Dear Friends,
It seems to me that there is plenty of blame to go around in the Wisconsin budget debate. Their budget is on fire and they act like children! This is the United States of America, we are supposed to set an example to the rest of the world, showing how to be people who are self interested rightly understood, or rational maximizes, emphasizing rational
The Governor is wrong on at least two counts. The first is forcing the unions to have an election every year whether or not to abolish the union. That is absurd! The extra cost of an election, every single year along with the attendant slowdown in productivity during such an event, is prohibitive once in four years but every year would essentially shut down the operation of government.
The second is, in taking away the union’s collective bargaining rights for government unions only, government holds itself to a different law than it holds the people. Again we see that government doesn’t get it. The Elite always seek to carve out a niche for themselves. The rest of us have to labor under rules that government doesn’t hold itself to. This is just another example.
If collective bargaining is too odious then take it away entirely from all employers. We can clearly see that to do such a thing would violate the right to free assembly as well as the right to freely petition the government. We know, and have historical proof, that employers collude to keep wages low. So unions, or at least the real threat of unions, are a powerful incentive for employers to play fair, else risk the real possibility of a union coming in, and have to bear the additional costs.
The governor has a real point when he says that the State unions organize, fund and otherwise help get a political faction in power, that is not only beholding to the union, but is philosophically in tune with union leadership. This allows public employee unions to get labor agreements that would never fly in the private sector. Hiding some wages as huge pensions keeping them off the books until later. Well now it’s later and the books have been massaged as much as they can be and are ready to fall apart. A State NUMA would solve this problem with a law forcing politicians to recuse themselves from bargaining with a political donor.
To address the education question. The logic is actually very thinly sliced so they don‘t have to address the question in it‘s totality. The unbiased media are only talking about teachers and a faction of public sector employees. There are many things government does that do not need a great deal of schooling like plowing roads. But the bigger point to make, is that public sector employees that do have a higher level of education, have it, because the government pays for it and regulation passed by government requires it. They regulate themselves to be educated.
The unions, on the other hand, are acting criminally. If the Teamsters rioted and took over a UPS building the police would immediately be called and the Teamsters would have the Billy clubs put right to them. Applied directly to the head. They would be arrested, dragged out and criminally charged, lastly, facing a judge. To let public sector unions get away with far worse is the most atrocious example I could have thought of! In what universe is that ok? To not allow the Teamsters to forcibly shut down a UPS transship but to allow public sector unions to shut down government?
What about the Democrats abandoning their jobs?!?! If you or I abandoned our jobs, simply because we are handed a job we disagree with, we would be immediately fired! You and I would be on the unemployment line so fast it would make your head spin. And we would deserve it! To abandon your job, is to demonstrate absolute disdain for your employers, in this case the people of Wisconsin. The Democrats are acting the very faction we were discussing earlier.
Imagine if the Republicans had abandoned their jobs and left the country when Obama was passing his unconstitutional health care law, or on a State level, when Gay Marriage was being passed? The vilification would have been extreme and would have carried true vitriol. The lawsuits would have popped up like weeds in a freshly tilled garden. Overwhelming the legal system.
Now that the democrats in Wisconsin have set the precedent, now the democrats in Illinois are following the tip of the spear. When the republicans inevitably go through the hole made by the democrats we will finally get some debate in the unbiased media about consequences.
In the meantime the fire still burns…
