The States Didn't Win

The editorial board of the Arizona Republic would have you believe that the legislation signed into law in Wisconsin stripping public employees of their right to collective bargaining is a good thing for states.  The board claims that by removing the ability of public employees to be represented by a union to negotiate salary, benefits and working conditions, that it will miraculously allow Wisconsin to solve all of its budget issues.

If the legislation was truly about balancing the budget, then why did a Wisconsin Republican State Senator make statements that the legislation would make it tougher for President Obama to win Wisconsin in 2012.  If the legislation was about Wisconsin’s budget, then why was it rammed through the legislature outside of the budget process?

The public employees didn’t cause the budget issues in Wisconsin or the other states.  The blame rests squarely on politicians who year after year doled out tax cut after tax cut while also giving corporations more and more corporate welfare.  Public employees around the nation went year after year without raises and often saw their pay cut through forced work furloughs.  They each contributed to their retirement plans while states and other governments delayed their contributions.

The various states could easily fix their budget problems, but they don’t want to, since it involves rescinding their various tax cuts they passed in the last few years.  Tax cuts are never popular but pointing out that someone at this point in time has it just a little better than someone else normally is.  Instead of taking responsibility for the budget issues, the Republicans in Wisconsin pointed to the public employees and their unions as the problem.

No, the union busting law in Wisconsin does nothing to help it or other states deal with their budget issues, all it does was give a win to the state’s Republicans.  A win that just might be very short lived.

Why Hasn't Governor Walker Resigned?

We all know that modern day conservatives are hypocrites.  They claim that they are for government that stays out of our lives yet they fight to pass laws which restrict a woman's right to choose whether or not to keep a pregnancy through term.  They have fought to pass constitutional amendments to ban equal rights to marriage for gays and lesbians.  They claim to be for local control of schools, yet as we have seen in Arizona, the conservatives are more than willing to use the power of the legislature to reign in schools that don't meet their ideological purity.

They hate that tax payer monies might be used to provide a social safety net but have no problems with providing corporations with subsidies.  They despise that unions tend to favor liberal candidates but love that business interests tend to support conservative candidates.  Conservatives also tend to stand steadfast in the face of scandal whereas liberals tend to resign for the greater good.

Take for example Governor Scott Walker of Wisconsin.  Even when faced with a taped conversation where he believed he was speaking with David Koch and talked about collusion between the governor's office and the office of the state's attorney general to force Democratic Senators to return, he didn't resign, he doubled down and pressed on.  During that same conversation Governor Walker intimated that he had considered seeding the demonstrations with rabble rousers to make the supporters of public workers look bad.  Very possibly admitting to breaking several laws, Governor Walker doesn't seem to care and is still pushing to end collective bargaining for public employees.

Compare that to Vivian Schiller, until this morning, the CEO of NPR.  You see, James O'Keefe, the minion of Andrew Breitbart who believes himself to be an investigative journalist, did a video sting of NPR senior vice president of fund raising, Ron Schiller (no relation to Vivian Schiller).  In the video two people pretending to be a Muslim education fund and attempting to present NPR with a $5 million check.  Mr. Schiller made statements in the video regarding racism in the tea party movement, support for the firing of Juan Williams and that it would be better if NPR didn't have any federal funding.

The conservatives are enjoying Mr. O'Keefe's latest video escapades.  They are trumpeting that the video shows NPR's liberal bias and the need to remove all federal funding.  Mr. Schiller tendered his resignation, effective in May, last week before the video came out.  Ms. Schiller submitted her resignation this morning, effective immediately.  Though neither Ms. Schiller nor Mr. Schiller did anything wrong, they did the noble thing by resigning.  The question is, why hasn't Governor Walker done the noble thing and resigned?  What makes him so much more special than Ms. Schiller and Mr. Schiller?

The difference is that Governor Walker is a conservative.  He's living up to the hypocrisy of conservatives.