Dee Perez-Scott is off her rocker!

Filling her blog with smears and name-calling, Dee accuses Republicans of being out to destroy the teachers’ and public employees’ unions. She says nothing about the cowardly disappearance of the Democrat legislators into a neighboring state in an attempt to prevent a vote on the Wisconsin governor’s budget. The unions say they want to have a chance to discuss the governor’s proposals and suggest alternative ways of balancing the budget. If they are sincere about this, they need to get the Democrats back to work. The Democrats are quasi-union members and therefore are principally responsible for getting Wisconsin and other states like Illinois, New Jersey, California and New York into a fiscal mess. Dee doesn’t care about that. She can’t be bothered with such mundane things as complying with state law and balancing the budget. She calls that “dirty tricks.”

In Wisconsin, the average teacher salary is $50,424 for 9 months of work or, on an anualized basis, $67,232. How many of those among the unemployed would jump at the opportunity to make that much and then enjoy a early retirement and an exceptional vacation and medical plan. Some teachers deserve more because of their excellence in the classroom. But the union opposes merit pay. They want all teachers to be paid the same regardless of merit.I wonder if that is the way it worked in the Fortune 500company where Dee claims to have been employed at one time? Not bloody likely! In colleges and universities pay is based on merit. Why not in K -12? If the student has not learned, the teacher has not taught but we pay them anyway.

The governor made it clear that while he is in office, the state is not going to be run by the unions or their Democrat henchmen. The unions have bankrupted states and company after company. General Motors and Chrysler would be dead by now if they hadn’t been bailed out by the government. The unions refused to grant Ford concessions similar to those granted to GM and Chrysler. I guess they forgot to look at Ford’s balance sheet and see the heavy load of debt it has to bear because of union demands over the years.

Teachers and civil service employees do very well when it comes to salaries and benefits. The benefits have never been properly valued as part of their overall compensation package. It’s time to put a price tag on those benefits and keep in mind that teachers‘ salaries are for just nine months of work with many holidays and non-teaching days within that nine months.

States are finding that they simply can’t afford the lucrative benefit plans state employees have enjoyed. Most workers in private companies have to depend on a specified contribution plan not a specified benefit plan. That’s what should be happening in the states to get their fiscal houses in order. Let’s take the example of a married couple both of whom are teachers who began teaching when they were 22 years old. By the time they are in their 50s they will be fully vested with a lifetime retirement entitlement of something like 75% of their final average salaries. In Wisconsin, that might mean a family income of $100,000 while they are working and then a lifetime pension of $75,000. Contrast that lifetime pension with a person in a 401k plan whose portfolio has been decimated by the recent recession and unemployment.

The principal objective of every political party is to defeat the opposition candidates from the president on down. McConnell at least had the courage to say out loud what we all know about political parties.

When it comes to tax cuts, which would you rather have: money in your pocket or in the pockets of union members who always want “more?” Which would you rather have high taxes on businesses that limit their ability to sell their products and create jobs or instead put that money in the pockets of unions who will use some of it for political purposes – like supporting legislators who are willing to accede to their every demand even if it bankrupts the state?