For decades, the American public has heard from Republican politicians who have aggressively branded themselves as anti-tax champions.
There is one tax, however, that Republicans since the early 1980s have continually fought to have included in the tax code. And that is a tax on health care benefits.
Why would they support such a tax?
Because it disproportionately targets union members and makes it increasingly difficult for union employers to compete against their non-union competition.
This type of tax is what Senator John McCain ran on during his failed Presidential bid and is what then candidate Barack Obama vowed to oppose.
Today, Senator Max Baucus, a Democrat from Montana and Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, is striving to include this tax in the new health care reform legislation now working its way through his committee.
He claims to be doing this to secure Republican support for health care reform, but in the long run, his idea will do nothing to bring Republicans along on health care and, according to William Greider in a new article in the Nation magazine, could backfire and destroy the Democratic Party from within.
Baucus's tax proposal, which he adopted from Republicans like John McCain who have never been interested in health care reform, would force union members to pay for the tax obligations of companies like Wal-Mart and their non-union competitors on the jobsite.
The article highlights the work of the SMWIA's Legislative Director, Vincent Panvini, who notes that:
"If any of these Democratic senators vote for this, they will be voted out in 2010, and this will definitely be used against Obama in 2012. People are already hurting, unemployed--and then you are going to tax them more? That's crazy."
The SMWIA has set up an Action Center where members and the general public have been emailing their Senators, urging them to oppose this dangerous inclusion into the health care bill.
American workers need real health care reform now. Not another new tax which finances irresponsible employers on the backs of union members.