On Wisconsin :: Political News and commentaries

« Pick of the 'Bits' this morning | Main | On the AP as a Union Mouthpiece »

February 18, 2011

On Wisconsin

Robert Stacy McCain writes at The American Spectator:

The madness in Madison has suddenly supplanted Cairo as the cable-news mob scene of choice. Yesterday, MSNBC loudmouth Ed Schultz broadcast his show live amid the clamor in the capitol, clearly hoping that the union goons are as successful in their uprising against Republican Gov. Scott Walker as the Muslim Brotherhood was against Hosni Mubarak.

The Walker-Mubarak comparison made frequently by the protesters, as well as comparisons of the Republican governor to Hitler, inspired University of Wisconsin law professor Ann Althouse to muse: "After all those efforts to paint Tea Partiers as using violent images and rhetoric, these pictures from Madison have got to hurt." Quin Hillyer's observations about the Obama-led "thugocracy" illustrate the yawning chasm between the intimidation tactics of the Left and all the prattling about "civility" liberals dished out last month.

The still-greater chasm is the economic gap between the striking government employees and the taxpayers who pay their salaries. Stephen Hayes of the Weekly Standard points out that the average teacher in Wisconsin receives $77,857 in total compensation, when the value of their generous benefit package is added to their salaries. Given that the median household income in Wisconsin is just above $50,000 (and the typical household has more than one wage-earner), this means that the striking teachers are earning substantially more than the people whose taxes pay their salaries. Furthermore, the basic bone of contention between them and Gov. Walker is his plan to make them contribute a larger share toward their pension and health benefits.

Keep reading for more eye-opening facts about the economic realities of the Wisconsin strike.

Little wonder that there should be little doubt that President Obama and his fellow Democrats have placed themselves squarely on the wrong side of the issue. After all, Americans are increasingly more aware that public-sector unions bleed taxpayers to help the Democrats.

Shaking my head in disgust, I'm wondering if I'm the only one that gets the feeling we're seeing the unions and their leftist friends in the Democratic Party (that they pump cash to in exchange for political payback) ... methodically dragging America down to the level of a 3rd world country.