Wisconsin Dems & Unions vs. Repubs

[filkertom]

Union employees from all over the state of Wisconsin have been protesting for the past two days, as the Republican-controlled state Senate prepared to vote on a plan to cut salaries, health insurance, pensions and bargaining rights for state employees. Well, the vote has been delayed, because every Democratic member has left -- not only the Senate chamber, but apparently the state.

All of this is made more interesting by the grudge against Madison, WI seemingly held by Governor Scott Walker.

Could it be that all these austerity-for-thee-but-not-me measures might finally be hitting the tipping point, where the general populace says That's Enough Dammit?

Comments

[admnaismith.livejournal.com]

Wisconsin has been a pretty solidly blue state overall, prior to the November 2010 election, where the GOP won massively (I'm still trying to figure out why anyone who either worked for a paycheck or was unemployed would ever vote Republican, but it happened)

The silver lining about Hosni MuWalker is that Wisconsin may learn its lesson and never vote Republican again for another 60 years.

Also...those troopers sent out to fetch Democratic Senators are aware that they are public employees and that therefore Walker has declared war on them as well, right?

[shockwave77598.livejournal.com]

Eh, they'll probably look. But not very hard. "We'll check out every donut shop between here and Milwauki. K?"

[kiena-tesedale.livejournal.com]

A little late to reply, but Walker's bill won't affect certain state employees - firefighters and police, mostly. Everyone else, including EMTs and the like, are still screwed.

[randwolf.livejournal.com]

My guess is it was a combination of dissatisfied progressives and tea partiers. They threw the bums out. Unfortunately, the didn't take a close enough look at the bums they were putting in as replacements.

[starcat-jewel.livejournal.com]

The progressives didn't take a close enough look. The teabaggers knew exactly what they were voting for, and they got it.

[randwolf.livejournal.com]

I think not exactly. Most of the tea partiers are against government spending in the abstract, but when they get down to it, most of them don't know where the money actually goes, and they can't say what it is they want to cut. Most people--this has actually been measured--think of the results of government policy as something like weather: something that just happens, somehow. It might be better if they began thinking of weather as something like government policy--something they affect.