My under graduate degrees were earned in Iowa, my Juris Doctorate is from Tulsa. Certainly it would be hard to claim that a law school is a bastion of conservatism or that Iowa is anything but middle of the road.
The rising tide comment is over used, misquoted, and often misunderstood while being easily rebutted as you pointed out. However, when considering ones audience it is sometimes needed to use such well known cliches. I would prefer to phrase it: an economic environment in which laissez faire governmental policies enable a industrious workforce to operate and profit from their endeavors is likely to produce an increase in goods and services of increasing quality and efficiency while contributing great wealth to few and an increase level of wealth to the majority. However, the careful wording of that statement would probably be lost on many who are only facially interested in economics. Anyway, I believe the basic idea of Kennedy's statement is correct: a robust economy is better for everyone. It makes no promise of equality.
While I wholeheartedly agree that many of the periods of rapid uninhibited capitalism did not immediately result in anything beneficial to most of the poor; it was the growth in those period that eventually enabled the masses to enjoy prosperity. Of course, the labor movement and the latter study of labor relations has greatly altered that equation anyway (with most modern companies relying on market policies to compensate employees in such a way so as to retain the best they can).
[full disclosure: I work closely with a union in town and have had no complaints with my relationship nor negotiations with them]
Thus, my view of union labor is mixed. While I think they serve a vital roll in establishing fair wages and working conditions, I think they often get the upper hand on a company and take all they can out of it. Just as they complained companies were doing in years past.
A study of Waterloo Iowa and similar industrial towns exemplifies this. Waterloo is a company town, John Deere, a strong AFL-CIO company, is by far its major employer. The union greatly improved working conditions in the plants (especially the foundry) and help arbitrate disputes between often distant management and workers. At its peak John Deere had nearly 25,000 workers in Waterloo. Today it employees around 6,000 employees and 19,000 robots. From a business standpoint, John Deere can not afford to pay someone $50,000+ a year to put bolts on a tractor tire... continuing to do so would deprive everyone at the company of a job in the long run. Thus, people have been laid off and as people retired no one is hired to replace them.
Rath packing was based in Waterloo and employed nearly 10,000 people. The union leveraged increases in wages until the company was in financial ruin. Under threat of closure the union voted to loan its pension fund to the company to keep it running... it failed and all pensions were lost. Everyone, even non-union members, were out of a job.
Another issue I draw with the unions, that will come to light in the near future, is the gap between new members and old members. The new guys in a union shop often made 50% or less of what the legacy members make. They often do the same job. The older members, nearer to retirement, are happy to trade wages for better health coverage or a lower vestige for their pension, while they pull in $50,000+ a year and the guys that have been there for 5 or 6 years make $25-30,000. With all the members, young and old/father and son, I know in the AFL-CIO this is commonly known and the old guys have no doubt they are sticking it to the young guys. There are fewer jobs and the union protection is limited for new members. Likewise, when enough old members are no longer voting... it will turn the tide the other way and Im sure the federal government will be paying Union Pensions and underfunded health care promises.
Other strong Unions in the nation include legacy airlines, automakers, steel manufacturers and mining. All industries that are seeking to automate as much as possible and with the exception of mining, are in a rapid decline. Most of the strong non-governmental unions in the nation have caused their industries to become non-competitive in a global market and many are losing their jobs as a result. I dont think its a coincidence that the most heavily unionized industries are the ones that lay off the most people and are in general decline. (the longshoreman, teamsters and associated shipping unions are an odd duck in this mix. While they are strong, provide good wages, and are thriving... its hard for them to argue against free trade or increased imports. Thus their interests are much more muted than others).
I guess it would have been a shorter answer to say
greed is a two way street. Some companies want to get all they can from their workers and dont care about their labor force. Some unions want the same from the company and have no regard (or understanding?) or its long term viability.and while I have to agree that many people spout similar rhetorically pros, I am happy to report mine is research, considered, debated, and decided upon independently of anything I may have heard on the AM dial.
Per government, Libertarian as charged. As I stated before, I am of the opinion that the Federal Government is not trustworthy, inefficient, knee jerk, power hungry, and detached. It operates with an unlimited budget and completely unrestrained - remember, we are supposed to have a government of limited enumerated powers. Base on those beliefs and my experience that a larger government rarely solves any problems, a smaller government seems better.
Contrary to belief, this actually places me well outside the stereotypical lines of 'right wing' as such a statement of limited government would also inhibit the federal government's ability to dictate social policy and many individual behaviors. Hence I remain a pariah, basically outlawed in Oklahoma (which requires a minimum of 10% of a presidential vote to be considered a political party:
http://www.oklp.org/obar/2006_OBARpacket.pdf). Stupid two party system.
