Posted on 02/19/2011 4:09:28 AM PST by kevkrom
The union-led school closures and demonstrations in Madison have left most ordinary Americans shaking their heads in disbelief. Months ago, I penned a message to my fellow union brothers and sisters when I found myself on the receiving end of union boss Richard Trumka’s wrath. Yesterday’s demonstrations reminded me of the full-page ads taken out against me when I put my foot down in dealing with union demands while I served as governor. My message then and now to good union brothers and sisters is that you have another option. You don’t have to kowtow to the union bosses who are not looking out for you, but instead are using you. You can join millions of other union members in a commonsense movement to help fight for the right causes in our great country – for budgets that share the burden in a truly fair way and for commonsense reforms that take power away from vested interests like union bosses and big business lobby groups, and put it back where it belongs – with “We the People.”
Here we are still struggling to get out of a deep recession and coping with high unemployment, record deficits, rapidly rising food prices, and a host of other economic problems; and Wisconsin union bosses want union members out in the streets demanding that taxpayers foot the bill for unsustainable benefits packages. I am a friend to hard working union members and to teachers. I come from a family of teachers; my grandparents, parents, brother, sister, aunt, and other relatives worked, or still work, in education. My own children attend public schools. I greatly admire good teachers and will always speak up in defense of the teaching profession. But Wisconsin teacher unions do themselves no favor by closing down classrooms and abandoning children’s needs in protest against the sort of belt-tightening that people everywhere are going through. Union brothers and sisters: this is the wrong fight at the wrong time. Solidarity doesn’t mean making Wisconsin taxpayers pay for benefits that are not sustainable and affordable at a time when many of these taxpayers struggle to hold on to their own jobs and homes. Real solidarity means everyone being willing to sacrifice and carry our share of the burden. It does no one any favors to dismiss the sacrifices others have already had to make—in wage cuts, unpaid vacations, and even job losses—to weather our economic storm.
Hard working, patriotic, and selfless union brothers and sisters: please don’t be taken in by the union bosses. At the end of day, they’re not fighting for your pension or health care plan or even for the sustainability of Wisconsin’s education budget. They’re fighting to protect their own powerful privileges and their own political clout. The agenda for too many union bosses is a big government agenda that only serves the union bosses themselves – not union members, not union families, and certainly not the larger community. Everybody else is just there to foot the bill; and if that bill eventually takes the form of thousands of teachers and other public sectors workers losing their jobs because the state of Wisconsin can no longer afford to keep them on the payroll, that’s a risk the union bosses are willing to take as long as their positions are secure. Union brothers and sisters: you are better than this and you deserve better. Don’t be led astray.
One final word of warning to my fellow Americans: back in 2009, I warned about what would happen if states accepted short-term unsustainable debt-ridden “Stimulus Package” funds. Accepting those funds allowed states to grow government, increase already unsustainable levels of spending, kick the can down the road on reforming entitlements, and create public expectations that they would continue financing these new mandates once the federal funds ran out. States were not in a position to grow government and take on new financial commitments then, and now the chickens have come home to roost. As goes Wisconsin today, so goes the country tomorrow.
- Sarah Palin
Bob Dole was a FIVE term Senator. When he ran for the Presidency in 1996, he had already completed FOUR years of his six year term. He did not resign from the Senate until AFTER he had won enough delegates from primary contests to SECURE the nomination.
The fact that you try to make some analogy to Bob Dole - not only an announced candidate, but the presumptive nominee - to Sarah Palin, is facially absurd. And, anyone who wasn't a moron, would see it.
Dole, correctly, didn't think it was fair to the people of AK to hold one office, while he was the presumptive nominee of another. Sarah Palin quit her job in 2009 - almost three years before the first 2012 primary, and long before she even officially announced her candidacy. Your argument is specious.
I have made no secret that I am not a fan of Palin...so what? People talk about other politicians in here like cur dogs. It is only you butterfly-thin skinned Palin supporters that seem to have a problem with any type of criticism.
This is why she has no chance at the nomination. If people on FR, who agree almost 99% of the time on most issues, have these kinds of disagreements about her, what do you think the general public thinks? Get out of your FR bubble.
Give me your best defense for all the pin ups we have seen of Palin on FR. You want to throw the PC ‘offensive and derogatory card’, go ahead, defend Wonder Woman Sarah.
Read OldDeckHand’s post several times until it sinks in. He did a far better job than me explaining why your comparison to Dole was ridiculous.
I love how the antiplain idiots try to justify someone else quitting. Palin had her reasons to resign. Very good reasons just like Dole had his reasons. I happen to agree with both their reasons. They both resigned for their own reasons with the voters in mind. Your failure to accept that fact makes you a hypocrite. Deal with that also.
Your word choice seems to suggest you don't like her because she is a woman. There really is no defense that can be made against sexism. Just call it out and move on.
Yes, he quit AFTER he was the presumptive nominee and after he completed five full terms. Palin quit (in her first term) almost three years before the first primary. Some 1.5 years later, she still isn't a candidate for anything.
Deal with it.
Get over yourself. I worked for and supported Martha Roby, Congresswoman for the 2nd District in Alabama and she won. I would say to quit getting your panties in a wad, but you would pull the sexism thing on me. So don’t get your shorts in a knot.
Sarah Palin is an opportunist and is playing you people like a cheap fiddle. Her continued blathering on every subject on earth will be her undoing. Amazing that so called conservatives revert to the tried and true methods of the left...sexism. Oh brother. Sorry, sister.
“Defend her from what?”
I am not asking you to defend Sarah Palin. You are the one who has thrown the sexism card. I am asking you to defend all these stupid photo shopped pictures of Sarah Palin as Wonder Woman and other objects of ‘sexism’ that appear on threads on FR. If this is such an issue to you, then you should make it your mission to tell your fellow Palin supporters to quit doing this.
I have said before and will say again: I will vote for her if she is the nominee. I could not stay home and allow for this socialist to win another term. I have not heard the same out of Palin supporters if she is not the nominee, however.
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