NUGENT: The great taxpayer fleecing

OPINION:

When historians look back at this time in our history, I recommend they call this era “The Great American Taxpayer Fleecing.”

This, of course, will not apply to those 50 percent of Americans who pay no income taxes. They get fleeced and conned in other ways, such as the Democratic Party convincing them that evil, greedy Republicans are the reason they are poor, unemployed and underemployed. Sadly, many are obviously too clueless to see which political party is their modern-day slave master and which one wants to liberate them.

There is any number of creative, artful, immoral and probably illegal ways the U.S. taxpayer is being fleeced. Take for example the president’s trillion-dollar stimulus bill.

This expensive albatross has not, cannot and will not stimulate the free market. In fact, unemployment has gone up since Uncle Sham set fire to hundreds and hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars. Again.

The stimulus bill was a fraud, a fleecing of taxpayers of monumental proportions. It was artfully designed to say one thing - it will create jobs, keep unemployment low, grow the economy - while doing another - shoveling stacks and stacks of taxpayer cash to labor unions in return for union members voting Democrat. Where is the congressional investigation of this epic, trillion-dollar voter shakedown?

States and cities are also fleecing taxpayers by cutting deals with public-employee labor unions.

Imagine this: Government employees - those being paid with taxpayer dollars - hold states and cities hostage primarily due to elected state and city officials agreeing to labor contracts and enriching the government employees while the taxpayer gets fleeced and is left to pick up the hefty tab through increased taxes. Chicago politics have infested Washington.

There has been little collective bargaining but much collective fleecing and no one is looking out for the real little guy who is getting fleeced - the taxpayer.

According to Fedzilla’s own Bureau of Labor Statistics, union employees get paid roughly 30 percent more than private-sector employees. And guess what? The largest group of labor-union employees are now government employees. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 37 percent of government employees belong to a union while just 7 percent of private-sector employees do. Jimmy Hoffa lives.

It is directly due to the wages, associated benefits and unheard-of and unsupportable retirement benefits that numerous cities and states are now swamped in debt and headed toward financial collapse under the dead weight of Big Brother.

Wisconsin and other states are trying to get their financial houses in order. Of course, the unionized public employees in these states have fought them at every step. Those who suckle from the teat of the taxpayer are revolting that they may have to pay for more of their retirement and health care costs.

Showing union solidarity instead of doing their duty, you may recall that Democratic, state-elected punks from Wisconsin went and reportedly hid near Chicago instead of voting. Interestingly, both Chicago and Illinois are going bankrupt due to deals they cut with their public employees. Al Capone and Frank Nitty live.

Public employees should be paid a fair-market wage that is not unlike what their private-sector peers are compensated, including wages, benefits and retirement plans. That’s the first step in stopping the fleecing of the taxpayer at the state and city level.

Ted Nugent is an American rock ’n’ roll, sporting and political activist icon. He is the author of “Ted, White and Blue: The Nugent Manifesto” and “God, Guns & Rock ’N’ Roll” (Regnery Publishing).