Governor Walker unveils his biennial budget Tuesday. Only thing I know is that it will reduce shared revenue to our school and local government by a whopping 9 to 10 percent. By way of comparison, Doyle's last budget cut state aids by only 1 percent. That is the "why" of the governor's fix on collective bargaining. To give localities more flexibility. Will they use it?
"The people's revolution"
"The peoples' legislature is in session," John Nichols informs us in Sunday's paper.
Comrade John has always reminded me of a Leftwing version of Dr. Strangelove. Just beneath the bonhomie is the socialist revolutionary waiting to overthrow Kerensky's fledgling republic.
The first thing the totalitarians do is to delegitimize elections. The results of November 2, when Wisconsin elected a Republican Assembly, a Republican Senate, defeated the Democrat leaders of both, and replaced a Democrat governor with a Republican? Well, those results are tainted. "The people" were fooled by the Koch Brothers. Their voices drowned out by Citizens United v. FEC. Because half the eligible electorate did not vote and we all know (don't we?) that the non-voters would have broken for Tom Barrett, Mike Sheridan, and Russ Decker.
Severing collective bargaining from government employees is "radically at odds with the Constitution that the founders outlined," Comrade John says. Uh, where in the Constitution exactly is that found?
The nation survived for 175 years before Gaylord Nelson of Wisconsin found this supposed constitutional principal. State university professors did not get that "right" until two years ago. Even today, only 26 states recognize collective bargaining for all government employees. Only 36 percent of all government employees in America are unionized.
Barack Obama still has not discovered this constitutional principle. Federal employees have no collective bargaining rights at all. The man unilaterally froze their wages for two years. No bargaining.
Democracy of the few
Truly, of all the absurd, the ridiculous, the imbecilic, and the mendacious is this propaganda from the Capital Times praising Madison Teachers Inc. as being "democratic."
Sunday, ... MTI members met for four hours to discuss when and how to return to work after being off the job for much of last week. The process was long and raucous. Some members wanted to go back today. Some wanted to go back Tuesday. Some wanted to stay out longer. Ultimately, after much debate and many votes, MTI decided to remain out for today and return Tuesday.
MTI members may still disagree about the best day to return to the classrooms of the Madison Metropolitan School District. But when they do return, they will do so knowing that everyone has had a say, and that the decision was made democratically. [CT: Madison teachers union provides lesson in democracy]
That is not democracy! That's like saying the Mafia's Five Families voting on how to divide the criminal rackets is democracy. That's like saying we're going to enact legislation according to who shows up in the Capitol Rotunda and yells the loudest.
Memo to Liberals: the PEOPLE decide in free and fair elections. THAT is what democracy looks like!
Bought and paid for
Scott Walker is in the hip pocket of the Koch Brothers? How about the Cut and Run 14? Are they in the pockets of organized labor?
Thirteen of the fourteen have received generous contributions from unions over the years; their cumulative donations range from $5,750 to $113,603. ... of the 13 Democrats in the state senate who accepted labor-union funds, ten received a third or more of their PAC or political-committee donations from unions. Five have collected over half of such donations from unions. ... And that's only looking at money directly given to the candidates. Unions also spent heavily on independent initiatives, for example television ads. The Wisconsin Education Association Council's PAC spent nearly $1.6 million supporting state-level Democratic candidates during the 2010 election cycle. -- via Charlie Sykes via National Review On-line.
When can we expect Big Labor to picket the White House?
I pointed this out in Thursday's blog: Barack Obama chastises Gov.Walker for curtailing state government employees' bargaining rights. Even if Walker succeeds, state workers here will still have more bargaining rights than federal employees.
The union horde is spreading, from Madison to Indianapolis to a state capital near you. And yet the Democratic and union bigwigs engineering the outrage haven't directed their angry multitudes at what is arguably the most "hostile workplace" in the nation: Washington, D.C.
It will no doubt surprise you to learn that President Obama, the great patron of the working man, also happens to be the great CEO of one of the least union-friendly shop floors in the nation.
Fact: Those federal workers cannot bargain for wages or benefits. Fact: Washington, D.C. is, in the purest sense, a "right to work zone." Federal employees are not compelled to join a union, nor to pay union dues. [Wall Street Journal: 02-25-2011]
For the first time since Gallup began polling the issue in the 1930s, a majority of Americans believe that unions harm the U.S. economy.
Some clarity
From Blaska: Friday morning at 6 a.m. CST your Blaska blogger yakked on The Takeaway, a co-production of WNYC Radio and Public Radio International, in collaboration with The BBC World Service, New York Times Radio and WGBH Boston. Bill Lueders was my liberal foil.
In the private sector, the capitalist knows that when he negotiates with the union, if he gives away the store, he loses his shirt. In the public sector, the politicians who approve any deal have none of their own money at stake. On the contrary, the more favorably they dispose of union demands, the more likely they are to be the beneficiary of union largess in the next election. It's the perfect cozy setup.
