I watched them defeat my Alma Mater in the Poinsettia Bowl and they played a well disciplined game on both sides of the ball, that was a credit to the coaching staff's work.

Programming announcement: I have been asked to cross-post some of my blogs to sdrostra.com under the B-Daddy name. Quite an honor to have my posts on the same page as Richard Rider. I want to kick off with a meaty local post, so this won't be the first one.

Just a Little More on Saturday's Shooting

KT tweets a great article by Dr. Helen about our simultaneous toleration of and indifference to obviously mentally disturbed individuals like Saturday's shooter. She points out that opportunities to steer him towards help and the ability to do something about the mentally disturbed in the college setting are overlooked.

Drudge is filled with more headlines of politicians trying to make hay out of this shooting.

Dem Congressman: If Violent Rhetoric Didn't Cause This Shooting -- It Will Cause Next One!
BILL CLINTON: 'WE NEED TO BE CAREFUL ABOUT THINGS WE SAY'...
MSNBC Matthews Cites Radio Stars Mark Levin, Michael Savage As Reason For AZ Shooting...
Dem Senator Fundraises Off Murders...
Lawmakers struggle for answers, consider curbs on incendiary speech...

OBAMA FLASHBACK: 'If They Bring a Knife to the Fight, We Bring a Gun'...

---

Dem rep urging 'civility' had called for FL guv candidate to be shot...

Meanwhile the WSJ today has a great piece about the historical context of "heated rhetoric." John Steele Gordon shows the disconnect between political belief and the actions of American assassins.

But in the U.S., assassination has almost always been the work of a lone, and usually lonely, gunman—albeit one often obsessed by politics in one way or another.

Reason.com reminds us that Americans are pretty level headed about the causes of this tragedy.

Meanwhile, in SLOBovia, local bloggers, W.C. Varones, Dean, and Left Coast Rebel hit back at the leftist meme that rhetoric or politics had something to do with the tragic shooting of Rep. Giffords.

Too Much to Hope For

I guess it was too much to hope for that yesterday's tragedy would not be demagogued by the left for political gain.

Exhibit 1. H/T Hot Air. CNN attempts to tie yesterday's shooter to Sarah Palin without a shred of evidence. Of course, this same network was all over the "let's don't blame radical Islam" in the Major Hassan, Fort Hood shooting. Stinking hypocrisy.

Exhibit 2. H/T Drudge. In the never let a crisis go to waste category, from Politico:

One of the fiercest gun-control advocates in Congress, Rep. Carolyn McCarthy (D-N.Y.), pounced on the shooting massacre in Tucson Sunday, promising to introduce legislation as soon as Monday.

The dead haven't even been buried and some of the wounded are still fighting for their lives, so let's make this political and start dividing the country.

Have you no shame?

Exhibit 3. Keith Olbmermann and commenters at DailyKos and other lefty sites are seeking to blame the Tea Party for "overheated rhetoric." Pardon me, but the Tea Party has always been about energizing an electorate to vote against more spending. Such a canard only further divides this country in a time of tragedy.

As Ed Morrissey pointed out in the original link, both parties use wartime rhetoric to describe their strategies and to rally their followers. Only the deranged take this to mean that actual violence is contemplated.

Exhibit 4. Daily Kos can blame Sarah Palin for putting a bullseye on Congresswoman Gifford's district, but takes down this diary, as if no one would notice (image courtesy of WND):

BoyBlue's excuse for posting and taking down? He meant no harm. But Moulitsas can somehow impugn Sarah Palin's motives? The left's rush to ascribe evil motive says more about their mind set than anything about the Tea Party.

The extreme of the left is always angry and full of vitriol. If they lose elections, they are angry at some conspiracy. If they win elections they are angry that they didn't win enough or they guy won't be lefty enough. If anyone is full of the hate they accuse everyone else of, it is themselves.

Eventually, all of the facts will come out in this case and we will be able to discern motive and mental capacity. In the mean time, could we tone down the rhetoric?

Why couldn't the left take their cue from this statement from our President?

This morning, in an unspeakable tragedy, a number of Americans were shot in Tucson, Arizona, at a constituent meeting with Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords. And while we are continuing to receive information, we know that some have passed away, and that Representative Giffords is gravely wounded.

We do not yet have all the answers. What we do know is that such a senseless and terrible act of violence has no place in a free society. I ask all Americans to join me and Michelle in keeping Representative Giffords, the victims of this tragedy, and their families in our prayers.

His follow on statement wasn't bad either.

I would also like to commend Temple of Mut for a more detailed review of the issues surrounding the smear campaign conducted in the aftermath of this tragedy.

Who Are These Guys?

Apparently the need for extra revenue to fund our fair city's operations has gotten the juices flowing in our local bureaucracy. Two stories are in today's U-T that while unrelated, have revenue as the root motive for actions by city employees.

First, it has apparently taken the city a dozen years to notice that the state of California imposes a surcharge on every parking ticket issued by the city and collects the revenue for Sacramento. Unfortunately, this means that every ticket handed out by our local gendarmes resulted in local taxpayers paying for the surcharge, not the violator. The City Council voted to end the practice and pass the surcharge on to violators, ending the $3.8 million annual loss. Carl DeMaio was the lone dissenting vote. I like Carl, but think he is mistaken this time. No the state shouldn't be tacking on a surcharge, but the city shouldn't pick up the tab on behalf of the violators.

Second, investigators for the Metropolitan Transit System have been conducting investigations in Tijuana about fare card counterfeiting and card re-use to prevent loss of revenue to the MTS. Unfortunately, they apparently just moseyed on down, south of the border, without so much as a "by your leave" or any other notifications required by international treaty or courtesy. Thankfully, no one mistook them for DEA agents and they all came home alive. Image at left is "A ticket sale caught on camera by an MTS investigator sent to Mexico."

More nice reporting from the U-T watchdog.

No Weekend Music

I was late to post weekend music, but I am now going to forebear, as a virtual moment of silence for those slain in Arizona.

Today's Despicable Act

Been laid up today with illness, so I got the word late about the despicable shooting of AZ Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords. She was by all accounts a decent human being. John Boehner's statement that an attack on any member of Congress is an "attack on all who serve" is the right tone. We pray for all who were injured and pray for comfort for the families of those who died.

I also pray that this will bring us together in our desire to resolve our differences democratically, as Americans of all political persuasion, rightly condemn the horror of such violence. Blaming anyone but the evil perpetrator will do us no good. I also pray that justice will be done in this case.

Odds and Ends

Nancy Pelosi blames Democrat Congressional election losses on George Bush.

Road Dawg asked me to comment on the firing of the C.O. of the Enterprise, Captain Owen Honors. At first, I didn't pay much attention to the issue, figuring that he had made a major screw up and the Navy wasn't going to leave someone in command under those circumstances. However, after reading up on the issue, now I am not so sure. He was XO four years ago when those videos were made. Many officers who are now admirals were aware of the videos, including his then Commanding Officer. Not a peep from any of them, shameful. CDRSalamander comments more extensively.

The Tea Party has repeatedly pointed out that if spending goes up, taxes are eventually going up. Illinois, on the brink of default, proves the case. Democrat legislators and the governor are working up a great plan:

The Democratic leaders in the Illinois General Assembly believe this income tax increase, a corporate tax hike, and a $1-per-pack tax increase on cigarettes would erase the state’s $15 billion budget deficit.

Good luck with that. Income tax increases never generate the revenue predicted, nor cigarette taxes for that matter.

Still no response from Lorie Zapf on the City Hall issue. No mention of the issue during Zapf's interview with LaDona Harvey on KOGO today. (I checked the podcast.)

And in the "Why didn't I think of that?" department, this quote on Obama administration efforts to court business:

Mr. Obama has compelling reasons to repair relations with corporate America. Unemployment remains stubbornly high. There's little likelihood of significant new stimulus spending from Congress or big new moves by the Federal Reserve to pump money into the economy.

That means the key to economic growth—and Mr. Obama's re-election prospects—could lie in corporate treasuries. U.S. non-financial businesses are sitting on nearly $2 trillion in cash and liquid assets, the most since World War II, and Mr. Obama wants them to use it to create more U.S. jobs.

And why are they sitting on their cash, you magna cum laudes in the Administration? Because your policies have harmed the business climate in America and created huge uncertainty. The worst offender being Obamacare, which no one can figure out, and to quote Dean has this fabulousness granting Sebelius Viceroy like powers over health care in the obamacare bill:

700: the number of references to the secretary "shall".

200: the number of references to the secretary "may".

139: the number of references to the secretary "determines".

After he leaves the White House, Barack Obama should sue Columbia and Harvard for failing to provide adequate education in economics and management, hopefully early in 2013.

Whose Afraid of Defunding Obamacare?

Light blogging of late as I am suffering from a cold and exigencies at work caused late night reading of "root cause analysis" documentation on a subject where I have prior expertise. I can only say I am thankful I am no longer in that particular line of work.

Word on the street is that Republicans will not de-fund Obamacare, because they are too afraid of losing a confrontation over a "government shut down" as in 1995 with Clinton. O'Reilly has been so opining, although Dick Morris thinks otherwise.

However, I don't think anyone has thought it through. By not taking the Senate, the Republicans actually gain the upper hand in this little confrontation, and they have a very nice fall back position. Since the appropriations bills must originate in the House of Representatives, the Republicans can send over all manner of appropriations that prohibit the funding of various aspects of Obamacare. Then Harry Reid will have a tough call to make. He will likely amend the appropriation and send it back to the House. A conference committee would then have to resolve differences. Now it is equally on the Senate whether particular agencies get shut down. (Remember that most agencies operate on their own appropriations bill, so the whole government doesn't really get shut down at once.)

Meanwhile, if the Republicans find that they don't want to take the heat, they can just pass what are known as "continuing resolutions." These fund the government at the same level as the prior year, and have the advantage of not building an inflation factor into the funding. Further, because Obamacare was not funded under the previous appropriations, the heads of agencies, like Sebelius at HHS, will have to cut other programs if they are to fund the various commissions, studies and assorted hoopla associate with the bill. Further, some of the shifting of funds is of questionable constitutionality. (Article 1, Section 9, No Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law; and a regular Statement and Account of the Receipts and Expenditures of all public Money shall be published from time to time.) This will give Darell Issa further opportunity to haul heads of agencies in front of his committee.

The Republicans could actually just continue in this vain until 2012, and keep making a big deal out of it, making Obamacare a big part of the next Presidential election. Since the bill never really caught on, and none of the commissions, death panels or societies of experts intended to rule your life are popular, their is really no down side to this plan. I double-dog-dare the President to veto an appropriations bill or continuing resolution that funds things like medicare reimbursement, over the failure to get his commissions set up.

Now it's up to the man of the hour to see this baby through.



Postscript

Forgot to mention that KBWD has a nice video round up of yesterday's festivities at the change of command swearing in of the new of the new Speaker.

No Answer From Lorie Zapf

I gave Lorie Zapf a week to get back to me on the new City Hall issue. So far, no response. Here is what I said in my email:

Lorie,
I voted for you and endorsed your candidacy on my blog. Please address the rumors published in the U-T that you might support building a new city hall without a vote of the people. We met on October 6, before the election when you were walking the neighborhood; I know you met many voters, but you made an impression.
The article is linked here:
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/2010/dec/26/san-diego-city-hall-project-rises-from-the-ashes/

I also left a message with her office, with a live person, no less. Still no response.

Donna Frye's staff got back to me on a streets complaint in two days. Ms. Zapf is going to have to step up her game.

Unique Subculture

I have long thought the U-T to be an inferior paper with a pro-business agenda that wasn't inherently favorable to the average taxpayer. Additionally, they do an atrocious job on college football and world events. Superior to the overt leftism of the L.A. Times perhaps, but I have also subscribed to the WSJ for a broader perspective. However, the U-T watchdog is earning my respect, as they have been diving into local malfeasance, and I am now following them on twitter. Dave Maass at CityBeat is still my favorite local reporter.

Anyway, the U-T watchdog has an article that references the way the "unique subculture" of petition signature gatherers leads to exaggerations regarding petitions that they are paid to get filled with voter signatures. I had some personal experience with this described in an earlier post. This quote comes from "Jeff" (not his real name):

The signature gatherer acknowledged to The Watchdog on Tuesday that he lied about his name because he was afraid of getting into trouble for setting up shop outside Target.

“This is very competitive, people are cutthroat. People get up at 3 a.m. to stake out a place to work,” said the worker, who declined to disclose his real name. “This place is a gold mine, but I don’t want to mess things up. I’m not trying to give anyone bad information, I’m just doing my part to get this to a ballot so the people can decide.”

I sometimes make the mistake of engaging in conversation with the gatherers, even though they are often "off the grid" they are usually very personable. But, better to read the actual verbiage on the petition than listen to their descriptions. Bob Glaser, a paid coordinator for this petition drive had this to say:

“This is a very unique subculture,” Glaser said. “Some are off the grid and they are very independent. If you work in front of a store over a long period of time, you start to pick up on buzz words that catch people’s attention.”

Expanding Deficit - Revenue or Spending Problem? UPDATED

Steve commented on my BWD post that the reason that the federal deficit is growing is due to decreasing federal revenue. Because of Hauser's law, I opined that it must be due to rising spending. I pulled up this chart from the Heritage Foundation to check the facts. What do you think?



In case I lose the link:



However, I am a little mystified at the rate at which the debt is climbing, it does not appear to be fully explained by either the rise in spending nor the fall in revenue. The deficit is climbing at a rate of $2 trillion per year, where as the gap between revenue and debt only recently peaked at $1.5 trillion per year. From CBS News:



Anyone who knows the answer to this mystery, I am anxious to hear from you.

UPDATE

W.C. points out in the comments that I am not the first person to have noticed that the debt is growing faster than the deficit would suggest, pointing out that Zero Hedge and Denninger had commented, without concise conclusion, there seems to be a general consensus that the difference is accounting gimmicks. Adam Freund suggests that it is a failure to account for interest on the debt. Thanks for the further insight.

Local Porkulus Fabulousness

The U-T watchdog reports today on a Chula Vista charity that has difficulties with accounting for how stimulus cash was spent. The State Inspector General found the following about the Metropolitan Area Advisory Committee (MAAC).

The report showed that the Chula Vista nonprofit altered records, such as dates on applications, and may have provided benefits to people who were not eligible.
. . .
Her audit found that MAAC commingled stimulus funds with other agency revenue, failed to account for $888 in travel costs, under-calculated the number of jobs created and performed oversight work after delivering services to clients instead of in advance.

The MAAC, of course, denies any wrong doing. And why do we care, it's only a million?

Term Limits for the School Board?

"Sign the petition for term limits for the school board." The scraggly signature gatherer outside my local grocery store had my attention. "Really," I asked, "what else does it say?" "Local district elections," was his reply. Wow, sounded great. I picked up the petition board. He also told me there was more on the back. Taking a read, I became less impressed. There was some language about increasing the number of districts, but having some of the members nominated by particular community groups. I admit that I signed anyway, figuring we could debate the merits later.

Now I wish I hadn't. The petition drive is the brain child of an innocuous sounding group called San Diegans 4 Greater Schools. Scott Himmelstein is the organizer and he is given a full page to explain himself in the VOSD. My key problem is that four of the nine members of the school board would be appointed by people based on their positions as leaders of committees that are part of education/community partnerships. Such a plan has two key drawbacks, of which I am sure that Mr. Himmelstein is aware, but isn't discussing. First, these well meaning and dedicated people are, by the nature of their volunteer efforts, part of the education establishment. They wouldn't have been elevated to their positions without being able to work effectively with the educracy. This plan is a clever way for the education establishment to pick its own board. Look at the people who would be on the nominating committee if this plan were in effect today, and tell me honestly that these people aren't education insiders. I have no problem with their work, I just don't think they should be appointing members of the board.

Second, because of the new power that would be vested in these positions, inevitably, there will be political pressure to ensure that those appointed tow the mark with respect to the type of people nominated. One could easily see members being removed or replaced for political reasons, with the possible exception of the university presidents. This would be a disservice to these community leaders who are presumably working to make our schools better.

If we have learned anything from the Obamacare debacle, it is that process matters. School reform is too important an issue to be pursued with a school board that has members not selected through the democratic process, even if they are a minority. There is nothing about their plan to improve schools that couldn't be accomplished through an entirely democratically elected school board. Go to their web site and ask these same questions. If school reform is important, then those impacted need a grass roots movement of their own to start electing like minded board members. Further, I could be convinced that term limits and district only elections for the members of the board might also be a good thing, but undemocratic processes cause my gut to recoil.

Image courtesy of my lefty friends at OB RAG, with whom I seldom agree, but met at the coffee party meetings and seemed decent enough folks. They aren't down with this plan either.

Tea Party Democrat Resolutions

Temple of Mut has honored my request to post on the subject of New Year's Resolutions for Democrats, even at great personal cost to her psyche. In addition to highlighting a rational perspective for Democrats, she provides insight on the battle to rescue the Democratic party from the far left extremism represented by Nancy Pelosi.
This battle is important; as Dean has pointed out, it has mostly been Democrats fighting to free our schools from a union tyranny of mediocrity. As long as the the Democratic party is working for union bosses, not working people, such battles will be a steep uphill struggle.

Please take a moment to read Temple of Mut's post.

B-Daddy's Predictions for 2011

Temple of Mut has called for SLOB predictions for 2011, here are B-Daddy's fearless predictions for the coming year.

1. Extreme cold or heat, extreme rain or drought, ice cap melting or growth, will be explained to be a result of anthropogenic global warming. (OK, this one is hardly fearless.)

2. The economy will recover, but the yet to be deflated housing bubble and debt overhang will stall the recovery by year end.

3. Romney, Palin and Huckabee will fade as leading candidates due to their various flaws and inadequate Tea Party credentials.

4. The nut roots left will froth at the mouth over Obama and Republicans, in equal parts.

5. The battle to reduce spending will be a draw due to split government and Democrat members of Congress resorting to obstructionism with Obama's tacit approval.

6. A major multiemployer union pension plan will go belly up, taking down a large corporation.

Take these with a grain of salt, as a great man once said, "It's tough to make predictions, especially about the future."

New Year's Resolutions for Republicans - Correction

Dean and I are both Republicans, even if many Tea Party supporters are not. The Republican Party has been the recipient of Tea Party energy and votes, even if not always wanted by party leadership. I will admit that it even cost the Senate seat in Delaware. However, the Tea Party primary challenges put real fear into Republican leadership. The early pay off was the defeat of Omnibus and its earmarks. So in the spirit of helping the Republicans get re-elected by doing the work of the people, I propose the following New Year's Resolutions for the Republican Party members of Congress.

• We will focus on reducing spending as our number one priority. (With the temporary extension of Bush tax cuts, tax policy can temporarily take a back seat.)
  
• We will start the spending reduction by de-funding Obamacare.
• We will swear off earmarks.
• We will hold hearings on the failure to enforce the border.
• We will investigate Obama regulatory overreach.
  
• We will not introduce a flag burning amendment, school prayer bill, or a challenge to DADT, etc.
  

That should be a good start, there are certainly many more worthy resolutions and I invite your comment. But I like to keep these lists short, because rule #2 in B-Daddy's Book of Management is that the resource in shortest supply is always management attention. The corollary being that management should focus only on the most important things.

I leave it to the Temple to collaborate with Dawn for resolutions for the Democratic party. Maybe W.C. or Shane could take a stab at Libertarian party resolutions.

Cross posted at Beers with Demo.

Correction

Dawn will not be commenting from the Democrat perspective, because she is in fact, a Republican, as pointed out by Mutnodjmet in the comments. My apologies for the error.

Programming Note - Followers

I have added a follow this blog gadget to the right. If you are a regular reader of the blog, take a moment to click the follow link. It will help me see who is out there and let you keep track of my blog more easily if you use Google's tools like Google reader.

Weekend Music Chill

It's a new year, a new dawn and a new day. A repudiation of leftism has caused a massive change in the make up of Congress. It's possible that Obama will be a one term President. People have mostly come to their senses about the root causes of our nation's financial crisis. So, like Nina Simone, I'm feelin' good.

Quick Hitters

Today's headlines and comments offer such a broad range of topics, I can hardly focus on any one in particular.

Thoughtful commenter Steve, who often challenges me and Dean asks "What alternative plan would get more people to engage in end of life planning?" in response to my objection to government incentives to have this discussion. My response, nothing. The discussion shouldn't be the subject of government incentives because it pollutes the discussion. Further, medicare needs to be fundamentally changed because the government has an incentive for people to die early. If we are going to subsidize elderly health care, then we would be better off providing them a voucher to purchase their own health insurance, to which they could add their own funds. The health insurers could offer plans that include the counseling or not and the individual patients could make the decision.

According to the New York Post, union sanitation workers deliberately slowed the clearing of city streets to protest budget cuts, and the demotion of supervisors. There are indications that the demoted supervisors were culpable. Thanks for making the case for privatization gang. If private firms were contracted to do the work, this would not have happened if proper incentives were in the contract. (A big if, but I know of many ways to put proper incentives in contracts.)

I am worried about the economic recovery. The Wall Street Journal has some contradictory indicators. First, loan activity to businesses is increasing, usually something that is a lagging indicator for economic for recovery. Contrariwise, we see home prices stalling which could presage a double dip recession. My intuition is that housing prices were never allowed to fall far enough to allow for the economy to recovery. Peter Schiff makes that case today, but a picture is often worth a thousand words:


The efforts to prop up the housing market are going to come back to bite this administration, as falling prices and loss of equity choke off recovery.

Finally, more government action to help you die more quickly, at least if you have breast cancer. The FDA is forbidding the use of Avastin in the late treatment of breast cancer, on the basis that it is not "sufficiently" effective. Sufficiently in this case means that it costs too much. When did the FDA get into the business of deciding which drugs are too expensive? Avastin is good enough to treat other forms of cancer, and the FDA has not been aggressive in the past about off label use, so why the rush now? Does Obamacare have anything to do with it? Rivkin and Foley lay out the whole sordid tale.

However, there is some good local news. Walmart collected enough signatures to put the big box ordinance on the ballot. Now the City Council is going to have reconsider their folly. I hope they will repeal the ordinance and spare us the expense of an election. Another opportunity for new council member Lorie Zapf to shine.

Another Pension Crisis

Teamster support for Democrats in 2008 isn't going to save them from pension disaster.

Two days ago I tweeted about the newest pension issue, the underfunding of the school district pensions, documented by the U-T. In the latest Reason magazine, yet another pension debacle is documented. This problem is a little trickier to explain. In many unionized industries, multiple companies join together to fund a defined benefit plan called a multiemployer plan. There are about 1,500 such plans covering 10 million workers. However, the plans have some catches that are causing problems. First, they are defined benefit plans, so stock market or other investment losses increase the funding required. Second, they have a "last man standing" rule, that works like this. If five companies were originally in the plan and four go bankrupt, the fifth company is liable for all of the pensions in the plan. Third, withdrawing from the plan requires discharging the debt to the plan, and every major firm that has withdrawn to reduce future liabilities has had to pay in, far more than the markets predicted. For example, in 2007, UPS had to cough up $6.1 billion to withdraw from the Teamsters plan.

This is where a new accounting rule put forward by the FASB comes into play. The FASB is moving towards requiring that company exposure to liabilities under multiemployer plans be fully disclosed in financial statements. (The FASB is not a government agency, but the SEC generally enforces adherence to their standards.) The problem facing the unions is that once the rules are in place, they will wipe huge amounts of book value from company balance sheets. This will erode stock price and put participating companies under threat of bankruptcy. The threat to private sector unions is huge. From Reason magazine "Labor's Last Stand?" by Mark Hemingway (not yet available online):

First, unions will no longer have one of their most effective selling points: the promise of a stable job and a generous defined-benefit retirement plan. Second, workers who are denied their promised retirement due to gross financial mismanagement are going to get awfully litigious, awfully fast. Once aggrieved union members become fully aware of the problem, you can expect a flurry of class action lawsuits, with workers looking to recoup their lost retirements by going after the assets of the employers -- and unions -- that managed their plans.

This is why the unions have been campaigning so hard for card check, they need fresh members to start shoring up the plans with new donations contributions. Further, Senator Bob Casey introduced legislation last March, the Orwellian named Create Jobs and Save Benefits Act of 2010 to create an unlimited entitlement to have the United States assume liability for these plans, just as if they were Treasury bonds. Fortunately, the bill has not made it out of committee and did not appear to get traction in the lame duck session. Neither did card check for that matter.

Meanwhile, the FASB has put on hold the proposed change, probably at the behest of unions. But it probably doesn't matter, because investors are increasingly demanding to understand these liabilities and pricing stocks accordingly. Ultimately, these plans collapse will go a long way to destroying what remains of America's private sector unions, down to 7% of the work force, because they will take down many of the companies that are liable for funding them.