Who says Democrats only want to expand the size of government? According to this item from today's Political Diary (the best deal around for political junkies at just $3.95 a month), Congressional Democrats have found one government agency their interested in reducing (pardon the departure from OC politics):
Fox Meets Henhouse
Democrats brought the bill appropriating money for the Labor Department to the House floor Tuesday night and promptly ran into an embarrassing amendment. It seems every Labor Department enforcement agency is due for a large budget increase, save for the one small $47 million agency that oversees union anti-corruption efforts and collects reports from unions on how they spend their members' dues money.
The Office of Labor Management Standards, or OLMS, has since 2001 helped secure 775 convictions of corrupt union officials and won restitution of over $70 million in dues to union members. But this has apparently nettled union officials who chafe under the office's scrutiny. Big Labor prevailed upon House Democrats to reject President Bush's request for an inflation-adjusted increase and even to cut $2 million from the office's existing budget.
Labor Secretary Elaine Chao says union members deserve to know how their dues money is spent. Workers can now have ready access to such information through a Website called unionreports.gov. Says Secretary Chao: "Union members are discovering the extent to which their dues money is funding lavish trips for union officials to luxury resorts and other expensive perks unrelated to collective bargaining."
You'd think this kind of disclosure would be popular in Congress, but when GOP Rep. John Kline of Minnesota offered an amendment to restore the $2 million to OLMS's budget, he ran into a buzz saw of criticism. After he began reading a list of union officials convicted of corruption, House Appropriations Chairman David Obey interrupted him: "Is that list longer than the number of members of Congress guilty of corruption?" he sneered, no doubt referring to recent GOP corruption scandals involving a handful of members.
In the end, the OLMS budget cuts were retained by a vote of 237 to 186, with only eight Democrats voting for greater oversight of unions. Sixteen Republicans, most of them from Northeastern districts where union retaliation could cost them their seats, sided with Democrats in weakening the one federal agency charged with making sure that the $22 billion in assets held by unions are spent properly on behalf of their members.
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