GOP lawmaker: Defund the NLRB

Rep. Matt Salmon (R-Ariz.) on Wednesday proposed legislation that would defund the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), which he said would save money and eliminate a department that stands in the way of job creation.

Salmon called the NLRB a “pro-union organization” that can dictate where companies locate and how they spend their own money.

{mosads}”U.S. taxpayers already fund the Department of Justice to oversee a wide variety of civil, criminal and administrative labor issues, and with their experience and province, they are certainly capable of handling claims of unfair labor practices,” Salmon said. “Moreover, they could do so without the pro-big-labor bias and partisanship that is endemic to the NRLB.”

The bill, H.R. 4379, is the third piece of legislation that Salmon has proposed to cut federal spending under his Shrink Our Spending (SOS) initiative. Cutting funding to the NLRB would save nearly $275 million per year.

Salmon has also proposed cutting the State Department’s East-West Center, saving $16.7 million, and ending funding for the United Nations Population Fund, saving $35 million a year.

“Our nation is drowning in debt – $17.4 trillion dollars of it,” Salmon said. “Yet, our nation’s leaders continue to approve wasteful spending without a blink, and continue to spend your tax dollars in the most imprudent ways.

“Enough is enough. We must have the courage to start cutting spending somewhere.”

The NLRB has been a target of Republicans in other recent legislation. Last year, the House voted to freeze the NLRB, in response to a court decision that said President Obama illegally recess-appointed three members to the board.

Republicans also criticized the NLRB’s charge that Boeing retaliated against its union workers by opening a non-union plant in South Carolina. The NLRB later dropped that lawsuit in late 2011.