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WSJ Opinion: Potomac Watch

The Cost of the GOP’s Union Embrace

WSJ Opinion: Potomac Watch

The Wall Street Journal

Society & Culture, News

4.22.8K Ratings

🗓️ 17 December 2024

⏱️ 25 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

With Donald Trump giving union workers credit for his victory, the GOP is rebranding itself as the party of the blue-collar worker and labor unions. But with this new outreach comes promises and policies with high price tags, including the Social Security Fairness Act, which would reward $200 billion to government union workers. So is this break from traditional conservatism worth it, and what more policies and costs are in the wings?  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:37.1

From the opinion pages of the Wall Street Journal, this is Potomac Watch.

0:43.5

Republicans join with Democrats to raid Social Security and hand that money over to government

0:49.6

union workers.

0:50.9

It's an early sign of just how costly the GOP's tentative embrace of labor unions may

0:56.8

prove to be. What other policies could come out of that budding alliance? Welcome to Potomac

1:02.0

Watch. I am Kim Strassel. I am here this week with my colleagues, Alicia Finley, and Meneu Kewabrua.

1:07.8

So one of the features of this past election was Donald Trump's new overtures to unions.

1:13.5

And this has been driven by a number of factors, his new emphasis on courting blue-collar voters,

1:18.6

the rise of what we're calling national conservatives who have very different views on trade unionism,

1:25.2

the decision by some union leaders this election to withhold a democratic

1:29.3

endorsement. So all fueling this outreach by Republicans to big labor. Yet this move to make nice,

1:36.7

to cozy up with union bosses, holds with it some big policy problems and political tradeoffs.

1:42.7

And we're seeing an example of that playing out at the end of

1:45.8

this Congress. The House last month passed the Social Security Fairness Act, 327 to 75, which put briefly

1:55.2

will change social security rules in a way that showers almost $200 billion on government workers. Senate Majority

2:03.2

Leader Chuck Schumer is promising a Senate vote on the bill before the week is out. And let's listen

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