Some spending that can be cut

With all the public pain from Obama's Sequester, here is a great way to save a couple million dollars. From FOX News:

Senate Republicans quiz Labor Department on purported payments for labor unions worldwide
Senate Republicans say the Labor Department appears to be spending millions in taxpayer dollars to establish labor unions and promote collective bargaining in foreign countries and is asking top Obama administration officials for a full audit.

The request was sent by Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch, the leading Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, and Tennessee Sen. Lamar Alexander, the top Republican on the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee.

�At a time when our federal budget is deteriorating rapidly � it is troubling to us that the department appears to be spending millions of dollars of taxpayer funds to establish labor unions and promote collective bargaining in foreign countries,� they said in a letter to acting Labor Secretary Seth Harris.

A bit more:

The bureau for the past several years has purportedly made numerous awards -- worth millions of dollars -- to the United Nations, the Solidarity Center and other similar groups, �whose stated objective is to help establish labor unions in foreign countries," the senators said.

They also said the bureau recently awarded a Colombian labor organization $1.5 million to help workers improve their collective bargaining rights and $2.2 million to the Solidarity Center, an AFL-CIO organization, to strengthen unions in Haiti and Peru.

In addition, the bureau purportedly awarded a $1.5 million grant to an international development company in 2011 to assist labor unions in Vietnam engage in collective bargaining, the lawmakers said.

Why are we allowing this kind of meddling in other nations' affairs. If the businesses in those countries feel that they would be better served by collective bargaining, let them bear the cost of implementation. This kind of spending brings us zero benefit. And a tip 'o the hat to John Lott for the link.