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Why Scott Walker is Right -- And A Hero


The Honorable Scott Walker, governor of Wisconsin, is playing chicken with the unions of all Wisconsin public employees, except those for Law Enforcement Officers and Firefighters.  What he seeks is no less than the defanging of the public sector unions.  He seeks to prohibit the unions from bargaining for benefits, leaving only cost-of-living increases, or more only if the increase is approved by referendum.  Furthermore unions would have to recertify yearly, and by a majority vote of all members,  not just all votes cast.  finally, the unions would have to collect their own dues; the state will no longer do so, and those who are non members of the unions would no longer have an obligation to pay dues to said unions.


The unions are in apoplexy.  They have marched on Madison.  Young doctors wandered through the crowds, committing fraud by signing dishonest sick certificates for teachers, causing the Madison school district to shutter itself for several days.  President Obama called Governor Walker’s acts "an assault on unions."  All of the Democrats in the Wisconsin State Senate have fled to Illinois, my home state, in a consummately evil and shameful attempt to thwart the governor’s plans by denying a quorum that would allow the GOP majority to pass the bill.  

The GOP response?  Recall drives have started in many senators’ districts, to force recall elections.  Termination of the senators’ paycheck direct deposits, with a requirement that the "flee-bags" pick up their pay at the Senate, while in session.  Furthermore, the governor will soon be forced to cut thousands of jobs via layoff to keep the state running.

The unions perceive an existential threat from the Wisconsin action.  In Indiana, legislator have imitated their "flee-bag" counterparts and have also fled to Illinois, fast becoming the resort of choice for Democrats who hate America so much that they will do anything to block the will of the people from taking effect.  Why?  The nefarious symbiosis between power-hungry Democrats and power-hungry union bosses is too strong to resist.

Here’s how it works:

---First, the unions bargain for lucrative pay and benefits packages that people working in the private sector could only dream of.
---The unions collect dues from everyone who works, whether or not they join the union.  Those dues are deducted from workers’ salaries, which is paid by the taxpayers -- people like you and me.
---The unions take that dues money and support political candidates with donations and issue ads, nearly all of which goes to Democrats.
---Democrats get elected and take the other side of the bargaining table from the unions, knowing that they owe a political obligation to the union bosses who spent their dues -- remember, it’s your money -- and thus giving the unions a crippling advantage.
---Democrats, to keep the spigot of taxpayer-originated campaign money flowing to them, give massive concessions.  The best place to give those concessions is in benefits, since those do not appear up-front as pay raises.

But what happens when the balance of power changes, and Republicans get elected in a tidal wave?  Wisconsin now has a GOP-controlled House, Senate and governor’s mansion.  Wisconsin also has a short-term budget deficit of $165 million, and a long-term pension disaster looming ahead.  Desperate to keep the gravy train online, unions offered ample cash concessions to balance Wisconsin’s budget, but only for this year.  But, as I am used to hearing in a town that hosts the Chicago Cubs, "Wait till next year!"

Governor Walker, unfazed, pushes for reforms, with strong support from a solid majority of Wisconsin’s citizenry.  In return, the honorable Governor of Wisconsin is hung and burned in effigy, and compared to Adolf Hitler.  The union workers, in a display that matches the disgusting avarice of government workers in bankrupt Greece, throw a pouting tantrum that would embarrass any self-respecting three-year-old.  Their accomplices in the Democrat Senate hide in another state to avoid being brought into the capitol in handcuffs by state troopers.  Even if they all vote "no," the bill will pass.  In fact, if even one Democrat defects, the Senate will have quorum and the bill will pass.

Pundits accuse Gov. Walker of a cynical power play to destroy the Democrat party in his state.  Considering that the Democrats have come up with a kickback scheme that dwarfs any of the most notorious schemes produced in Tammany Hall or the Windy City, all I can say to that notion, if true, is "Bravo!"  If the Governor of Illinois had, for example, returned the favor of political contributions with new or increased state business, he’d have been hauled up on Federal charges and sent to prison.  Oh wait, that happened to George Ryan, and before him, Otto Kerner!  Where is the difference here?  The Democrats raise the pay of union workers, who in turn donate their members’ dues to the democrats’ campaigns and also provide get-out-the-vote efforts, and then in turn the union members receive more pay and benefits, dues increase, and the cycle merrily goes on.  It’s nothing short of a Democrat scheme to embezzle the taxpayers’ money to entrench themselves in office.  

It’s no wonder that Democrats want to raise our taxes.  They’re raising their own campaign coffers at the same time, even if the economy tanks.  The GOP, on the other hand, has tied its fortunes to donations from those who are actually productive in society.  Therefore, if the economy tanks, not only do Democrats have their fangs into the taxpayers’ jugular, Republicans suffer as the economy tanks.  If you think that this plan is pure evil on Democrats’ part, I can only say that you are correct.

Scott Walker is fighting the first battle of a war to revert America to the days of Franklin Roosevelt, who abhorred the idea of public employee unions.  Roosevelt was a socialist of the first order, but at least Roosevelt was an honest socialist of the first order.  The socialists of today are more reminiscent of the corrupt brutes of Lenin’s and Stalin’s Russia.  Scott Walker is fighting on the side of goodness and rightness and sanity, and Scott Walker is a hero.

CORRECTED on 2-27-2011 at 12:50PM CST to fix a typographical error.