Wrestlin' in Wisconsin

And when was this paid off or shall we consider it still there, but having been added to ?

GOP union thugs ??

Oh, billy boy ...

What's at stake in Wisconsin

What bill would do
1) Eliminate collective bargaining rights for most public workers. So while unions still could represent those workers, they would not be able to seek pay increases above those pegged to the Consumer Price Index unless approved by a public referendum.

2) Unions also could not force employees to pay dues and would have to hold annual votes to stay organized.

3) Local police, firefighters and state troopers would retain their collective bargaining rights.

4) Public workers would have to pay half the costs of their pensions and at least 12.6 percent of their health care coverage. That represents an average of 8 percent increase in state employees' share of pension and health care costs.

In exchange, public employees were promised no furloughs or layoffs. Gov. Scott Walker has threatened to lay off up to 6,000 state workers if the measure does not pass.

Estimated savings
$30 million by July 1 and $300 million over the next two years to address a Republican-projected $3.6 billion budget shortfall.

Background
The proposal marks a dramatic shift for Wisconsin, which in 1959 was the first to pass a comprehensive collective bargaining law for public employees and was the birthplace of the national union representing all non-federal public employees.

When voters last year elected Gov. Walker, an outspoken conservative, along with GOP majorities in both legislative chambers, it set the stage for a dramatic reversal of the state's labor history.

National significance
New Republican governors and legislatures in other states have proposed cutting back on public employee costs to reduce budget shortfalls, but Wisconsin's move appears to be the earliest and most extensive.

Source: Associated Press and Reuters

Public Workers Aren't Walker's Only Target

* Jonathan Cohn
* February 22, 2011 | 11:02 am

Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker’s budget proposal has gotten a lot of attention for what it would do to the state’s public employee unions. And rightly so. If Walker gets his way, state workers will lose virtually all power to negotiate over compensation and the unions themselves will become far weaker. As Greg Sargent noted on Monday, a Walker victory would likely embolden Republican governors in other states, many of whom are planning their own assaults on public employees.

But that’s not all Walker’s budget proposal would do. It appears that Walker also wants to weaken the state’s Medicaid program, known as Badgercare. And his proposed method for accomplishing this is eerily similar to his proposed method for emasculating the public employee unions. Rather than simply trying to reduce what the state government spends on Badgercare, Walker proposes to change the way the state government operates it, in a way that would allow him to change the program with virtually no legislative oversight.

You can read the full story in the progressive publication Cap Times. (One of its writers, Shawn Doherty, seems to be one of the very few people to have taken notice.) But here's the short and slightly simplified version, as best as I can determine based on media accounts and conversations with advocates in the state:

Under Walker’s proposal for Medicaid, his Secretary of Health could use “emergency” powers to redefine some of the program’s most basic parameters: Whom it enrolls, what premiums and co-payments in charges, etc. Normally, these sorts of decisions would require assent of the full legislature. But, according to Jon Peacock of the Wisconsin Council on Children and Families, under Walker’s proposal the Secretary of Health would need approval only from a joint legislative committee whose membership is heavily tilted towards the majority party. (The Center has more information about the proposal at its website.)

Because Medicaid is a federal-state partnership, federal guidelines do impose some limits on what Wisconsin could do. The state could not, for example, stop offering coverage to children. And in order for Walker’s change to take effect, I gather, the federal government would have to issue a waiver. Typically the feds issue waivers only when states show they can improve or bolster coverage, not when they are looking to weaken it. But Walker’s budget effectively puts a gun to Washington’s head: If the state doesn’t get permission to change the program in the way he wants, under Walker’s proposal, it would simply reduce Medicaid to the bare minimum permissible under federal law.

To be clear, Wisconsin's Medicaid costs really do represent a crisis right now. And in an ideal world, the federal government would help by doing what it’s done for the last two years: Provide states with temporary financial assistance, in recognition of the fact that the slow economy both increases demand for the Medicaid while reducing state resources. But make no mistake: Walker and his current Secretary of Health, Dennis Smith, have made no secret of their antipathy for Medicaid. Smith, who came to Wisconsin from the Heritage Foundation, has proposed that states withdraw from the program altogether rather than go along with expansions required under the Affordable Care Act. (I'll have more to say about the states and Medicaid sometime soon; like everything else about Medicaid, the issue is pretty complicated.)

If the assault on Badgercare succeeds, tens of thousands of needy Wisconsin residents are likely to lose access to health care. That's disturbing for its own sake. But it would be particularly sad, or at least ironic, given the program’s history. Badgercare has traditionally been among the nation’s more innovative and generous Medicaid programs—in part because Tommy Thompson, the state’s Republican governor during the 1990s, had expanded coverage in order to bolster his state’s welfare reform experiment. Thompson reasoned, correctly, that people would be more likely to leave welfare for work if it didn’t mean losing health insurance.

Thompson was a Republican who would go on to serve as Secretary of Health and Human Services under President Bush. But Thompson was more of a “compassionate conservative”—somebody who showed genuine interest in helping vulnerable people, albeit through different means than liberals generally preferred. Walker is a different kind of Republican and a different kind of conservative. If he’s at all interested in what happens to his less fortunate constituents, he has yet to show it.

(Thanks to Rabbi Robert Tabak, staff chaplain at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, for alerting me to this story.)

Update: In my initial round of research, I somehow missed David Wahlberg's excellent coverage of this issue in the Wisconsin State Journal. His Sunday story outlined some of the specific change the Walker administration might try to implement:

the state could make it harder for all people to enroll in Medicaid, requiring more paperwork along with the more frequent income reviews. ... Among other steps the state could take is ending optional Medicaid services, which account for about 40 percent of costs. They include physical therapy, speech therapy, optometry services, dental care and prescription drugs.

Another possible change is limiting who can get birth control services, as Wisconsin provides free birth control pills, vasectomies and other contraceptives to more people than required. ... Yet another alternative is rationing care — ranking services and refusing to cover those deemed least necessary, as Oregon does. The Wisconsin Medical Society has proposed the model instead of removing people from Medicaid or paying doctors less.

Of course, that's assuming Walker gets the latitude he needs to impose those changes. If he doesn't? Then, under Walker's proposal, more than 50,000 people would lose coverage altogether.

You certainly are an avid consumer of this propaganda. Is this what you call research?

Posted at 2:33 PM ET, 02/23/2011
Wisconsin governor's -- and the GOP's -- strange 'budget discipline'
By Stephen Stromberg

Wisconsin's Republican governor, Scott Walker, says that concern over his state's relatively modest budget crisis motivates his drive to strip public-sector employees of their ability to bargain collectively. And, yet, he just decided to put Wisconsin into a fiscal strait-jacket, signing a bill Tuesday that would require a two-thirds supermajority in the state legislature or a state-wide referendum to raise a range of taxes. This is not the sign of a serious budget hawk, whatever you think of Walker's policies on public-sector unions.

If Walker believes that the state is spending too much and should cut outlays to balance its books now, fine. He won his election, and he has the votes in the legislature to pass his solution. But he's attempting to force every governor after him to choose the same course, even if future state governments face drastically different budgetary circumstances.

Politicians have incentives to lower taxes when times are good. If taxes require a two-thirds vote or a referendum to pass, it's exceptionally difficult to raise them again. Even a rump conservative opposition in the state legislature can block tax increases. A referendum, meanwhile, divorces approval of unpopular tax increases with that of any larger -- and more appealing -- budget compromise that they would undergird, stacking the deck against passage. When inevitable budget crises happen, these provisions reduce lawmakers' ability to compromise, since they don't have a full range of policy options from which to choose. State politics fossilize; Democrats see little reason to give up the spending they like if enough Republicans won't meet them anywhere close to the middle. This is what happened after a similar measure passed in California, which now lurches from one fiscal crisis to the next. Though, at least in Wisconsin, a future legislature might choose to repeal its law.

Against this cautionary history, Walker claims that the supermajority requirement will "help government operate within its means." But removing budgetary flexibility -- on either the spending or the taxing side -- is almost never a good idea, and doing so in the name of fiscal sanity is beyond daft. This isn't just a problem in Wisconsin. As Matt Miller pointed out Wednesday, it is this sort of "budget discipline" -- in which making "hard choices" means the other side's priorities suffer -- that GOP lawmakers in the House of Representatives are taking toward the federal budget. This supermajority rule or a no-new-taxes pledge might satisfy Republicans' ideological imperatives. But they're not conducive to serious budget balancing.

By Stephen Stromberg | February 23, 2011; 2:33 PM ET

If it's just a bill it won't necessarily bind 'every governor after him' to follow it will it? Couldn't the new governor just reverse it?

You just don't recognize it, because you haven't ever done any. Perusing a variety of opinions on various issues is indeed research.

I am somewhat flummoxed, I must say, by your unremitting gall on this issue. You have no standing to criticize me for presenting the research and evidence I choose, George. None.

Cycloptichorn wrote:

You just don't recognize it, because you haven't ever done any. Perusing a variety of opinions on various issues is indeed research.

I am somewhat flummoxed, I must say, by your unremitting gall on this issue. You have no standing to criticize me for presenting the research and evidence I choose, George. None.

But you don't "peruse a variety of opinions". You merely cut & paste stuff from advocacy sites.

I do agree you have every right to consult and paste here whatever you choose - just don't pretend it is an objective search for the truth.

There is a difference between evidence and propaganda.

And you were there.