Rhetoric vs Reality in Wisconsin
This is what it's come down to in Madison. The budget issue is NOT about teachers. Teachers stepped up and became the figureheads for this bill which encompasses ALL labor. Teachers called in sick for four days and kids have to make up school days but despite what Michael Moore, Susan Sarandon or Jesse Jackson say, it is about garbage collectors too. It is about anyone who is a union member. NO ONE is marginalizing teachers in any way, shape or form. I don't agree with Walker's methodology but that doesn't take away from the reality behind the bill.
Step beyond the rhetoric of Hitler references and communist fists representing labor and look closely at what is happening. Our friend from Denver was in town last week. He is a guidance counselor and his friend who he brought along is a principal. They do not have union contracts. They balance premiums and co pays with higher salaries, unlike here in Wisco. Many, many educators around the country do not live in a "labor state" like Wisconsin. Teachers in Wisconsin have accepted they will need to contribute more to their taxpayer funded pensions and health insurance. They, like the public sector, will have to make concessions due to the alarming budget crisis both in Wisconsin and around the country. Scott Walker also took flack for not taking the federal handout to fund a high speed rail from Milwaukee to Madison. A luxury items that our state (not to mention the Feds who offered to "give" us this grant) does not have the means to support at this time.
Please stop listening to Rachel Maddow-esque hyperbole and check the facts. When you sit down at your table and go over your family budget, well, you can parallel that to what Wisconsin is doing right now. As an added bonus, great teachers I know will now shine, get merit increases and those who should never have been teachers in the first place can find a new, more suitable profession For The Sake of the Youngsters for whom they Work. My sister in law is a second grade teacher who works on one of the 1000s of underfunded schools in Wisconsin...maybe she and other phenomenal teachers will not have to dig so deeply into her own funds to cover classroom supplies...although I will grant that elementary education is the area that typically involves more planning and need for such personal expenditures.
The reason why they say "educations is broken" is not because of the workers (teachers), it is due to the "CEOs" (union heads) who are sitting fat on their lake homes, looking out for their own interests, under the guise of non profit, while schools and teachers take home the crumbs. The reason why NYC ambulances could not make it through was due to a union sponsored snowplow strike...how does this support "the people", the "workers"? We had a similar mishap last winter with our union snowplow drivers.
Also, it bears mentioning that President Obama did back off his initial "this is an assault on unions" rhetoric when all this started and slipped quietly away. Why? Because his OWN federal employees are not in unions. Jimmy Carter did away with such inefficiencies in the late 1970s.
Everything going on in Japan further highlights the trivial nature of trumped up reality. That, along with the truly marginalized in our own country deserve Michael Moore, et al's attention.