SCOTT WALKER, A GROWING VOICE…

Fresh off his recall election victory that gave his party a big boost heading into the fall general election, Wisconsin Republican Governor Scott Walker said the federal government needs to “reign in” the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) because both have been permitted to “run amok” under Barry. His remarks came at a Jobs Summit hosted by the Chamber of Commerce on Wednesday. During a press conference he said, “[W]e need to reign in, particularly two key areas, the National Labor Relations Board and the EPA so that our employers have certainty as to know exactly what’s going to happen in the future in those two critical areas.” He added, “Because we can do all the good in the world at the state level, but if you have federal agencies run amok like that, that stand in the way of economic growth and prosperity, we’re never going to be able to deal with this challenge.” he said. The governor went on to say, “I think we can, I believe we can, but we’ve got to have a government that’s willing to do it for us in Washington as well.” said the governor.

Gov. Walker attended the 2012 Jobs Summit held by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce (USCC) to sit on a “Governors Roundtable”, taking part in a discussion on what states are doing to better foster innovation and economic growth. “It’s pretty simple, we need more growth and more frugality,” Walker said following the roundtable discussion. The Wisconsin governor mentioned his recent recall election victory back on June 5 over Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett. “A couple of the other folks who covered Wisconsin know I’ve talked about this for some time, having just come off of -- guys I’m the first governor ever elected twice in the same term, so it’s kind of nice to hold that distinction,” he said. “More votes this time,” said U.S. Chamber President and CEO Tom Donhue. “Yeah, more votes this time,” Walker said. Walker defeated his challenger 53 to 46 percent, roughly one year after implementing reforms to trim the state budget in Wisconsin and curb the collective bargaining rights of public sector unions. Besides being a defeat for Mr. Barrett and the Democrats, it was also seen as a significant defeat of unions who poured millions into the race.

“But we had -- at obviously a smaller level -- but it was very parallel to what we face in Washington,” Walker said. “We came in last year, we had a $3.6 billion budget deficit -- one of the biggest ever -- and we had just come off of three years of losing more than 100,000 jobs and having an unemployment rate at the peak that was over 9 percent.” Going on to say, “We knew we had both an economic and a fiscal crisis we had to tackle, and so we took swift stern action and it paid off.” Walker pointed out, “It paid off with results. We’ve now seen, instead of job loss, we’ve seen job growth. We’ve seen the lowest unemployment rate since 2008 and we see budgets that are balanced now at the state, at the local level. In fact, we have a budget surplus, and for two consecutive years we’ve set money aside to put in our rainy day fund.” Isn’t it amazing, all that and still he was made to face a recall. But what strikes me as being a bit odd is that fact that his margin of victory wasn’t something more like, say, 90 to 10. That 46 percent of the people voting were unhappy enough with those results to vote Barrett, is really pretty amazing.

“We do it at the state level, there’s no reason why it can’t be done here [at the federal level],” Walker said. And he’s right! But you gotta have people who want to, starting with the president. He added, “But it’s got to be the two together. It can’t just be frugality, there’s got to be growth.” Walker than went on to compare the current state of the economy to the circumstances during the 1980 presidential campaign. “It was 30 years ago that we were facing the same, in fact in 1980 -- some of you will kick me for saying this -- but in 1980 when President [Ronald] Reagan was elected, two days before I turned 13 and yet I still can remember it wasn’t just a referendum on President [Jimmy] Carter’s failed policies and the fact that life wasn’t better four years later.” Walker made the point that, “It was fundamentally about a clear vision that President Reagan had, or candidate Reagan had at that time, about limited government, lower taxes, strong national defense and he carried that out.” Walker said Reagan’s economic recovery act led to the “largest peace-time economic growth in American history."

“So, I think from a national standpoint, not only do we need the stability of having some frugality in government, we need to have a pro-growth agenda that’s going to lower the tax rate, put more money back in the hands of American consumers,” said Walker. “We need certainty in terms of a repeal or change of the Affordable Care Act so that businesses, particularly small businesses, know what’s going to happen in the future when it comes to health care.” Such is the only plan that makes any sense if we are to be able to successfully navigate our way out of a mess that Barry has only succeeded in making so very much worse than anything that he can rightfully claim that he inherited. Barry has made it painfully obvious that he has no intention, whatsoever if taking any of the measures necessary to spur a genuine economic recovery, create millions of jobs and reduce both our amount of debt and our deficit. Barry has had his chance and chose to waste it in favor of pursuing his stated desire to “fundamentally transform” our country. He has demonstrated on any number of occasions that advancing his radical agenda takes priority over all else.

YOU CAN FILE THIS ONE UNDER, ‘TOO BAD, SO SAD!’…

It would now seem that the Democrats’ hopes for ousting Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker in June’s recall election, seem to be pretty much slipping out of reach, as the state’s biggest newspaper recently gave the incumbent a huge boost late on Saturday. The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel formally endorsed Walker in his battle to keep his job when he faces off against the city’s own mayor, Tom Barrett. It came by way of an editorial posted on its website Saturday night. In the editorial, the Journal-Sentinel said that although the governor is a controversial figure, “we see no reason to remove Walker from office. We recommend him in the June 5 recall election. “Walker's rematch with Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett was prompted by one issue: Walker's tough stance with the state's public-employee unions,” said the editorial. “It's inconceivable that the recall election would be occurring absent that. And a disagreement over a single policy is simply not enough to justify a vote against the governor.” EXACTLY!!

The paper also said it had no doubt that Barrett “like Walker, is a capable and honorable public servant, adding, “But this election isn't about Tom Barrett. It's about Scott Walker. “Even if you disagree with Walker's policies,” the editorial added, “does that justify cutting short his term as governor? And if so, where does such logic lead? To more recall elections? More turmoil?” Adding, “It's time to end the bickering and get back to the business of the state. We've had our differences with the governor, but he deserves a chance to complete his term. We recommended him in 2010. We see no reason to change that recommendation. We urge voters to support Walker in the June 5 recall election.” The endorsement came in the week that three separate polls showed Walker opening up a significant lead against Barrett. The surveys gave Walker a margin of between 5 and 9 percentage points. And to add to Barrett’s woes, the polls are showing his personal favorability figures are plummeting.

The Washington Post blog, something called ‘The Fix’, says at this point the Democrats' best chance is to go even more negative on Walker than they have already, as if that would be possible. Thanks to plenty of union money, they’ve already thrown everything at him but the kitchen sink. And something else that brings a tear to my one good eye is the fact that in recent days a rift seems to now have developed between the state’s Democratic Party and the Democratic National Committee over the amount of support Barrett is getting from outside the state. “Regardless of who’s right, these kinds of fights don’t happen on the winning side of the ledger,” says The Fix. “And they should be seen as further evidence that the Wisconsin recall is getting away from Democrats.” In an interview with the Associated Press, Walker said he is not afraid to lose to do the right thing and he still thinks people will elect him again because they want him to fix things. “They want me to keep the focus and attention on fixing things. We're just going to make sure we've got a more comprehensive and inclusive process to get there."

Look, I think from the outset of this thing unions were more than a little overconfident regarding their chances of success at being able to unseat Walker. I just don’t think they realized the extent to which people are simply fed up with being asked to subsidize pay and outrageous benefits packages for overpaid and under-worked public employees. Packages to the tune of twice that of those being asked, no make the forced into, covering the growing and rather exorbitant costs involved. Every day people are working harder and seeing less of their paychecks left over after paying for gas, food, their home, their own retirement, their own healthcare as well as all manner escalating taxes from sales taxes to property taxes to income taxes. And to watch these ‘spoiled brat’ union types actually rioting for being asked to do nothing more than to cough up a little more to cover the cost of their benefits, I think has had a rather adverse effect regarding the level of enthusiasm many people have for unions. And it is, I think, why Walker will win!

HAS GOV. WALKER OFFICIALLY BEGUN THE CAVING PROCESS?

So, the question is, "Why cave now to these union blackmailers?" And why is it that it is always the Republicans who must be willing to "compromise?" Nothing good ever comes out of something like this. All that ends up being accomplished is that the problems are pushed off to another day, when they will be much more difficult to deal with. This "compromise" will do nothing more than to re-enforce the type of bad behavior that has been exhibited by both these scumbag AWOL Democrats as well as the union leeches. The governor said at the very beginning of this that the 5 million people in his state deserved a voice, they deserved to be heard just as much as did the 300,000 union people. Well, by being willing to now "compromise," he is effectively telling those 5 million residents of his state that they are now free to go screw themselves. Once again we have a Republican who has a severe case of spinelessness. I'm not even sure if that's a word, but it fits what's going on here. So it was then that after turning down an invitation to meet with Democratic Party leaders on Monday, Gov. Walker has now offered to keep certain collective bargaining rights in place for state workers. All coming in the form of his proposed "compromise" which I guess is aimed at trying to end a nearly three-week standoff with these absentee Democratic state senators, at least according to e-mails released Tuesday by his office. The e-mails, some dated as recently as this passed Sunday, show somewhat of a softening stance on the part of Gov. Walker in his talks with the 14 Democrats who chose to flee to Illinois instead of manning up and doing the job that they get paid to do. In their effort to block a vote on his original proposal that would strip nearly all collective bargaining rights for public workers and force concessions amounting to an average 8 percent pay cut, they chose to run. What's going to happen is that victory will go to whichever team's players have the bigger balls. And from where I'm sitting, the governor needs to start growing a pair.



Under this new "compromise" now being floated by Gov. Walker and detailed in the previously mentioned e-mails, union workers would be able to continue collective bargaining over their salaries with no limit, which is a change from the governor's original plan that banned negotiated salary increases beyond inflation. He also proposed "compromises" allowing collective bargaining to stay in place on mandatory overtime, performance bonuses, hazardous duty pay and classroom size for teachers. The calling for increased contributions for health insurance and pension, projected to save the state $330 million by mid-2013, would remain. Sen. Bob Jauch, one of the 14 AWOL Democrats, said he hoped that the "compromise" would serve as a blueprint for future negotiations. But both he and Sen. Tim Cullen, who were working with Walker’s administration, said the latest offer was inadequate. Inadequate? Who do these worthless gasbags think they are? They hold the entire process hostage, and then claim that the, what I view as excessive, overtures now being made by the governor are inadequate? Look, I can't help but think that this whole notion of a "compromise" is a big mistake. You can never afford to give into individuals who use these types of tactics, because if you give these thugs so much as an inch they're going to want to take a mile. Nothing good can come from this "compromise." The e-mails even showed that Sen. Jauch had wanted even more items to be subject to collective bargaining than what Walker seeks to eliminate, including sick leave and vacation pay. “I consider the lines of communication still open,” Cullen said Tuesday. “Whether there’s going to be any communicating, remains to be seen. These things ebb and flow.” Boy, isn't that big of Mr. Cullen. This gutless coward has no right to be making any demands as long as he remains hiding out in another state. In fact, there should be absolutely no dialogue with these deserters until that can manage to grow up and get back to where it is that they belong!


Walker had repeatedly said that he would not budge on the key parts of the bill that’s been stymied in the Senate after Democrats left 19 days ago. But it would appear that he is now budging, and that cannot be viewed as being a positive thing. But the pressure to arrive at some sort of deal has increased as protests reached as large as 80,000 union parasites and polls show the public want a "compromise" and recall efforts were launched against 16 senators, including eight Republicans. Some of the items in Walker’s "compromise" plan could only be bargained if both sides agree to take them up. Workplace safety would be subjected to bargaining regardless. Walker also proposed allowing collective bargaining agreements to last up to two years, instead of the one-year limit in his original proposal. Unions would only have to vote to remain in existence every three years, instead of annually as Walker initially proposed. Additionally, University of Wisconsin Hospital and Clinics Authority employees would not lose all union bargaining rights and the Legislature‘s budget committee would have to vote to approve any changes to Medicaid programs sought by Walker’s administration. Under the original bill, the Department of Health Services could make cuts and other changes to programs benefiting the poor, elderly and disabled without requiring a hearing or vote by the legislative committee. Senate Republicans spent hours going over the "compromise" plan Tuesday morning in a closed-door meeting, Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald said. He acknowledged that pressure was increasing on the senators, saying the recall efforts launched against eight Republicans was “on everybody’s minds.” If the people are not going to chose to stand with the Republicans on this issue, then they deserve whatever it is that results from this ongoing situation. Having said that, should the governor chose, instead, to cave on this, and throw the people of Wisconsin under the union bus, then he is deserving of whatever scorn is heaped upon him by the good people of Wisconsin.


“Everybody’s obviously receiving a lot of pressure,” Fitzgerald said. “I had people on my front porch before I left this morning.” He didn’t say whether Senate Republicans agreed with the concessions Walker proposed on Sunday, but said support for the underlying bill remained strong. “We’re rock solid, we’re fine,” he said. Sorry, but I'm just not so confident about that anymore. Because if the governor is now willing to go squishy, how many more Republicans will soon be following his lead? Isn't there anyone out there who possesses the necessary backbone to do what needs to be done in order to prevent our entire country from going completely down the tubes? I'm really beginning to wonder.