As school teachers and other publically employed members of unions in Wisconsin continue their march on that state’s capital, protesters frequently compare Republican Governor Scott Walker to Hitler or some other megalomaniac bent on destroying the hopes and dreams of the middle class. Some Wisconsin politicians, like state senator Fred Risser (D-Madison), paint the governor a despot by claiming that “[Walker] comes across more like a dictator and less like a leader.” And President Obama has asserted himself in the mix to assure union leaders he stands with them and believes the legislation Governor Walker supports will “just [make] it harder for public employees to collectively bargain generally,” and that it is “an assault on unions.”
Missing in all this name-calling and finger-pointing is the honest truth about what’s happening in states like Wisconsin where unions have run budgets into the ground: and that truth is that public employees have grown so accustomed to pensions, health insurance, and other benefits coming to them via taxpayer expense that they can’t handle the thought of paying their own way like regular “volk” (a little joke for the “Hitler” chanters in the crowd.)
That’s right: Many of the marchers/protesters in Wisconsin are simply outraged that they may actually have to pay for the goods and services they’re used to forcing others to purchase for them. And they’re so blinded by their learned dependency on big government handouts that they can’t understand that Governor Walker is simply asking all employees in the state to carry their own weight for a change, because taxpayers in Wisconsin can’t do it any more: it’s financially untenable.
As Rush Limbaugh put it: “Average, ordinary Americans who are paying the salaries and the health benefits and the pensions [of union members] are losing their jobs and losing their homes. [So] there isn’t any money anymore!” And this means average Americans, like those in Wisconsin, can’t afford to foot an extravagant bill for others any longer.
We must keep in mind that Governor Walker’s proposals don’t end collective bargaining altogether, which is the charge being leveled by union members and media outlets throughout the country. This is just a smoke screen thrown up by union bosses and the people obligated to those bosses (like Wisconsin Democrats and President Obama), as part of a greater effort to make it seem like Governor Walker is after unions per se. But in truth, the governor’s actions are aimed at saving the state of Wisconsin from the bankruptcy it faces if someone doesn’t step up and pull these unionized masses off the taxpayer’s teet.
Whether intentional or not, a tangled web was woven by Governor Walker’s predecessors, and along the way public employees only grew more accustomed to having their “pensions, healthcare, and unfunded liabilities” paid by rank and file residents of Wisconsin (who have no affiliation with unions apart from paying the expenses union members incur).
Governor Walker campaigned on reining things in financially for Wisconsin, and he’s doing just that. Along the way, he’s hit on a nerve that proves the validity of the assertion that big government handouts promote big dependence.
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