WI: It's just about crushing the unions #p2

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker has insisted that his proposal to strip public workers of their collective bargaining rights is necessary to cover the state's budget deficit. In his "fireside chat" yesterday, Walker said: "We're broke in this state because, time and time again, politicians of both political parties ran away from the tough decisions and punted them down the road for another day."

But not only is Wisconsin being "broke" largely the product of Walker's own legislative agenda, Tim Fernholz reports that this year's budget problem is already taken care of by Walker's own debt restructuring plan:

The state's entire budget shortfall for this year -- the reason that Walker has said he must push through immediate cuts -- would be covered by the governor's relatively uncontroversial proposal to restructure the state's debt.

By contrast, the proposals that have kicked up a firestorm, especially his call to curtail the collective-bargaining rights of the state's public-employees, wouldn't save any money this year.

So not only would Walker's proposal to strip unions of their bargaining rights not save any money by itself, not only has he refused to reach a compromise with the unions who have already said they'd agree to benefit cuts in exchange for preserving their collective bargaining rights, but the short-term deficit problem Walker ginned up as an excuse to crush the unions is one he's already solved.

This makes it clear, as Greg wrote yesterday, that this is no longer about Wisconsin's finances. This is no longer about "fiscal responsibility." It's about whether or not public workers have a right to organize in their own interests -- a right a majority of Americans support. This isn't about "hard decisions" or "shared sacrifice" or any of the other euphemisms conservatives employ when they're talking about shifting the fiscal burden from rich people to working people. It's about a Republican governor making a political power play against a Democratic constituency. We shouldn't pretend it's anything else.

rest at http://voices.washingtonpost.com/plum-line/2011/02/its_just_about_crushing_the_un.html?wprss=plum-line