Follow the money

Panicked Democrats have been wailing recently about how Big Business -- perhaps with money from overseas! -- is trying to buy the November elections thanks to a recent Supreme Court decision that threw out limits on corporate political spending.

But while the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and a handful of outside groups supporting free markets have indeed ramped up their political involvement this cycle, the biggest spenders are actually ... the government employee unions.

Leading the way, The Wall Street Journal reports, is the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees at $87.5 million -- about 17 percent more than the chamber has doled out. The Service Employees International Union has spent $44 million, while the National Education Association has spread around $40 million.

This money, of course, goes almost exclusively to Democrats, who have become the party of the government, for the government and by the government. Thanks to elected Democrats at all levels, public-sector workers over the past few years have largely been immune to the layoffs, pay cuts and benefit adjustments so common in the private sector during this time of economic distress. These current union "investments" are designed to ensure that the Democratic Party continues to protect the public-sector's generous compensation packages at the expense of taxpayers.

"A lot of people are attacking public-sector unions as the problem," AFSCME President Gerald McEntee told the Journal. "We're spending big. And we're damn happy it's big."

It's an insidious cycle.

Democrats take from the taxpayers to grow bureaucracies and grant generous pay and benefit hikes to public-sector workers even during times of stagnant growth. The unions hijack some of that taxpayer money in the form of dues and turn around and shower those very same Democrats with contributions designed to ensure the cycle continues.

"Public-sector unions have a guaranteed source of revenue," a chamber official told the Journal. "You and me as taxpayers."

And that should be far more worrisome than the U.S. Chamber of Commerce using voluntary contributions to spread a message of free minds and free markets.