Why I'm Doing What I'm Doing

I got an email from a concerned family member tonight about the situation in here in cheeseland. I've crossposted my response below in case anyone is interested why I'm protesting:

We appreciate your concern. We are also very worried about the future and I agree that government spending and deficit is a serious and troubling concern.

I've read the article you attached and found its accuracy lacking. To start with, our public employees are not overpaid - see this empirical study that shows they are underpaid compared to their private sector counterparts.

At the anecdotal level, professors at my university make approximately 10% less than professors in other comparable universities. The Committee on Institutional Cooperation found last fall that teaching assistants in the German department, despite being a top-ranked and large program, are compensated less than any other school in the Big Ten and a number of other Midwest schools.

The article is right that the deficit is untenable - but it does not investigate what caused that deficit. You can read the January report from the Legislative Fiscal Bureau
Walker and the legislature have already passed tax breaks for businesses and health savings accounts which have contributed millions to the deficit. Although the economy here is not the worst, it is still not up to pre-crisis levels, which affects how much revenue the state can generate. This is a problem, especially now that federal stimulus money has dried up and the state still has outstanding bills owed to Medicaid, the District Attorney's Office and the Department of Corrections.

Public employees have agreed to cuts already - almost all have been required to take numerous unpaid furlough days over past two years, which is an effective pay cut. In addition, the contract negotiated last year between the public unions and the state representatives had numerous concessions, but was rejected by the legislature at the behest of Walker in December (and as we have been on contract extensions, it would have only been good through June anyway). Although they are not happy about having to pay increasing amounts, the public unions have told Walker that they are willing to take the proposed increases in the cost of benefits - even more - because they realize that everyone must sacrifice (even beyond what they already have) in these tough economic times, on the condition that they keep their collective bargaining rights.

And here is the heart of the matter. Walker has rejected the union's offer because he is determined to take away their bargaining rights, despite the fact that they have nothing to do with the budget deficit. For him, it is a power game. By crippling the bargaining rights of the public unions and making Wisconsin a "right to work" state, he is effectively busting the unions. This is supported by many conservatives who see unions as a hindrance to their political goals, since unions traditionally donate to liberal candidates, and to their economic goals, since unions tend to hamper the maximizing of profit. There also seems to be a money trail leading from Walker's campaign back to the big business men, the Koch Brothers, who are looking to bust private sector unions in Wisconsin as well in order to increase their profit margins. You can read more about that here.

Now, I am no friend of unions, I do not belong to the union on campus for teaching assistants, and I consider myself a moderate. However, I think unions serve as an important balance to big business and I would love to see big business and unions reformed, as well as a real reform of campaign finance to make our politics a more democratic process. But I will not support the partisan strong arm and scapegoating tactics that Walker is insisting are fiscally motivated, when they are in fact based on the worst kind of self-serving politics, and enforced by preemptive threats of calling out the National Guard and ever increasing numbers of layoffs if he doesn't get his way.