Despite Budget Crisis, Los Angeles Spends Taxpayers' Money for Teamsters

Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa called for additional job cuts last week to help mend the city's current $212 million budget shortfall that is expected to double next year, reported the Los Angeles Times.

"Villaraigosa's threats provided the clearest sign yet that he has decided to take a more aggressive approach to the worsening financial crisis, which threatens the city's credit rating and ability to borrow," the Times said.

Despite the city's dire budget crisis, Los Angeles continues to spend millions of taxpayer dollars to help the Teamsters unionize truck drivers at the Port of Los Angeles.

At the urging of the union, the mayor has spent more than $5 million in legal fees to pursue a truck concession plan that the U.S. District Court of Appeals ruled is illegal. The mayor is also spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to lobby the federal government to change federal transportation law and allow ports and municipalities to regulate interstate trucking.

If enacted, the Port of Los Angeles would then have the authority to ban independent owner operator truck drivers, mandating that only large companies be allowed to haul freight at the port. The authority to regulate interstate trucking currently lies only with the federal government, in order to protect businesses from a national patchwork of differing regulations that would inhibit commerce.

The Mayor's crusade to ban owner operators from the Port not only depletes city resources but, if it succeeds, would force thousands of owner operators out of business at a time when unemployment in the LA area is over 10 percent.