Yesterday, the Senate passed a bill implementing many homeland security recommendations from the 9/11 Commission. But President Bush is threatening to veto it because — horrors — it allows Transportation Security Administration workers to join unions, like most of our civil servants.
The Washington Post reports:
White House spokesman Scott Stanzel said that [the labor provision] would endanger American travelers by eliminating the Transportation Security Administration’s authority to deploy workers to meet changing threats.
Hmm. The executive branch can’t fight terrorism without more unchecked power. That argument sounds familiar…
…the reauthorization of the USA Patriot Act last year [lets the White House] appoint interim federal prosecutors indefinitely, without Senate confirmation. The [Bush] administration has argued that such appointments are necessary to speed the prosecution of terrorism cases.
Now the Administration has been caught trying to circumvent the Senate to install political hacks as U.S. Attorneys, and it’s patently clear the provision had nothing to do with terrorism.
Considering that a union worker wants to stop terrorists just as much as a nonunion worker, perhaps the White House’s anti-labor attitude also has nothing to do with terrorism.
