Sherry Jensen in her Jan. 14 letter wants you to believe that the Democratic Party puts “America first” while the Republican Party puts party first.

You can believe Ms. Jensen if you want to. After all, America is still a free country.

A look at past events may show the opposite to be true.

Democrats have developed to a fine art the bureaucracy of governing. The power base of the Democratic Party has always been labor unions. As the unions demanded or extorted greater benefits from industries, American jobs were outsourced to foreign countries and the Democrats blamed the greedy Republicans for America’s loss of jobs.

This loss of jobs in America also resulted in a loss of union membership and Democratic campaign contributions. These campaign contributions by unions kept Democrats in power.

President Kennedy had the solution for the decline in union campaign contributions. Kennedy issued an executive order allowing government workers to form labor unions. In California, Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown signed a bill into law allowing local government workers to form labor unions.

As the governmental unions became more secure in their activities, the union for the air traffic controllers tried to extort obscene benefits from our government. They went on a work stoppage and wouldn’t report for work. President Reagan ordered them back to work. Those who didn’t return to work were fired and were replaced by military air traffic controllers.

California’s financial meltdown today is a direct result of the local government unions. In 2008, the city of Vallejo filed for bankruptcy because it could no longer afford to pay the salaries and obscene benefits demanded by the city’s union workers.

Democrats will do anything to preserve their main source of campaign contributions.

Last year General Motors was on the verge of bankruptcy when the Obama administration stepped in and threw the rule of law under the bus by awarding the autoworkers’ health and pension fund almost half of GM’s assets.

As a direct quote from Barron’s Financial News said, “Now we have Obama care, which so far has proven to be a success by reviving the braindead Republican Party.”
Gus Smyrnos
Newbury Park