I Thought It Was Because We Are Broke?

Remember when we had to fuck over the unions because those dirty thug teachers, fire fighters, and police officers were bankrupting the state of Wisconsin with their commie pensions and collective bargaining? No one could have predicted that Gov. Scott Walker is full of shit:

KUCINICH: Let me ask you about some of the specific provisions in your proposals to strip collective bargaining rights. First, your proposal would require unions to hold annual votes to continue representing their own members. Can you please explain to me and members of this committee how much money this provision saves for your state budget?

WALKER: That and a number of other provisions we put in because if you’re going to ask, if you’re going to put in place a change like that, we wanted to make sure we protected the workers of our state, so they got value out of that. [...]

KUCINICH: Would you answer the question? How much money does it save, Governor?

WALKER: It doesn’t save any. [...]

KUCINICH: I want to ask about another one of your proposals. Under your plan you would prohibit paying union member dues from their paychecks. How much money would this provision save your state budget?

WALKER: It would save employees a thousand dollars a year they could use to pay for their pensions and health care contributions.

KUCINICH: Governor, it wouldn’t save anything. [Goes on to present letter from LRF and is denied unanimous request for it to be placed in the public record by Issa]

And you know it's just coincidental that he bent over backwards to take a personal phone call from someone purporting to be David Koch. I am sure he is not just doing his corporate masters bidding or pursuing an overly ideological agenda aimed at screwing the masses in the name of his pet issues. 


Make no mistake, Republicans are doing this at the federal level too. Republicans are using the ignorant public's fear over economic hardship and deficits to propose policies that would make both of those measures just that much worse. And their policy proposals, notably the Very Serious laughably termed Paul Ryan Path to Prosperity, seek the same aims as we saw in Wisconsin: kicking the working poor and middle class in the teeth while lavishing enormous tax breaks on the wealthy and corporations. But none of this is about returning our country to economic growth or bringing down the deficit. The modern Republican party does not care about either of these things, despite their frequent use of that straw man to disguise their true intentions from the myriad of low-information voters in this country. Their policies are cynical, ideological aims that seek nothing else but to continue the enactment of demonstrably failed policies that have the effect of weakening economic growth, exploding the deficit, and enriching the few at the expense of the many.