Published
2011/03/19 at 3:20 pm
“I’m the commander — see, I don’t need to explain — I do not need to explain why I say things. That’s the interesting thing about being president.” —George Bush
Wisconsin’s ‘public union vs. private sector’ battle has me losing a lot of faith in politics. I am not an expert in politics — actually, am an idiot at, 20-years-old, but I can see the outlines. Sensible resolution takes a backseat to deviously plotting plans to ensure future power and further wealth.
Scott Walker and his cabinet have swiftly began to suppress Wisconsin democrats and a large part of of the public workforce. Their biggest step was eliminating the collective bargaining rights of Wisconsin public workers, excluding fire/police; dissolving unions. With less unions over time, Wisconsin (now a swing state) will become a red state. Democrats rely heavily on unions for financing while republicans look to private businesses.
This on top of the 2011 Wisconsin redistricting, which will go down as one of the most successful partisan gerrymanders in the history of the country. It’s led to republican majorities in both houses of the Wisconsin Legislature with near supermajorities.
When Walker was criticized for the blatant union busting, he lied to the media.
“The simple matter is I campaigned on this all throughout the election,” said Walker during a February press conference. “Anybody who says they are shocked on this has been asleep for the past two years.”
The campaign’s proposals never touched on bargaining rights. And in the infamous Koch brother prank call, Walker basically admitted the shock approach.
“We had already built plans up. This was kind of the last hurrah before we dropped the bomb,” Walker said of his cronies
Republicans are now saying it’s time to pay our debt pool, and the state can save by trimming the pensions and benefits of public workforce, particularly teachers. But they are the ones filling the pool, as in the $140 million in new spending for special-interest groups, which gave millions to private health savings accounts and “economic development funds”.
The Legislative Fiscal Bureau released a memo on Jan. 31st detailing how Wisconsin would end the 2009-2011 budget biennium with a budget surplus, before the proposal against unions was made. The Bureau determined that the state will end the year with a balance of $121.4 million.
Source – http://legis.wisconsin.gov/lfb/Misc/2011_01_31Vos&Darling.pdf
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