It is great to see that Madison Wisconsin is finally stepping up to take some of the limelight that follows wildly left wing cities when they misbehave. It’s usually San Francisco or Berkeley that try to grab the prize for the most insane progressive cause, such as outlawing circumcision or requesting to import Guantanamo Bay terrorist prisoners.
As I wrote about a few months ago, the real battles for the next few years in the US will be between the Statists and the private sector. Look at the hateful violent behavior of the Union thugs and their puppet masters in the Democrat Party. Witness the out of state Union bosses employing rent-a-mob tactics of importing protesters from all over the US to Madison. Coupled with their violent rhetoric and riot inducing tactics - they have proven that Unions have one interest only. It is to protect the Unions power over their members and the taxpayers. All financed by heavy doses of cash from their members to push a unionized socialist dream, on an unwilling taxpaying public.
Add to that the run-and-hide tactics of the 14 Wisconsin Senate Democrats that gave the mobs three weeks to try and intimidate the newly elected majority in the State government from making any progress. When you view the picture from above - you see the whole Union /Government cabal in its most gloriously ugly form. The democrats abandoned their jobs, abandoned the taxpayers who elected them for three full weeks. The teachers abandoned their classrooms for several days until public opinion forced them back to work. It is so clear now to see how these “public servants” see the world. Union first, duty second, constituents and students last.
The banal war cry of the left seems to be one size fits all. “You’re trying to take away our rights”. This formula is used for everything from abortion on demand to gay marriage to free needles for drug users to these Union driven demands. Michael Moore, who is front and center in this anarchy, is demanding that all “wealth in America” should be confiscated by the government and re-allocated to the “workers”. I still reel at the term “workers” as it is such a Soviet era term - to describe American employees who are free to work, change jobs, start a business etc. Options which are never made available to the “workers of the world” in socialist regimes which he adores. He never says who should give and who should take, but I notice he has never offered up his own personal massive fortune to the public trough.
Besides extorting money from unwilling state employees for union dues that only support far left causes, Unions impose hugely expensive and unworkable work rules. For example, if a Wisconsin state employee receives a phone call about work after hours they are required to be paid one half hour of overtime. Bus drivers make over $150k a year as they work the system imposed by the Unions to collect massive amounts of overtime due to work restrictions imposed by the Unions. Cha-ching go the Union registers all at taxpayers’ expense.
In any business there are constant pressures to lower costs and prices, from consumers, competitors and the economy in general. The government unions feel they are immune to these pressures and while the whole country is working many more hours for a lot less money, the Wisconsin public employees are working less and receiving more. Wisconsin spends far more than it takes in, so it has two choices, cut the spending or raise taxes on everyone. The Democrats and the Unions have one formula, tax more – followed by spend more, followed by tax more. The Republicans have a separate formula, cut spending followed by lowering taxes followed by cutting spending more. This second formula is what the voters of Wisconsin embraced in 2010 that swept the Governor and Republican majorities in both houses to power. The left refuses to believe elections have consequences unless they win the election. So rather than do the job of debating it and trying to turn the tide in the legislature they ran and hid in Illinois.
The Unions add almost no value to the taxpayers, yet they add an immense amount of cost. That is why the push has been to reduce the public employee Unions costly work rules, allowing the Governor to effectively balance the State budget. Without stripping away the Union death grip on the government the State will never be able to balance its books as the Union rules make it all but impossible to get any efficiency out of the public employee workforce.
It is time the public employee Unions be made to understand that we own them, not they own us. They are the single biggest reason all States are unable to balance the books and need to be heavily curtailed if we are to ever hope to get out of the shadow of an ever expanding government that knows no limit.
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