Our Founding Fathers carefully eliminated in American law every special legal privilege of the old aristocracies of Europe. They strongly favored instead equality under the law, later enshrined in the Constitution's Equal Protection Clause, which means not equality of result, but that everyone plays by the same rules. A recall election for Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker is scheduled for June 5. But on the ballot that day will effectively be whether we should establish in law after all these years a new aristocracy in America, not subject to the democratic will of the people like everyone else, with special legal privileges, including the right to plunder the taxpayers with virtual impunity. That new aristocracy is state and local government public employee unions. Nationwide, these public employee unions plunder taxpayers for pay for state and local government workers that is on average 45% more than the taxpayers paying those salaries make in the private sector. The bill to taxpayers for each of these workers includes an average hourly wage of $26.25, plus another $13.56 in hourly costs for benefits, for total hourly costs of $39.81, or $80,000 per year on average. …the Manhattan Institute's E.J. McMahon reports that for public school teachers in Milwaukee, the annual cost of family health coverage is $26,844, for which the teachers were paying nothing. State and local government workers today are not exploited in sweat shop conditions for poverty wages as the workers in union lore of old. Today it is taxpayers who are the ones being exploited. Governor Walker offended the public employee union gods now seeking his recall with his state budget reforms enacted early last year. … Walker, based on his experience serving as County Executive for Milwaukee County for 8 years, and in the state legislature for 8 years before that, focused on cutting the growth in state and local government spending instead. That spending restraint included requiring state and local government workers to contribute to their own benefits more like private sector workers. After all the yelling and screaming in Wisconsin, in the end these workers were only required to contribute 5.8% of their salaries towards their pensions, matched by their government employers (taxpayers), and 12.6% of the costs of their health insurance, with the other 87% paid by taxpayers. This compares to private sector workers paying on average 21% of the cost of their company health insurance, with most private sector workers having no pension. The budget reforms also limited collective bargaining to negotiations over salary, but not over benefits or working conditions and rules. This gave counties, cities, and school boards the flexibility to make management changes to reduce costs, without laying off workers and reducing services to the public, and to increase efficiency in serving the public.
The key point in this excellent analysis by Mr. Ferrara is that, as I have advocated all along, that government employees are not the elite of society that they should receive far higher wages than the average compared career field (and that especially includes federal government) and receive benefits without paying a portion of it – like the private sector. This IS Big Government, and that is what constitutional Americans and those advocating the “Tea Party” movement is all about. Therefore, this is not just a crisis that concerns the state of Wisconsin, but instead it is a preview of what could happen all across America – the further strengthening of unions who have infiltrated and taken control of public employment at the expense of taxpayers.
Governor Walker is only implementing what he said he would do when he campaigned for the governorship. Now that it affects those that have sucked up taxpayer funding and kept an attitude of “better than the private sector” – they are not happy, and neither is the power-grabbing unions.
Walker's collective bargaining reforms have added up to over $1 billion in documented savings for state and local governments in Wisconsin in the first year alone. That enabled the entire state deficit to be eliminated without yet another tax increase, and without layoffs of teachers and other government workers, except in three school districts that have continued to resist implementing the reforms. The reforms have also resulted in the smallest property tax increase in 15 years, and the first decline in local school tax assessments in 6 years. In short, Walker's reforms are working. The right of collective bargaining for private sector workers is not at issue in Wisconsin, though President Obama and the Democrats want to confuse the public on precisely that question. Under current law, there are plenty of market and legal checks on private sector unions to keep them from abusing the public. The ultimate limit if they push too far is that their company will be driven out of business. Though that does happen sometimes, that is only when management fails to do its job in resisting excessive union demands. Otherwise, within current market and legal checks, private sector unions actually perform a helpful market function in ensuring that employers keep up with market wages and working conditions as expeditiously as possible. Not so for government unions, which are two words that together spell oppression. Federal, state or even local governments cannot be driven out of business. They gain their revenue forcibly through taxes. As a result, there is no market limit to how much such unions can pirate from the public. … Government employees work for democratically elected officials representing the will of the people, not greedy miscreants exploiting them for personal profit. This is another reason why there is no legitimate role for government unions, and there should be no collective bargaining rights for government bureaucrats. The democratically elected Congress or state legislature cannot sit down and bargain with government employee unions as equals. Government employees are subject to the democratically expressed will of the people like everyone else. They are not and should not be treated like aristocrats with special legal privileges, exempt from democratic governance. If government workers feel their pay and working conditions are inadequate or oppressive, they can join the democratic process to elect new representatives like everyone else. Private sector workers, by contrast, cannot elect new employers.
Such fundamental, unworkable problems with government unions used to be commonly understood, which is why even an ultimate liberal like Franklin Roosevelt would not recognize such unions. And that is why strikes by government workers have been commonly prohibited in American history as well. … These are the reasons that federal employees have no legally recognized collective bargaining rights at all. Governor Walker's reforms would still provide for more collective bargaining for Wisconsin government workers than allowed those so badly oppressed federal workers, whose wages are set by an act of Congress rather than by collective bargaining. … The June 5 Walker recall vote in Wisconsin represents a critical turning point for the entire nation. If the public employee unions prevail in recalling Walker because he dared to challenge their legal privileges and political power, these unions will be entrenched nationwide as the new American aristocracy, which the common serfs are doomed to serve and pay. … Walker faces the might of the national public employee union machine, as well as the national Obama political machine, which sees the public employee unions as the core of its political base. If the American Dream is to remain available to working people, and not just bureaucrat aristocrats, then Scott Walker must survive the recall, and his reforms must remain intact. That means patriots across America must respond to this Paul Revere moment with maximum possible support for the Walker campaign, which can be found on the Internet. Or what was won at Lexington and Concord 237 years ago will be lost in Madison this year.
For Wisconsin voters: This is an important time to show up at the voting polls and decide whether you want unions to control government or We the People. That is the gist of this argument that escalated into a recall election that will cost taxpayer funding as well as their future prosperity. Those selfish government employees and their parasitic unions need to realize and be thankful they have jobs while those in the private sector are beating the streets and checking their newspapers for a chance to be employed. When one looks at the average wage of compared positions within those government jobs, you wonder what the devil they are complaining about. Mr. Ferrara is correct – a new aristocracy has shown its ugly head, and wasn't that part of the reason why we rebelled against a government across the seas in the 18thcentury?
FDR, Democrat demagogue counterpart to Republican Ronald Reagan, supported unions, but knew full well that unions did not belong in government. Unions have slowly infiltrated its power into government thanks to naive or corrupt politicians.
FDR, Democrat demagogue counterpart to Republican Ronald Reagan, supported unions, but knew full well that unions did not belong in government. Unions have slowly infiltrated its power into government thanks to naive or corrupt politicians.
Vote to keep Scott Walker as governor. He shouldn't be recalled for doing what was expected, correcting the plunder of the state government of Wisconsin by the previous governor and his sociocrat buddies in the state legislature. Where was a cry for recall when Governor Jim Doyle raised taxes each time he started a term, after saying he wouldn't, and in the first month of his second tenure, passed the highest tax increase in the history of Wisconsin - $1 billion. The state fees were raised 38% during a time when Wisconsinites, like other Americans, were trying to make ends meet with an economy pushing towards a national/global depression.
Vote on June 5thto retain Governor Scott Walker to continue his policy of reducing Big Government and the cost of keeping it.
Isn't it time to fix that?
Letting unions and the government employee elite having their way will not change that reality. They say they are for the "little guy" but in reality they use the them for their own agenda.
The nation is watching what we do on June 5th– give in to the unions and selfish public employees or not; and it is significant in the sense that it will be a precedence of future elected officials who actually work at reducing government spending and making life better for We the People.
Wisconsin voters have the right to ask for a recall, assuming it is justified – it is a good process; however, those trying to recall Governor Walker are just the union's and progressive's “useful idiots”. It is the same reason why there is not enough Americans yelling about the income tax system – there are too many not paying their fair share of taxes, relying upon others to foot the bill. And the tax rate can be reduced, thereby improving economy, if those in government wouldn't spend the people's money like drunken sailors. Politicians know that by making Americans dependent upon their programs, they have control. Too many want to keep that control. This is, in effect, what is happening in Wisconsin and the recall movement.
Unions have outlived its usefulness, and indeed has become a parasite that is devouring individual freedom of choice as well as its parasitic operations that has led to economic ruin. There isn't a week that goes by that some union official isn't caught performing unlawful acts. It is and has been a corrupt mechanism that once aided workers into a working life of better conditions and who was originated by socialist and communist organizations and then taken over by elements of the crime syndicate who found a legal means to racketeer and plunder the American economy. In reality, public employees have wages and benefits that those in the private sector would be pleased to have, yet the public employees are always asking for more utilizing the union tactics of what is called collective bargaining. Indeed, the word "collective" versus "individual" is the key word that identifies its socialist/communist origins. It began as a means for the common folk to bargain with the aristocracy and today that bargaining chip has become the aristocracy that the original union concept fought against. A worker has no choice in matters of strikes or even belonging to the union itself through peer pressure and plain, ugly union thug tactics. This must stop in the private sector and unions should not be allowed in the government employee sector, with their wages and benefits directed by the Congress of the United States whose constitutional powers are granted in the Constitution of the United States. Just as the Federal Reserve System should be removed from its seat in power, so must go the unions that feed off taxpayer funding.
The horror to think that government employees must pay into their own health care programs! It is high time that they face reality with the rest of the population. Teachers are an important aspect of a civilized nation -- important in its growth and education of youth that will be future leaders, inventors, et cetera; however, they are well compensated in earnings, the basic average of entry level being $40,000 for nine months of work, not twelve; as well as receiving benefits that other citizens would relish. It is because of unions that education (one reason) has been increasingly unaffordable; as well as not getting the quality education expected of that much funding paid by We the People.
In another article, I am going to address the long-needed reformation of the American educational system, where reform means that the American people get what they pay for and what they put into the system and at the same time acknowledging the importance of productive teachers that are mentors, that create good students who make productive and educated citizens.
It is important to note: Governor Walker stood by principles of lowering cost of Wisconsin government WITHOUT raising taxes or lay-off of government employees. Those complaining are doing so because they now have to pay into their health care and retirement system like other people do in the private sector -- all instigated by the powerful and corrupt unions.
Unions have bankrupted industry in Wisconsin (and other states), ruined educational system across America, where the student isn't the priority any longer, and corrupted the political system by funneling vast amount of funding to secure political control.
Stand up and be counted -- vote to keep Governor Walker on June 5th.
Unions have outlived its usefulness, and indeed has become a parasite that is devouring individual freedom of choice as well as its parasitic operations that has led to economic ruin. There isn't a week that goes by that some union official isn't caught performing unlawful acts. It is and has been a corrupt mechanism that once aided workers into a working life of better conditions and who was originated by socialist and communist organizations and then taken over by elements of the crime syndicate who found a legal means to racketeer and plunder the American economy. In reality, public employees have wages and benefits that those in the private sector would be pleased to have, yet the public employees are always asking for more utilizing the union tactics of what is called collective bargaining. Indeed, the word "collective" versus "individual" is the key word that identifies its socialist/communist origins. It began as a means for the common folk to bargain with the aristocracy and today that bargaining chip has become the aristocracy that the original union concept fought against. A worker has no choice in matters of strikes or even belonging to the union itself through peer pressure and plain, ugly union thug tactics. This must stop in the private sector and unions should not be allowed in the government employee sector, with their wages and benefits directed by the Congress of the United States whose constitutional powers are granted in the Constitution of the United States. Just as the Federal Reserve System should be removed from its seat in power, so must go the unions that feed off taxpayer funding.
The horror to think that government employees must pay into their own health care programs! It is high time that they face reality with the rest of the population. Teachers are an important aspect of a civilized nation -- important in its growth and education of youth that will be future leaders, inventors, et cetera; however, they are well compensated in earnings, the basic average of entry level being $40,000 for nine months of work, not twelve; as well as receiving benefits that other citizens would relish. It is because of unions that education (one reason) has been increasingly unaffordable; as well as not getting the quality education expected of that much funding paid by We the People.
In another article, I am going to address the long-needed reformation of the American educational system, where reform means that the American people get what they pay for and what they put into the system and at the same time acknowledging the importance of productive teachers that are mentors, that create good students who make productive and educated citizens.
It is important to note: Governor Walker stood by principles of lowering cost of Wisconsin government WITHOUT raising taxes or lay-off of government employees. Those complaining are doing so because they now have to pay into their health care and retirement system like other people do in the private sector -- all instigated by the powerful and corrupt unions.
Unions have bankrupted industry in Wisconsin (and other states), ruined educational system across America, where the student isn't the priority any longer, and corrupted the political system by funneling vast amount of funding to secure political control.
Stand up and be counted -- vote to keep Governor Walker on June 5th.
Milwaukee (4thPoorest City in America) – Journal Sentinel complains about unemployment, created long before Walker took office: Wisconsin Missing Out on U.S. Jobs Gains (forgetting that it is easier to prevent a crisis than fixing it, which the latter takes longer.)
Vote against Big Government – choose Scott Walker on June 5th. (Did you know that CEOs of unions against Walker make twice (or more) as much as the Governor of Wisconsin is paid?)
FURTHER READING and SOURCES
Poll: Wisconsin Voters Now Oppose Walker Recall By 11-Point Margin
Wisconsin Recall is High-Stakes Bet for Unions (like the Obama takeover-bailout of GM and financial institutions)
The Right to Recall and, in Wisconsin, the Wrong (Viewing the progress of the recall petition – I and others believe the Left cheated, just as they do in elections.)
GOP Foolishly Ignores Recall Battle in Wisconsin (an example of how the GOP establishment is out of touch with reality – look at their poster boy to run against Obama in Election 2012 as an example). Did you ever notice that “liberal” progressives never protest peacefully? Look at the Tea Party rallies and compare.
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