Back Scratching

If you need any evidence that there is an unhealthy relationship between politicians and public-service unions, please read the following story that details how these very same unions and the local Wisconsin governments elected by these unions are rushing to cut sweetheart deals before the new anti-collective-bargaining law takes effect. See: Associated Press Article. 

You would think that these local governments, if they were truly looking out for the interests of their taxpayers, would sit on their hands until this law needs to be heeded.  But even more interesting is that the Democrat Secretary of State in Wisconsin is delaying the enactment of this law to allow this "I'll scratch your back, you scratch mine" conspiracy to play itself out.  This is in defiance of Governor Scott Walker's direct request to expedite this process ... clearly more pinkie-ring shenanigans.

This subterfuge also seems strange to me since didn't we hear over and over again during the three weeks of this kerfuffle in Wisconsin that the unions there were more than willing to concede the proposed economic cutbacks in pension and health care?  Now, many of these unions' apparently disingenuous concessions seem to have conveniently disappeared like so many of Obama's campaign promises.

A Test of Civility

The Wisconsin State Senate just passed a law that strips some collective bargaining rights from the teachers’ unions in that state … having removed any budgetary provisions that have blocked its passage for the last three weeks (see: Wisconsin Bill Passed.) Now the 14 Senate Democrats who fled the state in order to keep such an event from happening have acted in vain.

As we have previously indicated in this blog, collective bargaining for government employees is the root cause of most of the budgetary problems that exist in Wisconsin and in many other states across this nation. The federal government, in the main, does not permit collective bargaining for its employees, nor do a few states such as Virginia and (most recently) Indiana. Although collective bargaining for government employees sounds like a good idea, it has proven to be recipe for disaster. This is because unions fund politicians’ elections (mostly Democrat) who then turn around and collectively-bargain for big benefits for these very unions. A “sweetheart deal” is putting a kind spin on such collusion.

Now a crack has appeared in this public-employee union buttress and, I’m certain that all unions and their Democrat feeders will not take this lying down. I think that a volcano is about to erupt in Wisconsin and across this nation. It is very easy to give benefits to unions, but it is another thing to take them away. However, this time the state governments have little choice. It is either this route (of shucking collective bargaining) or declaring bankruptcy (which would give them the right to abrogate all their union contracts). So we will now see how New Jersey, Ohio, California, New York, Illinois, and the other in extremis states deal with the opening that Wisconsin has provided them. And we will also see to what degree that the Democrats (and the pet unions) are willing to heed President Obama’s recent call for civility. I think we all know that it is going to get very messy.

Comfortable Shoes

Barack Obama said in 2007 during his presidential campaign that "if American workers are being denied their right to organize [and collectively bargain], when I'm in the White House I will put on a comfortable pair of shoes and I will walk on that picket line with you as president of the United States," (See Huffington Post. Interestingly, the Huffington Post blog conveniently left out the part of the quote about denying collective-bargaining rights. They didn’t even indicate that they had done this with the “…” punctuation -- so much for the august integrity of modern-day journalism.) So, Mr. President, is Air Force One now on the tarmac getting ready to fly to Wisconsin and are you digging through your closet for your comfortable shoes? Or perhaps, you are already in campaign mode for 2012? I thought so …

Afterthought: If Obama thought this tactic would work in 2007 (and it apparently did), why would he shy away from repeating it now? Hummm ...