Wrestlin' in Wisconsin

Midwest? Have you talked to anyone in the Gulf states or mid-Atlantic bible belt lately? WI may be newly conservative, or more conservative than they've been historically, but they don't simply represent the midwest.

Most of the destruction of government unions are happening in the midwest - if my memory of the US map is correct.

Here is a sequence from another forum:

1.) At a town hall meeting in Polk County, Wisconsin earlier this year, Rep. Sean Duffy (R-WI) was asked whether he'd vote to cut his $174,000 annual salary.

Here's what Duffy says about his salary:

"I can guarantee you, or most of you, I guarantee that I have more debt than all of you. With 6 kids, I still pay off my student loans. I still pay my mortgage. I drive a used minivan. If you think I'm living high on the hog, I've got one paycheck. So I struggle to meet my bills right now. Would it be easier for me if I get more paychecks? Maybe, but at this point I'm not living high on the hog."

Duffy also said that he pays more in health care costs and retirement savings than he did when he was a district attorney before he ran for Congress. That said, Duffy said he'd support the idea of "public employees across the board" taking a compensation cut.

"Let's all join hands together and say 'I'll take a pay decrease, absolutely," Duffy said.

2.) Yeah, anyone who struggles to make ends meet on $174,000 a year really should not be in charge of budget or policy decisions.
So, he went and fathered six kids before he had paid off his student loans. One or two I could understand, but with modern knowledge of how reproduction works he could have and should have limited himself to what he can afford.

3.) God said, "Go forth and multiple", but unfortunately he didn't say anything about living within your means....or maybe he did, but this guy just skipped that part.

4.) lol my whole households total income is less then $20,000 and we do alright, I guess. Go figure.

5.) this country needs term limits and strict restrictions on lobbies.

6.) What's with these people who think they can have all these kids, live outside their means, and expect tax payers to pay for them to live

7.) Oh geez, life is so hard for him. I wonder what he would think of my situation.

8.) I work two part time jobs, 6 days a week and still come up short on a monthly basis.

9.) Wow, six kids, in debt and living day to day on a government check. Sounds like a welfare mom that the Republicans so much despise.

returning to poster #1.) His wife is doing well, they make over 250k combined.

And then lobbyists, who knows how much he gets from them. Politicians can make even more money for all I care if we can get rid of lobbyists.

10.) The man is obviously not in touch with reality if he think he's the one struggling.

11.) Wisconsin provides a house to state representatives,must be nice for them.
Here (poster is from Idaho) the only one who gets a house is the governor,representatives must buy their own.
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http://thewheelerreport.com/releases/March11/0331/0331sumi.pdf

The judge is losing patience with these clowns and their bullshit.

I cannot see any scenario in which this doesn't severely impact the current administration there. They have brazenly defied the law and by all accounts intend to continue doing so. I dearly hope that they do, and that the judge starts slapping contempt charges on people and having them arrested.

Cycloptichorn

Wis. governor halts plans to implement union law
Updated 35m ago |
139 | 0ShareMADISON, Wis. (AP) — A Wisconsin judge on Thursday did what thousands of pro-union protesters and boycotting Democratic lawmakers couldn't, forcing Republican Gov. Scott Walker to halt plans to implement a law that would strip most public workers of their collective bargaining rights and cut their pay.


By Michael P. King, AP
Judge Maryann Sumi discusses her restraining order barring implementation of a law stripping public workers of collective bargaining rights at the Dane County Courthouse in Madison, Wis., on Tuesday.
EnlargeCloseBy Michael P. King, AP
Judge Maryann Sumi discusses her restraining order barring implementation of a law stripping public workers of collective bargaining rights at the Dane County Courthouse in Madison, Wis., on Tuesday.
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Dane County Circuit Judge Maryann Sumi, who had issued an order intended to block implementation of the law while she considered a challenge to its legitimacy and warned of sanctions for noncompliance, amended her order Thursday to clarify that the law had not taken effect, as Republican leaders argued it had.

WEDNESDAY: Judge halts implementation of bargaining law
E-MAILS: Request for proferssors' notes on Wis. sparks outrage
The governor's top aide, Department of Administration Secretary Mike Huebsch, later issued a statement saying Walker would comply with Sumi's order and halt preparations that were underway to begin deducting money from most public workers' paychecks, but that the governor's administration still believes the law took effect after a state office unexpectedly published online.

"While I believe the budget repair bill was legally published and is indeed law, given the most recent court action we will suspend the implementation of it at this time," Huebsch said.

The law would require most public sector workers to contribute more to their health care and pensions, changes that amount to an average 8% pay cut. The measure also strips them of their right to collectively bargain any work conditions except wages.

Walker signed the proposal into law earlier this month after weeks of large pro-union protests in and around the state Capitol and after the Senate's Democrats fled Wisconsin in an attempt to deny Republicans the quorum needed to vote on the measure.

Several lawsuits challenging the law are pending, including the one before Sumi filed by Dane County District Attorney Ismael Ozanne. His lawsuit contends that Republican legislative leaders violated the state's open meetings law in the run-up to a vote on the plan. Sumi issued an order blocking Secretary of State Doug La Follette from publishing the law, typically the last step before it can take effect while she considers the case.

But Republicans convinced another state office to publish the law online on Friday and declared the law took effect the following day. The state Department of Administration has begun preparations to start taking the deductions out of state workers' paychecks.

Sumi issued another restraining order on Tuesday after a day of testimony that reiterated her initial order. She warned anyone who violated it would face sanctions.

But state Justice Department attorneys and Huebsch said they didn't believe that order applied to the Walker administration since it wasn't named as a defendant in Ozanne's lawsuit. They continued work to implement the bill.

Early Thursday morning, Sumi added the non-effect declaration to her restraining order clarifying that the law has not been published and is therefore not in effect. She is expected to take more testimony at a hearing on Friday.

Ozanne said Thursday that Sumi's ruling speaks for itself. Justice Department spokesman Bill Cosh had no immediate comment.

A spokesman for Republican Assembly Speaker Jeff Fitzgerald said he had nothing new to say beyond his previous statement that he didn't believe the judge had the authority to interject herself into the affairs of the Legislature given the separation of powers.

The Legislature was scheduled to be in session Tuesday to pass other parts of Walker's plan to balance the current year's budget that faces a $137 million shortfall. There were no immediate plans to take up the collective bargaining piece again. The judge has said lawmakers could avoid the legal fight by passing it a second time, but legislative leaders have said they are confident it was done correctly the first time and it will prevail in court.

The law would require that about $30 million be saved by the state by July 1 through increased pension and health care contributions. If enactment of the law is delayed, the deductions from state workers would have to increase in order to get those savings by that time

This isn't going to be resolved any time soon.



http://www.jsonline.com/news/statepolitics/119059714.html

It seems the Fitzgeralds are demanding a speedy trial while hiding behind their immunity. They can't have it both ways.

TPM reports that with all the votes in, Kloppenberg has won the WI judge's race, with some caveats:



Still, not a bad position for her to be in and a great position for WI Dems. Two months ago this looked like a cake-walk for Prosser and now he'll be lucky to get the victory.

The Dems also won the other election in WI handily. Overall a great effort by WI and national Dems, a great result, and more momentum to push the recall cause forward!

Cycloptichorn

Walker to Congress: "Bipartisanship is not so good."

I wonder if this "trend" is a message for the country; past tea party and conservatives who won handily in past elections will lose by a close vote count to democrats?

If most seniors understand how the GOP is trying to change Medicare from an individual program to a grant program to hospitals and doctors, I wonder how they will vote. It's estimated that it will cost seniors from $6,000 to $12,000/year to pay for their "new and revised" health plan.

And this at the same damn time that the GOP wish to lower the top tax rate from 35 percents to 25 percents.

One wonders how damn dumb you need to be middle class and a republican at the same time.

Take from the poor and middle class and give it to the top one percent of the population.

True! The Ryan budget does nothing to reduce the federal deficit; it will only exacerbate the problems facing us in the future.

It's simple math; you can't keep cutting expenses and revenue; governments require income to provide the necessary services to maintain law and order, our schools, our infrastructure, and our military. The GOP doesn't want to pay for any of that. They are masochists who will destroy their own country for their stupid politics. They want the wealthy to get richer for their great cause, and leave everybody else in the mud.

The long term problem with that is if you destroy the middle class stakeholders in the society you are headed down the road to an unstable society and civil unrest.

Police, fire , nurses, teachers are all no good bums for daring to wish for a secure middle class future it would seem.

It is not yet time to download engineering drawings for the French Guillotine but it is a foreseeable future.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/for-union-families-a-loss-of-value-beyond-bank-accounts/2011/03/25/AFfRZDzD_story.html?hpid=z3

Even if Walker loses this battle the Right might still have won, as from the start Walker and guys like him have claimed that they were aiming for a shot across the bow... putting unions on notice that the old days are over. This they have done.

hawk, They have gone overboard with their "shot across the bow." They still don't realize that many conservatives belong to unions, and seniors are one of the biggest voting blocks in this country. The tea party and GOP are doing their best to destroy their security, and we'll learn what impact that'll have during the next election cycle.

Maybe, conservatives are masochists, and most want to live in poverty. Who knows?

Are you saying that unions are non democratic...that they dont represent the values of their constituents when they continually act as if they are a wing of the Democratic party?

I dont agree, the rank and file is responsible for what their leadership does and where their money goes, getting into the political wars might not have been the third grade teachers fault, but now she knows how much respect she has lost in the community because she has allowed it to continue.

I see the same situation very differently; I've been a union member when I attended college, and worked for the Teamsters. It was decent pay, but we had to work the night shift as teletype billers. I also learned in college that unions have helped non-union workers gain better working pay and conditions. I'll stick with the unions.

It's not the union's fault when public employees gain better pay and benefits; I have no respect for governments that give away the farm to win votes. They are not fiscally responsible, and the proof is in the current situation for all levels of government. They do not know how to manage money. That's not the unions fault.

Damn that evil third grade teacher who think that she is worth a middle class life style and paid and granting that to her is more important then another tax cut to the top one or two percent of the population.

How silly can she be.

However, I pay for government and most people know that they will never be government employees so there is no carry over benefit to me of unions raising pay scales of government workers. It was much more compelling for me to support unions when I knew that the factory down the street was union and I suspected that I was getting a buck more a hour because the union place was so popular with prospective employees.

Again we see where those in unions seem oblivious that government unionization is completely different than is the unonization of capitalist enterprises. Moving into Government was supposed to save unions, and it has for a long time kept them in the money, but we now see where the resentment generated by this is likely to kill off the union movement all together.

They are not different; only different employers. Unions, whether public or private, provides advocacy for its workers. That those who are elected to office are irresponsible with their give-away programs to gain votes is the problem; not the unions. It's similar to how the auto companies gave away more than they could afford; bad management. Don't blame the unions for bad management.

No value to you Hawkeye?

Let see if you send your children to private schools or home school them why care if the quality of the teachers go down. Side note Wisconsin is currently rank very high in the performs of their public schools.

If you live in a community rich enough to have top rank private security perhaps you could care less if the cops are drawn from the college educated class or the same people who now get security guard jobs at the local mall.

Perhaps you do not care if the firemen are top quality either or voluntaries with a few days/weeks of trainings or at best less bright and less train people given the task of saving you and your family rear ends when the **** hit the fan.