Socialism?

[Coondog]

You watching the sideshow in WISCONSIN?

Sure am! I know we can agree on and support the exercise of free speech, right of petition and assembly, etc. exhibited by proud American citizens in Wisconsin.

Kind of reminds me of those "grass roots"Tea Party events, except that the signs are coherent and the protests are substantive rather than over the Governor's skin color!

Coondog


“As long as our social order regards the good of institutions rather than the good of men, so long will there be a vocation for the rebel.”
Richard Roberts

[Crux]

...will have to pay 12% instead of 5% of their health care premiums...that's just AWFUL... Oh, and they might have to MATCH the taxpayers contribution to their retirement benefit...

[Sam]

How dare the Governor ask,them,to contribute to their retirement and their health care. Who does he think,he is - someone who wants to reduce the budget.

[Crux]

Wisconsin. Public Workers, State and Municipal Employees, Public Union workers...
ARE CRYING LIKE LITTLE ...


This is HUGE. This is the TAXPAYERS waking UP. This is the will of the PEOPLE of Wisconsin who voted for the Governor, who will make the tough decisions. The D(EMO)CRATS chartered a bus to ILLINOIS so the State Troopers couldn't arrest them and haul their LIB butts back to the State House to actually do their DUTY AND VOTE NO!!

I feel no pity for the Union whiners.
7% of Private workers in this country are UNIONIZED.
33% of Government workers are unionized.

There are MORE Government Union Members than Private Union members in this country. MORE!!

They act like somehow they are ENTITLED to have OTHERS pay for their health care, their pensions, retirement, etc.

It is a disgusting display. SURE THEY HAVE THE RIGHT TO FREELY EXERCISE THEIR speech. To peacefully assemble.

They twist and howl to have it suggested they match funds with the taxpayer towards their retirement...
They cry and wail at having to pay 12% of their health care premium instead of 5%...

Harassing and pushing lawmakers who stayed in the capital, blocking elevators, blocking bathrooms, wildcat strikes, bogus sick outs, closing schools...

The actual CHILDREN in Wisconsin are the pathetic teachers comparing their plight to the Egyptian Citizen. RIDICULOUS.

THIS IS THE FRUIT OF THE TEA PARTY. And make no mistake... The Tea Party represents a cross section of America.
There are EVEN progressives in California that are willing to SPEAK UP because they SEE the NUMBERS.
They begin to understand the UNSUSTAINABLE NATURE of the Government/Union Nexus...

...and what it will do to their HOPES and GREEN DREAMS.

California is BROKE. Illinois is BROKE. Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, Florida, Minnesota, New Jersey, AMERICA is BROKE.

Wake the HELL UP!! This isn't GREECE.
We don't WANT nanny. We don't TRUST big government.

REALITY has set in after decades and the American people have WOKEN UP!!!

...well, at least I hope so...

crux

...and all that is on the mind of some is dog parks, and breast pumps, and NN pipe dreams in the haze of Hopium...

[Sam]

These stupid liberals can't see the picture. They keep mouthing the same gibberish that is coming from the top dense liberals. When I was in the work force, I had no choice but to belong to a union and let me tell you they sure as hell didn't speak for me.

I heard people were bused in from other states and that the Democratic party was behind promoting those buses as well as other groups of that ilk. School children were encouraged or taken out of school by teachers to march - what is that teaching the children - I was appalled. How in the hell do the people including these very stupid liberals expect the bills to be paid in these States that are bankrupt if they don't start saving money. I firmly believe that these workers should have to contribute toward their retirement and health care. I had to even though I was a government worker. So should they.

My son who has his own business has to pay for the medical insurance for his employees and let me tell you it costs him dearly. Furthermore he can't offer them any retirement incentives. People that I talk to are frightened as hell about the economy and all the spending going on in the government. It seems these jackasses just can't say stop in the spending money. They can't seem to see the bleak picture.

[Crux]

FYI Sam... It is a BEAUTIFUL DAY in Wisconsin!
THIS IS SO HUGE! http://theothermccain.com/2011/02/19/wisconsin-updates/

...and that stinker BO is whipping it up... OFA is busing them in...

The Anarchists are on the streets... The Socialists HOWL. ...and the TAXPAYER is in the CROSS HAIRS...

THIS is a TEA PARTY SMACKDOWN!!! ...and the Left is SEETHING!!

...this paragraph says it all... From John Fund:

"Mr. Walker's proposals are hardly revolutionary. Facing a $137 million budget deficit, he has decided to try to avoid laying off 5,500 state workers by proposing that they contribute 5.8% of their income towards their pensions and 12.6% towards health insurance. That's roughly the national average for public pension payments, and it is less than half the national average of what government workers contribute to health care. Mr. Walker also wants to limit the power of public-employee unions to negotiate contracts and work rules—something that 24 states already limit or ban."

crux...

[Coondog]

Hah!

Typical!

Workers in the streets protesting, some carrying stupid signs (just like the Tea Party) is somehow un-American.
But, it's OK if you're protesting in favor of corporate profits? Hey, I don't have anything against the lifestyles of the rich and famous. I could get used to it. I do have a problem with subsidising them (or me) by milking the poor and unknown.

Yeah, over the weekend, the unions blinked, as well they should. When compared to anything reasonable, the public employees get way too much in benefits. They know it, so they caved in on the budgetary items. It will still hurt relatively low wage earners. And, we know this isn't about the budget. If it was, the Governor wouldn't have PUT THEM IN A DEFICIT by creating one with corporate Tax Cuts.

excerpt from Associated Press article 2/1/2011

Wisconsin-Governor-Scott-Walker-signs-tax-cut-bill-into-law

For his first month in office, though, Walker's been focused on spending money through tax cuts. Two tax cuts he's already signed — along with one that's passed the Assembly — would add about $117 million to the state's budget problem over the next two years

.

So....this is the republican agenda on both state and national levels. Give massive tax cuts that benefit corporations and the rich, then off-set the tax cuts by hammering those on the bottom of the income ladder.

Walker's arguments appear sound on the surface, until he comes to the union busting, which is all that's left since the unions capitulated. The rest is just ......... ! it is clear, Walker is cowtowing , not to the people who voted for him, but the people who bankrolled his candidacy......just like they're doing in Washington!

Republican Governors are salivating to do the same elsewhere. Keep taking from that sector already suffering the most and the streets all over the country will be full of Americans excersizing their right of protest. The question is whether 14 principled democrats can inspire the rest of their spineless cohorts to stand up and stop the spread of this poisonous right wing conservative takeover before it becomes epidemic.

Coondog

Men become accustomed to poison by degrees.
Victor Hugo

[Sam]

Ok Pal, I never said anything about the act of those protesting - they can carry all the signs they want and say what they want. What I have a beef with is their contributing a mere pitance toward their health care and retirement. I never even said they are un American. So get off your high horse. I would like the same standards for my son and his business that these government workers get. It's jsut that simple. As far as I am concerned they can protest all they want, I disagree with their message. So Pal who are the rich subsidsing in the poor and unknown? My son is considered rich, but he sure doesn't feel that way nor does he have the money to show for it. Most of his profits keep going back into the business.

As for stupid liberals if the shoe fits then you know the rest.

[Coondog]

The fight in Wisconsin is about power--the power to organize into unions and the power to influence politics. But it is also about money. If Republican governor Scott Walker weren’t claiming that the state’s public workers were wildly overpaid, and if a lot of people weren't inclined to believe him, his proposal to crush the state's public employee unions wouldn’t be on the verge of becoming law.

As an empirical matter, Walker’s claim seems suspect. A new paper by the Economic Policy Institute breaks down the numbers and finds that Wisconsin’s public workers are, if anything, underpaid relative to their private sector counterparts. Of course, Walker and his allies insist that the real problem is not so much wages as health benefits and pensions. But the researcher who wrote the EPI paper, Jeffrey Keefe of Rutgers University, considers that possibility. Although public employees may pay less for some benefits--in particular, their health insurance typically comes with lower premiums and cost-sharing--he argues they still fare no better than their private sector counterparts when it comes to total compensation.

http://www.tnr.com/rss/blogs/Jonathan-Cohn

The point is this:

Wisconsin-Governor-Scott-Walker-signs-tax-cut-bill-into-law

For his first month in office, though, Walker's been focused on spending money through tax cuts. Two tax cuts he's already signed — along with one that's passed the Assembly — would add about $117 million to the state's budget problem over the next two years

Sam, I'm not only responding to you.....I'm addressing the world!

Coondog

[Crux]

Stupid people who carry stupid signs are stupid... Who said stupidity was Un American?

Yeah, over the weekend, the unions blinked, as well they should. When compared to anything reasonable, the public employees get way too much in benefits. They know it, so they caved in on the budgetary items. It will still hurt relatively low wage earners. And, we know this isn't about the budget. If it was, the Governor wouldn't have PUT THEM IN A DEFICIT by creating one with corporate Tax Cuts.

1. You call the above logical? So the BOLDED words logically FOLLOW? ...silly 'coon.

2. Look also: The State faces a 3.6 BILLION dollar deficit over two years... That's 3600 Million dollars fella.

You are going to blame the Governor for MANUFACTURING a DEFICIT?
...by signing into law 117 million dollars in tax cuts...

Why don't you look into that 117 million in tax cuts, it's component parts and support by DEM lawmakers, and how it might be a very GOOD move for Wisconsin in attracting businesses and jobs from neighboring states with HIGHER taxes.

...like the D(EM0) MECCA Illinois!!

crux

[Coondog]

The bottom line is, you cannot give tax cuts and then cry about dificits!

This is two-faced baloney! ......and stupid!

You cannot off set debt by first slashing income!!!!!!!!!

It doesn't work at my house, anyway.

The only people I know of who can take a big cut in income and still meet personal financial obligations are the already well off, who are the only ones benefiting from this financial goat rope republicans like to substitute for responsible governance.

Calling economically strapped people childish names for trying to protect their meager livelyhoods is also what's stupid.

Coondog

"Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and consciencious stupidity."
-Martin Luther King, Jr.

[Crux]

...as an alternative to cutting THOUSANDS of jobs, government union workers will have to pony up dollar for dollar matching funds with the taxpayers (WHO PAY THEM) towards there retirement savings...they will have to pay 12+% of their health insurance premiums instead of 5+%...they will lose collective bargaining rights except for wages...there is manufactured CHAOS by the Democrat Machine...1/3 of Madison WI public school teachers have their own kids in PRIVATE SCHOOLS...in fiscal 2008 the FED gave 670 million dollars to the public schools in WI which is 20 TIMES what the Governor hopes to save in year one...the Governor is doing what he was elected to do, 55-46 percent...D(emo) Legislators who were going to lose the vote fled the capital in a chartered bus to Illinois to evade the State Police and their DEMOCRATIC obligations...schools have been illegally shut down through a wildcat strike...the head of the teachers' Union has called the teachers to return, because the public is against them...BO just days after paying lip service to fiscal discipline and controlling deficit spending inserted himself into the issue of a State Budget because he is a Union Shill...both Dem and GOP Governors and State Legislatures are STRUGGLING with balancing their budgets and DEALING with these UNSUSTAINABLE Government Union Compensation Packages...there is a whole lot of whining and howling going on...

...and dogs should generally be leashed because they are generally in charge of their owners and will run AMOK!!

crux

Wisconsin Public Workers Struggle = Egyptian Citizens Struggle NOT!!

[Coondog]

Numbers......numbers!

The average starting teaching salary in Wisconsin is $25,222. The benefits are compensation for this paltry, poverty level income.

If the Governor sees fit to cut jobs to make up for the tax breaks he gave his buddies (which is about all the budget cuts account for) .....he should start with his own! He could quit (like Palin) and still be working for his constituency:

According to Wisconsin campaign finance filings, Walker's gubernatorial campaign received $43,000 from the Koch Industries PAC during the 2010 election.

He seems well suited for bribing Supreme Court Justices!!!!!!!!!!!

Coondog

“O, this life
Is nobler than attending for a check,
Richer than doing nothing for a bribe,
Prouder than rustling in unpaid-for silk.”
William Shakespeare

[Crux]

http://dailycaller.com/2011/02/21/wisco ... etting-on/

...short read. The last sentence: "Per the Department of Commerce, in 2009, the average personal income for all Wisconsin workers was $37,398."

Teachers in Wisconsin are hardly suffering... WANT MORE??

"On average, including benefits, Wisconsin teachers earn about $78k per year. I’m going to leave aside the “for nine months work” part of this, because I think it’s been hammered enough. The average household income in Wisconsin is about $52k per year. So, teachers earn about 1.5 times the average household income in Wisconsin when you factor in the benefits, and many of those households are two-income households."

link: http://powip.com/2011/02/wisconsin-teac ... n-context/

ALSO, according to the WEAC in 2011, the starting salary for teachers is $33,800.00 EXCLUDING benefits.

link: http://www.weac.org/news_and_publicatio ... years.aspx

In spite of the whining by the WEAC and YOU, the numbers are in deed the NUMBERS...

These teachers and Government Union workers are not somehow suffering worse than those in the Private sector...

...quite the contrary is true.

...nor are they immune...

crux

[Coondog]

ALSO, according to the WEAC in 2011, the starting salary for teachers is $33,800.00 EXCLUDING benefits.

Crux, thanks for updating the starting salary figure. Mine was two years old. And for the link. Let's see now, what was the heeadline of that article? Oh yeah............

Wisconsin teacher pay drops to lowest level in 50 years

Let's not run AMOK by jumping back and forth between with benefits or without benefits, averages, extreems, means, medians, sines and cosines and standard deviations. I'm sure they vary widely in all circumstances.

It's the one's at the very bottom that count.........the only ones that count!! All true measurements begin there!

Coondog

...and dogs should generally be leashed because they are generally in charge of their owners and will run AMOK!!

crux

[Crux]

Crux, thanks for updating the starting salary ($33,800) figure. Mine ($25,000) was two years old. And for the link. Let's see now, what was the heeadline of that article? Oh yeah............

Wisconsin teacher pay drops to lowest level in 50 years

Let's not run AMOK by jumping back and forth between with benefits or without benefits, averages, extreems, means, medians, sines and cosines and standard deviations. I'm sure they vary widely in all circumstances.

It's the one's at the very bottom that count.........the only ones that count!! All true measurements begin there!

Like I said,

In spite of the whining by the WEAC and YOU, the numbers are in deed the NUMBERS...

...but then there is the SPIN.

The people of Wisconsin KNOW that teachers in WI have the highest salaries of ALL MIDWESTERN STATES, and 2/3 of their 8th Graders are NOT COMPETANT readers...

Apparently they know what you and the WEAC are spinning... an increase in base pay of $8,800 in TWO YEARS!!!?
...that's a 35.2% PAY RAISE in TWO YEARS!!!

(NOT TO MENTION THE GENEROUS BENEFITS PACKAGES)

HELLO?? Are you incapable of recognizing what the Taxpayer sees?
A Taxpayer who is MOSTLY NOT IN A PUBLIC SECTOR (government) UNION??

The Taxpayer who PAYS for a big chunk OR ALL of their OWN health care, and retirement fund, then of course PAYS TAXES which PAYS for the Government Union Worker's SALARY, HEALTH CARE, and FREEKING RETIREMENT!!



crux

[Sam]

I understand the cost of living is lower in Wisconsin. And I am sure some freaking idiot will start posting charts.....but after looking at numerous websites I found you can locate any chart from A to Z that will support a person's theory or statement. I see charts for teacher's pay that go from one group of numbers to a totally different group.

So I am just stating to my understanding and from doing some comparison chart shopping I understand the cost of living in Wisconsin is lower.

[Coondog]

I agree, Sam!

There are graphs and charts......and there are graphs and charts. All are official and none of them are remotely similar.

So, I'm not going to argue graphs and charts.......not any more. This is an ideological struggle. Rather than contend over clearly false statistics (.....teachers in WI have the highest salaries of ALL MIDWESTERN STATES), , I'd rather pursue the moral and ethical implications of diminishment of rights in light of income disparity between workers in general and the corporate tycoons who seek to prey on them..........and the collusion of the elected lap dogs they have purchased.

Collective bargaining is not socialism. And it is not the primary reason for budget shortfalls. It was not the people who put these people in office, it was corporate money and inbfluence. And, it is the will of corporate entities, not that of the people, that is being served by attempting to erradicate the collective power of the people against the overwhelming power of those corporate interests. It is one thing to embrace this trend and another to silence those who don't.

It is not teachers in WI who are driving record sales increases at Rolls-Royce.

Coondog

How the rich became the über rich
http://money.cnn.com/2011/02/22/news/economy/income_inequality/index.htm

[Crux]

This is an ideological struggle.

...and a political struggle too...and the Union Bosses, and the D(EMO)/Union Nexus is on the losing side in WI.
The WEAC collected 25 million in dues in fiscal year 2009 I believe... The teachers will like having the option of keeping the 1K per year they have to cough up to WEAC.

Democratic principles will be upheld I think...in spite of the (D) Legislators who FLED the STATE in a chartered bus to a NON-UNION hotel in Illinois... They RAN instead of casting their NO! vote...

Balls of GLASS.

[Coondog]

In 1839, a young Abraham Lincoln, serving as a Whig in the Illinois House, jumped out of the building in a futile bid to prevent Democrats from getting a quorum to vote on a banks bill.

As for the WI 14:

They RAN instead of casting their NO! vote...

I believe their vote is thereby cast........

STOP

Coondog

Remember the Taxas 11.....and get used to it!

"If the majority changes the rules when it needs to win, democracy loses,"
Texas state Sen. Eliot Shapleigh