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Wisconsin's Political Crisis Is A Good Deal More Serious Than Its Fiscal Crisis
MADISON - Wisconsin’s Legislative Fiscal Bureau was created in 1968 by a Republican governor, Warren Knowles, and a Republican-controlled state legislature.
The purpose was to establish a non-partisan agency that would provide honest fiscal analysis and information for Wisconsin Legislators. Across more than four decades, the bureau has done just that, earning the respect of legislators from both parties, including a young Scott Walker, who frequently cited the bureau when he served in the state Assembly.
Less than a month ago, a Fiscal Bureau memo reported that the state had a $121.4 million surplus through the remainder of the current fiscal year.
That is a fact that is now under attack by Governor Walker, who the conservative publication Human Events refers to as the “new hero” of the Republican right. Walker argues-- as Republicans and Democrats have acknowledged for some time -- that the state’s fiscal house is not in order and that unsettled issues relating to a payment due Minnesota after the canceling of a tax agreement, as well as rising health care and prison costs, could well create a shortfall before the end of the year.
So it is possible that Wisconsin might need a budget repair bill of the sort Walker has proposed before the fiscal year is finished, as it has in many years.
But Wisconsin has not reached the statutory trigger – roughly $188 million -- that would demand a repair bill.
So why is Governor Walker rushing to act now? Why is he doing so with a bill that massively extends his own authority over cabinet agencies while creating new positions to be filled by his political cronies? And why is he claiming that it is necessary to take away the collective bargaining rights of state, county, municipal and education unions in order to address the issue?
The governor says that he is doing so because trend lines point to more serious shortfalls in the future. His concerns about those trends are broadly shared, even by the state’s public employee unions, which have agreed to dramatic concessions in order to help avert fiscal problems in the future. The governor anticipates a $3.6 billion deficit in the next fiscal year, while indepedent observers say it might be closer to $3.1 billion. That sounds pretty bad, until you recognize that the previous governor, Democrat Jim Doyle, had to deal with a $5.94 billion budget deficit.
Doyle proved that it is possible to deal with a serious shortfall without breaking unions or restructuring state government.
But Walker says the state's financial woes are now so serious that he must go after the unions and dramatically increase his power to appoint cronies to top positions.
What we cannot figure out is this: Why, if the state is in so much trouble, did Walker engineer the enactment of roughly $140 million in new tax breaks for multinational corporations, which the legislature passed in January? Why did he rush to reject federal transportation funding that other states – states with similar or worse fiscal challenges -- have rushed to collect? Why, in the very week that he was pushing his budget repair bill, did the governor reject federal broadband development money that Wisconsin's rural counties have been seeking for years?
The answer to all of these questions is that the governor has made his budget decisions not with an eye toward fiscal responsibility but with an eye toward rewarding his political benefactors. Out-of-state corporations, road-building interests that did not want competition from high-speed rail, telecommunications corporations that want to cash in on the demand for broadband all benefitted from the decisions made by the governor in January. Now, in February, the governor says that Wisconsin needs to end collective bargaining for public employees and teachers and alter the way in which the state operates on multiple levels in order to address a fiscal "crisis."
The whole argument is absurd -- so absurd that state Rep. Mark Pocan, a Madison Democrat who formerly co-chaired the legislature's powerful Joint Finance Committee, accuses the governor of "spinning his fake budget crisis."
Pocan bluntly declares that: "The need for a budget 'repair' bill is manufactured so that Governor Scott Walker can bring in a 'Trojan Horse' of bad conservative ideas promoted nationally by the far right. The non-partisan Legislative Fiscal Bureau said no statutory trigger was met to require a repair bill."
Too harsh? Not at all.
Consider the governor's incredible inconsistency.
On the one hand, the governor says the tax breaks for corporations that he engineered in January will not be fully implemented until the next fiscal year. So, he says, no one should accuse him of ginning up a crisis to achieve political ends. Yet, on the other hand, he says that he must act now – via this budget repair bill – to address not just a small shortfall of the moment but the challenges the state will face in, you guessed it, the next fiscal year.
Several legislators and public-interest groups suggested in the early days of the budget fight that the tax breaks the legislature enacted in January were making matters worse in the current fiscal year. The governor disagreed, arguing that the tax breaks are not an issue at this point. It's reasonable to accept the governor’s point with regard to the timeline and note it here because of the importance of clarity in these debates. But the analysis can't stop there, since budgeting is a bit more complex than the governor chooses to acknowledge.
As Nicholas Johnson, vice president for state fiscal policy with the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities noted in a memo to the Washington Post, “(In) a technical sense, the tax cuts didn’t create the current-year shortfalls that in turn are creating the specific opening for the 'budget repair bill.’However, it is true that the tax cuts are worsening the state’s overall budget picture, and it is the state’s overall budget picture – not the current-year picture alone – that the (governor) is using to justify going after the workers.”
Debates about budgeting and fiscal years are often complex. Lots of heads are spinning at this point. More importantly, Governor Walker, his aides and the media echo chamber, are spinning. It is easy to get confused.
So let’s get down to the basics:
1. The Fiscal Bureau reported in January that Wisconsin had a $121.4 surplus through the end of the fiscal year.
2. The state has an unresolved tax dispute with Minnesota and faces some potential spikes in health care and prison costs that could require a budget repair bill. But the state has not reached the trigger point where such a bill would be necessary.
3. When the trigger point is reached, the wise counsel of the legislature’s senior member, state Sen. Fred Risser, D-Madison, is well taken: “This is not a crisis. We’ve done budget repair bills before. We’ve always been able to sort these things out."
Risser is absolutely right. He is right, as well, when he says that: “We now know this struggle is not about the money. Public employee unions have offered many concessions to help solve the state’s fiscal crisis. When those efforts at compromise were ignored, it became clear that Governor Walker and his allies are part of a national agenda, fueled by big-money conservative groups, to destroy the unions at all costs.”
That’s the bottom line: This is not about the money. This is not a fiscal crisis. This is a political crisis. And Governor Walker has the power to resolve it by refocusing on fiscal issues, as opposed to pursuing the political goal of breaking state-employee and teacher unions.
Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker. "The bottom line," writes John Nichols, is that, "this is not about the money. This is not a fiscal crisis. This is a political crisis. And Governor Walker has the power to resolve it by refocusing on fiscal issues, as opposed to pursuing the political goal of breaking state-employee and teacher unions." (Michael P. King/AP)
55 Comments so far
Show AllWhen are these CONservatives, republiCONs, and corporate democRATs going to realize their ideology is BAD for BUSINESS!
It is not only a matter of thinking no farther than the next quarterly return. Most of the men who are CEO's of large companies are at least in their sixties. They don't expect to be running their companies for the next 20 years - they expect to get a golden parachute in the next few years (some companies even require retirement at 65), and the more they can squeeze out of the workers in that time, the more golden their parachute will be.
They don't care about that. The game is make the most loot as fast as you can and keep moving. Bad for not just business, but bad for life and bad for all of us, is good for them.
Hear! Hear!
Jill: You are definitely on target! Paul
pegged exactly right. The dictatorship of the oligarchy-- a few thousand super rich who control the system and of course their minions which is still a minority of millions who are ready, willing and able to stick it to the rest of us on their behalf, expecting their own reward. Tax the rich. Take their power away from them. if they want to flee the US, good ridance.
Both Republicans and Democrats are run by the Business Party.
This is the 'Paternal' idiology run amok.
When Obama was elected, his war chest was not even depleted. With the big bucks rolling in, you had to suspect that payback was coming. But I don't think anyone predicted it would be this egregious.
Where is Obama when heck is breaking loose in Madison? Have we heard a single peep from him on this? It would be such an easy thing to do, to lambaste Walker on this and point out his huge corporate giveaways that would have paid for the projected shortfall. But no.
Well said.
Jill, what you say is accurate. Well put.
I might add to the 'not think past the quarter' mindset. They don't realize that as they destroy the working class, middle class, and fully steam roll the poor, there will no money to spend on anything and the semi rich will start to feel the pinch. They in turn won't support, or be able to support, the richer guys. Gas stations will close, schools will close, grocery chains will go backrupt, it's like they never took an economics class and never learned that in order to make money it has to have a flow. They are stagnating it at the top and it will all shut down everything eventually.
Help it along. I have a co-op where I sell goods at 10% over wholesale. It's my small way of fighting the whorporate system.
Stonepig, I am interested in starting up a co-op myself...can you give me some ideas on how to start/what to do? Much appreciated! email: webmaster@gregfordyce.com
Many of us have understood this for a long time. We need a leader to show us the way out, and we got an articulate intelligent version of the chimp instead.
Rather sad when one group of people can't seem to get to the idea of sharing equally, wealth created.
The system does not permit that.
Walker will undoubtedly go after the Mining Moratorium Law because "it's good for business and we need the money" --both lies. Reference: Crandon (Exxon) Mine.
We have reached a point of take action, fight till we win. Except nothing short of success. For so long especially since 1981 when President Regan fired the Air Traffic Controllers, which caused the busting of Unions and weakening ones that still exsist. Wisconsin will be remembered as the "Line in the Sand" that has been drawn. Fight on America.
This governor is doing this RIGHT NOW because he knows that once it's done, he is going to be recalled as soon as it's legal. He is hoping to do as much damage as he can in a short a time as possible, he knows his time is limited. According to the law in WI, he can't be recalled for a year after taking office, which is a shame, he needs it RIGHT NOW.
"Conservatives" in today's America are NOT conservative about anything. Their goal is to destroy everything that we have ever fought and died for, everything that made this country great, everything that made life worth living. They know that in a rigged game those at the top will ALWAYS come out ahead. Which is why we need to REMOVE THE GODDAMNED RIGGING. Private money must be taken out of our political system ENTIRELY. If the right wing had to run on their actual ideas, they would lose every time. And they DESERVE TO. THIS is what they want for Americans, SOMALIA, NOTHING more.
I sincerely hope that WI is the start of a nationwide revolt against the rich, big business and the corruption they bring. We can take these slime balls down without firing a shot. And it's imperative for our very future that we do so. Remember the lesson of "A Bug's Life": There are a whole lot MORE of US than there are of them, and if we band together, they will not prevail, WE will.
IT'S TIME.
This is a politically manufactured crisis. and that's all it is. This neo constipated jack ass of a governor needs to resign in disgrace.
This is a politically manufactured crisis. and that's all it is. This neo constipated jack ass of a governor needs to resign in disgrace.
Sadly, Chris Christie has fairly good approval ratings in NJ but the state legislature is still controlled by the Democrats. So there is a little bit of a brake on Christie's despicable policies. The NJEA has fought hard against Christie's anti-union policies but it has been demonized by Christie, the media and hate wing radio.
NJ has schools that are in the top tier of public schools and rates number 1 in some areas.
Politicians like Walker have played and do play the game on the right, and the bigger the gamester, the further to the right they seem to be. And the games are all intended for self enrichment ( and I don't mean spiritual, aesthetic, or intellectual - I mean the accumulation money through the worship of the beneficent and great god mammon), and for the enrichment of their collaborators. It seems to me from the Walker biographical notes laid out here by Nichols, he has been a cautious player - at least up until now.
What is it that is bringing these sleepers out of their closets and causing them to so brazenly pursue the transformation of this nation into one modeled on their reactionary, right-wing, yes - let us say fascist - ideology? Theirs is a single, obsessive will to accumulate money, power, wealthy friends, trophy (or equally adept gamer) wives, palatial mansions in Norman Rockwell settings, luxury vacations, fancy threads, fast cars, and more money. Their personae are caricatured christians as described by Kurt Vonnegut or Tony Hendra or Carl Haaisen. Walker is going to drag the US society and economy back into the 19th Century rather than into the 21st Century, the only direction in which it can really survive at all.
Why is it that these men and women with committed reactionary intentions are revealing themselves so overtly? Is it because they now realize that they can get away with it without the least bit of hue and cry from a general public that has become so solipsistic and dumbed-down? I don't know. I'm getting out. I'm headed for Norway.
"Give 'em an inch and they'll take a mile." Give them enough to hang themselves --political judo.
They have no choice. It is the nature of the system. Union busting and forced impoverishment of the population is the logical and inevitable next step. They can't stop anymore than a compulsive gambler can stop, and what they are doing is inevitably leading to growing resistance. We in resistance have no choice, either. It is fight back or perish. There is no going back, no compromise, no middle ground, no moderate solution. Those in power have decided that and all we can do in response is fight for our lives.
This manufactured crisis in Wisconsin kind of reminds me of Naomi Klines excellent analysis in her book The Shock Doctrine.
It is EXACTLY like Klein's Shock Doctrine. Economic shock and awe. It's Disaster Capitalism done by the experts. The elites are cannibalizing their own country.
Fantastic compilation of information! This needs to be spread far and wide!
How many citizens of Wisconsin can be persuaded to see it the way John Nichols does? How many chuck full of misinformation and resentment will refuse. Sad, so sad to see the choices our nation is making about its future.
http://www.politico.com/static/PPM152_110221_wi_memo.html
"Voters in Wisconsin strongly agree with the working families at the state capitol and oppose Governor Scott Walker’s anti-worker agenda. Moreover, since the protests began, Governor Walker has seen real erosion in his standing, with a majority expressing disapproval of his job performance and disagreement with his agenda. Strong majorities disagree with eliminating collective bargaining for public employees and believe that if workers agree to concessions on
pensions and healthcare benefits that the Governor should drop his plan to eliminate collective bargaining.
Overall, a majority (51 percent) of Wisconsin voters disapprove of Walker’s job performance and give him net negative favorability ratings (39 percent favorable, 49 percent unfavorable). In contrast, 62 percent of voters offer a favorable view of public employees (only 11 percent unfavorable) and 53 percent of voters rate labor unions favorably (31 percent unfavorable).
When asked if they agree or disagree with the position different groups and individuals are taking in the current situation, voters side with the public employees (67 percent agree), the protesters (62 percent agree), the unions (59 percent agree), and the Democrats in the state legislature (56 percent agree). In contrast, 53 percent disagree with Walker and 46 percent disagree with the Republicans in the legislature."
Fear not. Most of them can, and many, many are way ahead of Nichols.
http://www.channel3000.com/news/26953493/detail.html
"If Gov. Scott Walker and Republican legislators pass a union bill that restricts
collective bargaining rights, some labor groups in Madison said they would endorse the entire of a general strike of unions around Wisconsin."
will this Gov also insist that all contracts, with his corp buddies, not be negotiatable ?
For some of his buddies - yes.
Note this taken verbatim from the now infamous Wisc BILL 11
Verbatim from the bill
OTHER STATE GOVERNMENT
Currently, this state owns and operates numerous heating, cooling, and power plants that were constructed by the state to provide heating, cooling, and power to state facilities. The Department of Administration (DOA) determines the method of operation of these plants and may delegate this authority to any other state agency that has managing authority for a plant.
This bill permits DOA to sell or contract for the operation of any such plant.
Page 24 of Bill 11 Section 16.896 Amends current legislation to sell the power plants:
"with or without solicitation of bids, for any amount that the department determines to be in the best interest of the state. -"
The bill exempts such sales and contracts from the requirement for approval of the Public Service Commission (PSC) that may otherwise apply under current law.
mn1234-sure is a dark thing to see this in legalese (the power plant bill).
This is where I think our legislative process has gone screwballs to hell...they throw whatever they want into a bill to get rich thug's agendas covered. He already has buyers for those power plants, private, go public, have to protect the shareholder, prices go up and up , and you're screwed.
This is the scariest part of this entire unsavory pre-planned deal. Selling off public assets and privatizing everything that rightfully belongs to the people is what destroyed the economies of all those South American countries with their USA--backed dictators. Union-busting just prepares the way--then corporate vultures just move in for the kill..
Spread the word. We must move beyond the partisan slogans of right wing and left. I'm not sure we will avoid the economic suffering of a period of rebuilding, and like the workers are not so concerned with simply the dollars involved. We have been poor/broke before and it will likely happen again, but freedoms are not won overnight, and once given up it is a long process to reclaim. Stand firm, keep up the fight, the battle is now.
There is another trojan horse in Wisconsin's budget that everyone needs to know about. The union busting issue may be a distraction so nobody notices the real plan:
1) Koch Brothers install their puppet: Governor Walker
2) Walker gins up a crisis (union busting)
3) Democrats and Progressives take the bait and counter-protest on collective bargaining
4) Governor Walker will compromise on collective bargaining if the rest of the budget is passed as is
5) Bill passes, with trojan horse giveaway of state utilities to the Kochsuckers
Check out the bill - it will pass state-owned power utilities to the Koch Brothers for pennies on the dollar. We need to fight for the unions, but we also need to fight to stop the virtual theft of Wisconsin's public assets.
Please commit the following phrase to memory and repeat whenever anybody mentions the Koch Brothers or Walker: "Criminal conspiracy with intent to defraud the people of Wisconsin."
John Nichols who lives down the street from me and whom I saw at Madison Eastside High School this morning speaks truth that the rest of you need to understand. It's coming your way sooner than you think. Once again, please do whatever you can to help us on the frontlines in Madison.
Will someone from the Times, or any other media for that matter, please report on just who is putting up the money to bus the Tea Party people into Madison to demonstrate against unions. Is that so hard to find out? Or don't they want us to know?
Drove to Madison from northeast Wisconsin on Saturday morning to represent my teacher wife who was at home with two little boys (who will have no health care here in about 20 minutes if things keep up like this) and the whole way down there, all I heard about was andrew breitbart and all of his friends invading Madison at noon.
Nothing.
There was ZERO support for our scumbag fascist governor for the day.
In of a crowd of 65,000, there were a couple hundred tea party clowns and they had no voice. They were literally swept aside, chanted down, embarrassed.
Don't let the teleprompter jockey HACKS at fox "news" tell you there was overwhelming anti-union presence as they show you a full frame shot of 15 lone, rabid, inbred, toothless NASCAR fans with sarah palin t-shirts.
It simply isn't true.
That said, we're in big trouble out here. The democratic process has been totally sidestepped in Madison and once Wisconsin's public worker's union is broken, the crooks with the 'R' in front of their names (is there really any difference? WHERE IS OUR PRESIDENT ON THIS??) will follow suit in other states.
Thanks for the report.
Know that you have millions who are supporting you.
Gratitude for what you're doing, Bro. God bless you, there.
It looks to me like the UN Security Council needs to be called in. The US is signatory to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights which calls for the right to collective bargaining. WI is in contravention of this UN declaration if it removes bargaining rights for its workers. We need to see blue helmets on the streets of Madison and the Governor arrested.
I hope the citizens of IN, OH and any other state where this shite is occurring also look over the proposed bills with a fine tooth comb to see what other public commodities are being given away to fascist campaign donors.
John Nichols is being entirely disingenuous in this article. Those hated "tax breaks" for "out of state" corporations bring in jobs. In our small southeastern city we just got a huge automobile manufacturing site, and a big online retailer processing and shipping plant; both will bring in thousands of jobs for the community. Why did they locate here? They got tax breaks! And, we are a "right to work" state. Public unions are bankrupting states all across the northeast; meanwhile, businesses, people, and jobs are moving to other states where "collective bargaining" rights don't create huge fiscal burdens for taxpayers. The current fiscal burden in Wisconsin, being shouldered by taxpayers for those union health care benefits and pension benefits is $12 Billion annually, while public sector unions pay only about $55 Million of it. Gov. Walker has increased union members share of their pension costs to 6%. That is 6%! Not such an outrageous amount. Walker has increased their health care contributions to 12%. Taxpayers who are being forced to pay for public unions' benefits and pensions are struggling to pay for their own health care and retirements on top of that. Hardly fair is it? If you're so concerned about "middle class" and "human rights" why are you willing to burden ordinary middle class workers who are not in a union with paying for those who are in a union? Nichols hopes that you'll ignore the reality and follow him down the yellow brick road to Oz. But, if you do, you're actually doing MORE harm to ordinary taxpayers than good, so who wins this battle for hearts and minds? Union bosses, who demand union members pay dues which go, not to union members, but to political patronage. Meanwhile, not seeing the bigger picture, or the union bosses behind the curtain, you're supporting policies which will actually cause jobs to flee from Wisconsin, and force a dire price for all who live there. I support Gov's Walker and Christie and Daniels, all of whom know that in reality, the goal is to bring more business INTO a state, creating jobs, revenues, and balanced budgets, which ease taxpayer's burdens, giving them more discretionary income, thereby creating more revenues through retail, housing, etc, thereby creating MORE jobs. The union bosses have a much different goal: To maintain their political power through union members' dues, which they use to increase tax burdens on the middle class, regulations on business, and control over your representation in the state government. More freedom, jobs, and money? Now, who could possibly support that, huh? Not John Nichols. He's all about maintaining union control over your legislators by tossing red meat to the liberal masses. It's sad to see anyone believe in policies that actually will cost them their future in the long run.
Trickle-down economics doesn't work. They've been cutting taxes for the rich and corporations for 40 years (accelerating lately) and the net result is a consistent loss of jobs and income, and a consistent rise in the concentration of wealth and income of the top 1%.
Union control over legislators--is that some sort of joke? Unions are at a historic weak point right now. Unions in the public sphere still have some bargaining power with the government. Your convoluted arguments can't negate the fact that without unions state workers wouldn't just be "sacrificing" -- which they have stated they are willing to do-- but sliding into poverty just as fast as the private sector has after losing their unions. You also forget that the public does owe teachers, firefighters, street maintenance workers, and the rest of them a good living for the public services they provide. You only see the "burden" of paying these people, not the benefit, as if your quality of life does not depend on them.
From my perspective, getting rid of collective bargaining is a race to the bottom. Instead of increasing the power of laboring people you would just sweep away their power so corporations can just keep their costs down to increase their profit. Nice. Instead of less unions we need more, as the balance of wealth in this country shifts ever upward.
Quit your whinny-ing!
If you’d take your nose off the Fox TV Screen for a moment you would know that in Dec 2010 the unions signed contracts that included CONCESSIONS of $100 MILLION DOLLARS.
Scott Walker told the lame duck legislators – “Please oh, please don’t’ approve those contracts.” And two out-going Dem senators voted not to approve the contracts – just for Scott Walker.
And then Walker comes back in January 2010 and pulls this crap.
Put your money where your mouth is – Go into your bosses office and tell him you will take the same concessions the WI unions were going to take. Now repeat after me, so you’re ready to tell your boss, “I will take a pay freeze; I will take 16 furlough days that you don’t have to pay me for; I will pay more for my health insurance and You don’t have to do as much matching to my retirement account.
That’s what the Wisconsin unions agreed to in December 2010.
So go for it – Go to your bosses office right now and have that chat.
Bye, bye!
" In our small southeastern city we just got a huge automobile manufacturing site, and a big online retailer processing and shipping plant; both will bring in thousands of jobs for the community. Why did they locate here? They got tax breaks! "
They got tax breaks. And what did you get in addition to the pollution? A minimum wage job that qualifies you for food stamps and medicaid, courtesy of the taxpayer?
How much would you be willing to pay teachers, firemen, and other public sector workers? Would ten thousand dollars a year be too much, or should they all work for nothing?
I agree with your last sentence - "It's sad to see anyone believe in policies that actually will cost them their future in the long run."
Wow.. almost sounds credible. I understand wanting to bring jobs to the state, and I agree you have to watch unions as well.. but the debate over making collective bargaining illegal? It's laughable. Ridiculous.
You might as well legislate the wind only blowing to the Northeast.
Except of course that people be believin that nonsense.
If I want to get together with people who do the same thing I do, decide what we want and go bargain for it, there's no law in America that can stop it. (freedom of assembly, freedom of speech, slavery abolished) Further, when you say "collective bargaining" what do you think the corporations are doing? The government, the unions, all- Collections of people. Giving certain people. the right to bargain. for the whole.
You presuppose the best thing for a state to do, is to bid on large mercenary (in that it goes the place where it gets the best deal) organizations that pay less than their share for the resources they uses, while giving people of the state the least amount of money possible(maximizing profit).
Why should people shoulder the load of taxes for what the corporation uses?
Further no sympathies for Walker... I knew there were going to be protests as soon as he said he would bring in the National Guard to take care of any protests. The question is whether or not he knew.
Despite conservative's flagrant berserking, if people won't shed the "conservatives are good, moral, responsible leaders propaganda" and keep electing them, the public will remain slaves of the paleo-conservative oligarchs.
"General Motors wants crewcuts, punctuality and respectful conformity. Uncle Sam wants patriotic cannon fodder. A world like this deserves contempt. Only goodness in our generation can counter the decadence of the society we are inheriting. And our generation is good."
Deborah Smullyan
"I think what motivates people is not great hate, but great love for other people "
Huey Newton, paraphrasing Che
'Never fear, Gov. Mighty Mouse is here, moving the Wisconsin cheese; it's not about the budget, the deficit/debt, the money this time, it's about another Republican autocracy being so close to killing the unions and collective bargaining rights, they can't stand it. By the way, Guv and GOP puppeteers, the Wisconsin public employees' (teachers in this case) pension fund is 100% funded for the foreseeable future--so where's the "crisis"? Killing unions and bargaining rights will not create one job, nor balance the budget, nor reduce the deficit/debt; only fair progressive ind'l and corporate profits taxes across the board, with judicious control of discretionary spending. It's called good governance, duh? The Gipper Reagan said, "government's the problem"--in this case, he was right.