Obama's Political payoffs to Government Unions

Michael Barone gives Obama heck for his new "jobs" speech. One part of it is here.

Political payoffs. Nearly one-quarter of this latest stimulus package -- sorry, American Jobs Act -- is aid to state and local government, to keep teachers and other public employee union members on the job and paying dues to the unions. Altogether unions gave Democrats some $400 million in the 2008 election cycle. Pretty good return on their "investment," eh? . . .

In addition, at the same time that Obama speaks of "This isn't political grandstanding," he also says:

Conservatives, according to this speech, want to "wipe out the basic protections that Americans have counted on for decades" and "simply cut most government spending and eliminate most government regulations."

He claims that his speech "isn't class warfare," but then he says:

These sentences came four paragraphs after Obama insisted that "the most affluent citizens and corporations" should pay more taxes (which spurs job creation how?) and not long before he promised to "take that message to every corner of the country." . . .