Posted on 03/07/2015 11:45:25 PM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
In America, you have the right to remain silent, the right to rise—and soon the right to work. At least that is if you live in Wisconsin, or one of the other right-to-work states that allow private sector workers to opt out of union membership.
Next week, it is expected that Gov. Scott Walker will sign legislation making Wisconsin the 25th state to pass right-to-work legislation. Interestingly, Walker didn't actively push for this legislation, but his signature will nonetheless guarantee one more feather in the cap of a Republican governor who has helped transform his state in recent years.
You have to marvel at just how lucky Walker is. While some governors have a hard time documenting any accomplishments, Walker seems to have his purple state working on autopilot.
So is this a big deal? Does Walker deserve credit?? And is this the kind of thing that would buttress the resume of a presidential candidate???
I posed these questions to the always quotable Grover Norquist, head of Americans for Tax Reform. Reached for comment abroad, Norquist emailed me this approving response. (I like to think of it as a kind of Haiku):
Walker led with Act 10 reforming government unions in Wisconsin.
He wisely didn't do Right to Work at the same time.
He has now won three elections. The state has watched Act 10 work.
... Next week he signs Right to Work...in Wisconsin
for heaven sake.
He did public sector labor reform.
Tax cut.
Expanded school choice
Concealed Carry legalized.
Reduced regulation on mining....big deal up north.
Now right to work in private sector.
And...public university reform in this year's budget.
Message: Not a one trick pony. Still reforming in
the middle of a campaign.
Walker can create a news event. Not a speech. Real progress.
The only thing Jeb Bush can sign is a check...
Why can't all sources be like this?
Norquist makes a compelling case for Walker, but this also serves as a reminder of one of the stark contrasts that exists in our nation. And it's not just the right vs. left divide; it's also the national vs. state divide. While some Republicans are (perhaps not unreasonably) worried they might not ever win another national election, they now control more state legislatures than ever (including both houses in the Wisconsin legislature).
And while social conservatives may lament losing the culture war, on the fiscal front, the collapse of organized labor has been nothing short of remarkable. To many conservatives, unions are a symbol of violence, strikes, socialist influence, voter intimidation, and general thuggery. They provided the money and ground troops for Democrats. And even though some conservatives might have hated them, there was a time in the 20th century when to attack unionization was to attack mom, apple pie, the flag, and blue collar America in general.
But times have changed. Dramatically. In 1953, almost a third of American employees were union members. Today, in Wisconsin, only about eight percent of private sector employees are unionized (and one expects that number will begin declining).
As such, Walker didn't so much deliver a coup de grace as he committed a mercy killing. And in this regard, he stands on the shoulder of giants. There are various cultural and economic reasons for the decline of unions in America, but one can't help thinking the political strategy and messaging employed by conservatives has at least been a major contributor.
Language is important, and you know your framing has worked when your opponents use it, too. “Right to work is desperately wrong for Wisconsin,” Wisconsin's Democratic leader in the Assembly recently complained.
His battle was lost before he finished saying it. Who could be against the right to work?
You think Walker is going to be a good president because he did a good thing in Wisconsin.
I get it. He got rid of the unions. What he did had a good effect on his state’s economy and encouraged people who don’t like unions.
If I ask why he did it, I get the same reaction I would get from my teenagers if I asked them why they like a certain person of the opposite sex. Emotional guttural hatred. So I don’t ask. I wait until that person shows his true colors and let the breakup happen.
I can’t ask why people like Walker for the same reason. they have a crush. He’s dreamy. I’m being a buzzkill. My mistake is expecting the voting public to act like adults.
If I ask a teenager why a guy likes her and wants to take her out, she’ll say because he loves her and they’re going to get married some day. Ok. But I am not going to let her stay out late with him, or allow him to distract her from her studies.
She would hate that and would hate me. Same when I ask what Scott Walkers intentions were and are. NOt allowed to ask.
People liked BO. He is black. Sort of. They vote for him. Because he’s black. Or they want him to be. They say race relations will improve. He’s also a Democrat, so they say everything will be better because he’s Black and a Democrat.
They know nothing about him nor what he is going to do to protect and defend the Constitution of the US, which is the main part of the job.
Now we have Walker. Who is he? What is he going to do to protect and defend the Constitution? He busted unions in his state. Ok. I hated being forced to be in a union when I worked in NY. I moved. Not because of it, but it’s a plus.
Unions are not unconstitutional. Half the voters like them.
Is Scott Walker going to come in and get rid of all the unions in the country? Is that his platform?
If it is, I haven’t heard him say it. And if it is, what is his reason? Does he hate unions for the same reason you do? or is it for another reason? Why can’t we ask without getting hatred? It’s just a question.
Texas doesn’t have unions. Does that mean it doesn’t have a growing problem made much worse by the action and inaction of congress?
How is Scott Walker going to help? He can’t bust unions in Texas.
He’s going to bust the unions in New York and New Jersey? They’re going to let some Midwesterner without a college degree in and bust their unions? In Maryland, on the main street in Annapolis, among of the most prime commercial real estate in the country, is a building a multi story building with brass lettering, the Teachers Union owns the building. No telling what the cost is. Why is it there, among quaint shops and restaurants? They’re going to give that up because we vote in a guy from Wisconsin?
OK. I am just asking his motivation.
We have John McCain in the senate and he’s screwed up our pres election more than once. He already gave us BO, no one talks about that.
What has he done? He’s a war hero. What did he do? He got shot down and survived the Hanoi Hilton. A lot of guys did. They are among the best we have. some have served in congress very admirably. They didn’t run on that, they ran on what they could do.
We always like to say John McCain will do what we think he’ll do because he got shot down and survived.
What did he do in the military? How did he get into the Academy? How did he do in the Academy. The answers to those simple questions shine a light on what he’s done in congress and why BO is president and not him
Here’s what I get in sunday morning emails that wake me up if I forget to put don’t disturb on my phone:
“Conservative Matt Salmon Can Defeat John McCain! John McCain’s Support For Amnesty And Higher Taxes Is Not Acceptable! Please Help Matt Salmon Win This Race!”
This is keeping me from sleeping on a sunday morning.
I could have told them this in 1998 after I called McCain’s office- he was chairman of the Senate armed services committee by virtue of having been shot down over North Viet Nam as a young inexperienced officer and capitalizing on that for the decades since- to discuss military personnel reaction to Clinton. No interest. None. fundraising for his presidential run. I got solicited for cash to help him run for office.
20 years I tell people McCain is not a good leader. Wha? he got shot down and survived the Hanoi Hilton, you can’t say that!
Ok but I’m getting this email Waking me up Conservatives are after him. After 40 years of his ignoring conservatives, I’m getting this.
Can I simply ask why Scott Walker busted the unions?
Just why?
What’s da matter, did your widdle union fall down go boom?
Why are you so angry at Scott Walker?
Oh boy
You want him to be president can we not ask who these people are?
Scott walker will never beat the dem contender.
I can’t ask who he is because if I do I am pro union
Sounds like the Dems Rassis!
Are you pro-union?
I said very clearly in my note that I was not and I gave the reason as well
But this is the time wasting idiocy one goes through when vetting a politician who wants to be president
So I ask you, what motivates walker and does it extrapolate into a successful presidency, in which conservatives benefit?
I hope he stomps the guts out of the unions and feeds them to the hogs. I hope he gets the chance to cut everyone’s taxes like he has in WI.
I really don’t give a $hit why he makes you so angry if you are unable to say what he has done wrong. He’s been doing the right things in WI, and kicking liberal a$$ at every level of state government.
That is exactly what we need in Washington.
Hope
Ok.
Do you have a good reason to hope this? His motivation should tell you what he does and will do and his reasons. He may be great. If so, he can stand up to the questions
To break the power of the corrupt leftist union leaders.
You assign immature motives to Walker. Doesn’t work. The issue has nothing to do with “emotional guttural hatred”. It is simply the right thing to do. Public sector-unions are anathema to taxpayers at all levels. What is shocking is how many people support them.
The Purple People Beaters.
The taxpayers and residents. Why are you even making this argument?
Because you as a taxpayer have no seat at the negotiating table when any government employee union COLLECTIVELY BARGAINS against you.
This is the main reason state and federal budgets ALWAYS GO UP. Because of automatic raises and increases in benefit packages for overstaffed, overpaid and underworked bureaucRATic union thugs.
Other than that....no reason.
Where did that come from? Is it in his past? Did he explain it?
We know what BO wants he wrote it in his books and portrayed it in his choices of associations. Dnesh dsouza studied it. Yet people still ascribe his motivations as their own. He’s down with the struggle. No he’s not
I know walker is no BO. I understand that. But why did he bust the unions? Is he going to take on those who damage and destroy the constitution?
We can hope he does but there is no logical historic or substantial reason other than ‘I hope so’
Not good enough
I prefer to start with the simple question that not one person in 12 hours has answered and that speaks volumes
I am completely unaffected by FR verbal abuse. Utterly. Just as I am from liberals and for the same reasons
It serves only to help me argue with illogical immature smitten romanticizing people who claim to be adults and get mad when busted for acting like adolescents with a crush. On Scott walker
Union busting has many positive attributes which do not get past me
The extremely simple answer to the question for which I have taken 12 hours of FRabuse over is what motivates him?
There could be a very good answer no one her who has the hots for him wants to answer. Do a smidgen of research. The answer might be a good one that gives one a REASON to hope he’ll do more good things.
It might be a bad one, exposing nefarious reasons. Don’t you want to know?
Walker went after the unions because they opposed him politically. The only two public unions which did not lose their collective bargaining where the ones representing police and fire, coincidentally the two unions who supported him during the election.
When liberals argue they argue with emotions not facts
You’re sure about walker?
Just saying, I have no reason other than wanting to know peoples motivations, not ascribing convenient untrue unsubstantiated reasons
Their actions and words are what give them away
Here are some quotes:
http://www.ontheissues.org/governor/Scott_Walker_Immigration.htm
He is slippery on amnesty. I’d want to know for absolute certainty what motivates him to fight like he did for years on end. It would have to be a powerful motivator for such determination
If it was conservatism I’d like to see the same spirit in his other views. Especially the ones affecting us more like what BO and his minions are doing to our country on a daily basis Bust the unions great. But whe ppl extrapolate that out to busting li destructive ideological actions, big government. Destruction of the rule of law, Hillary and her antics, whom they’ll be up against
I’d like to know where else he’s conservative The unions good make life easy for workers. But I don’t want to see at the same time a big sympatico for illegal farm workers and as it is I’d like to hear from walker that these illegals he has such a desire to help did not benefit from this years long struggle of his
Before I like him for pres that is
Should have been, ‘bust The unions. Good, make life easy for workers’
Because the leftist controlled public employee Unions are busting the budgets of government at every level and driving this nation into the ground.
Is he going to take on those who damage and destroy the constitution?
He already has. See my answer above.
See the Cloward-Piven Strategy if you don't understand the Left's plan to destroy The Constitution. Public employee unions are an integral part of that strategy. That is why Walker drives them nuts.
It seems to me that Walker has three attributes that I admire.
1.) He is a good manager.
2.) He is fiscally responsible with the 'peoples purse.'
3.) He is not in the least intimidated by the thugs looking to transform this nation and destroy the constitution by literally taking us bankrupt.
Being a union member in reality means having the right to be paid without working.
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