Mar 2
The following article elucidates the involvement of the White House and the Democratic Party in supporting the public union in Wisconsin and how their choice to battle here might have been a major blunder that can have a domino effect.
Richard Pollock stated it succinctly and definitively:
“The decision by the Democratic Party and its allies to draw a line in the sand in Wisconsin was the wrong strategy, in the wrong state, at the wrong time, on the wrong issue, and executed in the wrong way.”
Let’s hope that is the Lexington and Concord of a revolution of crucial changes regarding the public unions and their relationship with State governments and to their benefactor taxpayers.
Why Obama and the Dems Blundered in Wisconsin
Richard Pollock February 21, 2011
It is becoming clear that the Wisconsin battle was a strategic political blunder for President Obama and the Democratic Party. The decision by the Democratic Party and its allies to draw a line in the sand in Wisconsin was the wrong strategy, in the wrong state, at the wrong time, on the wrong issue, and executed in the wrong way.
The White House, which for the last two years seemed so tone deaf over health care, jobs, and the economy, may again be displaying a stunning political miscalculation. Unless the Democrats pull the plug on their ill-conceived Wisconsin campaign, the statewide and national backlash now beginning to emerge may continue to resonate all the way to the 2012 presidential elections.
It will take time to unearth exactly who designed and sold the Wisconsin strategy to the president. But what is emerging is that the White House may have developed two strategies for 2011, not one. The first track, clear to us all, was for the president to tack to the right on the national stage, seek the statesmanlike high road, and negotiate deals with national Republicans.
The second strategy, now emerging, was to pick a target outside the beltway that could serve as a broad political narrative, attack it, nationalize it, and use it to rally Obama’s demoralized political base. It was a bold strategy. They chose Madison, Wisconsin, Gov. Scott Walker’s budget-tightening initiative, and his effort to rein in public employee unions. They further decided to let loose angry union members serve as shock troops. Wisconsin would be the first test case, which would be replicated in other states, including Ohio, Indiana, and Idaho.
The plan seems to have been born both within the war room of the Democratic National Committee and within the Oval Office. The overall coordination for the operation was the remnants of the president’s 2008 political campaign organization, Organizing for America (OFA). The strategy would be launched by the DNC and by the president, who, during the height of the Egyptian crisis, incongruously granted an exclusive interview to a Milwaukee TV reporter over union policy. While Cairo burned, he took time to decry a Wisconsin governor’s effort to rein in the budget and limit union benefits. Shaping the narrative for the attack, he said that Gov. Scott Walker’s effort “seems like more of an assault on unions.” [1]
The Wisconsin political blitzkrieg on Gov. Walker was not a spontaneous eruption. It is now clear that it was a highly organized operation planned in Washington, D.C., to unleash a national counterattack on the gains made by Republicans and Tea Party activists. Getting OFA and the president to act in close coordination was itself no small feat. The plan included busing in thousands of government employees, arranging for Democratic lawmakers to flee to an adjoining state, flying speakers and political organizers into Madison, organizing thousands to leave their jobs in public safety and in classrooms, and staging rallies inside and outside the statehouse. They even enticed sympathetic doctors to draft bogus doctor excuses for government workers.
It all worked like a charm. Except that it struck all the wrong notes and portrayed all the wrong images. There is nothing more unseemly that to see a president serve as healer in Tucson and a political hack in Madison.
For in the end, the images and messages tell the story. The showdown in Madison pits pampered public employees against hard-pressed taxpayers. It portrays union workers as an angry mob against those seeking orderly legislative deliberation. It paints Democratic lawmakers as outlaws on the run, undermining the democratic process. It launched a national debate about the generous salaries and benefits for government workers during a time of economic shortages. And it showcased school teachers who abandoned their children in favor of narrow, partisan political gain.
This is a bad unraveling of a political campaign.
The miscalculation by Democrats is understandable. They still believed Wisconsin was one of the key populist centers for Midwest radicalism. Living on history long past, they envisioned Madison as ground zero for a resurrection of progressivism. It was, after all, the home for progressives’ champions, whose heroes included the La Follette family, led by former Governor Robert La Follette, Sr. The La Follette family has been a radical left Wisconsin political dynasty for the last century. Robert Sr. ran for president under the Progressive Party; his son succeeded him as governor. His other son, Robert, Jr., served in the state Senate for 22 years and led the pre-WWII isolationist movement, a precursor to the present day anti-war movement. In 2010, Doug La Follette was the only surviving Democrat to win statewide office in the November election.
But there also is the lure of Madison, Wisconsin for radicals, many of whom populate the political leadership of the Democratic Party and the unions. Madison was the Midwest home for the far-left counterculture and for the violent, revolutionary Students for a Democratic Society. In 1970, an anti-war van loaded with six barrels of explosives detonated outside the Mathematics building [2] [2]at the University of Wisconsin, killing a physicist who was working late at night. The bombing became a sensation for SDS, and overnight the four suspects were put on the FBI’s Most Wanted List. During one of the many Madison political protests, there was a three-day riot that led to the arrest, twice, of a student activist named Paul Soglin. He was later rewarded by being repeatedly elected mayor of Madison [3].
Surely behind this long history of progressive left politics, Democrats and union organizers might have thought Madison would be the first place to strike against the belt-tightening moves of a new, untested Republican governor. A line was drawn in the sand, and Madison would become ground zero in the unions’ effort to turn around their political prospects.
But they perhaps were tone deaf about Madison, just as they have been tone deaf nationally. They forgot that Wisconsin has been turning from blue, to purple, to bright red. In the 1990s it was former Republican Wisconsin Governor Tommy Thompson who drew another line in the sand over welfare reform. He won, and President Bill Clinton signed into law a sweeping change that sought to reward work over welfare. Thompson also was a champion for school choice, a campaign bitterly fought by the same teachers’ union that abandoned their classrooms last week for partisan gain.
Then came the latest 2010 election in Wisconsin in which there was a statewide sweep for Republicans [4]. Sen. Russ Feingold (D-WI), long considered safe, was defeated. The governor and lieutenant governor swept to power. Today, five of the eight members of the state’s U.S. congressional delegation are Republicans. The sole Democrat in the government is Doug La Follette, who is secretary of state. The legislature is in Republican hands. And the architect of the victorious 2010 Wisconsin campaign was GOP Chairman Reince Priebus.
So the showdown in Wisconsin may assume national proportions. Priebus now will aim a national campaign against President Obama and the Democrats. And the Democrats chose Priebus’ state as their launching pad to smash Republicans.
The Wisconsin battle is not over. But it could be the beginning of a moment of clarity in which a small but entrenched special interest — government workers — is dislodged by fed-up taxpayers. And it could be a contagion that spreads to other states across the country.
UPDATE: Politico’s Ben Smith and Maggie Haberman report this morning [5] on how the unions’ high-risk Wisconsin strategy may come at a potentially steep cost: “Some strategists and labor officials watching the protest conflagration from the outside are beginning to fret that a large-scale defeat in Wisconsin [6] will have a devastating ripple effect, weakening labor state by state throughout the rest of the country.”
http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/why-obama-and-the-dems-blundered-in-wisconsin/?singlepage=true
Posted in Democrat Gov. Scott Walker Government spending Labor Unions Obama Progressives Republican State Public Unions Taxpayer with No Comments
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Mar 1
In the following editorial, Michelle Malkin spells out some of the relevant issues regarding the public union strike in Wisconsin. With her trademark incisiveness and cynicism she noted that:
“… the so-called progressives truly believe that bringing American union workers into the 21st century in line with the rest of the work force is tantamount to dictatorship.”
and
“… the so-called progressives truly believe that by walking off their jobs and out of their classrooms, they are "putting children first."”
Clearly, there are a lot more issues in play than most have discussed. For example, how can the public unions even defend their exorbitant and ever escalating salaries and compensation packages which substantially exceed that which their taxpaying benefactors are receiving when their students’ test scores continue to plummet further year after year?
Another issue which Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker hasn’t really articulated is that the legislation that he is defending will do away with tenure of teachers (which is what the union is fighting) and base their employment on merit.
What a novel idea! Keep the good teachers and get rid of the bad ones. Hmm.
Right now the union contract reads that the last teacher hired is the first one fired so that many energetic, educated, and enthusiastic younger teachers who may relate well to the students and their parents are axed instead of some of the old dead wood, teachers far past their prime who shouldn’t be teaching any longer but who have been granted tenure.
In Wisconsin, It's The Unions Vs. Democracy
Michelle Malkin 02/18/2011
Welcome to the reckoning. We have met the fiscal apocalypse, and it is smack dab in the middle of the heartland.
As Wisconsin goes, so goes the nation. Let us pray it does not go the way of the decrepit welfare states of the European Union.
The lowdown: State government workers in the Badger State pay piddling amounts for generous taxpayer-subsidized health benefits.
Faced with a $3.6 billion budget hole and a state constitutional ban on running a deficit, new GOP Gov. Scott Walker wants public unions to pony up a little more.
He has proposed raising the public employee share of health insurance premiums from less than 5% to 12.4%. He is also pushing for state workers to cover half of their pension contributions.
To spare taxpayers the soaring costs of byzantine union-negotiated work rules, he would rein in Big Labor's collective bargaining power to cover only wages unless approved at the ballot box.
As the free-market MacIver Institute in Wisconsin points out, the benefits concessions Walker is asking public union workers to make would still maintain their health insurance contribution rates at the second-lowest among Midwest states for family coverage.
Moreover, a new analysis by benefits think tank HCTrends shows that the new rate "would also be less than the employee contributions required at 85 percent of large Milwaukee-area employers."
Obama Speaks Up
This modest call for shared sacrifice has triggered the wrath of the White House-Big Labor-Michael Moore axis. On Thursday, President Obama lamented the "assault on unions."
AFL-CIO and Service Employees International Union bosses dubbed Walker the "Mubarak of the Midwest," while their minions toted posters of Walker's face superimposed on Hitler's.
Moore goaded thousands of striking union protesters to "shut down" the "new Cairo" while the state's Democratic legislators bailed on floor debate over the union reform package.
Education Secretary Arne Duncan spurned the opportunity to condemn thousands of Wisconsin public school teachers for lying about being "sick" and shutting down at least eight school districts across the state to attend Capitol protests (many of whom dragged their students on a social justice field trip with them).
Instead, Duncan defended teachers for "doing probably the most important work in society." Only striking government teachers could win federal praise for not doing their jobs.
Yes, the so-called progressives truly believe that bringing American union workers into the 21st century in line with the rest of the work force is tantamount to dictatorship.
Yes, the so-called progressives truly believe that by walking off their jobs and out of their classrooms, they are "putting children first."
If ever there was proof that public unions no longer work in the public interest, this is it.
Big Labor dragoons workers into exclusive representation agreements, forces them to pay compulsory dues that fatten Democratic political coffers and then has the chutzpah to cast itself as an Egyptian-style "freedom" and "human rights" movement.
Meanwhile, union leaders elsewhere are quietly forcing their low-wage members to share the sacrifice in order to preserve teetering health funds.
In New York state, Skidmore College campus janitors, dining service workers and other maintenance employees received late notice from the SEIU that 4.15% of their gross earnings will now be deducted from their paychecks to cover the cost of the health plan provided through the behemoth 1199 SEIU Greater New York Benefit Fund. (If the name sounds familiar, it's because this is one of several privileged SEIU affiliates that has received an ObamaCare waiver.)
These workers are forced to join the union in order to preserve their jobs, and unlike non-union workers, they are locked into a single health plan.
The SEIU has now decreed that they must pay new fees to include spouses on their plans and has hiked employee co-pays for doctor visits and prescription drugs.
What's necessary for New York union workers is necessary for Wisconsin union workers — and for the rest of the protected union-worker class in bankrupt and near-bankrupt states across America.
The "persuasion of power" so ruthlessly and recklessly exercised by the SEIU and its thuggish allies must be broken by the moral courage of fiscal discipline.
It's now or never.
http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article/563689/201102181848/In-Wisconsin-Its-The-Unions-Vs-Democracy.aspx
Posted in Democrat Gov. Scott Walker Government spending Labor Unions SEIU State Public Unions with No Comments
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Feb 23
As goes Wisconsin, may go the rest of the states. What is transpiring in this state is of profound importance for the present and the future of many of the states, their citizens and youth, taxpayers and future generations. This is a struggle between citizen and taxpayer rights, democracy and freedom versus greedy, strangulating, corrupt self-serving public unions that have destroyed quality education and have brought the state to the precipice of fiscal disaster.
Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker and the state’s Republican Senators have bravely remained resolute in their positions to be fiscally responsible and prudent and protect the interests, rights and freedoms of the state’s citizens who elected them for this purpose. They are relentlessly being attacked not just by the state’s public unions but by other national unions, the far-left “mainstream” news media and even the Obama Administration through mostly through proxies such as Organizing for America. Tens of thousands of union members are being bused in (and paid) to protest and millions of dollars are being spent by these same unions to lie and mislead the public in order that they can retain their power and stranglehold over this state (and others) and its taxpayers.
This is a David versus Goliath fight. It is clearly not just this state’s issue – it will set a critical precedent with national consequences. Send e-mails.
We must vigorously support Gov. Scott Walker and the citizens of Wisconsin. Send supportive e-mails to his office. Write to newspapers, magazines, call in on radio. Inform your neighbors and have them do the same.
Help Scott Walker Today
Newt Gingrich 02/23/2011
It is vital that every one of us help Governor Scott Walker today.
In Madison, Wisconsin, we are witnessing a profound struggle between the right of the people to govern themselves and the power of entrenched, selfish interests to stop reforms and defy the will of the people.
In 2010, Wisconsin Republicans ran on a clear agenda of reforming government to gain control of spending. This agenda included many reforms to state government employee pay.
These reforms were desperately opposed by the Democrats and union bosses during the campaign and a full and vigorous debate on the merits of these reforms took place in the months before the election.
Then came the moment for the people of Wisconsin to make their choice – Election Day. And thanks in part to this bold agenda, the people of Wisconsin chose to switch control of the governorship, assembly and senate to Republicans.
The people of Wisconsin sent a clear message. They elected leaders that promised to change the way government operated in Madison. The will of the people was expressed through the ballot box, exactly how it is supposed to work in a representative democracy.
However, through a campaign of intimidation and cowardice, the government employee union bosses and the Democratic Party that is beholden to them, are trying to thwart the will of the people.
Every Democrat in the Wisconsin Senate, exploiting a rule that requires a quorum when voting on fiscal matters, has fled the state to prevent a promised government union reform bill from receiving a vote.
Worse, the government employee unions, with the backing of the Democratic Party - including the White House political operation, Organizing for America - have further paralyzed Wisconsin through a series of protests at the state capital.
Furthermore, while most state workers have shown up for work during the protests, some schools have been forced to close without enough teachers reporting. News stories have emerged that teachers have been receiving phony doctor’s notes to justify their absence.
This deliberately organized chaos has one goal - to intimidate Governor Walker and other elected reformers into abandoning the people of Wisconsin’s calls for reform.
A Fight over a Fundamental Question: Who’s In Charge?
The showdown in Madison is precisely the crisis between elected self government and organized self interest seeking to impose their will through intimidation which led Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, during the coal miner’s strike of 1984-85, to warn, “No government or no people can surrender to that kind of mob violence or intimidation, because if we did democracy would be finished.”
This capacity for government employee unions to blackmail the American people is exactly what President Franklin Delano Roosevelt worried about when he warned in 1937:
“All government employees should realize that the process of collective bargaining…cannot be transplanted into the public service…The very nature and purpose of Government make it impossible for administrative officials to represent fully or to bind the employer in mutual discussions with Government employee organizations…Their employer is the whole people, who speak by means of laws enacted by their representatives in Congress. Accordingly, administrative officials and employees alike are governed and guided, and in many instances restricted, by laws which establish policies, procedures, or rules in personnel matters.”
We are witnessing one of the most important struggles in modern America.
At stake is a fundamental question of elected government: who’s in charge?
Governor Scott Walker and Wisconsin Republicans, after receiving a clear mandate from the people of their state, have placed the very legitimacy of representative self government on the line by demanding profound reform of government unions.
Going in, Scott knew this would become a life and death struggle with the forces of the old order.
As Milwaukee County Executive (the only Republican elected there in modern times, Scott won three times) he learned that every major reform designed to save money or improve services would be opposed by the government employee union leadership. Indeed, throughout the United States, government employee unions have been consistent advocates for raising taxes and against reforms to save money and improve service.
From this experience, Scott concluded the only way to make government affordable and enable Wisconsin to attract new jobs was through fundamental reform of state government employee unions.
Callista and I helped launch the Scott Walker for Governor Campaign with a huge event in Milwaukee. During the following year I campaigned with him and heard him make the case for reforming the government unions.
At an event in October 2010, I remember Scott vividly describing the stakes, saying we can no longer function as a society “where the public employees are the ‘haves’ and the taxpayers who foot the bill are the ‘have-nots.’”
When the people of Wisconsin voted last November they knew exactly who they were electing.
Governor Scott Walker's union reform proposals today are precisely the union reform platform he campaigned on for all of 2010. Furthermore, the Governor's proposals were validated by the Republican state legislative successes.
It is in this context of fairly won elections in which Wisconsinites consciously chose reform over the status quo that the government employee unions and Democratic Party have decided they would side against the people.
President Obama's support for the government union bosses is a fundamental betrayal of the principle of self government. The leadership and resources the Democratic National Committee is putting into anti-reform demonstrations and other activities proves what a reactionary, anti-reform force the Left has become.
As Goes Wisconsin…?
This showdown started as a Wisconsin story, but the decision by the national Democratic Party and the intense media interest has made it national in scope.
Government employee union leaders know they are losing the battle for public opinion and that reform is coming. A Clarus Poll found that 64% of the American people do not think government employees should be represented by unions.
A victory for the forces of reform in Wisconsin would provide enormous energy on government reform efforts to balance budgets in Ohio, New York, New Jersey and elsewhere. It will also extend to other issues like meaningful education reform.
However, a defeat for Walker and the reformers would embolden those who seek to preserve the status quo. Yesterday, borrowing a play from their brethren in Wisconsin, Democrats in the Indiana House fled their state to prevent a vote on a measure that would make Indiana a right to work state.
That’s why it is vital for all who voted in favor of reforming government, wherever you live, to support Scott Walker and the Wisconsin reformers.
The most important way you can help is by articulating the case for self government and government reform to your friends and neighbors.
Call your Senators, Congressmen, Governor and state legislators to urge them to stand with the reformers in Wisconsin.
Call talk radio and write letters to the editor.
And if you have friends in Wisconsin, contact them and convince them to be on the side of reform.
Click here for some facts and figures about the sensible reforms Governor Walker is proposing.
Posted in Democrat Gov. Scott Walker Labor Unions Obama State Public Unions Taxes Wisconsin with 2 Comments
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Feb 22
We are witnessing and soon will be directly or indirectly involved in a “class” struggle, first at the state level then nationally. This isn’t one of the middle vs. the upper or lower class. This is one between greedy, reckless, public unions who can never be paid or compensated enough versus the hard working taxpayer who is footing their extortionate costs through ever escalating taxes.
These public union employees are paraded around often as compassionate teachers who just want the best for your children. Meanwhile, they and other in the public sector are taking home 40% to 90% more than comparable jobs in the private sector – that is you and me. In fact, many taxpayers are struggling to put food on the table and keep a roof over their heads but still are coerced into paying for these avaricious union members.
Have scores from knowledge tests skyrocketed during these past 20 or 30 years?
Of course not!
They have been plummeting while teacher compensation packages are going through the roof, resulting in many states approaching the precipice of bankruptcy. Our international ranking regarding the education level of our children has dropped embarrassingly and precipitously.
As expected, “president” Obama has now insinuated himself in the Wisconsin situation, siding with the union protestors and against the state. This is quite reminiscent of his stance against Arizona.
Obama, the anti-President, and anti-American in Chief, is yet again acting in a divisive, anti-State and anti-citizen fashion.
Fortunately, Wisconsin’s Republican Gov. Walker rebuked Obama in a quite forceful and appropriate way.
We applaud and strongly Gov. Walker’s strong leadership and responsible and principled stand (as well as the Republicans in that state’s Senate). They must remain resolute and protect the hardworking taxpayers in that state.
Their example may very well serve as the paradigm for what is anticipated to be a struggle that will be repeated across the country in many states.
The honest hardworking citizens of America must be the ultimate victor.
(We encourage you to send supportive e-mails to Gov. Walker at the Office of Governor Scott Walker)
Unions' Fight in Madison Is a Disgrace
Larry Kudlow 2/18/2011
The Democratic/government-union days of rage in Madison, Wis., are a disgrace. Wisconsin congressman Paul Ryan calls it Cairo coming to Madison. But the protesters in Egypt were pro-democracy. The government-union protesters in Madison are anti-democracy; they are trying to prevent a vote in the legislature. In fact, Democratic legislators themselves are fleeing the state so as not to vote on Gov. Scott Walker’s budget cuts.
That’s not democracy.
The teachers’ union is going on strike in Milwaukee and elsewhere. They ought to be fired. Think Ronald Reagan PATCO in 1981. Think Calvin Coolidge police strike in 1919.
The teachers’ union on strike? Wisconsin parents should go on strike against the teachers’ union. A friend e-mailed me to say that the graduation rate in Milwaukee public schools is 46 percent. The graduation rate for African-Americans in Milwaukee public schools is 34 percent. Shouldn’t somebody be protesting that?
Governor Walker is facing a $3.6 billion budget deficit, and he wants state workers to pay one-half of their pension costs and 12.6 percent of their health benefits. Currently, most state employees pay nothing for their pensions and virtually nothing for their health insurance. That’s an outrage.
Nationwide, state and local government unions have a 45 percent total-compensation advantage over their private-sector counterpart. With high-pay compensation and virtually no benefits co-pay, the politically arrogant unions are bankrupting America -- which by some estimates is suffering from $3 trillion in unfunded liabilities.
Exempting police, fire, and state troopers, Governor Walker would end collective bargaining over pensions and benefits for the rest. Collective bargaining for wages would still be permitted, but there would be no wage hikes above the CPI. Unions could still represent workers, but they could not force employees to pay dues. In exchange for this, Walker promises no furloughs for layoffs.
Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels is also pushing a bill to limit the collective-bargaining rights of teachers for wages and wage-related benefits. Similar proposals are being discussed in Idaho and Tennessee. In Ohio, Gov. John Kasich wants to restrict union rights across-the-board for all state and local government workers. More generally, both Democratic and Republican governors across the country are taking on the extravagant pay of government unions.
Why? Because taxpayers won’t stand for it anymore.
In an interesting twist on this story, even private unions are revolting against government unions. Private unions pay taxes, too. And they don’t have near the total compensation of the public unions. It’s no wonder they’re fed up.
So, having lost badly in the last election, the government-union Democrats in Wisconsin have taken to the streets. This is a European-style revolt, like those seen in Greece, France, and elsewhere. So it becomes greater than just a fiscal issue. It is becoming a law-and-order issue.
President Obama, who keeps telling us he’s a budget cutter, has taken the side of the public unions. John Boehner correctly rapped Obama’s knuckles for this. If the state of Wisconsin voters elected a Chris Christie-type governor with a Republican legislature, then it is a local states’ rights issue.
But does President Obama even know that the scope of collective bargaining for federal employees is sharply limited? According to the Manhattan Institute, federal workers are forbidden to collectively bargain for wages or benefits. Instead, pay increases are determined annually through legislation.
Meanwhile, Gov. Scott Walker said it would be “wise” for President Obama to keep his attentions on Washington, not Wisconsin. “We’re focused on balancing our budget,” he said in a television interview. “It would be wise for the president and others in Washington to be focused on balancing their budget, which they’re a long ways from doing.”
Amen.
Obama should stay out. And Governor Walker should stand tall and stick to his principles. A nationwide taxpayer revolt against public unions can save the country. Otherwise, the spiraling out-of-control costs of state public-union entitlements will destroy the local fisc, just as surely as the unreformed federal entitlements of Social Security and health care are wrecking our national finances.
http://finance.townhall.com/columnists/larrykudlow/2011/02/18/unions_fight_in_madison_is_a_disgrace
Posted in Anti-American Gov. Scott Walker Leadership Obama State Public Unions Taxes Wisconsin with No Comments
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