United Liberty
Wisconsin government employees protest a perfectly reasonable proposal
Fri, 02/18/2011 - 4:39pm | posted by Jason Pye
Today has been a crazy busy day for me, but the events in Wisconsin have caught my eye. In case you haven’t heard, Gov. Scott Walker (R-WI) is looking for a way to fix the state’s budget by asking state employees (ie. taxpayer-funded jobs) to pay more for their health insurance benefits and pensions.
From the release from Gov. Walker’s office:
The state of Wisconsin is facing an immediate deficit of $137 million for the current fiscal year which ends July 1. In addition, bill collectors are waiting to collect over $225 million for a prior raid of the Patients’ Compensation Fund.
The budget repair bill will balance the budget and lay the foundation for a long-term sustainable budget through several measures without raising taxes, raiding segregated funds, or using accounting gimmicks.
First, it will require state employees to pay about 5.8% toward their pension (about the private sector national average) and about 12% of their healthcare benefits (about half the private sector national average). These changes will help the state save $30 million in the last three months of the current fiscal year.
While some 10,000 workers are throwing a collective fit at the state capitol in Madison, the Wall Street Journal notes that if these if these measures are rejected by the state legislature, a cut of some 6,000 state jobs would be necessary to fill the budget gap. Given those circumstances, it would seem that the measures propsed by Gov. Walker are entirely reasonable.
Walker’s budget would also limit the ability of government workers’ unions to collectively bargin, which is the other problem some have with the proposal.
Democrats in the Wisconsin Senate, who lost control of that chamber in 2010, bolted to Illinois to prevent a vote on the measure; though Walker is preparing to send state troopers after them. President Barack Obama and other Democrats have chimed in on the proposal, calling it a assault on unions.
As the Washington Post notes, public perception is against government employees, who generally receive better pay and benefits than their private counterparts for essentially the same jobs. But unions are ingrained in culture in the north, so this could end badly for Walker and Wisconsin Republicans even though they are clearly doing what’s best for the state and taxpayers.
But while the media is covering the protests, there hasn’t been much coverage of some of the nasty rhetoric being freely bantered about. After all, we’ve frequently been told that the state of political discourse in our country is what caused the tragedy in Tuscon, Arizona. Yet signs like this aren’t getting any attention:
Doug Ross has more photos from the protests in Wisconsin, including some that depict Walker as Hosni Mubarak and Adolf Hitler. Classy stuff. You can check them out here.
Both sides of the political spectrum suck. Film at 11.
The deal is the private sector can not support the public employee. I believe over 50% of the population is employed in the public sector so it’s just a numbers game. Our family has no health insurance or retirement because I’m paying for yours (public employees). Gov’t needs to stick to the basic services and rolling back to spending and employment levels of 2004-2006 would probably save the current excesses for employees who remained. Then going forward the pay, benefits, pensions and perks would have to be adjusted to a reasonable level. I would also suggest cutting gov’t to a four day work week (effective immediately) and freezing pay for 5 years to catch up to the 20% reduction in time spent “working”. I use the term loosely because I’ve yet to encounter a public employee who hasn’t been infected with a spirit of fecklessness. Elected or hired, anyone on the gov’t payroll seems to acquire a rapacious disposition and the lack of transparency has led to those dispositions being fed to the point of starving the private sector who is the hand that feeds them. If you could be honest about yourself and other public employees you would have to acknowledge there is alot of corruption, laziness, incompetence and excess in the public sector. You may choose to feign a blind-eye but those of us employed privately see it all too clearly. If you were doing a fabulous job the private sector would be all over supporting you. Why do you suppose we’re not? The answer isn’t that we’re brainwashed by FOX News or corporations, it’s that the public employee deserves the ire of its private sector sugar daddies and mommies.
Coping with a budget crisis does NOT require union busting. Discrepancies between state and private sector employees are often exaggerated, and to the extent they exist, the solution should be to support unions and collective bargaining agreements for the private sector, not destroying them for state employees. I’m tired of watching the rich get richer while working class people like most state employees get demonized.
Walker’s budget would also limit the ability of government workers’ unions to collectively bargin, which is the other problem some have with the proposal.
No, that is THE problem. Your “set theory” is wrong. No one who’s upset about the economics isn’t also upset about the union issue — and lots of folks who’d be OK with the economics are nonetheless irrate over the union issue.
I know you detest unions, but you should at least get the story straight. The unions have been ready to bargain for months, and in the meantime, the new GOP majority added to, not reduced, the deficit. Even then, this whole brouhaha might never have happened if Walker had been seen to try to negotiate in good faith. It certainly wouldn’t be a national cause celebre if the GOP weren’t trying to bust the unions.
This is a “crisis” engineeered for union-busting, pure and simple. That’s why there are big crowds and schools closed. Why the police, fire-fighters, etc. are joining in solidarity, even though they’re not currently targeted. And why there’s nation-wide attention from both parties. The GOP hopes to set a precedent for future states to dismantle public sector collective bargaining rights. And the Dems hope to stop it in Wisconsin, or at least make the GOP pay a huge price for continuing to attack unions. So now we’ll see how it plays out.
But it has virtually nothing to do with how “perfectly reasonable” (or not) Walker’s proposal re benefits might be.
WISE UP AMERICA?
Unrest is spreading into different States over the collective bargaining with the public sector unions, but the main spotlight is on Wisconsin the smaller of the States where teachers and local workers are up in arms over pensions and promised benefits. Democrats run off with their tail between their legs, afraid to confront the assembly over this issue. Some unions are packed with illegal alien labor, that should be replaced with the ten million workers looking for job-wanted signs. The crux of the matter started mainly with the collapse of the real estate industry , Freddie Mac-Freddie Mae threatened by radical groups demanding they give mortgages to the lower income people, including illegal alien families who were unable to afford the properties and yet still qualified for a large, expensive home. The aftermath is millions of Americans are out of work, unable to afford their mortgages and hundreds of thousands heading for foreclosure.
Unlike the majority of the American citizens-legal residents, illegal aliens in possession of ITIN (DeFacto Social Security number) issued by the IRS, where able to purchase houses, and then with the deterioration of the market vanished into oblivion, leaving yet another property waiting for a foreclosure notice. Since when is the IRS above the law, aiding and abetting allowing illegal aliens to buy homes? All US Citizens should read the consequences of giving ITIN numbers to foreigners, that was part of the real estate chaos, http://tinyurl.com/64s59w4 and in addition read about the huge billion dollar fraud with Child Tax Credits at http://tinyurl.com/69s7yhk
My distant family in California has seen the housing market collapse as prices fell, and the banks tightening their lending procedures. Before the bubble burst lending institutions would lend with a fiscal score of just 520, now risen to 620 with no allowance for small irregularities. One buyer earning $100 thousand a year, with a good job and stable employment, was not accepted because he had a $32.00 dollar payment outstanding from Macy’s. The Banks have become increasingly Scrooges and are now part of the massive problem, with the real estate market almost dormant., yet they received massive bailouts by the Obama Liberal-Democrats before the 2010 election.
Even today the financial house a refusing to lend and are using every means possible to delay transactions, causing a major disruption for agents and brokers alike. Many small builders have been driven to the edge of bankruptcy. Both Democrats and Republicans must make a stand against the malleable use of the ITIN number. It should not be allowed in qualifying for a property by foreign nationals. The ITIN number had a whole mortgage product built around it, which has now fallen apart. The United States is a land of laws yet the IRS organizes a program to tax illegal behavior in the ITIN. The banks were literary forced to lend money to people living in the country illegally based on their tax Returns. They say that illegal aliens are hard-working, tax-paying people, according to the National Association of Hispanic Real Estate Professionals. So why did these foreigners evacuate hundreds of thousands of homes and vanish, leaving a bloody mess. One of the “masterminds” who served the chronic largely unpublicized situation, in the Liberal-oriented newspapers is the role of Governor of New York Andrew Cuomo in this present economic meltdown. http://tinyurl.com/667zwkv Please—read this information, as it applies to the massive foreclosures caused by one man and covered up.
American has been fooled for years by every administration that has catered to foreign nationals, giving hundreds of billions of dollars to families who never paid into any welfare pool. Even now illegal aliens parents are receiving (SSI) Supplementary Social Security Income having never paid taxes for them. One buyer earning $100 thousand a year, with a good job and stable employment, was not accepted because he had a $32.00 dollar payment outstanding from Macy’s. The Banks have become increasingly Scrooges and are now part of the massive problem, with the real estate market almost dormant., yet they received massive bailouts by the Obama Liberal-Democrats before the 2010 election.
Even today the financial house a refusing to lend and are using every means possible to delay transactions, causing a major disruption for agents and brokers alike. Many small builders have been driven to the edge of bankruptcy. Both Democrats and Republicans must make a stand against the malleable use of the ITIN number. It should not be allowed in qualifying for a property by foreign nationals. The ITIN number had a whole mortgage product built around it, which has now fallen apart. The United States is a land of laws yet the IRS organizes a program to tax illegal behavior in the ITIN. The banks were literary forced to lend money to people living in the country illegally based on their tax Returns. They say that illegal aliens are hard-working, tax-paying people, according to the National Association of Hispanic Real Estate Professionals. So why did these foreigners evacuate hundreds of thousands of homes and vanish, leaving a bloody mess. One of the “masterminds” who served the chronic largely unpublicized situation, in the Liberal-oriented newspapers is the role of Governor of New York Andrew Cuomo in this present economic meltdown. http://tinyurl.com/667zwkv Please—read this information, as it applies to the massive foreclosures caused by one man and covered up.
American has been fooled for years by every administration that has catered to foreign nationals, giving hundreds of billions of dollars to families who never paid into any welfare pool. Even now illegal aliens parents are receiving (SSI) Supplementary Social Security Income having never paid taxes for them. Unbelievable amounts of money have been generously spirited from taxpayers to support foreign nationals by both the Federal and State governments. Do not believe they don’t receive Medicare, Medicaid, food stamps, low income housing. US citizens and legal non-citizen immigrants should be ushered to the front of pension lines and public benefits. Explain to me why we have veteran’s soldier’s homeless, single mothers with children and pensioners living on the streets. Yet illegal alien Mothers who intentionally slipped past the border or entered America by plane or ship pregnant, to later have more 14th Amendment citizenship children are allotted low income housing?
Every State is hurting now from years of neglect, for not confronting the illegal alien invasion of this country. But finally the 50 States subjected to this unparalleled occupation have started to fight back, against the reckless federal government. First it was the courageous border State of Arizona that even though it enacted policing laws, was attacked by the Department of Justice Czars and thrown to the liberal wolves in the 9th Federal District Court in San Francisco. The illegal alien occupation is like a prism of negative light, which streaks out in every direction causing maximum damage to every element of American life and costs that are impracticable to keep serving up anymore. We are educating foreign government’s children, offering them free health and even adding to the populations of our prisons. There is a Pdf file “Illegal Aliens and American Medicine. “ that every American should assimilate on Google. Its ultimately important that the 2006 Secure Fence act be funded and not cut back by the Liberal Parrots in Congress. If the US government and HS Secretary Janet Napolitano really wanted to protect the American people from the foreign invaders including middle Eastern terrorist murderers, they provide the US military along the border as a permanent deterrent with the necessary fire power.
But the momentum of anger is climbing as more and more states have come to the conclusion, that these drains on their treasuries is caused by illegal immigration welfare benefits and the amnesty of 1986. A large majority of Americans sit back and do nothing, which is unacceptable when Liberal progressives are mainly to blame for the hundred billion dollar debt that grows annually We must all become activists and join the TEA Party, or pro-sovereignty groups such as NUMBERSUSA, who are fighting for you to keep more of your tax dollars. Once you are an anonymous member, you can fax you Federal, State or local Representative. Or hold accountable your Senator or Congressman in Washington, by calling 202-224-3121
Perfectly reasonable? You mean perfectly reasonable to those fat cat corporations who bought and paid for the republican elections right! The fat cats are trying to break down/tear down the unions because…. the UNIONS ARE THE ONLY ONES FINANCIALLY HELPING THE DEMOCRATS financially etc. If you take down the unions, the people will NEVER GET THE TRUTH AND THE CORPORATIONS WILL OWN YOU, and YOUR HOMES! They will systematically lower all your wages where you cannot pay your mortgages as well.
Why are tea partiers so ignorant to this. Do you have money in your pocket to cover your future? No, you don’t because the top 2% owns approximately 94% of all U.S. dollars today. It takes money to make money dummies. Your paycheck is next tea partiers. Remember when you spout Christianity, who started you using that? The corporations who lead you. What does the bible say about those in wolves clothing pretending to be Christians and who are they really? You were and are being fooled by Satan if you support these corporations harming these people.
Man, you sound angry. Have a beer and calm down.
The article misses the key provisions of the legislation, which make it impossible to collectively-bargain. If this were an honest debate over compensation and benefits, it could have been taken up by asking the unions for the concessions directly. Many members who have been interviewed said they accepted the need for the contribution changes. So Walker is acting in bad faith, as is the blogger who posted this article.
The “Wise Health Insurance” is quite popular in California and New York. For example it offers the low income health plan. Also offers health insurance for individual with pre-exisiting conditions.
Unions have done many good things for the middle class throughout history. These days, they are a major cause of the problems that plague society.
Perfectly reasonalable to me….all of us must sacrifice as the union members must remember that it includes them.
The economy is not going to get better so states have to cut budgets as demonstrated in the voice of the people in 2010.
With that said, I recommend a new book that’s about Americans who take a stand against tyranny & politicians that must hide from the people. It’s a thriller & about each of us taking a stand.
www.booksbyoliver.com
Please remove your spin from the article. You make it sound as though the issue with collective bargaining rights is simply a footnote to what is happening in Madison, and that this is entirely about the refusal of state employees to pay more (or any) for their benefits. State employees and their unions have already agreed to concessions in benefits. The issue is entirely about collective bargaining rights.
That’s simply not true. Sorry.
He wants to eliminate collective bargaining for pensions and health insurance, not wages. The budget has to be cut somewhere. I live in Iowa and I pay towards my pension and my health insurance. To get free benefits is unheard of these days. It’s either that or the layoffs come. Wouldn’t the people of Wisconsin rather keep their jobs?
The events that happened in Wisconsin will remerge; don’t think that this is the last time we’ve seen this.
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