Saw this in MOMENT OF CLARITY, by Tim Nerenz. Thought it was worth sharing. Tim speaks the truth about the sideshow Walker Recall effort. It's a lot of words, but it is definitely worth the read.
"In the past few days the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel had a couple of remarkable articles on the upcoming Wisconsin recall elections – both interesting and infuriating.
The first one reported that the public-sector unions who endorsed Democrat candidate Kathleen Falk have now suspended advertising on her behalf with just weeks to go before the primary.
Thank you so much, WEAC and AFSME, for forcing a primary upon us that will add several millions to the $9 million it was already going to cost the taxpayers to humor you with a recall, only to pull out when it came time to spend some of your own money on it. That’s just terrific; a sure-fire way to win over independent and undecided taxpayers by spending a boatload of their money for nothing. Bravo.
The second was the astonishing admission of both leading candidates to unseat Governor Walker – Falk and Tom Barrett – that they have no plan to offer the voters of this state to counter the reforms enacted by the guy they want to replace prematurely. Even the liberals at the paper found this bizarre.
Thank you so much, Democrat Party of Wisconsin, for forcing a recall election that will cost taxpayers upwards of $20 million in a runoff between two candidates who, with nearly 18 months to come up with a better idea than Scott Walker’s reforms, can’t think of anything besides not being Scott Walker. Isn’t the cream supposed to rise in the dairy state?
There are 3.6 million other adults here who are also not Scott Walker and who also have no earthly idea how to run the State of Wisconsin effectively. Why not put them all on the ballot, if that’s what democracy looks like. Just pick one at random; or maybe rotate daily, so everybody has a better chance of taking a turn. Maybe it could be a scratch-off lottery prize and we can make some money on the deal.
The left also endured a minor thong-twist this week over Walker’s reinstatement of merit bonuses for some state employees, although I don’t know why paying state workers a little more would cause angst among Team Public Worker.
They say it is too costly in this era of austerity, but the bonuses will only cost taxpayers an additional $725,000 or roughly 1/30 the cost of the recall over…what was that again? Oh, yeah, cutting state workers’ pay in the age of austerity.
Actually, it is no longer clear that the recall is about worker pay; in fact, I don’t think anyone knows anymore what this recall is supposed to be about.
It started over benefit adjustments for public employees, but once a database of teacher salaries and benefit values was made public, sympathy for besieged public servants turned to envy.
Then it switched to collective bargaining, which sounded like a pretty good principled argument until residents of the Badger state got a good look at the behavior of the “collective” in question when they hit the capitol en masse last winter. And putting the muscle to neutral businesses turned off a lot of fair-minded people who suddenly understood that “bargaining” has a different meaning altogether to the boys from Chicago who are calling the shots.
So the argument shifted to Walker’s cuts in education funding, which actually had a little traction going until we discovered the extent of the WEA trust insurance scam and realized how much we have been ripped off and for how long in the name of education. Turns out your average fish-fry cheesehead couldn’t get whipped into a frenzy over cuts to money-laundering.
Then it was just sort of, generally, um, that Walker’s Act 10 reforms, like, you know, kinda destroyed the state and stuff; until people started to see that the state was not destroyed and over $1 billion had been saved in less than a year since Act 10 was implemented over the objections of every living and breathing Democrat, who are still living and breathing despite the issuance of 100,000 concealed carry permits, thank you very much Governor Walker.
Then it was all about jobs – the Democrats had something going on there until they voted down the mining bill and killed off the biggest opportunity for high-wage job growth to come down the pike in this state in many years. It is quite a feat to get unions and old people from up North pissed at Democrats – kudos.
Next they tried out this pitch: it wasn’t exactly what he did, it was how he did it. But when people looked at their lower tax bills and those concealed carry permits they pretty much decided it didn’t matter how he did it. And besides, having a majority of both houses of the legislature vote for a law that the governor then signs, is pretty much how he is supposed to do it. It’s the veto by any old county judge with ink in the pen that is a process problem.
So now about all that is left for The Left is the old standby - Walker didn’t tell us he was going to do this reform stuff before we elected him. Forget that we didn’t buy this crock when they first whipped it on us in January of 2011 - that’s their story and they are sticking to it…for now.
Let’s see if we got this straight: we are supposed to throw out the guy who saved the state from fiscal catastrophe because he didn’t spell out his plan to a level of specificity satisfactory to his opponent, and replace him with said opponent who has...wait for it...no plan whatsoever.
Really? And then what?
I guess recall that one in a year, too. Because if they won’t tell us anything at all now, then if they do anything at all once in office it will be at least equal to Walker’s transgression – i.e., not telling us ahead of time exactly what he was going to do and how.
If that is how this is all supposed to work from now on, then we might as well just rent a Governor for a year instead of hiring one for four and then tossing him or her after one anyway. Someone call Manpower and see what the rate would be for a temp.
This is not getting ridiculous; it put ridiculous in the rear view mirror a long time ago. President Obama has no plan to solve the deficit and the debt at the federal level; his Treasury Secretary admitted so under oath in a Congressional hearing. They apparently think not-Paul-Ryan is a winning strategy. Governor Walker’s opponents admit they have no plan to avoid deficits and debt at the state level; they apparently think not-Scott-Walker will work here, too.
Until someone in the Democrat party brain-trust decides to make this a difficult decision and give us a plan – any plan - to consider, the recall vote is going to be easy, even if you don’t care much for Scott Walker. Whoever runs against Walker plans to spend more, tax more, and tell us what to do, and if Walker wins he plans to spend less, tax less, and tell us what to do.
So if we are going to have a government hell-bent on telling us what to do, we might as well have the one that takes less of our money doing it. Not exactly bumper-sticker material, but then I'm not a Republican with turf to defend or a Democrat with an axe to grind - just a libertarian with an opinion."
“Moment Of Clarity” is a weekly commentary by Libertarian writer and speaker Tim Nerenz, Ph.D.
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