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Scott Walker: A Fiscally Responsible Governor or a Politician Who Is Playing Favorites?

Submitted by Elaine Magliaro, Guest Blogger

There’s been a lot going on in Wisconsin in the past week. I hope most Americans are aware of the reason why so many Wisconsinites have converged on the state capital to hold demonstrations.

Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, a Republican, claims that the state is in financial trouble. He’s asking teachers, plow drivers, janitors, nurses, garbage collectors, and other public sector workers to contribute more to their pensions and to pay a larger amount of their health premiums. It appears many of those workers are willing to negotiate with the governor and to consider having more money taken out of their paychecks for their pensions and health insurance. What those employees are not willing to do is relinquish their right to collective bargaining.

I can understand why Governor Walker is asking public employees to have more deductions taken from their paychecks during these fiscally difficult times. What I question is his budget-repair bill that would strip public employees of their right to collective bargaining. If the governor believes that taking away that right will help with the state budget shortfall, why isn’t he demanding that police, firefighters, and state troopers give up their right to collective bargaining too? Could it be political payback? Does that sound like a possibility to you?

Here is an excerpt from an article that Todd Richmond wrote for Bloomberg:

Walker has introduced a bill that would strip public employees across the board — from teachers to snowplow drivers — of their right to collectively bargain for sick leave, vacation, even the hours they work. But absolutely nothing would change for local police, fire departments and the State Patrol.

The bill smacks of political favoritism for public safety unions that supported Walker’s election bid last year and sets up new haves and have-nots in Wisconsin government, said Paul Secunda, a Marquette University professor who specializes in labor law.

“That’s called ‘thank you, I got your back,'” Secunda said. “There’s no surprise there. This is the worst type of favoritism there could be.”

 Well, Wisconsin firefighters are showing their solidarity with their fellow public employees. There’s a post at Mother Jones about an interview that Uptake’s Oliver Dykstra had with Mahlon Mitchell, president of the Professional Firefighters of Wisconsin. (Mother Jones also posted a video of the interview.)

Here are some of the highlights of that interview—which I’ve taken from Mother Jones:

  • “The reason that we are here is because it’s important that labor sticks together. There was a message from the governor’s office to conquer and divide…collective bargaining is not just for us, police and fire, it’s good for all involved. It’s a middle-class upbringing.”
  • “When firefighters see an emergency, one thing we do is respond. And we see an emergency in the house of labor, so that’s why we’re here.”
  • “Every day, if you notice, we lead the AFSCME employees, the SEIU employees, all the public sector employees into the building, because we are here to fight with them.”
  • “Collective bargaining is not about union rights; it’s about rights of workers…We ask Gov. Walker to come back and negotiate with the people, negotiatie with the state workers’ unions, and get things worked out, as opposed to just putting out this bill and we don’t hear from him again.”
  • “Us as firefighters, we have been exempted from this bill…There’s a 5.8 percent pay into the pension, there’s a 12.4 percent pay into the health care premium benefits…For the betterment of the government, for the betterment of the state, we don’t mind helping to pay for that. We don’t want to price ourselves out of a job. Ever. What we want to do is have a fair and equitable treatment among our members.”

    • 

I have great respect for the Wisconsin firefighters who are supporting their fellow public employees—even though they have nothing to gain politically or financially by doing so.

“We must, indeed, all hang together, or most assuredly we shall all hang separately.” ~Benjamin Franklin

Sources

Mother Jones

Bloomberg

595 thoughts on “Scott Walker: A Fiscally Responsible Governor or a Politician Who Is Playing Favorites?”

  1. Otteray & Buddha,

    Walker suffers from nuclear neuron con-fusion. His brain cells have all melted and melded into one big gray blob.

  4. BIL, Scott Walker is living proof that the square root of minus one does exist.

  7. Elaine M.: I know some on both sides of the aisle that SHOULD be charged. With something.

  9. BIL, you got it on the electrons. Now what is the Democrat’s excuse. Most of them are bigger than electrons, although some seem to have smaller brains.

  10. Buddha & Otteray,

    Speaking of electrons: When the puppets masters want someone to do their bidding, they tell their operatives, “Up and atom!”

  12. Elaine, once again, great link. The root of all evil in politics is money! This article gives us more reason to do something about citizens united.

  13. Hey, CEJ:
    The trolls just get paid to write trollish stuff. I don’t think they get paid to either read or think. If they post after hours, do you suppose they get paid time and a half?

    OMG, think of the electrons wasted with their drivel. Think of the poor electrons! Does no one think of the electrons?

  15. From Huffington Post (2/25/2011)
    Union Busting: The Real Call from the Koch Brothers
    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-b-keegan/union-busting-the-real-ca_b_828237.html

    Excerpt:
    This week, Americans for Prosperity — a right-wing political powerhouse funded by the billionaire Koch brothers — started running anti-union TV ads in Wisconsin. The ads allege that Wisconsin’s public workers, protesting Gov. Scott Walker’s attempt to dismantle their right to unionize, “walked off their jobs, abandoning our children.” The ads ask, “Who decides Wisconsin’s future? Voters or government unions?” Unsurprisingly, the TV spots don’t go into detail about who paid for them — viewers might be less likely to trust faux-populist rhetoric if they knew it came straight from the mouth of a corporate front group run by a pair of billionaires.

    The story of the year since Citizens United v. FEC may be perfectly crystallized in the fight that Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker is waging against his state’s public employee unions. Organizations like Americans for Prosperity spent millions of dollars in 2010 running misleading ads bashing health care reform, progressives, immigrants, and American Muslims in order to elect politicians who would stand up for the interests of big business. Now those interests are working hard, and spending a little extra money, to make sure they collect on their investments.

    The real story behind the protests in Wisconsin has little to do, as Gov. Walker would have you believe, with a state-level push for fiscal responsibility. It has everything to do with the changing dynamics of money and influence in national politics. Pro-corporate politicians have never liked the power wielded by unionized workers. Last year, in Citizens United v. FEC, the Supreme Court handed them the tools do to something about it, paving the way for a wave of corporate money that helped to sweep pro-corporate politicians into power in November. Citizens United also increased the power of labor unions, but union spending was still no match for money pouring into elections from corporate interests. As Rachel Maddow has pointed out, of the top 10 outside spenders in the 2010 elections, 7 were right-wing groups and 3 were labor unions. Gov. Walker’s attempt to obliterate Wisconsin’s public employee unions, if it succeeds, could be the first of many attempts across the country to permanently wipe out what are the strongest political opponents of the newly empowered corporate force in American politics.

    Citizens United alone did not win the 2010 elections for Republicans. But the money it let loose helped ensure that those swept to power by widespread voter dissatisfaction would be eager to pander to the interests of corporations and the wealthy, and to demonize those who oppose them. Instrumental in this movement were David and Charles Koch, the manufacturers behind Americans for Prosperity and central organizers in the movement to create a government more concerned with corporate profits. Americans for Prosperity, freed by the new rules governing corporate spending and unencumbered by financial disclosure requirements, spent millions of dollars on federal races in 2010, including over $350,000 in Wisconsin congressional races. Koch-backed groups were even implicated in a “voter caging” scheme to suppress the turnout of progressive voters in the state.

    Koch Industries, through other means, was also directly involved in the election of Walker. The company’s political action committee was the fourth largest contributor to his campaign, contributing $43,000, nearly the maximum amount allowed. It also contributed $1 million to the Republican Governor’s Association, which in turn spent millions on ads attacking Walker’s opponent. These kinds of direct and indirect contributions to candidates were legal under Wisconsin’s campaign finance rules even before Citizens United. But they illustrate the enormous stake that corporations like Koch have in who controls state governments–and the amounts they are willing to spend to elect sympathetic candidates. And, as the recent prank call to Walker shows, that money buys more than a sympathetic candidate. It buys the ultimate access.

    What is perhaps most troubling about the post-Citizens United flood of corporate money in politics is the free rein it has given for corporations to hide behind front groups to run misleading ads without ever being held accountable for their content. Americans for Prosperity is now employing the same tactics it used to smear health care reform in key House districts in its ad campaign against Wisconsin unions. Like in its ads falsely claiming that health care reform hurt Medicare recipients, the group’s ads in Wisconsin pretend to champion populist values while pushing a decidedly anti-populist agenda. The ads seek not only to misinform voters, but to blame ordinary Americans for problems they did not cause.

  16. If you didn’t catch the Greta Van Sustern FOX interview with Walker it had one interesting moment. Regarding agents provocateur Walker has been saying that he was talking about the possibility that the protesters had troublemakers in the the crowd and he and others were talking about it, not that he was talking about planting troublemakers in the crowd. This interview with Greta clearly shows that he is lying. He even says “Other lawmakers were calling me up and suggesting it”. I think he needs to be in front of a grand jury and made to disclose the names.

    http://videos.mediaite.com/embed/player/?layout=&playlist_cid=&media_type=video&content=NSY6741K2G9CM1XN&read_more=1&widget_type_cid=svp

  17. Mike Spindell:

    Thank you for your kind words, I know I have hit a mark.

    But out of curiosity how does Ayn Rand have anything at all to do with the post? I dont particulary care for her, to black and white in my mind.

    But hey, if you like her more power to you.

  18. well then lets have a 15% across the board tax with no deductions. But it wont happen and I’ll tell you why, people who believe as you do wont let it happen.

    I say give the wage earners who make over a million dollars a party at the White House and a big tax break. Let the kids look up to them instead of sports figures, more people are able to make it in business than sports anyway.

    Give them something to shoot for, look at Russell Simmons. How many children do you think he has inspired? Make it cool to be a rich person who earned their money through hard work.

  19. The trolls are out in force. When you have a billion or two in your checking account, you can buy a lot of disinformation and disruption. There have been several articles on the intertubes the past few days about paid right wing trolls. I saw an item where one of them was complaining he/she could not post a comment on Daily Kos without having to wait 24 hours after registering.

    Speaking of DKos, blogger Adept2u has a good diary up this morning about the Koch brothers making a statement. Complete with a great graphic.

    http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/02/25/949646/-Hey-Gang!The-Koch-Boys-have-made-a-statement!-

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