'Right-to-work' is Walker's new rocket surgery
Yes, the GOP-ruled Wisconsin State Senate has approved the misnamed 'right-to-work' bill, a favor to Scott Walker who needs it to show Vladimir Putin and ISIS he means business,
The Senate vote was 17-15, with former GOP Senate moderate Dale Schultz's recent purge regrettably noted, along with the "Aye" vote by Green Bay's GOP Sen. Robert Cowles, once a middle-of-the-road guy turned serial rightist capitulator.
The bill will sail through the Assembly next week, and Walker will sign it when his handlers can set up a day of vacation from his cross-country Tea Party politicking and overseas' junketing.
Political junkies will rate this latest Walker blow to unions as successfully aimed even lower than his surprise, 2011 sucker-punch to public sector collective bargaining because this one is nailing some jilted supporters, and blue collar workers, like road-building heavy-equipment operators, who'd endorsed Walker before.
Commentators and operatives endorsing the 'by whatever means necessary' creed will praise Walker's feints denying any interest in the proposal, parsing his denials, labeling it all a distraction - - though, let's face it, it has taken attention away from the budget deficit he's created, the staff and mission-clear-cut he's ordered for the Department of Natural Resources, his attack on the UW system and the overall corrupting of the political process on behalf of wealthy, out-of-state interests - - while he had his elves at the silver bullet factory cribbing the bill from elsewhere and selling it as if were a Wisconsin Idea.
If you think the bill was massaged through the process by GOP legislative leaders without Walker's direction and campaign timetable in the blueprint, you are probably the last person in Wisconsin who thinks "overzealous political associates" in or with access to Milwaukee County Executive's office, as the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel called them, installed and ran that secret Internet communications, fund-raising and strategizing e-mail system 25-feet from his office without his knowledge.
So now a new state law that will further weaken the ability of workers to bargain wages, hours and working conditions is going to jump start a Wisconsin job market that continues to lag the national recovery which Republicans will never acknowledge is President Obama's doing.
We've heard and seen these failed Walker-era promises and righty bromides before.
He was going to create 250,000 new jobs through tax cuts and other trickled-down, discredited Reagan-esque economics. (Walker does love him some Reagan.)
Then Walker's recall win was going to reboot and launch the state economy.
"Tremendous takeoff," Walker said.
Yes, "like a rocket," Vos chirped.
Now the new best thing is a bill to make the Wisconsin job market already prone to low-wage job formation look more like poverty-ridden backwaters in rural Texas as our budget is resembling that mess in Kansas.
We give the last word on the methods by which Walker is dragging Wisconsin rightward and downward to the conservative economist Arthur Laffer, and his 2013 hosanna to conservative fiscal strategies he said would boost the Wisconsin economy:
The Senate vote was 17-15, with former GOP Senate moderate Dale Schultz's recent purge regrettably noted, along with the "Aye" vote by Green Bay's GOP Sen. Robert Cowles, once a middle-of-the-road guy turned serial rightist capitulator.
The bill will sail through the Assembly next week, and Walker will sign it when his handlers can set up a day of vacation from his cross-country Tea Party politicking and overseas' junketing.
Political junkies will rate this latest Walker blow to unions as successfully aimed even lower than his surprise, 2011 sucker-punch to public sector collective bargaining because this one is nailing some jilted supporters, and blue collar workers, like road-building heavy-equipment operators, who'd endorsed Walker before.
Commentators and operatives endorsing the 'by whatever means necessary' creed will praise Walker's feints denying any interest in the proposal, parsing his denials, labeling it all a distraction - - though, let's face it, it has taken attention away from the budget deficit he's created, the staff and mission-clear-cut he's ordered for the Department of Natural Resources, his attack on the UW system and the overall corrupting of the political process on behalf of wealthy, out-of-state interests - - while he had his elves at the silver bullet factory cribbing the bill from elsewhere and selling it as if were a Wisconsin Idea.
If you think the bill was massaged through the process by GOP legislative leaders without Walker's direction and campaign timetable in the blueprint, you are probably the last person in Wisconsin who thinks "overzealous political associates" in or with access to Milwaukee County Executive's office, as the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel called them, installed and ran that secret Internet communications, fund-raising and strategizing e-mail system 25-feet from his office without his knowledge.
So now a new state law that will further weaken the ability of workers to bargain wages, hours and working conditions is going to jump start a Wisconsin job market that continues to lag the national recovery which Republicans will never acknowledge is President Obama's doing.
We've heard and seen these failed Walker-era promises and righty bromides before.
He was going to create 250,000 new jobs through tax cuts and other trickled-down, discredited Reagan-esque economics. (Walker does love him some Reagan.)
Then Walker's recall win was going to reboot and launch the state economy.
"Tremendous takeoff," Walker said.
Yes, "like a rocket," Vos chirped.
Now the new best thing is a bill to make the Wisconsin job market already prone to low-wage job formation look more like poverty-ridden backwaters in rural Texas as our budget is resembling that mess in Kansas.
We give the last word on the methods by which Walker is dragging Wisconsin rightward and downward to the conservative economist Arthur Laffer, and his 2013 hosanna to conservative fiscal strategies he said would boost the Wisconsin economy:
"This is not rocket surgery," he said, mixing metaphors.
5 comments:
Nothing says, "I'd be tough on sovereign foreign nations" more strongly & boldly than attacking the public you have sworn to serve here in Wisconsin!
BRILLIANT strategy -- no wonder Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and the lapdog media are eating it up and now proclaiming him a shoo-in for the republican nomination.
This is an incredibly dishonest talking point that is being catapulted across the state and nation. There will be no change in Wisconsin until we hold the media accountable.
What is sad about Cowles vote is that he comes from Green Bay where union paper mill jobs created a strong middle class. When I was younger the union mills (P&G and American Can) helped keep the wages up at non-union Fort Howard, and the Fort helped keep the union pay strong as well. Cowles even has some family ties to the old Fort, so he knows how it worked. We even studied it in a class we had together at UWGB in the '70's. What a shame he didn't use his education for better purposes.
Now Fort Howard and American Can are Georgia-Pacific, owned by the Koch brothers. I'm sure they are licking their chops at at the saving they will accrue in employee compensation...
The latest propaganda:
Scott Walker plans trade mission to Germany, France, Spain
http://www.jsonline.com/news/statepolitics/scott-walker-touts-right-to-work-bill-at-manufacturers-gathering-b99452349z1-294208581.html
Out jet-settin' governor is now going to soak Wisconsin taxpayers for another European jaunt.
The media is happy to report this and make Walker look presidential and all. The sole purpose of this is to pump of faux white house credentials.
The real story should be that Walker is failing to provide leadership to grow the Wisconsin economy. His policies have failed.
The republicans admit this when they call mislabeled "Right to Work" a game-changer.
Wisconsin's stagnant economy has nothing to do with promoting trade with Germany, France,& Spain. Austerity for the masses and welfare for multinational corporate interests does not grow the economy.
But taxpayers are about to fund another expensive dog-and-pony show that has nothing to do with serving the Badger State.
And the media is going to prop this up as "big and bold"!
This whole new mantra of "INDIVIDUAL FREEDOM" got me to thinking; if I cannot be denied a job because I don't produce a union card ;WHY CAN I BE DENIED A BALLOT FOR NOT PRODUCING A PHOTO I D? Shouldn't I be given my freedom to vote just as RTW gives the individual freedom to work. I realize that in Wisconsin Gov.Walker and the Republican party controls my individual freedoms but if I'm free to Work I should also be free to vote!
Does anyone find it ironic that the RTW supporters argue that this is needed to bring in jobs and improve the Wisconsin economy yet there is no timetable nor number of jobs even projected nor how big of an economic bang is expected and when! They know that this has nothing to do with Wisconsin's economy and jobs; it's only a reward for corporate donors and businesses. When they kill prevailing wage next this will put the final nail in the coffin. State and local construction firms will be under bid by out of state firms using cheap labor for government projects and the Wisconsin economy and workers and families will take it in the shorts again. I would suspect that THE PUBLIC WILL FINALLY CATCH ON IN ABOUT A YEAR THAT WALKER AND REPUBLICAN'S HAVE DUMPED THE STATE IN THE CRAPPER AND THEY WILL BE WILLING TO SEND WALKER'S LAP DOGS HOME. The Democratic party in Wisconsin better have a slate of well spoken truthful and factual candidates ready so that Wisconsin can gain legislative control and start the long road back to sanity!
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