CATO’s Dan Mitchell has a new Center for Freedom and Prosperity video out titled “Bureaucrats vs. Taxpayers” on how “government workers have now become a cosseted elite, with generous pay, extravagant benefits, lavish pensions, and ironclad job security. In exchange for this privileged status, they reward the politicians with millions of dollars of support and a host of in-kind contributions.”

Dan’s presentation details much of the best research on government worker compensation (especially the work of CATO colleague Chris Edwards) but left unmentioned in this video is the role that government unions play in enriching their members at the expense of taxpayers. But as Heritage’s James Sherk documented early this year, government unions are integral to this story:

New data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) show that a majority of American union members now work for the government. The pattern of unions adding members in government while losing members in the private sector accelerated during the recession. The typical union member now works in the Post Office, not on the assembly line. Representing government employees has changed the union movement’s priorities: Unions now campaign for higher taxes on Americans to fund more government spending.