This week, Hillary Clinton touted "the strength of the American labor movement as the backbone for a strong middle class." (WashTimes) Oh, really, Mrs. Clinton? What do the numbers say?

According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, union membership in 2006 was only 7.4 percent of the private workforce.

How does that compare with small businesses? According to the Small Business Administration, small businesses:

• Employ about half of all private sector employees.
• Pay more than 45 percent of total U.S. private payroll.
• Have generated 60 to 80 percent of net new jobs annually over the last decade.
• Create more than half of nonfarm private gross domestic product (GDP).
• Hire 40 percent of high tech workers

The numbers are obvious. Small business is the backbone of a strong middle class, not the labor movement. 

Someone show me a quote where Hillary is supporting small business. Someone show me a plan of hers that will help small business. Hillary's plan for socialized health care is amazingly effective measure for destroying small business in this country as we know it. If a small business owner can not afford the dictated government health insurance, then he cannot start or grow his business. If small business owners cannot hire, then who will provide the 60 to 80 percent net new jobs over the next decade?

Here is a quote to leave you with from the Bureau of Labor Statistics:

Just under half (7.5 million) of the 15.4 million union members in the U.S. lived in six states (California, 2.3 million; New York, 2.0 million; Illinois, 0.9 million; Michigan, 0.8 million; New Jersey, 0.8 million; and Pennsylvania, 0.7 million), though these states accounted for about one-third of wage and salary employment nationally.

Something about those states sounds familiar. Where is that map of the 2004 presidential election again?