Response to Governor Walker's Budget Proposal

The crisis in Wisconsin today is not simply financial: it is a crisis created, exacerbated and perpetuated by the way in which the Walker administration handled the budget process to date.

Governor Walker has not been forthright with the people of Wisconsin. By releasing his plan piecemeal, he makes it impossible for residents and the legislature to properly evaluate, weigh the consequences and consider the options. While a candidate, Walker failed to disclose the full scope of his agenda. That failure diminishes his electoral victory. Finally, he has left no room for public discussion of other options.

We can do better in this state.

The time has come for people of good will from all political outlooks to make it clear to Governor Walker that more discussion is needed as is a serious discussion of alternative plans. It is particularly important that this message is delivered by Wisconsin leaders in both the private and public sectors who know the importance of education, workforce development, and a trained workforce.

Comments

[antpoppa]

To Patty Elle

If you tremble with indignation at every injustice then you are a comrade of mine."
Che

http://maxkeiser1.blogspot.com/
March 1, 2011

CICERO AND THE GREAT LAW -
History repeats itself. As Cicero said [106-43 BC], “A nation can survive its fools and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less dangerous, for he is known and he carries his banners openly against the people. But the traitor moves among those within the gates freely, his sly whispers rustling through all alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself. For the traitor doesn’t appear like a traitor. They speak in the accents familiar to their victims. They wear their face and their clothes and appeal to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of their people. They rot the soul of a nation. They work secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of a community. They infect the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murderer is less to be feared. The traitor is the plague."

To John Nichols
Sept. 2009

John,
The government/oligarch "domino effect" has come to Wisconsin Government. I know which side are you on, but now is the time to fan the flames. The Money Elite and their brides, the Government Elite, have decided that contracts are inviolate if agreed to by Elite to Elite, but the contracts for the proletariat can be violated at will. This is class warfare. We have watched the demise of our finances, the exploitation of our lands and resources, and can thank the Corporate Media, which has hidden all this from us.
Please speak out, John you have access to the forum. Wisconsin State workers should take every legal means to attack the government/oligarch and declare war on this class warfare.
Thank you
Antpoppa

Populists have been anticipating this market crash cycle since before the establishment of the United States. Some economics foresee a seventy or seventy-five year cycle between market disasters. Our elitist millionaire government and oligarch "banksters" anticipated this collapse and "domino" planet effect. What surprised them is the non-reaction of the population, more properly the American population.
The use of police and co-joined military operations, the violation of privacy rights, including bank accounts, travel, and internet. Being judged by half-wits with guns at travel points under the direction of some cretin megalomaniac bureaucrat. No reaction by the public. Mayday, around the world people were in the streets, even though governments tried to ban assemblies through the fraud of Swine Flu. Even the thieves themselves have figured they can't keep stealing, that someone will catch on.
Antpoppa

August 2008

So you see Patty Elle, even Cassandra takes a break. I’ll be at Nu Fenders bar in Belize bringing ice to the fishermen, I hope

[Brad Fallon]

Information dissemination is important so that private and public sector may be aware of any plans that concerns the public. In such a way they can contribute some ideas.

[Saul Glazer]

What Governor Walker is missing is that one of the main draws of Wisconsin over the past ten years is that we have a good public school system. Employers have moved here rather than states like California, because their employees can send their kids to public school. That is a huge benefit. If we dismantle the public schools, we will lose our edge over other states. Not to mention that every dollar we don't spend on education we spend 10 dollars on prisons and the other collateral damage. If we want Wisconsin Open for Business we can't view our budget shortfall in a vacuum. We need to create a suistanable budget that won't create more problems then it solves.

[Lance Simmens]

This is like blaming Sadam Hussein for the World Trade Center and Pentagon bombings and invading his country, causing untold deaths and destruction, on the false pretense that he must possess weapons of mass destruction. Now who in their right mind would even consider such a diabolical thing? What, that is what happened? Oh, so now it makes sense. So deception is important regardless of the battlefield. Sun Tsu, in the Art of War maintains that "all warfare is based on deception". The Grand Illusion in the curent battle is to equate elimination of collective bargaining to fiscal responsibility.

[anon]

The budget is the vehicle being used to change our economic condition or our political system.

All parties that want a role need to sign on soon.

[OFR]

Lets try again by asking if the Unions are willing to do their part in making Wisconsin an economic success?

[Molly]

It's Simple. Teachers versus Millionaires:

http://open.salon.com/blog/ron_legro/2011/03/04/in_wisconsin_its_teachers_vs_millionaires

"Typical wage cut faced by a Wisconsin school teacher if Gov. Scott Walker's non- negotiable give-backs are enacted: $5,567 to 6,958 per year (based on net total compensation reduction caused by Walker's plan).

Continuing average income boost for millionaires in Wisconsin and elsewhere, thanks to the recent extension of 2001 Bush-era federal tax cuts: Approximately $100,000 per year."

[Molly]

Oh and just covering bases: Documentation of # of millionaires in Wisconsin:

http://www.bizjournals.com/milwaukee/stories/2009/07/13/daily5.html

" Researchers at Phoenix Marketing International ranked Wisconsin 27th in the country with 89,977 millionaires, or 4.01 percent of total households in the state. That's down from 98,109 millionaires in 2008, when the state ranked a slot lower at 28th"

[Ty O'Mara]

Molly, let's not forget how many millionaires out there who love the public employees of Wisconsin. Who love living in a place where things are convenient and abundant. I get caught up in the b.s. rhetoric, too. It is a matter of fairness. More millionaires out there that want the same things we do--than don't. Rejoice, rumors of 3 or 4 Republicans aching to oppose this bill now. Millionaires and Republicans will get behind what is fair. It is a negotiation now.

I watch this Christie guy on the news, and all I can think is: Man, he looks just like Joseph McCarthy to me. He sounds like him and talks like him.

I'm sorry for correcting you, because you are a voice of reason and insight. Gratefully and optimistically yours.

[Brian (neaguy)]

How has Walker left no room for public discussion of other options? Any Democrat could have come out in favor of shared responsibility: taxing corporations at the national average bringing in 1.3 billion more per year. Shared responsibility: an actually progressive income tax. Shared responsibility: apennyforkids one cent increase in the sales tax to pay for schools, bringing in 850 million per year.
Now Ben Manski has called for some of this (not the pennyforkids as far as I know), but any Democrat?
Scott Walker didn't tell anyone they couldn't talk about shared responsiblity. All he talks about is sharing the pain. We don't have any money, he says. What is the Democrats response to this?
Silence.

[Bob O'Brien]

I suppose elections only mean something when progressives get elected. When consevatives like Walker do what they ran on, and what they believe is needed for the sate as a whole (NOT JUST UNION WORKERS) they are somehow illegitimate. It is incredible that Wis dem represetatives ran to another state......can you imagine the outcry if republicans did this.....agast!

All this whining and crying by the loosers. If Gov Walker gets his way the winners will be the people of Wis....maybe not the Union socialist thugs....who by the way are paying the bills for the democrats who are running scared. Finally someone who stands up to them and they don't like it. If they don't get their way they will call for revolution. As much as dems/liberals/progressives/socialists/communists don't like it......there are million s and millions of Americans who believe that capitalism and hard work and ingenuity made this country what it is today....not Unions. The great majority of Americans work for employers not Unions and because of this we are so much better off. The school monopoly will be broken and choice and competition will be the renissance of education and the kids (esp. the poor) will be better off.

Here's the deal...I say real workers unite....not the union ones.......and through out Obama, ObamaCare, get spending under control, our borders under control, give us a flat tax and reduce corporate taxes so jobs can come back to America (or should be have breakout sessions and hope and pray for jobs) and come up with an energy policy/initiative that will make us energy independent in 5 to 7 years. That means all forms of energy....and do away with all energy tax incentives, the farm subsidies inculding ethonol.