The foundations of our nation’s strength are a love of liberty and a pioneering spirit These values—inherited from our Founders and embodied by all who came to our shores seeking opportunity—have made the United States the most powerful nation in the history of the world.
The foundations of our nation’s strength are a love of liberty and a pioneering spirit of innovation and creativity. These values—inherited from our Founders and embodied by all who came to our shores seeking opportunity—have made the United States the most powerful nation in the history of the world. But today, under President Obama’s leadership, Washington is smothering these values at home and sapping our influence abroad. The federal government has grown too large. And President Obama has presided over one of the worst economies in modern history—millions of jobs have been lost, record numbers of Americans are in danger of losing their homes, and personal bankruptcies have skyrocketed. He has failed the American people.
Mitt Romney believes in America. He believes that liberty, opportunity, and free enterprise have led to prosperity and strength before and will do so again. America, however, must take decisive action to roll back the misguided policies of the last three years, empower our citizens, and restore the foundations of our nation’s strength.
What’s at Stake
Over the years, unions have made extraordinarily important contributions to American society. Many of the protections and benefits enjoyed by workers in the 21st century are the result of sacrifices and struggles and hard-won battles fought by unions in an earlier era. But today, the effects of unionization have changed in ways that need to be recognized. Too often, unions drive up costs and introduce rigidities that harm competitiveness and frustrate innovation.
The statistics tell an unkind story. Studies conducted by non-partisan scholars have shown that labor unions reduce investment and slow job growth. Right-to-Work states have added millions of jobs over the past decade while states with pro-union policies have shed nearly a million jobs. In a recent Gallup poll, a majority of Americans said that labor unions “mostly hurt” the American economy.
Yet as unionization becomes less and less popular—union membership in the private sector has declined from 36 percent in the 1950s to less than 7 percent today—Big Labor is fighting harder and harder to maintain its power. The question is: whose interests should come first, those of workers and businesses or those of organized labor?
Obama’s Failure
In the midst of an economic crisis, with 24 million people needing work, policies that strengthen the hand of labor unions at the expense of both businesses and workers are probably the last thing the country has needed. But President Obama, in political debt to labor leaders who have funneled union funds to the coffers of the Democratic Party and who are vital to his reelection bid, is willing and eager to press forward with Big Labor’s agenda.
He pursued “Card Check” legislation that would have stripped workers of the right to vote by secret ballot on whether to unionize. He issued an order requiring workers on stimulus projects to become union members. He appointed Big Labor cronies to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) where they have wreaked havoc on the law. Perhaps the best
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