Republican Scorched Earth Policies

[Amskeptic]

I am watching the unrest in Wisconsin with great interest and trepidation.

I have not seen the major news coverage properly present the fact that Governor Walker wrecked the Wisconsin state budget with tax giveaways, that he is trying to "rectify" on the backs of public workers.

I have also not seen clearly spelled-out the fact that public workers are not merely bitching about reduced benefits and stalled pay . . . they are defending their right to collective bargaining.

Meanwhile, the United States Congress is NOT addressing the need to generate jobs like they blathered about during the run-up to midterm elections. Half the agenda is ideological bullshit masquerading as deficit reduction.

The War On The American People has begun.
Colin

[ruckman101]

I think Rachel framed it succinctly, pointing out that indeed, the real point of contention is the loss of collective bargaining. There is a long history of worker's rights unions worked to realize for the first time in Wisconsin. Weekends, 40 hour work weeks and the like.

She also pointed out that since the Citizen's United decision, other than conservative corporate monies, the only other organizations coming close to campaign contributions of a similar scale were unions. So the unions are the last hurdle of opposition standing in the way.

A scandalous decision by the Supreme Court, especially considering Scalia and Thomas are on the Koch Brother's payroll.


neal

[turk]

It's important to note that that public sector unions are the biggest campaign contributor (to guess who). Also, in the case of teachers in Wisconsin, they are a monopoly. First responders are exempt from the modest proposals in the bill. All Walker proposed is that the union contributes 12% of their salary to their Cadillac health plans' premiums, and 6% to their guaranteed pensions, and it restricts collective bargaining to wages. Unions are corporations. What's the difference? The unions in question are the Federation of State County and Municipal Employees. That would be public jobs subsidized by taxpayers. Private sector workers don't have the same benefit bargain. Teachers in Milwaukee make on average over 56,000 a year, not including the benefits. With the benefits it's 100,000. Ya' want proof?

[ruckman101]

When Scott Walker took office he had a budget surplus. A few concessions to corporations and viola, a $137 million budget deficit that can only be balanced on the backs of the public service sector. Do those folks really need retirement funds? Teachers, firefighters, police.


neal

[turk]

Police and Fire are exempt from the restrictions. Also, the budget deficit was projected for the years 2011 -2013 before Walker took office. http://www.politifact.com/wisconsin/sta ... udget-sho/

[glasseye]

http://www.truth-out.org/what-conservat ... -want67907

The URL sez it.

Oh, wait. It's truncated.

"What conservatives really want"

[ruckman101]

The police and firefighters were indeed granted exemptions, coincidentally Walker supporters during the election. Now they are in solidarity with the public server sector that has been attacked. And yes, the unions made campaign contributions, sizeable, but meager and solitarily compared to the conservative corporate tidal wave of funds the Citizen's United decision unleashed.

Much has changed since PolitiFact issued their statement last November.

Here from the horse's mouth, so to speak: http://legis.wisconsin.gov/lfb/Misc/201 ... arling.pdf

"More than half of the lower estimate ($117.2 million) is due to the impact of Special Session Senate Bill 2 (health savings accounts), Assembly Bill 3 (tax deductions/credits for relocated businesses), and Assembly Bill 7 (tax exclusion for new employees).

In English: The governor called a special session of the legislature and signed two business tax breaks and a conservative health-care policy experiment that lowers overall tax revenues (among other things). The new legislation was not offset, and it helped turn a surplus into a deficit [see update at end of post]. As Brian Beutler writes, "public workers are being asked to pick up the tab for this agenda."

But even that's not the full story here. Public employees aren't being asked to make a one-time payment into the state's coffers. Rather, Walker is proposing to sharply curtail their right to bargain collectively. A cyclical downturn that isn't their fault, plus an unexpected reversal in Wisconsin's budget picture that wasn't their doing, is being used to permanently end their ability to sit across the table from their employer and negotiate what their health insurance should look like.

That's how you keep a crisis from going to waste: You take a complicated problem that requires the apparent need for bold action and use it to achieve a longtime ideological objective. In this case, permanently weakening public-employee unions, a group much-loathed by Republicans in general and by the Republican legislators who have to battle them in elections in particular. And note that not all public-employee unions are covered by Walker's proposal: the more conservative public-safety unions -- notably police and firefighters, many of whom endorsed Walker -- are exempt."

........

"Update: I've been persuaded that the surplus-to-deficit picture is more complicated that I initially understood. The budget report is working with two time periods simultaneously: 2010-2011, and then 2011-13. The $130 million deficit now projected for 2011 isn't the fault of the tax breaks passed during Walker's special session, though his special session created about $120 million in deficit spending between 2011 and 2013 -- and perhaps more than that, if his policies are extended. That is to say, the deficit spending he created in his special session is about equal to the deficit Wisconsin faces this year, but it's not technically correct to say that Walker created 2011's deficit. Rather, he added $120 million to the 2011-2013 deficits, and perhaps more in the years after that."


By Ezra Klein | February 18, 2011; 9:36 AM ET



neal

[turk]

Something tells me the teachers in Wisconsin will be just fine. It's not like this guy is Hosni Mubarek or Hitler. Oh wait, I forgot, we're supposed to be more civil nowadays after Lou ghner went nuts because of the Tea Party.

[rmannon]

This is a really hard subject to tackle from all sides. I understand the money games that states, corporations, unions, and very wealthy people play to get what they want from states and federal governments. You have to really look back at US history to understand what is going on. Most of us were not alive when the robber barons were running things in this country and we may get a very large taste of that again here really soon. Most people don't know that there was large opposition to pubic schools when this country was created. Luckily we had a couple of founding fathers that realized the only way a democratic republic would work was to have a highly educated electorate. That could keep power in check. Unfortunately the 13th amendment to the constitution had some unwanted side effects. This is the anti-slavery clause that corporations have been able to use to say that the are "people" too. When you have somebody on paper that never dies they are able to amass a great amount of wealth and the political spectrum is tilted in a way that they are the only one's being looked out for. It takes time but it always seems to be in the corporations favor. I believe that we need a strong party of the people to get this under control. Democrats are shit now, and so are the Republicans. Libertarians and Greens will never be taken seriously in the political climate until big money on all sides is removed from the system. But our laws have been used by the monetary elite in this country to skew what our laws are supposed to do for the average working man/woman. Technology in general has made it really hard to get a good well thought out message to most people with out somebody ripping it apart quickly. I guarantee that there is not one person who if they were elected would not start looking out for their own personal monetary interests. That monetary interest needs to be broadened to help millions correctly and that is why things always end up being "us vs. them". I wish somebody would hurry up and invent a star trek style replicator device so we could get out of this monetary based society. But then again with the way that corporations run things they would shelve the technology to keep things the same. I think it's going to take a few more years and a rising crime rate and less money for everybody (people that is) before things start to change. In the meantime they will keep telling us that Muslims are terrorists, illegal aliens are taking all our jobs, abortion is bad, and gay marriage is a sin. Keep people paying attention to petty issues while the back room deals to destroy us keep getting passed through the house and senate with no opposition. I could keep going and going just like most of you on here, so I will leave with a poem that most of you will either really like or call me crazy for posting

I will not Bow Down America
By Ron Whitehead

I Will Not Bow Down America

I will not Bow Down
to your Government
to your Religion

I will not Bow Down America
to your Materialism
to your International Corporations
to your Religious Shrines
your Stock Markets
your Shopping Malls

I will not Bow Down America
to your Coal Mines
to your Power Plants

I will not go crawling down the deep shafts at midnight

I will not Bow Down America
to your invasion of privacy
to your moral absolutes
your religious political might
I will not Bow Down America
to your Assassins
the CIA the FBI the Corporate Police State
your Killing Murdering Machines

I will not Bow Down America
to your Bureaucracies
to your schools
to your attempt to make me the model citizen
of Your State of Your Church

I will not Bow Down America
to your Hisstory
of Lies
to your Secrets
in the Best interest of
to protect
the People

America
I pledge allegiance
to those who were here before you
to those who will be here after you are gone

America
I pledge allegiance
to the woman I love
and to our children
I pledge allegiance
to my friends and allies
my guides and angels
both seen and unseen

America
I pledge allegiance
to poetry to music to art
to the literary renaissance
to the global literary community
I pledge allegiance to the Beat to the Outsider
I pledge allegiance to meditation to stillness
to magic to beautiful mysticism to ecstasy
to AH and AHA
to the Big Bang Epiphany
to altered states of consciousness
I pledge allegiance
to seeing
into the occult the unknown
to seeing
into everyday into the ordinary
and being amazed
I pledge allegiance to the Sacred and the Profane
to gnostical turpitude
I pledge allegiance to my physical body
and to the knowledge that I am more than
my physical body
I pledge allegiance to seeing more than
the physical world and to those
of higher frequency vibration
and consciousness
I pledge allegiance to passing through
the Sacred Fire
to entering the upper chamber of the
golden pyramid
to levitating over the open sarcophagus
to out of body experience
I pledge allegiance to the hottest sex
and to gentle affection
I pledge allegiance to fractal geometry
the geometry of clouds and coastlines
to 2x2 equaling 5
I pledge allegiance to Failure
to failing as no other dare fail
I pledge allegiance to taking risks
to holy daring
to nam myoho renge kyo
to accepting responsibility for my own actions
I pledge allegiance to not achieving
the American Dream of Success
America
I pledge allegiance to trees to green grass
to brown earth to wildflowers of every color
to wilderness to turquoise Native American skies
to rivers lakes and seas
to healing the earth
I pledge allegiance to the Holy Spirit
to the Word and to Silence
I pledge allegiance to Dreams
I pledge allegiance to Birth to the Journey and to Death
I pledge allegiance
to Candor to Sincerity to Laughter and to Irony
I pledge allegiance to Passion to Compassion
to Empathy and to helping those in need |
I pledge allegiance to Resurrection of the Heart

NO
America
I Will Not Bow Down

[turk]

I will just cut to the chase on this and call it what it is in the simplest terms. If ya' think the unions aren't REALLY PISSED at Walker for standing up to their corporate interests (dues and contributions taken out of the paychecks of their members, which are paid for by the tax-payers, to support their political agenda), well then yer not really paying attention to key points. Not to begrudge the public employees who go to work and do a great job for the state, counties, and municipalities. This is a powerplay. I commend Walker for having the guts to go up against the behemoth. Every one will be fine when the dust settles. The days of the Robber Barons are LONG GONE in America. That's ridiculous. Sheesh.

[ruckman101]

The state of Wisconsin just needed better folks at that collective bargaining table to represent the interests of the state.


neal

[Amskeptic]

I will just cut to the chase If ya' think the unions aren't REALLY PISSED at Walker for standing up to their corporate interests (dues and contributions taken out of the paychecks of their members, which are paid for by the tax-payers, to support their political agenda), well then yer not really paying attention to key points. Not to begrudge the public employees who go to work and do a great job for the state, counties, and municipalities. This is a powerplay. I commend Walker for having the guts to go up against the behemoth. Every one will be fine when the dust settles. The days of the Robber Barons are LONG GONE in America. That's ridiculous. Sheesh.

Turk, honestly . . . the days of the robber barons are long gone?

Do not Faux Snooze propaganda smear with phrases like Walker standing up to Union "corporate interests", that is utter horse shit.

You have to ASK union members if they do not like paying dues. You have to ASK if there was a problem before the PROBLEM that Walker unleashed. You have to allow employees to send their money as they see fit. You could also accost a teacher in the supermarket and scream "my taxpayer dollars are being spent on powdered doughnuts????"

The behometh that Walker is supposedly standing up to, has already bargained and accepted paycuts and reductions in benefits in good faith. For him to sneak in this crippling of the ability to negotiate is bad faith. That you end up on the corporate side of the schism once again no longer surprises me.
Colin
(were you a member of a union when you drove a cab?)

[turk]

There was no union when I drove a cab, and to my knowledge there still isn't. The (cab-drivers) tried many times while I was there. It is funny to see. When I get the firewire cable for this to patch in some vids I'll show you. However, that is a totally different business. It's private sector. Still the cab "medallions" are owned virtually by the city for all intents and purposes. So, that is something of a monopoly too, but different; because people can "buy" the medallions, but then they have to make money with them. We're talking between 40 and 70 k per medallion; and I think there's still annual fees and stuff to keep it legit, not to mention buying and maintaining a vehicle to inspection code. Which means thousands on fitting it to be street legal, on top of the vehicle purchase price. It's a racket.
But, back to the topic. FDR warned against this type of thing. I mean public employees being able to collectively bargain with the government. It's a clear conflict of interest. That's why I bring up who the unions are in bed with above. I just checked, and the medallion prices in 2009 were between 165,000 and 177,000$! That's quite a jump since I quit driving, but I was never interested in owning or leasing one anyhow. It seems like a huge pain in the rear.

[ruckman101]

Walker's goal isn't to balance the budget, that is but the excuse to destroy unions, still legal entities, their political contributions benign compared to those of corporations. A planned orchestrated assault by republicans that this is but the first volley fired in the ongoing struggle that has never diminished since unions were formed. If corporations and the elite truly cared about the welfare of workers and people rather than naked power and greed, there never would have been a need for unions, or the EPA, or federal regulation, or social security, or or or....

I'm not sure I see a conflict of interest between employee and employer here. How is collective bargaining with a government entity a conflict of interest?


neal

[rmannon]

The days of the Robber Barons are LONG GONE in America.

No, no, no my friend. They are on the way back in. It's not just one person like it was way back when. It's a corporate entity now. It's harder to attach a label of "Robber Baron" to an entity made of of stock holders and a board of directors. The players have changed but the game is exactly the same. Keep as much money as possible for the upper echelon and screw everybody else. Somehow on a purely philosophical level that just doesn't seem right to me. I have no issue with people making a lot of money, but by screwing everybody else in the process it's just plain wrong. Their is no easy fix for this. But if you think by making it illegal for a group of workers that make 50K a year to say we want a voice at the table is going to fix it, you are mistaken. Even if it was 50 thousand, 50K a year people standing together. Their power and wealth is nowhere even close to the amount of greenbacks being used to destroy everything that the common man has worked for in this country.

I will not say that the way unions in this country are any better than the corporations they supposedly are against. Like anything else in our micromanaged corporatocracy they have had to consolidate into a larger single entity to get anything accomplished in the name of the all mighty dollar. If unions we smaller on more of a state to state idea and maybe corporations were not allowed to get so big in this country or have the same rights you do things would be different.

All and all this has been a long running game plan to take as much power and treasure away from all of us as possible. It has been going on longer than any of us have been here and it will continue even after we are all gone unless we can get out of a system based on money.