Steelman uses Wisconsin situation to ratchet up contributions

Following up on last week's tweet when she backed the anti-union stand of Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, former State Treasurer Sarah Steelman, a candidate for U. S. Senate, throws herself completely on the anti-union side and makes a pitch for contributions to boot:

The actions of Governor Walker in Wisconsin will spread across the country as a growing number of states, burdened with huge pension and health benefit liabilities for public employees, face bankruptcy. Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker is taking a strong stand to do what is right - to do what he has to do - balance the state's budget.

The Pew Center on the States estimates that state unfunded liabilities for pension funds amount to $1 trillion in this country. Some of this is due to collective bargaining agreements. Governor Walker has the foresight to know that future administrations cannot sustain these kinds of unfunded benefits without causing state bankruptcy and handing the bill to the taxpayers. He wants it stopped, and I support his efforts.

Why does that matter to us in Missouri? Because Democrats in Washington, controlled by union bosses, want taxpayers to bail out these pension funds. Senator McCaskill is supported by more than $400,000 in campaign contributions from labor. (She also supports employee card check, which allows union employees to bypass the secret ballot process.)

In Missouri, we fought hard to stop public employee unions from taking union fees out of public employees' paychecks in 2004. It is just plain wrong to use taxpayer money to fund union activities. As a member of the State Senate, I voted twice to stop that kind of misuse of taxpayer dollars and that is what I will do as your U.S. Senator.

Families who are struggling to make ends meet every day should not be asked to bail out states that have allowed unions to take control of their budgets. As your next U.S. Senator, I will not support collective bargaining for federal employees that commit billions of taxpayer dollars to higher and higher benefits and wages of an ever expanding government that cannot be sustained.

Please join with me to fight to protect hard-earned taxpayer dollars from being raided by Washington Democrats protecting unreasonable union labor demands. We cannot sustain another bail out in the name of bad choices, mismanagement and unreasonable demands by public employee unions.

We know we can do better, but the fight must be joined by all of us to make it happen. Your contribution to this campaign is your voice being heard. Our future is at stake. It is up to us.