SEIU calls for higher Kansas taxes

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At last night’s meeting of USD 259, the Wichita public school district, a local union leader described his union’s efforts in its attempt to drum up support for tax increases in Kansas.

Harold Schlechtweg, business representative of Service Employees International Union Local 513, told school board members how the union worked to get people to attend a meeting of the South-central Kansas Legislative Delegation last Saturday. He was specific to the point of reading to board members the slogans on the protest signs.

He said the union used letters to all classified staff and telephone calls to recruit attendees to the meeting. He used students from the Education Department at Wichita State University to make telephone calls, he added.

Schlechtweg has asked governments to boost taxes in favor of his union workers before. Last summer he told the Wichita City Council that it should not outsource the mowing and maintenance of city parks. Instead, he wanted the council to keep union employees on the payroll.

At the time Schlechtweg testified, it was thought that the switch to outsourcing would save the city $1 million annually. Recent reporting by KWCH’s Kim Hynes revealed that the savings are now projected at $1.8 million annually, according to Wichita Parks Director Doug Kupper. So Wichita taxpayers are saving quite a bit by ignoring Schlechtweg’s advice. Kansas legislators should do the same.

At the national level, SEIU has criticized its opponents for conducting Astroturf campaigns. Astroturfing — meaning organized efforts to create an appearance of fake grassroots interest in an issue — is a common charge of those like Schlechtweg who are in favor of more government taxation and spending.

Here we see, right in our hometown of Wichita, union-produced Astroturf as SEIU works against the interest of Kansas taxpayers.

Comments

6 responses to “SEIU calls for higher Kansas taxes”

  1. James

    Incredible. A rally, oh, oops, I shouldn’t call it that!

    Why not, that’s what it was! And I’m not even upset at it, the tea party people did the same thing at health care town hall meetings. How hypocritical of these people. Nancy Pelosi would be proud.

  2. Kerr Avon

    A peaceful “rally” isn’t the same as the astroturfing that occurred last summer and fall in response to proposed healthcare reform. These SEIU members were courteous and respectful unlike the plants in the healthcare events.

  3. bman

    What a wonderful event. Taxpayers? who needs them, lets all get union jobs.

  4. Benjamin

    A one cent sales tax increase to throw money on a fire. Ya…that makes sense. My girls will never step foot in a public school. Keep increasing taxes on goods. I will just keep buying used goods as much as I can. Love how I can go on the internet and not pay sales tax. Love how I do not pay state or federal income taxes either. Wichita schools are failing and below the national average and they all think it is a monetary issue?? HAHAHAHAHAHA!

  5. Wichitator

    After a Missouri Tea party a bunch of thugs who were wearing SEIU t shirts were identified as beating up a black man who happened to be selling material critical of the Obama administration. These thugs were probably too stupid to help SEIU’s affiliate Acorn stuff some ballot boxes.

    Now I don’t believe in the left’s “guilt by association” tactics criticizing the Tea Party movement and trying to connect it to Tim McVeigh but the violence I’ve seen in this country over political issues in the last 50 years has been from the left. The Clinton’s have tried with the lamestream national news media to tie McVeigh and his outrage over the Clinton administration’s mishandling of the Waco deaths to Rush Limbaugh in particular and talk radio in general but this is the “guilt by association” promoted by liberals and the political left in this country. In Obama’s case, his buddy Bill Ayers, SDS group bombed a number of targets and perpetrated a number of crimes in their opposition to the Vietnam war. See Ayers Sept. 11, 2001 interview in the NY Times where he defended his terrorist activities.

  6. Sheila

    SEIU= GIMME GIMME GIMME

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