{"id":2199273,"date":"2024-03-14T16:36:02","date_gmt":"2024-03-14T20:36:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/biden-hides-public-records-showing-how-much-taxpayers-are-paying-unions\/"},"modified":"2024-03-14T16:44:20","modified_gmt":"2024-03-14T20:44:20","slug":"biden-hides-public-records-showing-how-much-taxpayers-are-paying-unions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/biden-hides-public-records-showing-how-much-taxpayers-are-paying-unions\/","title":{"rendered":"Biden Keeps Costs of Union Support to Taxpayers Under Wraps"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">20<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fbiden-hides-public-records-showing-how-much-taxpayers-are-paying-unions%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=2199273&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><h2>Federal Funds: Paying for Union Work, \u2064Not Government Jobs<\/h2>\n<p>Did you know that the federal government shells out over <strong>$100 million every\u2062 year<\/strong> \u200dto employees who aren&#8217;t actually doing their federal jobs? Instead,\u200d they are doing something quite \u200ddifferent\u2014working full-time for unions that represent government workers. Essentially, we,\u2062 the \u2064taxpayers, are inadvertently financing the negotiating process from\u2063 both ends \u2062of the table.<\/p>\n<p>For years, these expenditures \u2064have been monitored and reported by our government. However, under the current administration, visibility into \u2063these numbers has been obscured.<\/p>\n<h3>The Official Time Policy: A Taxpayer\u200b Concern<\/h3>\n<p>Under a policy termed &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/rush-to-judgement-three-crucial-questions-remain-unanswered-about-capitol-siege\/\" title=\"Rush to judgement? Three crucial questions remain unanswered about Capitol siege\">official time<\/a>,&#8221;\u2063 we find an \u200calarming trend: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/stephen-moore-what-if-federal-workers-never-showed-up-for-work-and-no-one-missed-them\/\" title=\"Stephen Moore: What if Federal Workers Never Showed Up for Work and No One Missed Them?\">numerous federal employees<\/a> are fully engaged in union labor while they remain on the federal payroll. \u2064This costly practice not only hits taxpayers&#8217; wallets hard, but it also inflates union power, channeling subsidies into their activities\u2014regardless\u200c of\u2063 whether their own members willingly pay dues.<\/p>\n<p>That&#8217;s not\u2063 all. These unions are often at the forefront of contentious \u200bissues, such as fighting against the termination of employees charged with misconduct and lobbying for policies that prioritize employee benefits over taxpayer implications, like resisting office work&#8217;s resumption.<\/p>\n<h3>Where&#8217;s the Transparency?<\/h3>\n<p>The Office\u200b of Personnel Management (OPM) used to keep a detailed record of how\u200b this program played out,\u2062 evident even during the Obama administration. In 2019, for instance, the \u2063government paid for an astonishing <a href=\"https:\/\/www.opm.gov\/about-us\/reports-publications\/agency-reports\/taxpayer-funded-union-time-fy-2019.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">2.6 million\u2064 hours<\/a> of union business, the equivalent of nearly three \u2064centuries of work time.<\/p>\n<p>The peculiar thing is, since then, the \u200ctrail has gone cold. Questions regarding the continuity of data collection, the absence of recent\u200c reports, and the ability to review\u2063 them\u2014even off the record\u2014have been met with radio silence.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>A \u2062spokesperson stated, &#8220;Previous reports on official time are not currently available because OPM is reorganizing our website to improve navigation and customer experience.&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Despite this explanation,\u200c the promised \u200bupdates have yet to materialize, raising suspicions about the\u2062 motivations behind this lack of transparency.<\/p>\n<p>This perceived opacity coincides with the very month OPM introduced \u200ca &#8220;Worker Empowerment&#8221;\u2063 platform, celebrating the administration&#8217;s support for union-centric policies and collective bargaining.<\/p>\n<p>A report from\u2062 the Freedom Foundation critically addresses this shift, \u2063emphasizing that there&#8217;s a fine line\u200d between supporting an agenda and compromising public data access.<\/p>\n<p>In light\u200c of these concerns, Senator Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) has stepped up, introducing \u200ba bill during Sunshine\u200c Week\u2014a national initiative promoting open government\u2014that seeks to restore transparent official time reporting.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Ernst\u200c declared, &#8220;I\u2019m\u200d dragging shady spending into the light and \u200cexposing abuse of our dollars. Public service should always be about benefiting taxpayers, not bureaucrats.&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Supporting her remarks, limited data from the Small Business Administration indicates a worrying increase in official time hours\u2014hinting at \u200bpotentially record-high costs government-wide.<\/p>\n<p>To put this into perspective,\u2063 a 2014 investigation by the Washington Examiner identified over <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/news\/1939047\/too-big-to-manage-taxpayers-fund-top-dollar-federal-employee-union-reps-through-official-time\/\">500 employees<\/a> who performed little to \u200dno work in their actual government\u200d roles, all due to &#8220;official time.&#8221; This expensive reality includes numerous full-time union representatives across various departments, including Veterans Affairs and the IRS.<\/p>\n<p>Former Senator Tom Coburn resonated the sentiments of many when he voiced, &#8220;I just don\u2019t think the federal taxpayers\u2062 ought to \u2064be paying for that&#8230; That\u2019s what <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/is-anyone-more-annoying-or-treacherous-than-barack-obama\/\" title=\"Is Anyone More Annoying or Treacherous than Barack Obama?\">union dues<\/a> are\u2062 for.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s a call to\u2064 awareness\u2014and action\u2014for us as taxpayers. Where should our <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/hate-being-spewed-in-the-name-of-patriotism-wapo-opinion-attacks-anthem-before-games-2\/\" title=\"\u2018Hate Being Spewed In The Name Of Patriotism\u2019: WaPo Opinion Attacks Anthem Before Games\">hard-earned money<\/a> be going, and how can we ensure that public service \u2064maintains \u2063its integrity? The answer lies in the transparency we demand and uphold.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Taxpayer funds exceeding $100 million annually pay for federal workers to perform union duties instead of their government roles. Traditionally reported, these costs under the Biden administration are now undisclosed<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":128,"featured_media":2199274,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/dw-wp-production.imgix.net\/2024\/03\/GettyImages-1079379704.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[541],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2199273","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-daily-wire"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/dw-wp-production.imgix.net\/2024\/03\/GettyImages-1079379704.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2199273","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/128"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2199273"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2199273\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2199274"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2199273"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2199273"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2199273"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}