There is a kernel of truth in Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker's claim of a "budget shortfall" of $137 million. But Walker, a Republican, failed to tell the state that less than two weeks into his term as governor, he, with his swollen Republican majorities in the Wisconsin legislature, pushed through $117 million in tax breaks for business allies of the GOP. There is your crisis.
The state Legislature's Legislative Fiscal Bureau -- Wisconsin's equivalent of the Congressional Budget Office and a refuge for professional expertise and nonpartisanship -- warned Walker and the legislature that the measure would create a budget gap. There is your shortfall -- and not one resulting from established public employee benefits. Before the tax giveaways, the fiscal agency predicted a surplus for the state.
Now the governor has offered a proposal simple and clear in its intent, and patently dishonest. Walker wants state workers to contribute to their pension fund and is calling for an increase in their payments for medical insurance. Make no mistake: The governor's "budget repair bill" has little to do with a budget shortfall and everything to do with breaking unions, starting with public employees and then perhaps moving on to others as well.
During his run for governor, Walker had substantial financial support from the Koch brothers, billionaire industrialists who have funded various anti-Obama, anti-science, and anti-national government movements. In short, they are opposed to anyone and anything that might diminish their exorbitant profits. And for the Kochs, destroying labor unions is in the top tier of their to-get-rid-of list.
Walker's own hostility to labor unions is a touchstone of his prior political experience. He is out to realize his every long-held political fantasy, with the help of such allies as the National Association of Manufacturers; Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce; and the Chamber of Commerce. Ever since the 1930s, when national law recognized the right of workers to organize and bargain collectively, that gain has been under assault from right-wing ideologues and much of the business community.
Public employees in Wisconsin, as elsewhere, do not have a recognized "right to strike." But they have a right to a union, with the power to negotiate wages and the conditions of work. That is Walker's real target, and after he deals with it perhaps he can move to make Wisconsin a "right-to-work" state, devoid of any protections for labor unions, just like Mississippi. Now we can understand Walker's mantra: "Wisconsin is open for business." What a "popular," appealing position! Everyone likes to complain about bureaucrats and teachers -- lazy, incompetent and, withal, overpaid. Never mind that studies portray a public work force earning 8 to 15 percent less than similarly situated private sector employees, with the spread even wider among more educated workers.
The governor and his allies like to frame their goal as one that would destroy the special privileges of public employees -- as if a Cadillac class of public workers exists in the state. In truth, many public employees secured increased benefits in the 1970s, a time which saw the notion of a "budget crunch" come into play, and the state bargained its way out of salary increases (incidentally, during a time of rising inflation) in exchange for increased employee benefits.
The "February Thaw" brought out an estimated 50,000 or more public employees, teachers, ordinary citizens and students to demonstrate against Walker's budget repair bill. Montesquieu, the 18th century French political philosopher, wrote about the impact of environment on human and societal behavior. Cold, icy climates, he said, generally dampened human passions, thus lessening chances of "public disorder." Walker should have offered his legislation during the first three weeks of January, when temperatures hovered just above zero.
Confronting the protests, Walker has framed the issue in stark, simple terms. It is, he said, a battle between "protesters" and "taxpayers." That followed the obligatory remarks about outside agitators -- shades of Mississippi governors in the 1960s. Indeed, the media obliged him by making the increasingly marginalized Jesse Jackson the centerpiece of the protests, thus seeming to confirm Walker's contention about outside agitators.
After three days of protests, the largest union offered to concede the pension and health insurance payments in exchange for continued recognition of the right to negotiate wage and working conditions. The governor bluntly replied that the time for negotiations had passed, but the truth is that at no time did he offer any negotiation on these matters. If your ideological baggage has no room for workers' rights, then you will rule by dictate and fiat. Walker's baggage overflows with hostility for workers.
Walker insists that the budget shortfall requires that state workers, like everyone else in society, must carry their fair share of the burden. But the governor is causing pain to no one else to remedy the situation. Michigan's Republican Gov. Rick Snyder offered a $45 billion cost-cutting budget, but he said he would take only $1 in salary as part of the "shared sacrifice." Meanwhile, Snyder, unlike Walker, has begun negotiations with public employees unions to increase workers' shares of pension and health care costs.
Wisconsin state revenues are down as statewide unemployment largely reflects the national picture. Furthermore, there is justifiable despair among the unemployed that their jobs may never return. And if they are over 50, there is only a small chance that they ever will have any job comparable to those they held prior to 2007. Little do they understand that companies continue to enjoy swollen revenues, income that inflates the profit side of their ledgers as they reap benefits from "restructuring" -- today's fashionable euphemism for dropping jobs and employees. The business community now sits on the sidelines, hoarding capital, and workers have little work.
The governor claims he has traveled around the state talking to factory workers and others who say they support him because they must spend 25 to 50 percent of their income on health insurance. Well, if that is the case, and such folks are his supporters, perhaps it is time for Walker to rise to their defense and rein in the gouging health insurers.
Budgets are a mysterious maze. Legislators -- let alone a citizenry dependent on a largely incompetent, ill-informed media -- rarely know the intricacies of a budget and how it may cause a seismic change in public policy. (For examples of the Republicans' tactics illustrating their belief that democracy is fine for Egypt but another matter for this country, see this.)
Walker himself precipitated the "budget crisis," necessitating a "repair bill" that gave him and his allies what they really wanted. The governor pursues an agenda backed by the tea party's financial angels. Public employees and other workers down the line will pay the freight for such folly. The governor lies.
Stanley Kutler is the author of "The Wars of Watergate" and other writings. He taught constitutional and legal history for 35 years at the University of Wisconsin.
Bernard Weisberger: Onward Wisconsin
Mike Lux: Lessons in Pluralism
http://legis.wisconsin.gov/2011/data/votes/av0009.pdf
AB 3 was a highly popular bill at 82 to 12 and was highly bipartisan, same with AB 4. Can you blame Walker for signing it. These people are here to represent the people ya know. Most of ...this is incentive for businesses to move TO Wisconsin, due to so many leaving from Unions and taxes(
http://www.bizjournals.com/kansascity/stories/2010/04/26/daily44.html
The other thing they left out is during the same period (2 years) of 117 million dollar "loss", there is a 3.6 Billion dollar shortfall not the quoted 137 million. How is it a loss if you give a tax break to a company that has YET to move to your state. Look at the lower unemployment numbers, income taxes, and property taxes paid by a in coming company and it sounds like a good investment.
The so-called middle-class cuts Obama were 80% of Bush cuts, only 20% went to rich. And families making $250K a year are not middle-class, officially those making half that are in top 10% and not middle-class. We should have known tax cuts from Bush would not help the bottom half of Americans. They didn't, and they should not have been continued.
It's absolutely disgusting what the Republicans are doing to the social safety net. Worse yet, they're forcing it to happen with give aways to their patrons. It's a double win for the well-financed interests behind it and a total loss for the middle-class. They corporate sponsors get more money, less oversight and extra bonuses like union busting. Regular people struggling to make ends meet aren't getting anything but the bill for Republican largesse toward their benefactors. We are rocketing toward plutocracy.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Household_income_in_the_United_States
http://www.usnews.com/opinion/articles/2010/10/05/median-us-household-income-by-state
It shouldn't be surprising that a teacher would make more money than the average since that trend is nationwide.
http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/2011/tables/11s0697.pdf
People with a college education are also less likely to be collecting unemployment.
http://www.bls.gov/emp/ep_chart_001.htm
"Walker was not forced into a budget repair bill by circumstances beyond his control," says Jack Norman, research director at the Institute for Wisconsin Future -- a public interest think tank. "He wanted a budget repair bill and forced it by pushing through tax cuts... so he could rush through these other changes."”
A) With all the efforts to help the poor children by the public employees union our childrens performance in major cities with the highest per student expenses, which primarily goes to salaries is a disgrace.
B) With unions only representing 15% of American workers and the public unions being a small part of that total the claim that the mddle class is under attcked may be slightly overstated.
C) Unions historically actually helped people confronting capitalists who tried to reduce labor cost to improve profit. There obviously is not capitalists negotiating against teachers for salary and benefits and never was. However it is politicians who don't care about cost or results who it is clear are recieving or have recieved MONEY from the same unions with whom they negotiate. Kinda the fox in the chicken coop!!!
D) 90% of American workers do not have the salary, fringes and Job security that the teachers union in Madison Wi. have. AVG $100K.
These are facts. You may want to deny them but they are true. Eventually the real middle class who has been under attack for the past 20 years the Tax payers will see through the BS, the talking points and the lack of ethics and real change will occur.
Fact is, the rich are even richer than they were before. If "trickle down" worked (by giving the rich more tax cuts), then the obvious question is: WHERE ARE ALL THE TRICKLE DOWN JOBS!?!?!
Trickle down is a fallacy. The rich should pay at least as much in taxes as their secretaries / administrative assistants do (they don't - just ask Warren Buffett).
Why do the rich hate America?
WSJ
The hypocrisy is thrown in gratis...
To my friends on the Right: how are those "job creators" working out for you? You do know, don't you, that 3/4ths of the tax cuts for the wealthy went to roughly just 6,000 households? Have you been trickled on lately?
It won't work, because the businesses will pocket the money.
Don't believe me? Read that socialist newspaper, The Wall Street Journal, and see what a mountain of money corporations are sitting on and not investing. And emphatically NOT hiring!
The only time a corporate tax cut will stimulate expansion and hiring is at exactly that point in the business cycle when they should be taking away the punch bowl, and not pouring in grain alcohol!