It's Official: Liberals are now Part of the Problem

CNN Poll:  Majority of Americans See Government as a Threat

Fifty-six percent of people questioned in a CNN/Opinion Research Corporation survey released Friday say they think the federal government's become so large and powerful that it poses an immediate threat to the rights and freedoms of ordinary citizens.

Forty-four percent of those polled disagree. (CNN Poll)

Guess Who Made Up The 44% Who Love Big Government?
Remember when liberals protested government?  Now that they have infested academia, mass media, and ...  The Government!  They use these powerful soapboxes to harangue the proletariat and rally them to the cause of government.  The bigger and more oppressive the better.  

Here's the breakdown of the CNN poll by ideology:

* 63% of Independents see government as a threat

* 70% of Conservatives agree with that proposition

* A puny 37% of Democratic sheeple think the Federal Government is too big

Here's Why

Ross Kaminsky, American Spectator explains:

In the last few years, government employment -- and thus the taxes required to fund it -- has been growing while private businesses across the nation have had to cut back to survive. As THIS chart from Americans for Limited Government shows, since December 2007 the private sector has lost over 7 million jobs while government has added about 100,000 jobs.

By 2008, the federal worker was making double -- yes double -- the private sector worker.

Public Pension Plans (unlike our private sector 401Ks) are choking state and local governments:

"A $1 trillion gap… exists between the $3.35 trillion in pension, health care and other retirement benefits states have promised their current and retired workers as of fiscal year 2008 and the $2.35 trillion they have on hand to pay for them."

The unions which represent government workers, including the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), and the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), are accumulating power, money, and influence, especially over Democrats, and using these as a self-reinforcing mechanism to acquire more.

Follow The Money (From the Unions to the Democratic Coffers)

In 2008, unions contributed $74.5 million to political candidates, of which $68.2 million went to Democrats.  Since 1990, unions have contributed over $630 million to Democrats (more than 12 times their contributions to Republicans.)

The ever-pithy Michael Barone sums is up beautifully: 

"Public-sector unionism tends to be a self-perpetuating machine that extracts money from taxpayers and then puts it on a conveyor belt to the Democratic Party."

So government unions use their poorly-paid liberal confreres in the private sector as campaign shock troops to get Democrat elected.  Government workers get paid more, private sector workers get paid less, making them angrier, and the cycle repeats.  It will be interesting to see when these good-hearted unemployed liberals realize they're getting screwed.

It's a self-licking liberal ice cream cone, and we're footing the bill...