On the February 22 edition of American Morning, CNN’s Carol Costello framed the ongoing budget debate in Wisconsin as a struggle between embattled middle class workers and corporatist Republicans with ulterior motives, parroting SEIU President Mary Kay Henry to warn viewers that “corporate America is about to win big time.”
“Henry says corporate America save themselves money in wages by lining the pockets of Republicans running for statewide offices,” regurgitated Costello. “According to followthemoney.org, in the 2009-2010 election cycle, business interests donated $878 million to candidates running for governor and other statewide offices across the country, that includes hundreds of thousands of dollars in donations for Governor Scott Walker of Wisconsin and John Kasich of Ohio.”
While those figures are not in dispute, Costello failed to hold Democrats and their Big Labor financiers to a similar standard: “And Democrats say there is another reason Republicans want to gut unions. Organized labor donates hundreds of millions of dollars to candidates like Barack Obama. So if you weaken the unions, you weaken a traditional moneyed supporter of the Democratic Party.”
On the one hand, Costello argued that corporate interests are exerting inappropriate influence on Republican Governor Scott Walker by flushing his coffers with campaign contributions. But on the other hand, Costello contended that union interests that funnel sizeable donations to Democrats are merely victims of a Republican machine hell-bent on exacting political retribution.
Setting aside her egregious double standard, Costello’s claim that “corporate America” is exploiting hard-working union workers is factually inaccurate. The proposed budget under consideration in Wisconsin would only affect public workers, who by definition are employed by the government, not private-sector workers employed by companies, or “corporate America.”
Throughout the segment, Costello invoked phrases like “labor’s last stand” and “battle royale” to conceal the fact that Walker’s plan is a modest and reasonable attempt to bridge a massive budget gap, not punish union workers for supporting Democratic politicians.
Contrary to the impression left by Costello, Walker is asking state and local workers to contribute 5.8 percent of their salary to their pensions and 12 percent for their health benefits. In addition, Walker is proposing reforms that would pare down monopoly bargaining privileges for public-sector workers, not eliminate the unions altogether.
Alex Fitzsimmons is a News Analysis intern at the Media Research Center. Click here to follow him on Twitter.
a12iggymom's Blog 