Dems Pave the Way for Massive Looting by Lawyers
A pork-laden, unaffordable “stimulus” package isn’t the only technique Dems will employ to finish off the American economy so that socialism can be imposed. They are also working closely with their financiers in the lawsuit industry to loot the capitalist system into insolvency:
Democrats are planning to kick off the legislative portion of the 111th Congress as early as today with two big donations to one of their most loyal retainers: the plaintiffs bar. Higher labor costs will result from a pair of bills designed to create new lawsuit possibilities in cases of alleged wage discrimination.
One is the insane Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, which would remove the statute of limitations from pay discrimination claims.
For the tort bar, this is pure gold. It would create a new legal business in digging up ancient workplace grievances. This would also be made easier by the bill’s new definition of discrimination. Companies could be sued not merely for outright discrimination but for unintentional acts that result in pay disparities.
Since these supposed wrongs could be compounded over decades, the potential awards would be huge. Most companies would feel compelled to settle such claims rather than endure the expense and difficulty of defending allegations about long-ago behavior. The recipe here is file a suit, get a payday. And the losers would be current and future employees, whose raises would be smaller as companies allocate more earnings to settle claims that might pop up years after litigating employees had departed.
That’s fine with Democrats, who define “economic justice” as stealing wealth from those who create or earn it, to buy votes from those who don’t. There’s more:
The Democratic majority is also resurrecting the concept of “comparable worth” with the Paycheck Fairness Act. This idea holds that only discrimination can explain why female-dominated professions (teachers, secretaries) tend to command lower wages than male-dominated professions (plumbers, truck drivers). Yet most of these pay disparities are explained by relative experience, schooling or job characteristics. Teachers do tend to earn less than truck drivers, despite more education. Then again, truck drivers work long, hard, often unpredictable hours. The market — not some secret patriarchy — places different values on different jobs. And in the case of teachers, the main salary setter is the government.
The paycheck fairness legislation would nonetheless require labor officials to use comparable worth in creating “voluntary” wage guidelines for industries. Voluntary or not, these guidelines would become the basis for more litigation against companies that didn’t follow them. Meanwhile, the bill strips companies of certain defenses against claims of sex-based pay discrimination. It also makes it easier to bring class actions, and it allows plaintiffs to claim unlimited punitive damages even in cases of unintentional discrimination.
Naturally Obama supports both bills, and Dems may now have the numbers they need to ram them past Republicans. Raising workforce costs during a recession will have obvious effects on unemployment — an added benefit for those who want as many of us as possible dependent on the State for sustenance.
Doing business in a country run by left-wing thugs is virtually impossible, which is why people who subsist in such countries are lucky to own two pairs of shoes. But at least when Dems have finished deliberately destroying the economy, we can all be equal together, like the dirt-poor government slaves in Cuba.
Our forefathers went to war with the mighty British Empire over far less than what the cancer known as the Democrat Party plans to do to America.
On a tip from Varla. Cross-posted at Moonbattery.
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Posted by Van Helsing on January 9, 2009 1:32 pm
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2 Responses to “Dems Pave the Way for Massive Looting by Lawyers”
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Uh Oh this will kill the Auto unions. LOL
Democrats suck. Just ask B Frank.
And we need to legislate “voluntary”….. WHY?
If something is TRULY “voluntary” there is no need for yet another useless “law” on the books because who really gives a rip until “compulsory” is “inadvertently” slipped in?
Another FINE example of the “let’s make work” attitude fueling the W-DC Tar Pits. They’re absolutely useless; but they need to prove to voters they EARNED fat paychecks and bloated benefits packages (and all the side-work they’ve got going… like writing TWO autobiographies without ever having accomplished anything of note…. except buying the Presidency with “the little people’s” money…. OH, but that came AFTER the book deals….).
It’s time for the dinosaurs to fall in those tar pits they installed, so evolution can proceed.