Wisconsin politics

Hansel wrote: I shudder to think what type of person would support Walker now. As I have said MANY times before, EVEN IF you agree with the ends how can you justify these means? Just imagine how pissed you would be if Democrats did this? If you would be mad in that case you should at the very least have sympathy for those that oppose this bill. Otherwise you are nothing but a petty hypocrite. Sorry for the strong words, but you simply cannot have it both ways.

For three weeks I have been talking about the importance of the process and calling foul on the democrats for not following the rules by leaving the state, and all I have heard is "the ends justify the means." Now when the republicans take a play from the democcrat book everyone is screaming foul? Who are the hypocrits? I dont have to imagine what it is like for the dems to abuse the process, I have watched them do it Wisconsin for the last three weeks. I also saw healthcare rammed down our throats sideways with the bill being passed through reconcilliation. Guess what, apparently the republicans have been watching and learning. The rules are now changed, just as I have expressed concern about. How can you be mad when you finally see the playing field levelled for a change. Sorry for the strong words, but you simply cannot have it both ways.

Hansel wrote: I shudder to think what type of person would support Walker now. As I have said MANY times before, EVEN IF you agree with the ends how can you justify these means? Just imagine how pissed you would be if Democrats did this? If you would be mad in that case you should at the very least have sympathy for those that oppose this bill. Otherwise you are nothing but a petty hypocrite. Sorry for the strong words, but you simply cannot have it both ways.

Hansel,
First off Walker has to make cuts. The whole justificastion is making cuts to the budget so the state will not get any worse. Put the budget back in black and get out of the red. But you would probally rather cut school teachers, lay off police officers etc than cut union benefits.

And far as demmi's would never do this? hhhhhmmmmmmmm well they did do it, and walker is cleaning the house with it. Unions is democrate!! Thats why they broke.. Loook at all the democrat states, there all broke!!!!!!!!!!! CA,OH,ILL,WI And when we the elephants come in and say you can not have this, you demmi's SAY, you cant do that!! That's not fair!! Bull crap, the free handout is over!! You are not gonna ever have a republican take away education for children, and adults and we damb sure are not going to disable fking security of the state or country. Freedom aint free!   

This was more of a game of chess than politics.

Republicans wanted to change Union positions.
Democrates did not so chose to leave the state to prevent the changes.
Republicans said in the 1st week that they did not need the Democrates to pass a Bill that contained the changes and asked them to come back.
Democrates said for 3 weeks that they would not come back to vote.
Republican made the changes without the Democrates.

I do not see the probem...

Democrates did what they said they would do
Republicans did what they said they would do.

Now the Democrates can go back to Wi and they and the Unions can start selling their message for the next elections.

I will say that if they continue to Protest vs Sell the message, it will hurt their positions. People do get tired of the yelling.

Unfortunately, I dont think anyone can win in the long run.. I live in a town of 25,000. We have lost aprox. 15,000 jobs..mostly union, in the last 20 years(steel,hardware,fasteners,etc).

The high-paying jobs in the area today are what the union steel workers were making in the 80's. It is a world economy... we cant compete with the "off shore" factories paying employees 2 bucks a day. (They REALLY need to unionize) Its a double edged sword.. we all want job security/good pay&benefits. Problem is it cost REAL dollars to do, which adds cost back into our products... thus making us less competitive.

Someone has to make an attempt to balance these budgets. You and I cant live constantly borrowing money. The governments is broke.. Their traditional way has been to get it from us. WE AINT GOT NO MORE TO GIVE.

There is no simple answer... I just get tired of the "Dem+Rep game". Very few of them really understand what the average Joe, union or non-union, is going thru.

Fact is, this nation IS in a MESS ......both FINANCIALLY & MORALLY.....

Hansel,

I own a business that IS a corp. I CAN ASSURE YOU there is NO money left in this corp. to tax... (read 1/3 of the sales we had 4 years ago) The other "problem" is my wife and I are both in the business.. SO this frickin recession took TWO incomes with it when our sales went south.

Taxing the Immensely wealthy would be good, but they own the majority of the politicians votes.


Did you see me defend either party? They are both CLUELESS.. Everyone wants to play the dem-vs-repub card. All the while we (the working/middle class) take it in the shorts.

No one commented on my post about the prevailing wages on page 5 ... heres a copy again.
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Not to get too far off track here, but to show how stupid things have gotten,

a few years ago we bid to supply cabinetry to the county health department in the county where I live. I have worked with the non-union contractor doing the labor on the project for years. On this job he had to pay "prevailing wages" (???) and RAISE his normal hourly rate by aprox 15-20%, as well as all of the sub-contractors he hired..(plumbers, electricians, roofers, masnory,etc)

Reason?...

There were state and federal grants to help pay for the project. Tell me how it can be justified by ANYONE to pay more for any project, yet alone a public one? It is OUR TAX MONEY PAYING FOR IT!!!!


To insult the situation even more, He had to open his books to the union to prove the wages being payed....Even tho he complied with the wages, the union still had pickets up during most of the project.

What is wrong with this picture?

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This is our government at work? ..
.I dont know what you do for a living, but this type of cr@p is just plain STUPID. Doesnt take a rocket scientist to figure out this is not the best use of funds. Can anyone defend this? / am I missing something?

when you asked why? .....which part?

Financial? ..we've been discussing a bit here..

Morally? Our nation's start was based on Christian values... today the majority of the IDIOTIC POLITICIANS we have been speaking of, are trying to walk both sides of the fence, so as not to offend anyone. ... We could start another post on this as well...

ok, I'm off my soapbox..
........ next...

eric lavine wrote: fwiw, i was listening....lol

ooooops..

Well, president obama spent the day lecturing the country on the evils of bullys. In the meantime democrat supporting union thugs are sending death threats to Wisconsin republicans. Does anyone else see the irony. Remember the recent media outrage for Sarah palin using a targets for political races she thought were important? I bet we see about 10% of the coverage for the explicit death threats aginst republicans including "we know where you live" "we will kill you" and "we will place bombs in your homes, cars..." this from the party that lectures on accepting diversity, and tolerance. The irony is almost to much to take.

What is wrong with making prevailing wage?. Prevailing wage does not say paying exorbitant wages, it just says pay what the going rate is, and I absolutely think that is fair. If everyone bidding on this contract pays the same for labor then the one who bids it with the lowest acceptable profits will win the bid. What wrong with that? American workers getting a fair wage. That is the main things unions worked for. Evidently on the contract in question the people working were used to working below the unions wages but I bet they were glad to get the union scale on that job. The union is just the common working stiff having a eduacated mouth negotiating for him, without them, we would be able to compete with country's like China for manufacturing jobs, but unfortunately we would be living like they do also. I have never been in a union in my life but I sure do respect them for what they did for the common man. We have to remember that every union contract was signed by both sides agreeing to it and assuming it would work. When it no longer works, at contract time negotate. I feel as though we Americans lost some of our voice, and I just hope we do not lose any more. Making outlandish claims that democrat union thugs are issuing death threats is also ridiculous. I am sure no one said "I am a union democrat thug and I am going to kill you" so leave the BS aside. We all know there are idiots on both sides of this fence. One last thing, I am glad this is over for now and they can get back to the real issue of the budget. Hopefully they can now get it balanced.

John, I did make an assumption on the death threat purps, just because something looks like a duck and act like a duck does not neccesarily mean it is a duck, could just be a loon. But the behavior certainly would not be inconsistant with some union tactics in the past. Ask Jimmy Hoffa if you can find him. I am not against anyone making any wage that they can command, but I would argue that union wages are not prevailing,(except for government work) they are artificialy maintained by things like the prevailing wage law. Private projects are built at much lower prices, Wouldnt the true prevailing wage be an average of all construction projects? Why do the unions get to negotiate what the prevailing wage is for non-union companies. Does that not infringe on the rights of a non-union company to decide how it runs its own business? It certainly raises the cost of government projects which raises my taxes.

You guys hear about the young teacher in the Milwaukee Public School System? She won an MVP award for her teaching ability. Due to union rules, she was laid off just a few days later in a larger teacher layoff.

Point being....union rules dictates Last In/First Out. Doesn't matter about merit or ability, only about how long you been doing it....and paying union dues. Doesn't seem right to me.


Maybe she could go over to Madison and get a job driving a bus and making $159K/year. Oh wait, she wouldn't have seniority in the bus drivers union.

needless to say, I went to my daughters play last night, and my friends brother is the super for the Twinsburg city school district, he just accepted a job with the Independence school system bumping him to 142k a year from 138k, (info from local paper)
The Chrysler plant was responsible for approximately 20% of the tax base, it will be interesting with the tax base gone on what will happen to the school district

Way to go Walker!! Great job sir... Now create those 250,000 jobs and relection is upon you...

skicat2001 wrote: davidg wrote: Maybe she could go over to Madison and get a job driving a bus and making $159K/year. Oh wait, she wouldn't have seniority in the bus drivers union.

David,
I couldnt find any info on the 159k bus driver job.. the highest paying BD I could find was "only" $117,000 in M.waukee. Of coarse I think that was in 2009.

Steve....Do a search for "Bus Driver in Madison Wi makes $159,000". Quite a few links should come up. By the way, it was in 2009 he made the big bucks.

It all kind of gets put in its place compared to 8.9 earthquakes, 23 foot walls of water and nuke plants melting down.