Chicago Teachers Strike Proves Wisdom of Scott Walker

September 10, 2012 13 Comments

The teachers union in Chicago is on strike. The average teacher in Chicago earns $76,000 per year not including generous heath and pension benefits. By comparison, the average Chicagoan only earns $47,000 per year. Those in the private sector don’t get the lavish health and pension benefits, which bring the average Chicago teacher’s benefit package to well over $100,000. The teachers rejected a 16% increase in pay, totally more than $400 million. Chicago government school teachers have the highest salaries in the country and they want more. The pro-union press is very concerned about all the children which are “loose” in Chicago. As though those kids weren’t loose all summer long. I guess only in September are unleashed children a major concern.

The teachers unions will of course pretend like they have the best interest of children at heart. Nothing could be further from the truth. With the highest teacher salaries in the country and a 16% increase on the table (who in the private sector has gotten a 16% raise in the last four years?) the teachers said no, they want more money. These people already pay less than 3% towards their health and pension benefits, their compensation packages average well over $100,000. Yet they want more and they’ll lie about their concern for children in the process in order to garner sympathy from already overtaxed taxpayers. Keep in mind, Chicago has some of the highest tax rates in the country.

The Chicago government school strike illustrates everything Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker was fighting for in Wisconsin. Government employee unions are completely out of control. Their members earn more than private sector employees, in the case of Chicago government school teachers earn nearly $30,000 a year more in salary. Chicago teachers also earn lavish healthcare benefits and pensions, lavish plans that no one in the private sector get anymore. Yet all you hear from the teachers is how difficult life is with the summers off and how hard their jobs are. Maybe no one told them that most jobs that earn more than $50,000 a year are difficult.

Taxpayers can’t afford this nonsense anymore. Especially when the government schools produce such poor results. Chicago government schools are among the 10 worst in the nation, yet the teachers want a 16% raise on their already #1 ranked salaries. If these people operated in a competitive environment, they’d be out of a job. Who would willingly send their kids to such awful schools and who in their right mind would pay such poor teachers so much money? Only in the public sector, which shields itself from competition, can this sort of nonsense take place. There’s a reason why parents in Chicago are flocking to charter schools, it’s because the public school teachers are fat and sassy with their $100k+ pay packages to the point that they don’t actually do a good job teaching.

Chicago is providing us with a good example of why we all need to follow Scott Walker’s lead. States need to restrict the power of government employee unions, for the good of taxpayers. Government employees aren’t altruistic, they don’t care about children or the public good. They care about themselves and milking taxpayers of every last dime. They get more pay on average than private sector employees, their benefit packages far exceed what most people get in the private sector. Yet they want us taxpayers to pay even more for even less service. It’s time to restrict these unions, it’s time for all of us to do what we can to make sure our city and state doesn’t become the next Chicago.

UPDATE: According to the Department of Education, 79% of Chicago government school students are not proficient in reading. It appears that the highest paid teachers in the country want a raise nearly equal to the amount of 8th graders who are actually capable of reading at an 8th grade level. Pathetic.

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Why No One Cares About Scab NFL Refs

August 25, 2012 Leave a comment

The NFL is using replacement referees during the preseason as the regular refs have been locked out. Apparently refs need a union and the union cannot come to an agreement with the NFL, thus the lockout. The replacement refs have been generally dreadful, though because no one really cares about the preseason complaints have been minimal. No doubt once the Lions get hosed by one of these replacement refs in a real game I’ll be outraged. Of course, I’d be equally outraged if the regular refs hosed the Lions. I suspect most fans are like that, which is one of the reasons why no one really cares about the replacement refs. It’s not like the regulars were highly respected.

Jeff MacGregor at ESPN can’t seem to figure out why fans don’t care about the replacement refs. He goes beyond the absurdity of having Division II and III college refs officiating pro games and looks at the political side of it. What he can’t figure out is why fans aren’t calling these replacements scabs and why there isn’t general outrage over the treatment unionized refs are receiving from the NFL. In short, MacGregor is living in a world long since left by the rest of us. What MacGregor and the folks at ESPN can’t seem to figure out is why Americans don’t care about unions anymore. It’s something the Democrats have been scratching their heads about for awhile.

Only 11.8% of American workers are part of a union. Only 6.9% of private sector workers are in a union. The rest of the folks in unions are public sector employees. After what happened in Wisconsin it seems pretty clear that the public has little to no respect for public sector unions. Between teachers unions demanding higher taxes, more wages and not providing a result and lazy government bureaucrats hiding behind obscene union work rules complete with salary and benefits greater than in the private sector, it’s no wonder unions are generally not trusted or held in high regard. So few workers are part of a private sector union these days that no one sees any need to feel “solidarity” with people in other unions. After all, most of us aren’t part of a union so we have no need or desire to have solidarity.

Just 30 years ago when the government started compiling union statistics 20% of Americans were in a union. Go back to the 50′s and it was likely over 33%. ESPN is shocked that people don’t feel any solidarity with the NFL referees union but the fact is we don’t feel solidarity with any union anymore. Unlike the 30′s-60′s, there isn’t a huge minority of Americans in a union so the unions can’t rally other union members like they used to. The Democrats and the media can’t seem to wrap their head around this fact, which is one of the reasons why they were so surprised when Scott Walker was successful in Wisconsin. The unions have tons of money but they don’t have the power to command 1/3 of the country to stand behind them anymore.

There is of course another explanation to the failure of fans to support the NFL refs. Most Americans hate sports unions because they consistently threaten to take away our entertainment. No body likes the owners but most fans react in horror at the thought of a millionaire athlete striking in order to make more millions. It’s a special sort of obscene reserved for players unions. Still, the refs aren’t threatening to take NFL football away, they’re only threatening to make the officiating marginally worse than it would have been. The fact is, with less than 7% of the country in a private sector union and less than 12% of the country over all, it shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone when we shrug our shoulders at “scab” workers. We just don’t care about unions anymore.

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Did Democracy Die In Wisconsin On Tuesday?

June 7, 2012 Leave a comment

Perhaps the highlight of Scott Walker’s win in Wisconsin Tuesday was a weepy union liberal on CNN declaring it was the “death of democracy.” Howard Dean largely said the same thing, declaring this was the beginning of the undermining of democracy. This is so typical of Democrats. When they win it’s proof that democracy works, when they lose democracy has died. We’ll ignore the fact that we have a republic, not a democracy of course. The point of course is that America is a country to be proud of only when the left wins. When the left loses, they blame the people for being fooled by bogus scapegoats.

Democracy died according to the left because we’re told Scott Walker spent anywhere from seven to ten times the money Tom Barrett did. It is true that Scott Walker spent around $30 million on his recall election compared to around $4 million spent by Tom Barret’s campaign. But that’s not all the money that was spent on this campaign and thus if the liberal talking heads are listened to you’ll have a skewed view of spending on this race. What they haven’t told you is that unions spent $21 million on Barrett’s behalf. Around $63.5 million was spent on this campaign, nearly $30 of it by unions and the Barret campaign. Walker  and the Republicans hardly outspent Barret and the unions by ten times or even seven times. They didn’t even double them up.

Last year when State senators, a Supreme Court Justice and other officials in Wisconsin were recalled, the unions outspent the Republicans $23 million to $20 million. Yet the unions still lost. In 2008 Obama more than doubled the spending of John McCain, the liberals didn’t seem to mind that at all. In fact they highly praised Obama’s fundraising capabilities. The left wants to blame Citizens United for the Walker win but that case doesn’t even apply in Wisconsin. Wisconsin didn’t have to change any laws, PAC’s were already allowed.

What underlies all of the left-wing complaining about money in Wisconsin is a general distrust of not hatred for voters. They basically believe you cannot think for yourselves and will be swayed by slick television commercials. For all the money Walker spent, ten times more according to the left and not even close to double in reality, it only gained him one percentage point. People weren’t swayed by money or ads on television. It is insulting to the people of Wisconsin to assume that they were.

The difference in the election is that Walker was able to get the people who voted for him in 2010 back to the polls for his recall election. It shouldn’t be surprising that 18 months into a new governor’s term that the people who voted for him will vote for him in large numbers again. Especially when he’s largely balanced a problematic budget that was over $3 billion in the red when he took office.

The unions grossly overplayed their cards, they’re living in a world that died 30+ years ago, a world where large numbers of people were unionized and those who weren’t wanted to be or at least cared about the plight of unionized workers. The unions believed this world still exists, it’s clear that it doesn’t. Especially when we’re talking about government employee unions, no one likes them or has any sympathy for them whatsoever. This is why Tom Barrett lost. He got the same people who voted for him in 2010 and no more. His message doesn’t reach to the people in the 7 point gap between him and Walker.

The left loves to whine about money in politics but the fact is money played no role in the election on Tuesday. The complaining about money is really insulting to voters, as though they’re incapable of thinking for themselves. Voters aren’t as dumb as the losers of elections want to think they are. The people of Wisconsin were informed on the issues and chose Walker over Barrett. The results nearly mirrored the 2010 election. Hardly a shocking result. Democracy didn’t die on Tuesday. An informed electorate spoke and they decided they didn’t want unions and Democrats to control Wisconsin. The only thing that died Tuesday is government employee unions stranglehold on the Wisconsin treasury.

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Big Walker Win But Don’t Misread The Results

June 6, 2012 4 Comments

Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker won his recall election last night 53-46. This is a significant victory against union thuggery. It was the public sector unions that got all of this recall nonsense started. They spent millions on recall signatures and millions on Democrat Tom Barrett’s campaign. Yet they were soundly defeated. The taxpaying public is sick of paying through the nose for lavish public sector employee benefits that simply aren’t available to people working in the private sector. Taxpayers are tired of deficits because of these benefits. Wisconsin voters in particular are tired of the union thuggery and the overly dramatic complaints and protests that have engulfed the state for the last year and a half.

The Tea Party was well organized in Wisconsin and it directly led to Walker’s victory. The Tea Party did what the unions have been doing for years, they’ve organized and gotten directly involved in the political process. The Tea Party ground game matched, if not exceeded, the progressive left’s ground game. That’s significant because in Wisconsin, which doesn’t have a strong evangelical Christian community, conservative and Republican grassroots organization was significantly lacking. Until the Tea Party, now it’s an equal to the progressive, left-wing and union organization.

The progressive left is whining to no end about the amount of money spent in Wisconsin. Their claim is that Walker spent eight times what Barrett did. This is very true, if we’re only talking about the official campaigns themselves. What the boys at MSNBC don’t tell people is how much money the unions spent on this campaign, almost all of which was spent outside of Barrett’s official campaign coffers. For all the money spent though, it was the grassroots organization which got out the vote for Walker that really won the day. The left will whine and whine about all the money spent on ads, they weren’t the difference though. The difference was the organization of the Tea Party, which the progressives don’t wish to acknowledge because they believe they have a monopoly on organization.

Yesterday’s recall must not be read as a sign of things to come in November. No matter who won there would be a temptation to claim that a Wisconsin victory will lead to the same result in November. Democrats are backing off of claiming Wisconsin is important today while Republicans are crowing that it’s proof Romney is on his way to victory. The opposite would be the case if Barrett had won.

But the fact of the matter is that this recall involved highly charged local issues which don’t really translate into a Presidential election. People voting for Walker weren’t impressed by the 1 point drop in the unemployment rate since he took office. The national unemployment rate is down that much over the same period and we all know how that has been manipulated. People in Wisconsin voted for Walker because they supported his curb on union power and they liked the fact that he’s nearly balanced a budget that when he took office was $3 billion in the red. These are local issues which don’t particularly translate into a Presidential election.

The lesson for Romney is clear. It’s going to take more than ads to win this election. He needs to have a solid ground game, which means his people need to connect with and excite various Tea Party groups as well as evangelical Christian groups around the country. This idea that Super PAC’s are going to spend a billion dollars for Romney and that will somehow propel him to victory is ridiculous and a recipe for defeat. Obama is organized, he’s moved to the far left to energize his base and get them all out to the polls. Romney has to equal that effort. He cannot misread the Wisconsin recall and assume the tide is turning against Obama. Romney has a long, long way to go.

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Walker Poised For Victory; Unions, Democrats Play Blame Game

June 4, 2012 11 Comments

Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker appears poised to win his recall election. Real Clear Politics shows Walker up 6.4% over his Democrat rival. The unions are losing big time in this election. If you’ll recall, it’s the public sector unions who pushed for this recall after Walker and Legislative Republicans passed a law limiting government employees collective bargaining rights and requiring them to pay a portion of their health insurance and pension. Just last year the unions were able to pull in tens of thousands to their rallies, perhaps even a hundred thousand at one rally.Today Bill Clinton couldn’t even draw 1,000.

Now that the unions and Democrats are poised to lose, we’re already hearing them start the blame game. Their biggest gripe will be about money. Scott Walker has received a good portion of his campaign cash from people outside of Wisconsin. His Democrat opponent has as well. But because Walker has received more, the left will whine to no end about it. They’ll also conveniently ignore that outside groups have aided the Democrats caused from the start. Many of the people who attended union rallies were bussed from out of state. It was out of state petition gatherers who helped obtain signatures for the recall. It was Democrat legislators who went out of state to avoid voting on the Walker bill. To blame money and particularly out of state money is a total cop out.

In fact, blaming money is also a cop out employed by losers of political elections. If Obama goes down in November, we’ll no doubt hear all about how Republican PAC’s funded ads in support of Romney’s candidacy. Supposedly Republican PAC’s are poised to spend a billion dollars this year, Democrat PAC’s only half a billion. We’re supposed to ignore that Democrats have PAC’s spending five hundred million on Obama’s behalf but we’re to be outraged over Republican PAC spending. Incidently both campaigns are expected to raise and spend around $750 million each. All of these campaigns and groups don’t spend all of their money on advertising. But let’s say they did, it would total only $3 billion. To put that into perspective Procter & Gamble, the nations largest advertiser, spends $3 billion every year hocking toothpaste and laundry detergent.

Speaking of Obama, he’s the other guy the left will blame for Scott Walker’s victory. Obama has done absolutely nothing for the unions or the Democrats. He hasn’t gone to Wisconsin, he’s recorded no ads and he’ll be blamed for the DNC not spending much time or money on the recall election. The left entered 2012 believing that the Wisconsin recall was the key to Obama winning in November. They’ve abandoned that now that it’s fairly clear Walker is going to win. They will however grumble about how Obama did nothing to help his biggest 2008 benefactors.

Of course all of this assumes Walker wins tomorrow. For my Republican friends in Wisconsin, make sure you get out and vote. Victory is never a sure thing no matter what the polls say. But if the polls are correct this is going to be a big victory for the GOP and a huge defeat for the unions and Democrats. Whether it translates into a big Romney victory in November remains to be seen. If it’s a blowout, it signals that Obama is in serious trouble.

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Yesterday’s Elections Very Good For Conservatives

May 9, 2012 Leave a comment

Yesterday was primary election day in several states. We had a few interesting results. Sen Dick Lugar went down last night to Richard Mourdock. Mourdock was a Tea Party favorite, Lugar a long time centrist and thorn in the side of conservatives. Not surprisingly the bitter 80 year old whined that Mourdock is an “unrelenting partisan.” While trying to come off as a nice guy centrist, Lugar’s prepared remarks make him look like he is full of sour grapes.

No word on whether Lugar will try to run a third party or write in campaign or if he’ll simply sit back and try to sabotage Mourdock’s campaign this fall. It’s interesting to watch the establishment GOP in situations like this. Whenever a moderate wins we conservatives are told we have to circle the wagons and come together to defeat the Democrats. When the conservative wins, bitter moderates sabotage campaigns or refuse to support the conservative (think Christine O’Donnell and Sharon Angle) or they run third party or write in campaigns. (think Lisa Murkowski’s write in against Joe Miller in 2010) It’s not clear what Lugar is going to do but he’s clearly not happy.

North Carolina banned same sex marriage and civil unions last night. Not a terribly surprising result in a relatively conservative state. If Michigan and California can pass similar ballot proposals than surely North Carolina can. What strikes me as odd about this is that the proposal was on the primary ballot rather than the general election ballot. Karl Rove was credited in 2004 with getting several Bush states to place amendments like this on the general election ballot. The left howled that these amendments aided Bush’s re-election. Either the Democrats in North Carolina were successful at pushing this ballot proposal off the November ballot or Rove was credited with Bush’s re-election far more than he deserved. The latter is probably more likely.

Wisconsin held a special primary ahead of the June 5th recall election of Gov. Scott Walker. Democrat Tom Barrett won his primary by 20 points. Gov. Walker faced a primary challenger from a Democrat pretending to be a Republican. Apparently very few in the GOP were fooled, Walker won with 97% of the vote. In fact Walker received more votes than all of the Democrat votes combined. That bodes well for him with the final recall election coming up in a few weeks. Clearly Republicans are motivated to keep him in office.

In what must be the most odd result last night, in West Virginia’s Democrat primary President Obama won 59-41 over someone named Keith Judd. This is odd for two reasons. First that Obama has any serious challenge in any state is surprising. Also interesting is that Mr. Judd is prisoner #11593-051. That’s right, 41% of West Virginia Democrats would rather have a Federal prisoner as their nominee than Obama. The guy may even win a delegate. Sen. Joe Manchin wouldn’t even confirm that he voted for Obama, which if correct means he almost certainly voted for the Federal prisoner. It’s safe to say that West Virginia will be in the Mitt Romney column come November.

Last night was a pretty good night for conservatives. Perhaps this means enthusiasm is on our side, especially those of us who lean towards the Tea Party. Getting rid of Dick Lugar was important, now it will be equally important for Richard Mourdock to beat the Democrat. Anytime a state votes against changing the centuries old definition of marriage it’s a good thing. Scott Walker’s huge win in Wisconsin is a very good sign. A clear message was sent by Democrats in West Virginia to the President. They would rather have a criminal than Obama. Last night was a very good night.

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The Plight of Entitled New York Times Employees

April 25, 2012 Leave a comment

Unionized employees at the New York Times are in an uproar over pending changes to their retirement program. No longer able to afford lavish pension benefits for retirees, the Times is attempting to move to a 401k program that employees would contribute to. The union is outraged of course. What’s interesting here is that for all of the Times attacked Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker and any number of businesses who have been forced to change employee retirement programs over the years, the Times is doing exactly the same thing.

The Times has no choice but to freeze their current pension plan and replace it with a 401k. In case the liberal reporters haven’t noticed, circulation is down for all newspapers including the Old Grey Lady. It doesn’t matter that the Times is popular among liberals and intellectual elites. Subscriptions are down and the Times is getting beaten online, badly, by other papers and internet sites. As such revenue is down and with a drop in revenue it comes as no surprise that there needs to be a drop in employee benefits be it in the form of pay, healthcare or pensions.

Hysterical liberal Times employees took to You Tube to grouse about the new retirement program. The reaction of these employees is priceless in that it exposes the root of liberal bias at the paper and it exposes the entitlement mentality of liberals. One woman claims she’ll be living in a cardboard box when she retires, another claims she’ll be living on food stamps. One man wonders if he’ll have to make the choice between living with his kids and suicide. The melodramatic rants are amusing but they really expose the absurdity of the union position. Millions of Americans have 401k programs. In retirement they aren’t being forced to live in cardboard boxes or go on food stamps. They certainly aren’t contemplating suicide.

These liberals seriously believe they are entitled to live off of their employer until the day they die whether they’re working for them or not. The fact is, employers cannot afford this sort of benefit anymore. In fact, taxpayers cannot afford to pay for this sort of benefit for government employees either. This includes the Michigan government school teacher who wants to retire at the age of 47 and get full pension and medical benefits for life. The notion that we must be paid by our employer once we retire, even for decades afterward, must fall by the wayside. No employer (taxpayers included) should be expected to pay former employees massive pensions for decades on end. This sort of lazy entitlement is not only absurd but expensive.

Everyone wants to have enough money set aside so they can have a nice retirement. But a nice retirement isn’t the job of your employer. It was one thing when companies had a lot of money and could lure talent with the prospect of a nice pension. Like it or not, companies cannot afford this sort of entitlement anymore. 401k programs allow employees to contribute to and partially manage their own retirement, something they probably should have been doing all along. Most Americans have such a program, only the most entitled of union employees (mostly government employees) think they’re above it all. The New York Times employees will soon be joining all of us little people with 401k programs. While they’re grousing about it, you might want to invest in some cardboard boxes and while you’re at it invest in dog food. I know of a lot of melodramatic Times employees who will soon be in the market for a well appointed cardboard box and a can of Alpo.

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States Face $4 Trillion In Debt; Unions Resist Cuts

October 25, 2011 Leave a comment

The 50 US states have debts totaling around $4 trillion. This to go with the nearly $15 trillion Federal deficit. One can only imagine how much in debt local governments are in. Part of the problem for states are massive salaries, health care and pension plans lavished on government employees. In Wisconsin there are bus drivers earning six figures. In Illinois two teachers union lobbyists gamed the system to earn six figure pensions for two days of substitute teaching. While Illinois may be more corrupt that most states, there are thousands of government employees set to earn massive pensions at taxpayers expense.

The average school teacher in Wisconsin earns $100,000 a year in salary and benefits. The same is true in Michigan and Ohio. In most states, government employees can retire after 30 years on the job and they receive a pension equalling 90% of their salary. Government employees who retire at the old age of 52 often go to work for another government agency and end up retiring with two lifetime pensions. Not to mention lifetime healthcare. Keep in mind, most of these people don’t produce anything. In the case of school teachers, they at best produce poor results.

Interestingly it’s the government employee unions who are aiding and abetting the Occupy Wall Street hooligans. The American Federation of Teachers is supporting the OWS folks by allowing them to use their property. Other government employee unions are also supporting OWS. It’s sort of interesting considering that some government employees receive pensions that put them into the dreaded 1% that we’re all supposed to hate.

What these government employee unions really want is to have rich capitalists pay for them to do essentially nothing. They want wealth redistributed from producers to non producers. Make no mistake, government employees don’t produce anything. Most who work for agencies are paper pushers and teachers, well, we all know the dreadful product the government schools produce. These people want to continue to be paid to do essentially nothing. Worse, they want those who actually produce something to pay an exorbitant amount for them to do nothing of value.

Taxpayers cannot afford this anymore. States are facing massive debts that total $4 trillion. Government employees simply cost to much money. We have two choices to get these costs under control. We can either cut salaries, benefits and pensions or we can cut a large number of government employees. We cannot raise taxes because Americans are already taxes at their limit.

Republican Governors in Wisconsin, Ohio, Michigan and Indiana have all tried to do something about this problem. They’ve cut back on government union power and have required government employees to pay into their own healthcare and pension. It makes no sense for government employees to have bigger benefits than those in the private sector with no cost to boot. Government employees want us to view them as essential people who are sacrificing by serving the people. That’s a load of nonsense. These people not only aren’t essential, they aren’t sacrificing at all. They’re feeding off the taxpayer teet and they’re outraged that anyone would try to ween them.

But ween them taxpayers must. We cannot afford these lavish wages and benefits for people who do not produce. If working for the government is all about sacrifice, let the government employees sacrifice and earn less than their private sector counterparts. If they don’t like it, let them quit and enter the private sector. Most won’t because they can’t hack it in a competitive environment. With $4 trillion in state debts something needs to be done about government employee salaries and pensions. Gov. Walker got the ball rolling but more needs to be done.

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Rage-Aholic Leftist Protests Won’t Gain Traction

October 7, 2011 2 Comments

The rage-aholic leftist “occupy” Wall Street protests are little more than a highly organized Astroturf effort of unions such as SEIU and Marxists such as Van Jones. These protests aren’t an organic uprising seeking to confront current issues. Instead, they have been organized months and years in advance as evidenced by this video. The upper middle class white college kids, who I mockingly called hobo chic yesterday, are just useful idiots who have been worked into a frenzy over essentially nothing. I’m sure most of them will be asking their parents to send them pizza money for their weekend of speaking “truth” to essentially no one in power.

The question here is whether or not these protests will have any traction for the left. It’s clear that Obama is part of this, he specifically singled out and attacked banks in his campaign presser yesterday. Banks are of course the target of these protests. Nearly every group involved in these protests has a direct connection to Obama. SEIU, Van Jones, Students for a Democratic Society, Moveon.org, Tides Foundation etc. All of them have direct connections with Obama and he has passively supported the Occupy Wall Street movement.

While Obama is involved, however passively, it isn’t going to gain traction for the left. We’ve already had massive left-wing protests this  year and it’s done nothing for the leftist movement. The protests in Wisconsin following Gov. Scott Walker’s decision to limit government employee union’s power provided no traction for leftists or Democrats. The Wisconsin protests were more organic, meaning they were more spontaneous and less organized than the Occupy Wall Street protests. They also had a direct enemy, Scott Walker is a Republican and the Wisconsin Legislature is controlled by Republicans.

In the end the leftists lost in Wisconsin. They didn’t defeat the bill and they were unsuccessful at recalling Republican legislators. Their movement fizzled out and ultimately public support for the unions fizzled as well. The current protests are highly organized, they’ve been planned for months and years. But their guy is in the White House and their party controls half of Congress. So why are they going to attack? House Republicans who have been in power for 9 months?

In the end, the Days of Rage, Occupy Wall Street protests will not gain traction for the left. They’ll fizzle out as the temperature drops and they’ll be forgotten about by the end of November. Americans are already turned off to the violent nature of these rallies, with hundreds having been arrested already. The term ‘occupy’ itself is going to turn off many middle of the road Americans who still have respect for law and order. The fact that many of these protesters don’t even know what they’re protesting or what their goals are makes it awful hard for people to want to jump on board.

In the end it’s difficult, if not impossible, to have a successful protest movement when your guy is sitting in the White House. Wisconsin had a shot at gaining traction because it was focused on an opposition Governor. Wisconsin fizzled for the left. There’s no reason to believe the Van Jones, SEIU, astro-turf rage-aholic Wall Street occupiers won’t fizzle out as well. At the end of the day, the American public isn’t going to get on board with a group whose goals are nebulous and whose tactics are destructive and violent.

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Walker Vindicated: Mass. Democrats Restrict Union Power

April 28, 2011 Leave a comment

The Massachusetts State House has voted to restrict government employee unions collective bargaining rights. It appears headed for victory in the State Senate and the Governor has vowed to sign the bill. Doesn’t this sound like a familiar these during the first four months of 2011? It’s similar but it isn’t quite the same in Massachusetts as it was in Wisconsin, Ohio and Indiana. The difference is that the Republican Party barely exists in Massachusetts. The State House and Senate are dominated by Democrats, who have a veto proof majority. The Governor is a very liberal Democrat.

I’m sure you’re thinking that Massachusetts is heading for Wisconsin style union rallies and protests over these restrictions in government employee bargaining power. While the unions are apparently irate over the bill, they aren’t planning any massive rallies ala Wisconsin. It’s not politically expedient to protest in Massachusetts as it would destroy the narrative that Republicans want to restrict union rights. The unions will no doubt fight these changes but they’ll do it by quietly targeting yes votes in Democrat primaries. The unions may stage some token rallies supporting the no voters but they aren’t going to overtake the Capitol building with 10,000 crazed teachers and bozo socialist college students.

The Massachusetts bill proves that Scott Walker was right in Wisconsin. Government employee benefits are out of control. It is an outrage that the average government employee makes more money in salary and benefits than the average private sector worker. Government employees don’t produce anything of value, they simply take from others. We cannot have a successful economic recovery so long as it is more lucrative to work for the government not producing anything than it is to work in the private sector. The fact that liberal Democrats in one of the most liberal states in the union recognize that government employee contracts are out of control says a lot.

Taxpayers cannot afford to pay for lavish union benefits for government employees. American taxpayers are being taxed to death. Like it or not, there isn’t any more money to squeeze out of the so-called rich and the middle class is currently being killed by taxes and inflation. It is absurd that bus drivers in Madison, Wisconsin are earning over $100,000 in salary and benefits. It is absurd that school teachers in some of the worst performing schools in the country are earning an average of $100,000. This sort of nonsense can only happen in government or when government interferes with private contracts.

Taxpayers in Wisconsin pushed back against out of control spending by electing Republicans in 2010. They backed those Republicans by re-electing a conservative Supreme Court judge last month, in what was seen as a referendum on Walker’s union law. Democrat Legislators in Massachusetts are finally pushing back against the out of control spending they helped create. They recognize that their state can no longer afford to pay lavish union salaries, benefits and pensions for government employees.

This issue was never about Republicans destroying unions. The issue was always about bringing state budgets under control. The fact that we now have extremely liberal Democrats doing the same thing as Scott Walker vindicates his position. It also exposes the unions as little more than the thuggish stuntmen they are. It also exposes the hypocrisy of the Wisconsin Democrats who left the state, as well as the media who of course isn’t reporting that Democrats are passing the same bill Walker signed in Wisconsin. In the end, state budgets must be balanced. Taxpayers cannot afford to pay anymore and it’s time for government employees to see their lavish benefits cut.

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