[Ray9]

At a time when pensions are a thing of the past for most workers and healthcare deductibles threaten to impoverish the average citizen, there is a pampered group of parasitic leaches that will fight to the bitter end to defend their unsustainable turf. These, of course, are unionized state and government employees who extract their daily pound of flesh from the hides of taxpayers and drink the blood that goes with it in absurdly extravagant union benefits. Wisconsin is just the beginning as these outlandishly clueless and insular malingering layabouts will never yield to the reality that faces the average citizen. This going to happen in every state.


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[Arcanist]

I just heard on the news that the democratic "senators" left the state in order to avoid the vote. Some statesmen! Representative government is a-ok until things don't go your way. This is the vile scum that rules us. They pick your pockets and grant you the illusion of choice as you vote over and over for the same play, just with different actors.

Cry me a river. As I understand it, their wretched statist brethren were asked to contribute a bit more to their healthcare and pension costs. Oh the horror!

[INTJRyan]

Another swing and a miss by the Ray.

To the extent that there is a deficit-- Walker claims there is a $137 million deficit -- it is not because of a drop in revenues or increases in the cost of state employee contracts, benefits or pensions. It is because Walker and his allies pushed through $140 million in new spending for special-interest groups in January. If the Legislature were simply to rescind Walker’s new spending schemes -- or delay their implementation until they are offset by fresh revenues -- the “crisis” would not exist. The state had a surplus going into Walker's term. Where have I heard that before?

“Since his inauguration in early January, Walker has approved $140 million in new special-interest spending that includes:

“• $25 million for an economic development fund for job creation that still has $73 million due to a lack of job creation. Walker is creating a $25 million hole which will not create or retain jobs.

“• $48 million for private health savings accounts, which primarily benefit the wealthy. A study from the federal Governmental Accountability Office showed the average adjusted gross income of HSA participants was $139,000 and nearly half of HSA participants reported withdrawing nothing from their HSA, evidence that it is serving as a tax shelter for wealthy participants.

“• $67 million for a tax shift plan, so ill-conceived that at best the benefit provided to ‘job creators’ would be less than a dollar a day per new job, and may be as little as 30 cents a day.”


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[Sulla]

Wow, and I thought I could be inflammatory sometimes...

	Originally Posted by Ray9 To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	This going to happen in every state.

How much do you want to bet? I promise you this doesn't happen in every state because not all states put up with that (for better or for worse).

[larrysb]

They should issue a warrant for their arrest and haul them back to the legislature in handcuffs.

[Traverser]

	Originally Posted by larrysb To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	They should issue a warrant for their arrest and haul them back to the legislature in handcuffs.

It's incredible. The state is broke, and instead of facing the compromise of losing "collective-bargaining rights" (code for guaranteed provisions), they instead choose to force the governor to fire workers by the thousands from this act of cowardice meant to subvert the vote.

[larrysb]

Where are all the Palin haters who screamed, "quitter" at her for resigning?

These guys not only have quit, they don't have the decency to stand up and say so.

[gestalt]

Teachers already make 7% less than their private sector equivalents (Education/sociology considered).
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Yes, teachers may work 60 hours a week or more while they are in salaried session, and get 3 months off in the summer (private usually gets 6 weeks). Their 20K health care comes from taxpayer money, yes. It is righteous to make them pay a bit more for their health care. I don't know a single teacher who doesn't make a living wage. But that is not the main problem.

There definitely are problems in Milwaukee and other states when it comes to lemon teachers. The lemon dance... principals giving each other their worst performing teachers...in New York there is this place called the Rubber Room that costs the state 100 million dollars a year...there are 1st graders whose parents are begging for and entering lotteries to get into a better school a few miles over.

Because they can't make here in American anymore. If you do not have a college education or some brilliant business experience you are screwed. Education is still a way out, as the rest of the world knows by now.

What I hope and pray will come as a result of this is extending the school-year to 220+ days instead of the current 180. This would help kids so much, as math and science build up cumulatively. Teachers and state employees WANT to work hard, they want to do a good job.

The real issue in Wisconsin is the union-busting. You can't just whisk your way through the legislative process and tear down 70 years of righteous work for workers rights. Talking about problems in the Middle East??? Why not talk about the Middle West for crying out loud; Walker is a dictator pure and simple -- and he'll pay for this. However, and I think this is key to keep in mind at the same time, the unions actually get in the way of teachers doing their jobs too. The unions prevent high performing teachers from getting anything more for their troubles and effort, and success.

We used to have the best education system in the world. The long view tells us that by 2020 economic disparities will continue to increase and highly educated / highly skilled people will be fewer and farther between. There is just too much bureaucracy getting in the way (Like the stupid tenure system that ONLY master, vetted teachers deserve), even though it was supposed to be designed to help.

We've got to offer the Guv all our gratitude for midwifing the rebirth of the progressive movement in Wisconsin. Have to love the threats about the National Guard. What's he going to do, kill us?


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[dungeonguy88]

As usual, I'm willing to bet there are going to be two very pissed off sides to this argument, perhaps with both having some points buried in the crazy, and as usual reality is going to be somewhere in the middle being completely ignored.

[ischuldt]

Forgive us for ignoring you completely when you attempt to compare teachers to leaches or vampires sucking us dry.

[Traverser]

	Originally Posted by ischuldt To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	Forgive us for ignoring you completely when you attempt to compare teachers to leaches or vampires sucking us dry.

I agree. Calling people "rats" in this context is being very extreme at best.

[integratedvelocity]

From what I've read, the biggest problem is not so much the ~$140 million deficit this year, but rather the structural deficit of over $3 billion.


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Even our former Democratic governor admitted that there are serious budget problems.

I can understand why these workers are upset. No one likes to have their salaries decreased, and they probably chose their careers with the expectation that their salaries and benefits would follow historical trends. However, it is obvious that the pension structure of Wisconsin (and California and Illinois and New York and New Jersey) is not sustainable. It is unfortunate that the terms are being changed for people who are already set in their career paths, but this cannot continue in perpetuity. As long as collective bargaining on all aspects of compensation and hours is allowed, there is no way to decrease the components that are out of line with the private sector, or for a school district to negotiate higher pay for a teacher who performs extremely well. And if you think that public-employee unions are mostly concerned about serving the American taxpayers, think again. The NEA donated over $40 million in the last election cycle (most or all of which went to Democrats). Politicians have an incentive to use tax money to stay on the good side of the unions. Cycle repeats. Its easy to do when you can just raise taxes instead of filing for bankruptcy like a normal business (GM is not normal, apparently...looking at you, UAW) would have to do.

And honestly, some of the provisions in union contracts are ridiculous. For example, if a school does not have money to pay a teacher to serve as an adviser for a student club, the teacher is not allowed to volunteer. They have to be paid for their time, regardless of what they want. Also, the health benefits are extremely generous. The teachers in my school district even had full or close to full coverage for cosmetic orthodontics for their entire family. And please, I've never seen a study that argues that teachers are underpaid relative to the private sector that takes into account benefits, or the fact that they can retire at 55 and collect almost their full salary until they die. If you figure that they will live to be 80, this is like earning two years' salary for every one year worked, once again, not including health care benefits.

As for the hours worked, for every teacher who puts in 10 hours per day, there is another who works 6 hours, in my experience. Our school day was 435 minutes long. Teachers' days were 480 minutes. Out of those 480 minutes, 45 minutes occurred before or after school was in session. Every several weeks, a teacher had to supervise detention. Otherwise, they could be in the break room, talking with other teachers, etc. 100 minutes were for resource and free periods. No students allowed for one of the periods, during the other students could get permission to get help. 25 minutes went for lunch break. 480-170=310 minutes of actual classroom teaching, just over 5 hours. If the teacher is working with students before or after school, or during the free period, this increases to 405 minutes, or 6 hours, 45 minutes. However, most of my teachers only actually taught 30-35 minutes of the period, leaving time at the end for reading or homework while they would work on correcting papers, grading, etc. Of course, unions make it impossible to differentiate between these teachers...

I don't mean to pick mainly on teachers. They (or their unions) just happen to be the most visible and vocal (and the most emotionally manipulative: "Oh, my poor old kindergarten teacher, Miss Smith..."). Other public sector workers probably have about the same compensation package, but do things that are far less valuable than teaching.

[larkin]

Is there ever an opportunity when conservatives don't blame whatever crisis is happening on the absolute least among us?

Car companies in the U.S. have not produced a car Americans want to buy for decades? Nothing to do with management, of course - probably the fault of the welders. Massive recession in 2007? Pay no attention to banks trading bad credit for billions of dollars, please - this is all the fault of the loser who bought a house he couldn't afford. U.S. in trillions of dollars of debt? That five companies working on DOD contracts could account for almost a trillion of it is not the issue - the problem is clearly the budget for Headstart.

There's value to personal responsibility, but there's also value to the buck stops here. And always blaming the unions makes about as much sense as always blaming the rich.

I swear to God, if they could blame shit on the janitors they would. That's pretty much what they're doing, isn't it?

And is there someone even lower on the totem pole available? Can't this somehow be the fault of illegals?

[integratedvelocity]

The 5% pension payment and 12% health care coverage payment is about exactly what my sister, a public employee in Kansas, pays, so this is not out of line at all. This alone would save the state over $300 million over the next two years, approximately 10% of the budget shortfall.

I also don't see how this is going after "the least among us." Public employees are far from "the least among us." The percentage of public sector employees who choose to leave their jobs is far lower the the percentage of private sector employees (and I believe this was controlled for type of work, I'm not comparing teachers to retail clerks here). This would support the hypothesis that the public sector just has better working conditions and/or compensation.

And honestly, these protesters have done more to harm their cause over the last few days than help it. People are angry that the Democratic representatives skipped town, that their children are missing school because their teachers decided to go to the Capitol, and that public employees are complaining about benefits when many other Wisconsinites don't even have jobs.

	And always blaming the unions makes about as much sense as always blaming the rich.

You're right, it doesn't make sense to always blame the unions. But in this case, they definitely deserve some of the blame, although not all of it; everyone is going to be hurting by the time the remaining $3 billion deficit is resolved.

[titi monkey]

	Originally Posted by larkin To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	Is there ever an opportunity when conservatives don't blame whatever crisis is happening on the absolute least among us? Car companies in the U.S. have not produced a car Americans want to buy for decades? Nothing to do with management, of course - probably the fault of the welders...

Ford has been making good, reliable, desirable cars for years. The numbers support this. GM trucks have always sold well (not to mention their Cadillacs and Corvettes).

[Ray9]

Originally Posted by larkin To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.

Is there ever an opportunity when conservatives don't blame whatever crisis is happening on the absolute least among us? Car companies in the U.S. have not produced a car Americans want to buy for decades? Nothing to do with management, of course - probably the fault of the welders. Massive recession in 2007? Pay no attention to banks trading bad credit for billions of dollars, please - this is all the fault of the loser who bought a house he couldn't afford. U.S. in trillions of dollars of debt? That five companies working on DOD contracts could account for almost a trillion of it is not the issue - the problem is clearly the budget for Headstart. There's value to personal responsibility, but there's also value to the buck stops here. And always blaming the unions makes about as much sense as always blaming the rich. I swear to God, if they could blame shit on the janitors they would. That's pretty much what they're doing, isn't it? And is there someone even lower on the totem pole available? Can't this somehow be the fault of illegals?

You know I could almost hear the sad violin music as images of of tattered, beseiged public sector employees struggling on broken ice floated helplessly while pursued by greedy taxpayers who had the gall to to say enough is enough. Are you serious? When public sector employees engage in collective bargaining they are bargaining for the right to loot the paychecks of other people who cannot take their business elsewhere as in the private sector. This is the lowest tier of corruption but it is corruption nonetheless because it is based on taxation and no one can escape taxation. The unfunded liabilities of these public sector unions are going to bankrupt every state eventually. These "privleged" individuals actually believe that are "chosen" and special in some way and so any sacrifices to be made should only be made by others, not them. This is the mentality of public sector employees and it always has been. Raising taxes to keep them special no longer plays in this economy and the looming, inevitable alternative will be layoffs and cutbacks. These are the rats of our society and the snakes who keep them in their privleged position, the politicians, are cowardly covering their asses by fleeing the scene. Where's Reagan when you need him?

[Sulla]

	Originally Posted by larkin To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	Is there ever an opportunity when conservatives don't blame whatever crisis is happening on the absolute least among us?

To be fair, in the auto sector at least, people were writing in the 70s and 80s that the management was going to kill the companies by going along with the pensions and what not.

[LaoTzu]

	Originally Posted by Ray9 To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	Where's Reagan when you need him?

Six feet under. Where we need him.

Again I remind you that you've complained about your own work situation. Had you been smart enough to unionize (as is your alleged right), you may have had a better go of things.
Instead, you'd rather allow power to be centralized among the privileged elite...while writing diatribes against the underprivileged 'elite'. It's no wonder to me why you hate Teachers so much, seeing as how they failed to teach you civics...

[Autumnleaf]

Teacher, police, and fire department unions are doing what auto worker unions did. They just demand more and more until they become more expensive than they can afford to be. So auto plants moved overseas and taxpayers can't take anymore taxes to cover the public workers refusal to help pay for their generous inflated pensions. Public union workers need to stop being granted such extravagance compared to the rest of the working people. Leeches is an apt term for what they have become collectively.

[True Rune]

What I want to know is who are these "wealthy individuals and corporate interests" who will benefit from this?

Also, I want to write a political fanfic about Reagan and necromancy.

[LaoTzu]

	Originally Posted by True Rune To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	What I want to know is who are these "wealthy individuals and corporate interests" who will benefit from this?

You mean the corporate interests who will benefit from the massive tax cut that took a surplus into a deficit...allowing the Gov. to say it's all the public sector's fault and that they all have to take a pay cut and give up their benefits which they have a contract for in the name of 'free markets' (read: fascism).


I'm no fan of public sector unions, but it's situations like these that make it apparent the unions are necessary.... when political ideology trumps common sense and respect for the common worker.

[Sulla]

	Originally Posted by LaoTzu To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	You mean the corporate interests who will benefit from the massive tax cut that took a surplus into a deficit...allowing the Gov. to say it's all the public sector's fault and that they all have to take a pay cut and give up their benefits which they have a contract for in the name of 'free markets' (read: fascism).

They contract is not being breached. However, the strikes are illegal.

[integratedvelocity]

	Originally Posted by LaoTzu To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	You mean the corporate interests who will benefit from the massive tax cut that took a surplus into a deficit...allowing the Gov. to say it's all the public sector's fault and that they all have to take a pay cut and give up their benefits which they have a contract for in the name of 'free markets' (read: fascism).

This is not true. There has been a lot of talk about the $140 million spent by Walker directly resulting in the $137 million deficit for this year. But there most definitely was not a surplus! Wisconsin only had a surplus if you ignore the structural deficit. I will repost the link to an article with Gov. Doyle admitting the deficit if you don't believe what the Republicans are now saying, since you seem not to have read it the last time I posted it:
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And honestly, Wisconsin already has higher taxes than a lot of neighboring states. It's about time that the state government tried to bring business into the state.

[LaoTzu]

	Originally Posted by Sulla To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	They contract is not being breached. However, the strikes are illegal.

Citation please. (I don't doubt it's existence, but would like to see the actual law)

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I find it very odd that the Libertarian leaning, NWO fearing righties are so blind to the fact that they are ushering in their own fascist state... as long as the Right-Wing calls the shots, it's ok for Government to force people into their cages at the barrel of a gun. This is why I am not a Conservative.... it's not so much a policy thing for me, as much as it is that I can't stand the hypocrisy of the right, and the fact that they appear unable to accept implications of their actions that are just past the tip of their nose.

It's Kant vs. Mill part 1^10000000000000
(both of which were proven wrong a very long time ago)

[saberu]

	as long as the Right-Wing calls the shots, it's ok for Government to force people into their cages at the barrel of a gun

State employee salaries are collected at the barrel of a gun. taxes. The problem with this whole system is that it should be privatized. I'm not blaming the union workers because these people just want more money like any of us. However they can take blame for their voting record and ignorance concerning politics.

The problem with these rats( thank you ray9), is they push on a system where the customer must pay and has no choice. Take this down to brass tacks and its called stealing. I would be happy to blame different politicians but these unions foster politics and passive aggressive tactics until it blows up in their face.

Simple solution. Fire all the employees. Wisconsin constitutional convention. Complete privatization thereafter.