This just in from Wisconsin: The State is Broke. The People Spoke.
Below are 4 main points taken from a letter penned by a teacher -union member-protester who is on the frontlines at the Wisconsin Union Rebellion. I have added my observations but welcome yours! Statistics are always invited.
1. This is not about wages; we are willing to take pay and health care cuts.
If that is the case, it sure isn’t coming across since this entire protest IS about you refusing to contribute a small percentage of your salary to your pension and healthcare plans—essentially doing what workers in the private sector have to do. It’s not really a cut in your wages in as much as it is a re-distribution of your disposable income from available to spend today to invested in a health care or pension plan for tomorrow. Saving the way the market intended it to be.
2. The Governor recently gave millions in tax breaks to business and is trying repair our deficit by stripping us of the right to bargain for anything but wages.
Earth to union member:
The tax breaks will repair the deficit by allowing businesses to spend money on wealth and job creation, which in turn, drives up tax revenues to the state. As businesses have more money to invest, they will flourish-- putting more people to work and selling more of their goods and services--and tax revenues will rise. This gives the State more money to spend or pay off its debts.
If the government fails to create a business climate that is conducive to economic growth but continues to pay for YOUR expensive healthcare and pension plans, it will be a DRAIN on the books of the State. The State can no longer afford to direct tax revenues to your expensive pension and healthcare plans.
The State is broke. The voters spoke. It’s time for you to take responsibility and pay for a smidgen of it yourself. Remember, we are all supposed to be doing our fair share!
3. We are struggling to maintain our rights to a fair work environment, a safe work environment, decent job protection.
Whoa! This is a blast from the very distant past! Since when is the work environment for nurses, firefighters and teachers unfair, unsafe and unprotected? Earth to teachers: your job protection plan, TENURE, is in great part responsible for driving through the roof the level of incompetence and poor test results in our schools. This is a reach and no one is buying it. This “wah, wah poor us” argument is at best specious.
4. Big business and the wealthy need to pay back by paying their fair share of taxes around here.
This just drives me batty. The stats are all over, but at the lowest, I’ve seen it rated that the top earning 5% of taxpayers pay 58.7% of federal individual income taxes. Did you hear the rallying cry of “Taxed Enough Already”? And big business already pays its fair share (who do you think feeds the government beast? Your measly little salary and mine?). But in the interest of fairness, if MNCs are sheltering their profits offshore, then we have only our (hold onto your Birkenstocks, cheesehead-union protesters) ridiculously high corporate tax rates to blame.
- Comment (15)
- · Quote
- · UnfollowFollow (1)
Comments :
May '10
Re: This just in from Wisconsin: The State is Broke. The People Spoke.
We really need Mike Nelson for this sort of fisking. Long advocated it.
This is the Porkageddon. Wisconsin is ground zero. I like our side of it, the way the unions are coming off.
Jun '10
Re: This just in from Wisconsin: The State is Broke. The People Spoke.
As the governor pointed out, the state can't do this piecemeal, because, the unions will just stall and intimidate local school districts, to the point that nothing ever changes. There has to be some strong general legislation in place. They're fighting a monster here.
Jul '10
Re: This just in from Wisconsin: The State is Broke. The People Spoke.
What do you mean the State of Wisconson is broke. Rachel Madness said on BSNBC that the State of Wisconson is on track to show a Surplus this year. (And She's Not Kidding.)
The Governer created this 'Crisis' by implementing Tax Cuts NEXT YEAR to create this budget shortfall THIS YEAR so he could Break the Unions.
This is really about Republicans being Mean Spirited and Hating the Working Man!
Dec '10
Re: This just in from Wisconsin: The State is Broke. The People Spoke.
Forgive me if this point has been brought up in another post, but any place where I have ever worked, if I called off sick and then was seen obviously healthy in a public place; I would be in a world of trouble.
Jul '10
Re: This just in from Wisconsin: The State is Broke. The People Spoke.
The Tea Party, live from Madison.
Breathtaking.
Aug '10
Re: This just in from Wisconsin: The State is Broke. The People Spoke.
Here's what I don't like about public unions.
Government takes tax money from me to pay for government employees, this comes in the form of income and sales tax in my case.
Government gives this money to their employees.
The employees pay union dues from their tax funded wages.
The union takes this money to lobby on behalf of pro-union candidates.
Pro-union candidates increase wages/benefits of government union employees.
Government takes more taxes from me to pay for increased benefits.
Rinse, repeat, recycle.
What is worse is that they say it is fat cats who are opposed to this, but given the mass of money that comes from the "non-progressive" sales tax it is the poor and middle class who pay a sizable amount of the burden.
Public unions initially appear to be in a symbiotic relationship with government employees, but they are really a parasite on the public.
Jul '10
Re: This just in from Wisconsin: The State is Broke. The People Spoke.
I've hired people with criminal records.
I've hired reformed drunks and drug addicts.
I've hired homeless people.
But there was one class of people I never, ever, ever would consider hiring: people who had been members of a public-sector union. They're beyond redemption.
Jul '10
Re: This just in from Wisconsin: The State is Broke. The People Spoke.
"....need to pay back...." (at least she didn't state "give back")
I truly despise that phrase.
"...fair..."
I'm beginning to truly despise that word.
I would ask her if it is "fair" that she earns x amount while some others earn "minimum wage." Is it fair that she has a house/apartment while some do not. Is it "fair" that she has a car while others do not. Is it "fair" that she eats what ever when ever while others can not. And on and on.....
Dec '10
Re: This just in from Wisconsin: The State is Broke. The People Spoke.
Staistics? If I'm not mistaken, the average salary and benefit package for a teacher, in WI, is $89 thousand, including $22K in pension and medical insurance, every year.
The pension and medical insurance benefits, every year, approach the poverty level income for the entire country, for an individual's entire yearly compensation. An entire job, for somebody at the poverty level, is just the medical benefits and pension benefits, for a WI teacher. I don't make those those numbers up, the federal government does, and they decide whom is at the poverty level.
That's an interesting number and that's just the average.
Meanwhile, I am happily engaged, but will you marry me? (Kidding!) My beloved hates math,which is what helps her to continue being a liberal. We talked yesterday about how much more food and gas is costing us and she smiled, then said, "You know, this would have more impact if you hadn't already been saying this, to me, for more than two years, now".
I love my fiancee, like to imagine having her in my life, but also being able to save more money. She views the world through a kaleidoscope.
Feb '11
Re: This just in from Wisconsin: The State is Broke. The People Spoke.
CJRun--there is hope for your fiancee. I too was once a Democrat.
Sep '10
Re: This just in from Wisconsin: The State is Broke. The People Spoke.
Sally Zelikovsky -- "Remember, we are all supposed to be doing our fair share!"
What Governor Walker is asking from the teachers is still not their fair share--it falls way short of it.
I, too, was once a liberal, though never a "big-D" Democrat. But, alas, I was very young...
Feb '11
Re: This just in from Wisconsin: The State is Broke. The People Spoke.
Dan Holmes: Sally Zelikovsky -- "Remember, we are all supposed to be doing our fair share!"
What Governor Walker is asking from the teachers is still not their fair share--it falls way short of it.
I, too, was once a liberal, though never a "big-D" Democrat. But, alas, I was very young... · Feb 19 at 7:20pm
That's exactly right. The meager 5.8% they're being asked to contribute is just a drop in the bucket.
As for being a former Dem, what is it they say? A conservative is a Democrat who was mugged by reality?
Oct '10
Re: This just in from Wisconsin: The State is Broke. The People Spoke.
I'm not a Tea Partier (yet), and I first heard you (and of you) on the radio this past week (Hugh Hewitt?...or a Ricochet podcast, maybe?) - I salute you.
I am on the verge of pulling back into my shell and focusing on family and business to the exclusion of politics - especially since here in California I think we're behind the power curve (aka beyond the tipping point). Until the bond market says, "Enough!" and the state fails to sell a bond issue, our "leaders" will continue to live in another world,
Your post here is so precise that I think maybe there's some hope of persuading voters here in the Granola State (including a few here in the PRDM) to adopt some rational policies and vote in enough politicians to begin a political Reformation. I have one more Counter-Revolution in me but will execute on it only if I see a realistic chance of success. "Thank you for your service."
Feb '11
Re: This just in from Wisconsin: The State is Broke. The People Spoke.
People should remember the three principles that the WI gov is proposing:
1. No bargaining over non-wage costs - that is up to a vote by the legislature
2. State no longer collecting union dues as a payroll deduction.
3. Union re-certification requires annual vote, requiring majority of members.
The reinforcing dependency of public unions and elected officials must be broken.
Nov '10
Re: This just in from Wisconsin: The State is Broke. The People Spoke.
Point four is one of the most infuriating cliches being tossed around by the modern left. It's becoming increasingly obvious that "fair share" means something along the lines of the top 1% of earners bearing 100% of the tax burden.
This is the main reason I am a conservative in the first place. Some of the things the left wants I would be willing to compromise on if I thought for one second that they would be satisfied at some point, but the more I look at the situation, the clearer it becomes that they will never stop. The welfare state will never be big enough; the assault on traditional morality will never end; they will always attempt to redefine one more "nice thing to have" as a "human right."