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| What happened?! |
The Wisconsin Senate succeeded in voting Wednesday to strip nearly all collective bargaining rights from public workers, after Republicans outmaneuvered the chamber's missing Democrats and approved an explosive proposal that has rocked the state and unions nationwide.The unions had been attempting to intimidate the Republicans, who had been voted in by the people last fall.
All 14 Senate Democrats fled to Illinois nearly three weeks ago, preventing the chamber from having enough members present to consider Gov. Scott Walker's "budget-repair bill" - a proposal introduced to plug a $137 million budget shortfall.
The Senate requires a quorum to take up any measure that spends money. But Republicans on Wednesday took all the spending measures out of Walker's proposal and a special committee of lawmakers from both the Senate and Assembly approved the revised bill a short time later.
The unexpected yet surprisingly simple procedural move ended a stalemate that had threatened to drag on indefinitely.
Nice.
After Republicans cut off debate a little more than three hours after it started, Democrats jumped up to protest. Assembly Minority Leader Peter Barca (D-Kenosha) brought a megaphone out from under his desk and through it yelled, "Mr. Speaker, I demand to be recognized."
He was ignored.
BRAVO Wisconsin for leading the way with common sense controls on unions -- Hopefully other states will follow and free taxpayers from these grievously unfair demands,
ReplyDeletemoving in the direction of creating level playing fields for private and public sectors
Right on, Anonymous! The people that are needing representation are the people payng the frieght, not these government union employees crowding around the capitol with nothing better to do.
ReplyDeleteCool beans ... who'd ever have thought we'd live to see the day when some GOP politicians have [guts].
ReplyDeleteWell, Ilíon, this is a chance to also look elsewhere for the brighter side of things. We’ll see soon enough.
ReplyDeleteIn this case, yes, however limited, it seems Walker stood his ground quite well and out-tricked the tricksters and FleeBagger WI state senate Dems who decided that rather than face the will of the people, they'd hide out and have some party time with the absurd Ed Schultz.
To little avail. Gotta love it.
But the GOP elsewhere is in need of a spine. WI is a victory, yes. And a very important one more for the symbolism than the estimated few hundred millions saved due to the kleptocratic behavior of the former governor--a Dem no one has mentioned, hardly--who made off with millions in funds after raiding the pantry.
But what about elsewhere?
As Mark Steyn noted the other day, the GOP managed to score what at best is a pyrrhic victory in removing a few hundred million at the federal level's Jabba the Hutt paunch. Or was that actually adding 3 billion? Who knows. These things are messy and dependent on CBO rounding errors. In any case, this symbolism was lost for whatever promise it once had. I realize that 6 decades of liberal spendthrifting cannot be undone in two days.
Hip to the jive. I dig it. But still..
The Democrats retort that any more cuts above a mere 38 billion (which is going to be canceled for the effect--reset back to the starting gate due to interest on the debt alone) will lead to your granny having to eat Tender Vittles and leave a pile of clean-licked cans, seems to have worked.
The GOP needs to argue this ideologically rather than dicker with specifics just yet.
The ONE positive thing that MIGHT--just might--come out of stem cell research is that perhaps now science can give us hope that the GOP can be made to grow spines. I’d say they need to grow a couple of other items, but don’t wanna come off as being too harsh. Yet.
They have the brains, and so now just need the…well..you get the picture….
Tha's why I made a point of saying "some GOP politicians".
ReplyDelete