Governor Walker of Wisconsin has pointed out that it is never a good idea to give emergency services workers like the police and firemen cause to walk off the job. That is the main reason he exempted them from the provisions of his budget-balancing efforts. Of course, the fact that they supported his election may also have been a secondary factor. Obama did the same thing by granting exemptions and bailouts to unions. So what’s new? As always, it doesn’t depend on what is right but whose ox is being gored.
There was no “bloodbath” even though Dee would like to incite riots and violence in the streets like those in Libya. The only question citizens need to ask is whether it will be the unions who run the state of Wisconsin, control public services and dictate budget-busting legislation or will the other non-union taxpayers have a say about how their state is run. This is just another page out of the book where public officials have feathered their own nests while services go to pot.
Dee Perez-Scott’s father belonged to one of the unions in Detroit that broke the backs of the auto makers while producing low quality cars. Her biases are obvious and cloud her ability to view the Wisconsin situation objectively. If you are a Republican governor, you are automatically wrong in her view. It doesn’t really make any difference what you do or say or why you do it. No one will take Dee seriously anymore.
I don’t know what happened to radicalize her. At one time, she seemed to be willing to consider compromise and listen to another point of view. She is now, and perhaps always has been, a “pinko” who allows no dissent in her blog. While using every foul name known to mankind in her blog, she lies through her teeth about her non-existent grandmotherly, no name-calling approach. Even though we don’t know how she got there, we now know her for what she is, a thorough-going anti-American who is disloyal to everything America stands for.
All of the teachers and civil servants who took sick leave and the doctors who supported them should be required to state under oath, subject to the laws of perjury, exactly what their medical condition was and how it was diagnosed in the streets. The probability that so many were actually sick all at once is zero and none. If they were sick, they should have been home in bed instead of in the capitol rotunda. That should be obvious to even the likes of Dee Perez-Scott and her ilk. As usual, she defends the guilty rather than coming down on the side of the law.
Collective bargaining has everything to do with balancing Wisconsin’s budget now and in the future. Collective bargaining and union political influence exercised through the Democrat Party are what got the state into this fiscal mess. (If I were Dee, I would call them Democruds like she uses the Re”thug”licans epithet she likes so much.)
Unless collective bargaining is curbed, the state will continue to have budgetary problems. Wisconsin is lucky to have a Republican governor who has the courage to confront the root cause of the state’s budgetary problems. Dee Perez-Scott like, every left wing extremist, characterizes the governor’s legal obligation to balance the budget as being an affront to the rights of the working people of that state. No mention is made of the taxpayers who have to pick up the tab for the union’s excessive demands. In Wisconsin, and in Dee Perez-Scott’s tirades, we are witnessing the abject hostility of a unionized entitlement class to anything that might limit their lucrative compensation and benefit plans. It is they who want unlimited compensation and benefits funded off the backs of the taxpayers. It is true the union members are taxpayers too but how many of us would rush to accept a dollar even if we had to give back a quarter for every one we accept. This is what the union rhetoric is about. They want “more” and if they get it they will grudgingly cough up the tax on it. They probably add the tax to their demands so they achieve their after tax goals.
The people don’t want unions that make excessive demands and use the political process to fatten their wallets. Dee equates unions with the people. I guess she hasn't checked what percent of the people actually belong to unions. Unions through their minions in the Democrat party had their chance to be heard. Instead the cowardly Democrats slipped across the border into Illinois like illegal aliens. The TEA party caught up with them and tried to show them the way back to where they came from. That was great!
Dee is right about one thing. This is a David and Goliath fight with the giant unions bringing all of their forces to bear against the governor. He is David and hopefully he will slay the union Goliath. State workers and teachers should never have been allowed collective bargaining rights. That is something they should be willing to give up to continue to enjoy the security and benefits of a state job. There are other ways to achieve parity through surveys of compensation and benefits paid by private employers within the state. No unions necessary. The facts will speak for themselves if caution is used to properly evaluate public employee benefits of stable employment, vacation time, sick leave, and rich health plans. How many state employees and teachers are willing to give up their specified lifetime retirement plans for a specified contribution plan like a 401k? When they agree, call me.
The Tea Party once again is taking the initiative to oppose the union position they know is not in their own best interest. There was a time when someone like the Tea Party member, well-educated and intelligent, could find work in this country and not be taxed to death to pay the excessive demands of public and private unions and out- of- control government spending. Unions have always enjoyed the power of numbers and political influence to bludgeon companies and legislatures into acceding to their every demand. What the governor in Wisconsin is doing is trying to level the playing field between the taxpayer and the public unions. For too long the unions have had the upper hand driving companies and states to financial ruin. We could do without the Department of Labor until our fiscal crisis is solved.
Certainly there was a time when someone as untalented and dishonest as Dee could perhaps buy a new car and a home to raise a family. That is all gone now because of the excessive demands of unions have made American products uncompetitive in the global market. How can American companies compete with the Koreans, the Chinese and the Japanese when they are saddled with union demands that make it all but impossible to competitively price their outputs? If you haven’t noticed, along with the excessive demands of the unions in this country the number of good paying manufacturing jobs declined and were lost to other countries with lower labor costs. It was the union’s fault that corporate America had to find cheaper labor and export jobs to poorer nations to simply remain competitive.
Let’s look at a hypothetical example and keep it simple so Dee can understand it even as she denies it. Let’s assume that Dee will not dispute the fact that labor is cheaper in China, India, Bangladesh, Pakistan and many other countries of the world. If American companies can make a widget for $100 but China can make it for $50, which will have the greatest market share? What if the U.S. Company moves the production of the widget to India where it can be produced for $45? Is that union busting or simply a matter of economic survival? If the U.S. refuses to buy parts made elsewhere and as a result our products cost 30% more that those of our competitors: Germany, France, Great Britain, Japan and others, how long will those good jobs last before the company goes broke for lack of sales? Dee wants to squeeze blood out of a stone. Good luck with that idea!
No one denies the good that unions achieved in the past. Their major failure was the inability to recognize what their excessive demands would do to good-paying American jobs. They were, and still are, cutting off their nose to spite their face or ineptly shooting themselves in the foot. The excessive union demands and their shoddy workmanship drove GM and the other American car companies to near collapse. The rise of the Toyota Corolla was an early warning sign. If you can ship cars across the ocean and still undersell American cars, you know the price of American labor is too high. And who knows how those high labor costs influenced companies to make the mistake of avoiding costly model changes and invest in other innovations. Money that should have been going into such things was not available because of union demands. America may have produced low mileage cars to meet the demands of the public. It was either that or concede the SUV market to the Japanese. People didn’t quit buying American cars because they were assembled by union workers. Americans quit buying American because they were tired of being offered union-built, high cost junk cars. The unions had killed the goose that laid the golden egg.
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