Public employees are overpaid!? Really!!? Maybe if their compensations are measured against the private sector’s steep downward flux of wages, stagnant health insurance coverage, and the disappearance of most traditional pensions, then I guess it would appear to Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker that public-sector workers are over compensated.
Balancing the budget and collective bargaining go hand and hand now!? If the deficit is truly the issue, then the traditional methods of resolution should be on the table, raising taxes and cutting spending. Instead, Governor Walker has signed a bill into law that would give a two year tax break to corporations who relocate to Wisconsin, thus reducing the state’s revenue by 140 million dollars.
Taking a closer look at the past economic history in this country, it appears more likely that this is a propagandistic tactic to misdirect the blame for the current economic woes. What seems to really be occurring is the redistribution of wealth from the middle-class to the rich. As a matter of fact, there has been an increase in the national income of the richest 1 percent of people, from 8.6 percent in 1979 to 15.9 percent in 2008, confirmed senior economist John Schmitt. (who is John Schmitt, what organization is he affliated with? What source? Etc.. more info.) Make a mental note: the disparity of wealth in this country is rising, the gap is widening, 400 people in the U.S. now hold the majority of the wealth, which means over 155 million people are left to eke out a merger existence.
Is it not enough that our government has allowed big businesses to facilitate the corruption of the American political system to outsource jobs, cut public programs, slash education, and pull the rug from under our stable housing market, undermining the price of fuel, creating food shortages, and demanding we pay higher taxes—personal federal and state, sales tax, social security, property tax, communication taxes, transportation taxes, etc.? Now Americans are asked to give up the only safety net they have left, being told there is no place for them at the bargaining table…
Congress passed the 1935 National Labor Relations Act because it recognized the need to encourage collective bargaining and its direct relationship between the inequality of bargaining power of workers and corporations and it seems now, states.
Do not be fooled into thinking that this will end in Wisconsin; on the contrary this is only the beginning of a national movement to not allow citizens to participate in democracy. Not that the needs of the general public had ever been a priority of government; but when did it become popular sentiment to relieve us of our right to democracy?
