Go to a local government debate and you get the issue of wasteful spending. Cue the Republicans and the rant starts about union contracts and the whine of how they cannot get a give-back without a 34-ounce aluminum bat.
There is a sense the government cannot cut anything anymore without waiving personnel.
But from the bullpen walks Obamacare. The GOP has railed against it, but for smaller governments, can this be the reliever that breaks the back of the break-the-union rhetoric?
Many local governments employ less than the 50 full-time employee limit. Is it worth giving those employees a bump in pay and letting them take care of their own healthc are via Obamacare -- saving the taxpayers the balance? The idea is that the local government, as a small business employer, will no longer have to manage the healthcare needs of the employees. That may be part of a person's job can be reassigned to do something else.
The boogeyman of the union's health contracts would no longer exist; therefore, it is no longer this large bone of contention between management (local governments) and labor. They would need something else to argue about. It gets tougher to bash a union.
With local elections about two weeks away, is it worth a Democratic push from Maine to Hawaii and Alaska with a unified mini-platform? Obamacare survived, now it comes to Main Street America as local tax reform.
For all the yelling and screaming about Obamacare with the shutdown that almost crashed the economy, the GOP is now tactically backed into a corner. Local Democrats, using Obamacare as their pinch hitter, can swing for the fences. The timing could not be any better.
Standing at the polls Democrats can make the case to voters that Obamacare is cutting your local taxes.
Looks like it could be a Shane Victorino Grand Slam, burying the GOP.