Like the quote from the article said, they didn’t take level of education, experience, full- or part-time status, or even what the job was into account. So they could have been comparing the $7.50 teenage burger flipper at the McDonald’s with Deputy Undersecretaries of State. That’s makes for a HUGE mushy middle from which to pull isolated data.
Why should the taxpayers not have to compensate the people who do their labor? What do you have against paying people for their work?
The people of Wisconsin never voted to bust the unions and they don’t support it now. Walker has no consent to do this.
As I understand it, the power to settle the matter is in the Governor’s hands. All he has to do is to compromise and drop the demand about crushing the unions and the matter is ended. The voters did not give him or his party unlimited power, as demonstrated by the fact that enough Dems were elected that if the Dems exercise their parliamentary right to remove themselves from the state then the Governor and his party are stymied.
They are not comparing specific jobs in the public sector with other specific jobs in the private sector. How would you even eliminate for education? There is no reason someone who is college educated couldn’t be working for minimum, or close to minimum wage in the private sector. In fact, I know there are. So would you arbitrarily leave off everyone who works for, say, Starbucks just because a college education is not required to meet the job requirements.
Similarly, you can have multimillionaires who didn’t graduate from high school working in the private sector. Should they be eliminated too?
It would seem arbitrary to not count someone who earns only $7.50/hr in the private sector just because there is no government job that pays that little.
Anyway I agree the methodology probably isn’t perfect, but it is still useful as a snapshot and a place to start. Can you agree with me on that?
The unions have already agreed to all the pay cuts/adjustments the Governor wants.
The governor refuses to accept that.
Is he still doing what you want?
You are misrepresenting my argument. I have nothing against paying people for their work. I think that the harder you work the more you should make.
This question of consent again. He’s been given consent by virtue of the fact he was voted in as Governor. If we expected elected officials to get some form of approval from their constituents we would not need them we could just legislate by way of direct democracy and everyone could go to the polls every time a pothole needed to be filled. Not very efficient, don’t you think?
I’m not thrilled by the political situation in our state right now. They are at an impasse. I completely understand why neither side will blink. I don’t blame the Democrats for remaining in Illinois politically it makes sense. If they return they loose. If Walker gives in, takes the concessions offered but allows the privilege of collective bargaining he will be seen as the looser.
Understandably, nobody wants to give in. And it’s not a particularly good situation for our state. If I have to weigh in on one side or the other I’ll side with Walker. Is this the situation I want? No. Walker overreached, now we are stuck. I hate to see teachers get laid off because of it.
I think the unions should take their medicine and lay down their collective bargaining rights. There will be more elections and they will have time to make their case that they should have collective bargaining rights restored. Until then elections & consequences. Tough cookies.
Then you would agree that public school teachers are underpaid?
He didn’t tell them he was planning to bust the unions, but if you want to use that standard, the Democrats have been given consent to to block the bill by virtue of their own elections. I’m sure you would also agree that Barack Obama has the consent of the country to do anything and everything he wants.
No, not at all. It’s an utterly stupid and pointless comparison. The only sensible comparison is between similar jobs. USA Today may not have been slanting the story, they were just lazy.
See, in my world bargaining means you give some and you get some.
The unions have given some.
The governor does not want to bargain at all. He wants it all.
I think from the union standpoint it is entirely appropriate to tell him to go fuck himself if that’s the deal.
Some teachers are certainly overpaid others are underpaid. Unfortunately, the unions prevent such distinctions from being made. When seniority and tenure are the only stick by which to measure you will always have under-performing schools. It’s the unions that make it difficult for districts to get rid of bad teachers.
I’m not concerned that Walker did not make a point of campaigning on ending collective bargaining rights for public sector unions. It would not have changed my vote for Walker in any case.
Yes, the Democrats do have consent to use such a tactic by virtue of their being elected. It’s within the laws and rules. Someone up thread (sorry I’m not going back to cite whomever I’m paraphrasing) said something to the effect of “what use is there for requiring quorum if it was not available as a tactic for blocking a vote.” Makes sense. It’s been used in the past and will be used again in the future. Of course if the other side did it you would call it obstructionism.
The problem with that is teachers get laid off. If the unions actually cared for their members shouldn’t they accept the fact they’ve lost this round and lay in wait for the next election cycle. Republicans will not keep both houses and the Governorship forever, you know. No, I see the union leaders in it only for themselves and to keep the cash flowing. Get the dues, contribute to Democrats, get requested legislation passed, get the kickbacks, collect the dues, contribute to Democrats. Only this time around the voters in the state didn’t see fit to keep playing this little game. We really put a kibosh on this when their guys failed to convince voters to elect Democrats. Oops!
Now we’re stuck with this little temper tantrum down in Madison.
Do you think government workers just get;paychecks for doing nothing? If so, immediately turn off Fox. I have worked government jobs before. It was just a job with some people busting their asses because of a personal work ethic. Some treating it like a job and a few screwoffs. It was much like private work.
It was always the jobs with military contractors that were the easiest. They were billing the government for hours worked. They made money off the total hours. There were guys punching in and leaving. Guys who waited patiently for assignments while they were getting paid. They had a system in place to loot the government big time. That was your tax money being wasted big time.
As always you guys keep digging in the wrong place. Military contractors steal billions. Look at what they do in Iraq and Afghanistan. They shipped plane loads of your precious tax money to the generals, who dispersed it like candy. Nine billion dollars went missing.
That money did not do government work. It was stolen.
http://politics.blogs.foxnews.com/2010/08/30/legacy-wasted-money-iraq Even Fox who employs lots of military exes admits that.
If the teachers do not like their union they can vote for new leaders or whatever.
The teachers seem willing to risk the layoffs.
Walker wants to kill the union because they are the primary contributors to his opposition. It’ll be harder for democrats to take back seats and help solidify the republican position.
I’d believe you had the courage of your convictions more if you were mad that Walker did not include the police, firefighters and troopers unions as well.
If your beef is with unions getting too much money for its members and taking money out of your pocket so union leaders can take kickbacks you should be demanding and end to all the public unions and not just teachers.
I’m no cheerleader for the military. I am sick of the political climate that makes it necessary for both sides to constantly felicitate the military. I could be wrong here but I think it gets to the point of embarrassment for some military guys to have to put up with media and political types slobbering over them.
More to the point. Government will never be able to cut back as long as the public sector unions have such a firm hold upon government. It comes as no surprise to me that they are going down kicking and screaming. Anyone else who managed to amass and wield as much power as the unions would too.
Done. I have no particular reason to defend Walker on not including police firefighters and troopers.
DARN YOU WALKER! :mad:
There. So that was somewhat tongue in cheek, but I’m tired. Thanks everyone for the discussion this evening. It sure was fun. But I gotta go I’m already late as it is.
Guys, I just skimmed the thread, but it appears that some salient points are being missed.
(1) This is not simply the Dems leaving to prevent a quorum forever and ever. By leaving, they not only prevented the vote that would have passed the bill, but bought time to bring the bill to public attention. Walker wanted to rush it through before anyone knew what was happening. Because the vote has been forestalled, we’ve had three weeks to look the thing over and see how much it stinks (and also observe some truly dirty and desperate Republican posturing). The Dems hope to increase public awareness of the bill (and indeed they have done so, judging by Walker’s precipitous drop in polls, including conservative-leaning ones), and eventually move the Republican senators to consider compromise. Several Republican senators are rumored to strongly hate this bill, but they are looking for ways to express that while still saving their political necks. Either discourse or the growing threat of recall may help them along. And this is what (I think) Polycarp was referring to above in talking about the recall of 8 senators—“The Republican 8” who are currently eligible for recall— for “not doing their jobs” by voting for this bill when public opinion (of their constituents, including many Republican voters) is so strongly against it. (Some of the Dems face recall efforts too, but I think only 4 or 5. You have to be in office a year before you can be recalled. We’re stuck with Walker until January 2012 at the minimum, unless he resigns, fat chance.)
(2) Here’s a Daily Kos debunking of 10 myths about what’s happening here in WI.
(3) And finally My thoughts on the issue and the bill’s true harm in another thread. Basically this bill amounts to stealing mightily from the poor to give to the rich. Big-time. Wisconsin programs that benefit the disadvantaged will be gutted, and those who use them will suffer even more than they already do. Not even talking about unions, except with regard to where we will lose federal funding if collective bargaining goes bye-bye. (An aspect I forgot to add: Tax credits such as homestead credits and earned income credits, which help the poor greatly, will be reduced or eliminated. Meanwhile, plenty of tax cuts for the rich! Huzzah!!)
It’s unfortunate that the major media are doing a very poor job of covering this issue. I am finding the best information and links to what little news coverage there is by following #wiunion and #wearewi on Twitter (and you will see more hashtags if you follow those feeds) and the daily live blog at thedailypage.com (the online presence of the Isthmus, Madison’s alternative weekly. (Yes, I am one of those filthy commie treehugging libtards who oppose the bill.)
As to the validity of Wiki:
I would trust it if the bold paragraph had been entered prior to the troubles in Wisconsin. However, the paragraph in question was added at 10pm Feb 17; the congressmen in question went missing earlier that day. Thus, the paragraph was merely echoing the day’s news.
Version prior to that day:
Fair enough.
Is there ever a case where the law/rules call for a supermajority and they only mean a supermajority of the members present? Seems to me, in the US Senate at least, when a supermajority is called for they mean 67 senators.
Let’s think about what you want to replace that with.
Let’s pretend that you, a non-union worker, makes $30,000/year in salary building widgets.
In the future, the most (not guaranteed) you can make is $30,000/year + inflation so, in essence, you are making the equivalent of $30,000/year today.
Now, if you want to make more than that $30,000/year + inflation the shareholders of the widget factory need to vote to allow it. They are not likely to willingly part with their money (since if they pay you more they lose money). But hey…might happen right? All you need to do is convince a majority of shareholders that you and all the other workers deserve more money and the shareholders should pay for it.
Make no mistake, it makes no difference if you become more efficient at your job and build more widgets per hour. It makes no difference if they fire 1/3 of the workers and expect you to maintain the same production such that you need to work more hours per day. You get your $30,000/year no matter what (unless the shareholders are feeling generous).
You’d be ok with that?