Reagen fired the air traffic controllers who walked off the job....
An interesting point was raised the other day... w/out the WiPERS people accepting the 12.6% premium for their insurance Walker will need to fire 6000+ state employees.
An interesting point was raised the other day... w/out the WiPERS people accepting the 12.6% premium for their insurance Walker will need to fire 6000+ state employees.
Wisconsin was on track for a surplus by the end of the fiscal year. Gov. Walker cut taxes. Now Wisconsin has a deficit. Gov. Walker could simply repeal his tax cuts but that would mean standing up to don't tax and keep spending Repubs so he takes the cowedly way out and attacks the Right's favored scapegoats, education and unions.
Gov. Walker is the cause of his state's financial problems, not the unions.
I agree but this isn't about unions. This is about Gov. Walker miscalculating his tax cuts and turning a surplus into a massive deficit. As I said, simply repealing the tax cuts would solve the problem but he's too scared to deal with the TP backlash and so is attacking the what has traditionally been politically safe scapegoats, public sector workers and unions.
Only he's miscalculated once more and now has a massive, 1,000s strong protest on his hands with a large portion of his gov't (including a few Repubs) abandoning him to the angry mob. He's trying to spin this as union bullying and the Wisconsin 14 (16 but they're named for the Dems) as cowards with mixed results.
I admit I am not a fair judge on the subject. But I think the Democrats leaving the state looked cowardly. Now Gov. Walker is a bull rider. He just needs to hold on tight and make them vote up or down. If he steps back now he may as well resign. The democrats would never support him anyway and there will be cowardly Republicans run for the bushes. The republicains have way too many "Rinos".
Things is they don't look cowedly, that's just Repub spin. They left because they don't have the votes to kill the bill but have the numbers to prevent a quorum (effectively collapsing the gov't). Think of it as a physical filibuster. This fact isn't lost on most who've been following the story, thus the massive size of this protest. People who aren't even effected by this (the firefighter union for example) are out there, protesting and cheering on the Wisconsin 14 (and 2 Repubs).
Spin or no spin it looks cowardly to me. Seems like a few years ago some Republicans ran like that and the democrats called them cowardly. Anyway the union lived up to my expectations last night. GMA said that one of the largest unions offered to sign off on everything but rights for the union to keep their hand in everyone's pocket. And the governor said no.
Wait until all those teachers that called in sick and showed up on TV go back to work. I hope they nail them just like every time someone I worked with called in sick and went to a ball game.
Full & fair disclosure; my father, uncle, and a few others are WI state employees.
Cowardly is running away. Near as I can tell the only one doing that are democrats.
As far as the fiscal issues go your information that Walker caused the deficit is, as per usual, incorrect. Here's a letter from the WI Fiscal Bureau that goes into detail about the issue. Further, the problem isn't just "deficit" but "debt." WI is about $40 Billion in debt http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/Wisconsin_state_spending.html
The unions didn't cause the debt nor the deficit single handedly. Nor are they being asked to pay for it single handedly. The proposal would require states EEs to pay 12.6% of their own premiums (not sure if the health insurance is the same for everyone but the family members I have with state insurance currently pay ZERO in premiums. They pay no co-pays and have no deductibles.
Walker's proposal would permit teachers to negotiate salaries which would permit adminstrators to reward good teachers and not bad ones rather than follow a non-self policing union's pay scale. The salaries would not be allowed to be higher than the CPI.
Now, that 12.6% for some will really hurt there's no question about that. This is not some exercise in giddily causing pain. It sucks big time. However, WI needs to address its budget shortfall and its debt. This is a start. For some it will be hard. There are two alternatives... 1) fire a buch of state EEs or 2) kick the can and make harder cuts later. Pick your poison.
On an interesting side note... if the budget bill doesn't pass by Friday a bond refinance won't get passed. This will cost $165,000,000. Walker says he'll have to layoff 1500 worker to pay for it. Think one of those 14 Senators in Illinois might find a conscience? WSJ Article on the issue.
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The thing is the unions are willing to negotiate. They're willing to take cuts in pay and increases in personal contributions. Their only 'demand' is the right to collective bargain, Gov. Walker refuses. This is anti-worker, plain and simple, thinly vialed behind budget woes that an end to collective bargaining won't solve (how is telling people they can't meet up and present a united front when asking for whatever they're asking for going to save so much as a penny).
Deal in facts not conjecture and aspersion.
The budget woes are not thinly veiled if you read the letter from the WI Fiscal Bureau. They are real and not Walker's making. Here's the link to the letter in case you missed it the first time: http://legis.wisconsin.gov/lfb/Misc/2011_01_31Vos&Darling.pdf
The state employees will still be able to negotiate on an individual basis. They will be limited to salaries within the CPI. Why is it bad that an administrator can now deny a raise to a bad EE and give one to an good EE?
Saving a penny: State EEs will start paying some of their own pension and insurance costs. That's how.
The 12.6% bump in insurance costs will hurt for some and I feel form them. It sucks. However, cuts need to be made and the alternatives I suggested are real. Refusing to deal with the deficit and the $40,000,000,000 debt will only make it worse further down the road.
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