Some of the media is missing the point about what's going on in our neighboring state of Wisconsin. They're still referring to Republican Governor Scott Walker's bid to bust every public employee union in the state as part of a plan to balance the state budget. But that's not true. Not even close.
That should be clear to everybody since employee unions said they would agree to wage and salary concessions needed to balance the budget. But Walker rejected their offer. What he wants to do is dismantle the unions entirely.
On top of that is the matter that Walker himself created the budget deficit in order to make the concessions necessary in the first place. The state's budget was balanced until Walker took office and immediately put through three tax cuts, throwing the budget out of balance and requiring the concessions.
The bottom line, then, it not about money. It's about treating people like indentured servants instead of human beings with dignity. The Republican philosophy is that workers should take what they're offered and shut up, and the fact that they haven't had to do that is the cause of all our economic problems in this country.
Workers didn't cause this recession. Greedy bankers did. But bankers rarely go to prison in this country so somebody else has to be blamed and public employees are always handy targets.
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