Union CEO Calls Majority Leader a Liar

Union CEO Wendell Young issued a press release Wednesday claiming, “there’s no nice way to put this but he [House Majority Leader Mike Turzai] is not telling the truth and he knows it.”

This is what pscyhologists call projection— that is, attributing what you do (in this case, not telling the truth) to others.

Young, for instance, claims a state-commissioned report found “a transition to privatization would cost $1.4 billion over five years.” Not true. 

The report actually indicated that the total cost of running the PLCB would be $1.4 billion during the five years it takes to transition to a private system. But those annual operating costs would decline from $500 million to less than $100 million. Without privatization, the PLCB’s operating costs would be about $2.4 billion over those same five years. That is, privatization would save state taxpayers $1 billion in operating costs.

We’ve pointed out Wendell’s error on this point consistently, but he continues to repeat it.

But this is to be expected; Wendell has a long history of misrepenting the truth. He claims Rep. Turzai puts “politics above Pennsylvanians,” yet:

The truth is, the liquor privatization plan put forth by House Majority Leader Mike Turzai last year, which passed in March of 2013, put Pennsylvania taxpayers and consumers first. Pennsylvanians on both sides of the aisle are tired of the state’s Prohibition-era liquor system, which has more government control than any state other than Utah.

Liquor privatization is only about politics within the Capitol, and that’s because Wendell Young spends millions of both workers’ dues and fair share fees to keep it that way. And as taxpayers, we continue to pay to collect the money that is used against this commonsense reform that would finally put Pennsylvanians – not politics – first.