Labor union bosses want a president who will ‘rewrite the rules’

Wanted: A presidential candidate who will help the AFL-CIO reshape America’s economy to better suit the labor coalition.

Union bosses are always trying to make it easier for unions to organize and harder for workers to opt out of paying dues. But that’s only the start of AFL-CIO’s wishlist.

How are AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka and other union leaders deciding who’s worthy of the unions’ activist machinery and vast campaign funds for 2016?

AFL-CIO is using Columbia University economist Joseph Stiglitz’s “Rewriting the Rules of the American Economy: An Agenda for Growth and Shared Prosperity” as a guide.

In his report, Stiglitz — a winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics — called for more federal spending and higher taxes on the rich to combat “income inequality” and build on “the innovative legacy of the New Deal.”

“Inequality has been a choice, and it is within our power to reverse it,” Stiglitz asserted. “If anything, a number of redistributive policies can lower net inequality and drive more durable growth.”

Stiglitz’s report listed a number of unfulfilled goals shared by AFL-CIO, whose leaders helped ram Obamacare through Congress but have been somewhat disappointed with President Obama’s time in office.