Wisconsin tolls the bell for public-employee unions

By: Matt Patterson 03/13/11 8:05 PM

Nothing so pleases the ear as the howl of liberals getting a taste of their own medicine. Take the liberal outrage over Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker's (so far) successful effort to curtail collective bargaining rights of public-employee unions in the Badger State, a measure he is convinced is necessary to put Wisconsin's dire fiscal house in order.
Liberal politicians in the state Senate exploded in rage over Walker's proposal; instead of debating the matter in a civil fashion (liberals love civility, remember?) 14 of them decamped en masse to neighboring Illinois in a petulant attempt to prevent a quorum and therefore derail passage of the bill. So, the governor and his allies in the Senate ingeniously stripped the bill of its fiscal measures (and therefore the need for a quorum) and voila! 

Senate passage was secured. The Democrats who took their dolls and went home are now dismayed to find that their playmates in the state government got on perfectly well without them; having fled the state in a fit of childish pique, abandoning their constituents and the job they are paid to do, the Democrats and their union masters are shocked -- shocked! -- that Republicans got about the business of governing without them.

When it comes to liberals not getting what they want, hyperbole knows no bounds: One Democratic state senator called the bill's passage "political thuggery in its worst form."

Political thuggery! That's rich, as Walker is merely doing what he campaigned to do, what he was elected to do, and what the citizens of Wisconsin fully expect him to do. The parliamentary procedure used to secure the bill's passage was entirely legitimate, and may not have been necessary if the Democrats had acted like responsible adults, stayed in Madison, and actually done their job.

The outrage over Walker's extraordinary move is especially sickening in light of the near-unanimous liberal support of President Obama's monstrous health care bill, which passed the U.S. Congress via a similarly obscure parliamentary procedure, without a shred of bipartisan support and against the wishes of large majorities of Americans.

Remember when opponents of Obamacare hid out in Mexico and refused to vote or debate the matter? No? Oh, that's because they didn't -- one can only imagine the howls of the likes of the New York Times had they done so.

Walker has been as stalwart and principled a politician as we have seen in decades. The lavish pension and health-care plans for public employees, driven by collective bargaining, have added billions in unfunded and underfunded mandates to state books, mandates which they can no longer afford. California, Illinois, New Jersey, Maryland ... how many states do public unions have to bankrupt before their power to strangle the economy is broken?

Wisconsin alone is facing a projected $3.6 billion budget shortfall over the next two years, a horrific fiscal reality which, if not dealt with soon, will result in higher taxes and fewer employment opportunities for average Wisconsin citizens.

Most of those same citizens do not enjoy the bloated salaries, generous benefits and job protection enjoyed by public-employee unions. Indeed, the average citizen pays for those bloated union salaries and benefits -- who do you think coughs up the taxes that end up in union members' pockets?

Unions started by blackmailing and bankrupting small businesses, before moving on to large corporations and then state governments. The time to break the power of these economic plunderers is now -- indeed, it is long overdue.

Matt Patterson is senior editor at the Capital Research Center and a contributor to "Proud to Be Right: Voices of the Next Conservative Generation" (HarperCollins, 2010).

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