News Copy, New York

Warren Buffet Values The Secret Ballot: Against Union Card Check Legislation

Warren Buffet has made his feelings against Union Card Check known.  Buffet is against ending the secret ballot.

The Associated Press reported Democrats willing to compromise for legislation that makes union organizing easier.

Polls have found that eight to nine of every ten union workers  favor elections, with a secret ballot.

Doug Bandow of The American Spectator was blunt:

The secret ballot is key. It protects workers from retaliation -- that's why the U.S. elects public officials, rather than allowing citizens to sign election cards. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to tell which worker is more vulnerable to pressure and even violence: one who gets to cast a secret ballot or one who must sign or not sign a card in public view. Four decades ago a federal appeals court declared: "it is beyond dispute that secret election is a more accurate reflection of the employees' true desires than a check of authorization cards collected at the behest of a union organizer."

There is no compromise to be found on this issue.  Democrats and Obama should drop the issue entirely.

Anti-Baldwin-esque: Keeping The Film Industry In New York State

This is kind of ironic...courtesy of The American Spectator...Alec Baldwin discovers Reaganomics:

In one of the more ironic interviews in recent memory, Alec Baldwin last week told local cable news host Dominic Carter that Governor David Paterson should keep the current tax incentives for film and television companies that set up shop in New York. "I'm telling you right now," the actor warned, "if these tax breaks are not reinstated into the budget, film production in this town is going to collapse, and television production is going to collapse, and it's all going to go to California."

The sky is falling, though it's important to emphasize that the film industry in New York has gained from tax reforms for nearly fifteen years now.  It goes back to how then New York City Rudy Giuliani addressed what had been an industry-wide walkout from the city in the early 1990s.

"What the uber-liberal Baldwin has lately wrapped his mind around is the message conservative economists have preached for decades: Hiking the government's cut of taxpayers' earnings doesn't necessarily mean hiking the total tax dollars the government is taking in."

But Connecticut has been running circles around New York in recent years in terms of tax relief for filmmakers.