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| Economy |
| Krauthammer: What Wisconsin Really Means |
| 2012-06-10 |
| But as the recall campaign progressed, the Democrats stopped talking about bargaining rights. It was a losing issue. Walker was able to make the case that years of corrupt union-politician back-scratching had been bankrupting the state. And he had just enough time to demonstrate the beneficial effects of overturning that arrangement: a huge budget deficit closed without raising taxes, significant school-district savings from ending cozy insider health-insurance contracts, and a modest growth in jobs. The real threat behind all this, however, was that the new law ended automatic government collection of union dues. That was the unexpressed and politically inexpressible issue. That was the reason the unions finally decided to gamble on a high-risk recall. So they fought and they lost. Repeatedly. Tuesday was their third and last shot at reversing Walker’s reforms. In April 2011, they ran a candidate for chief justice of the state Supreme Court who was widely expected to strike down the law. She lost. In July and August 2011, they ran recall elections of state senators, needing three to reclaim Democratic — i.e., union — control. They failed. (The likely flipping of one Senate seat to the Democrats on June 5 is insignificant. The Senate is not in session and won’t be until after yet another round of elections in November.) And then, Tuesday, their Waterloo. Walker defeated their gubernatorial candidate by a wider margin than he had — pre-reform — two years ago. These public-sector unions, acting, as FDR had feared, with an inherent conflict of interest regarding their own duties, were devouring the institution they were supposed to serve, rendering state government as economically unsustainable as the collapsing entitlement states of southern Europe. Maybe the juggernaut was stopped in time. |
| Posted by:Bobby |
| #2 This is Europe's real problem, not welfare entitlements. |
| Posted by: phil_b 2012-06-10 21:02 |
| #1 And t-h-e Michelle of Michelle's Boyz is once again in the aftermath. "WE WERE [international] SOLDIERS ONCE", UNFORTUNATELY NOT STARRING MEL GIBSON, YOUNG + FULL OF WISCONSIN CHEESE + BEER [Midwest], so methinks we should actually be called "MICHELLE'S BRIGADE"??? |
| Posted by: JosephMendiola 2012-06-10 19:54 |