I am the public. Q.E.D.
I apologize for not having the time to read through all 1000-plus posts here, but . . .
Has anyone here discussed the non-union aspects of this bill?
There’s been so much back-and-forth about taxes and unions and teachers and who’s overpaid, which is convenient for the Republicans because we all sit here and tear each other down . . . while the poor and disadvantaged are getting screwed over worse than anybody by this bill. Here are some of the programs and services that will be gutted or gone:
BadgerCare (low-income health care)
SeniorCare and Family Care (other health care programs)
City buses in many communities (transportation for people who can’t afford or can’t drive a car). CITY BUSES!
Libraries
Requiring insurance companies to cover contraception
Low-income clinics (many of which provide basic women’s health care)
Child care assistance so low-income parents can work
Assistance for at-risk juveniles
Early education for needy/disabled kids
Assistance for disabled children and adults and their families
Home health care and hospice
And of course, schools in general, including meal programs, special ed, etc.
Everyone is so busy arguing over unions and taxes and how come he gets to make more than me and those lazy public workers and blah blah blah that they forget that people who NEED these programs are about to get ROYALLY SCREWED. As in SEVERE DAMAGE to their QUALITY OF LIFE, which already sucks for many as it is.
My husband is a public employee, he’s not rich, and he works plenty hard, thank you. (Anyone else here volunteering to wipe the asses of old men 2-3 times your size while they’re trying to punch you in the face?) He works for the state because that is the only decent job that he was able to get after being downsized from his private-sector job. I’m self-employed, I get no bennies, and I pay extra taxes. My income is definitely down from a few years ago, even though I still work ridiculous hours, all day, damn near every day. But even so, we personally could probably survive the effects of this bill, even if it comes to my husband losing his job. (Not yet, because so far Walker is exempting those who work in 24/7 facilities. But there is also talk of building a new veterans’ home and staffing with privately contracted workers. Not much of a stretch to see that happening where hubby works, if it’s not closed down altogether, despite being a historic site in operation since the Civil War. But I digress.)
But I am appalled, and it breaks my heart, over what will happen when these poor people suddenly cannot afford basic medication, or can’t even find a doctor much less afford one, or have no way to get around town to buy food or obtain probably nonexistent services. I guess they’re just supposed to sit home in the dark and get sick, or starve, or both. There’s a woman among the Capitol protesters with stage 4 colon cancer. If BadgerCare goes bye-bye, she loses her chemo. In my hometown of Appleton, low-income clinics will probably have to close. City transit will shut down by June. I rode those buses the whole time I was growing up. A friend’s disabled aunt may not be able to remain in her home. And on and on and on. Tax cuts for investors aren’t going to help these people one damned bit.
This bill is a crime against humanity. Conservatives love to try to inject their precious religion into public policy when it suits them (abortion, gay rights, stem cell research, teaching evolution, prayer in schools, etc.), but they forget that JESUS MINISTERED TO THE POOR. No, all they’re worried about is their taxes. Fucking hypocrites. Looking for ways to cut other people down so they can have some sense of vindictive satisfaction, instead of looking for ways to lift everyone up.
Walker is turning Wisconsin into a fucking third world country.
Wisconsin Dopers, please vote for Joanne Kloppenburg for Wisconsin Supreme Court on April 5. Her opponent, David Prosser, is in Walker’s pocket. We’re going to need her for the lawsuits and legal challenges that will surely result from this mess.
I’ll shut up now. And I may not be back to this thread for a while. But hubby and I will continue to work to make our voices heard in Madison and around the state.
Touche..
People who play my game, that is the backing up their assertions with evidence game, get taken a lot more seriously than some blank fuckwit who can’t think past the talking points that Hannity riled him up with.
OMG - think of the children! What about all the poor, the elderly, sick, yada yada yada ad infinitum. Sorry, not not my problem. It’s somebody’s problem, just not mine. Don’t they have families to support them? Why not? Where does it say that people unable to support themselves for whatever reason have an entitlement to public assistance?
They will make do however they can just like they always have.
I suppose that in your megalomaniac world people hinge on being taken seriously by you. Unfortunately for you, I live in reality.
Like storming the Bastille…
Of course you do. You just are unable to perceive it because of the layer of conservative stupidity that you drape over everything.
This is a joke right?
superslug! You bought a dictionary! Congratulations, and I hope it helps you in your arguments here.
And, by the way, since it happens that you do appear to be the most interested in the SDMB of your comrades, welcome aboard! I look forward to my continuing to abuse your political views.
Also, if you don’t like Cool Hand Luke (showing now on Turner Classic), I look forward to abusing your Cafe Society views.
LOL. What a dumbass.
Well I guess we can make them into Soylent Green. Win, win.
Thanks.. it’s about time someone said howdy. Seems that most here are only interested in squelching any opposing views and slapping each other on the back…
Exactly. What so many “conservatives” seem not to realize in our current rush back to the Gilded Age is that the New Deal wasn’t so much intended as relief for poor people as it was a defense against Communism. When people become desperate, they turn to whatever will help them climb out of the pit. There was a VERY real danger of a Communist plurality developing during the Depression. Roosevelt didn’t create the New Deal entirely out of the goodness of his heart or liberal guilt, he created it to keep the country from chaos and revolution.
And now that we’re abrogating New Deal reforms, we’re going to face that same thing again. The wealthy seem to forget that the poor outnumber them. By a LOT.
Only when the opposing views are stupid…
Some would say that FDR, being the good socialist that he was, just followed the socialist creed of never letting a good crisis go to waste and prolonging said crisis until the productivity boon of WWII pulled us out by our bootstraps.
Oh yeah? Well… You’re a poopy head.
Does it bother you that the vast majority of economists don’t agree with your view of history?
Except for the fetuses. We must protect the unborn fetuses. Maybe we can mash up the Soylent Green made from their dead mothers and mix it with soy milk. Nah, that’s too much trouble:
Okeedokee just let em die because they don’t have families to support them.
What is it with the latest crop of Freeper trolls and LOLLING? Did you all just time travel from AOL via 1998?