some goodnews for 'a change' WI Got It Right

[lektrode]

hey... now here's a change we can believe in (for a change)

penned by the former guv of The Live Free or Die State, no less (one person who's observations and opinions actually carry some weight in this topic)

What saved states: reform or punting?

('punting' defined )

By John E. Sununu
May 21, 2012

If Gov. Scott Walker beats the Wisconsin recall initiative two weeks from today, you may have to search hard if you want to read about it in the newspaper.

Just a year ago, the left-of-center media were egging big labor on, as national coverage of Walker’s budget reforms highlighted a supposed “backlash” by “angry voters” — which is to say, the series of union-backed protests. But for now, that narrative has been spoiled by recent polls showing the governor consistently on top. His victory may leave reporters confused, but the budget and political turnaround should be a model for fellow governors.

Eighteen months ago, many states were facing circumstances remarkably similar to those in Wisconsin. Some, including New Jersey, Indiana, and Ohio followed Wisconsin’s lead and chose the tough medicine of budget, labor, and pension reforms to build long-term stability and economic competitiveness.

Others, like California and Illinois, chose to punt. They opted instead for a few more taxes, a promise to slow spending, and a hope that the good times would quickly return. In the Golden State, Gov. Jerry Brown has all but admitted this was a colossal mistake. He took to YouTube last week with projections for a $16 billion deficit — a whopping $9 billion more than estimated just six months ago.

In short, California budgeters got everything wrong: Spending is running $2 billion over plan, while revenue projections are off by a staggering 20 percent. The proceedings become almost farcical when one considers that Brown continues to push legislators to approve billions in bonds for a bullet train to Bakersfield.

On the revenue side, desperation is the mother of irony: A state that is slowly losing its high-tech mantle to states like Texas and North Carolina is openly hoping to score a couple of billion dollars in Facebook taxes. On top of that, Brown has turned to the liberal standby — a 25 percent tax increase for those earning over $1 million. Future entrepreneurs be forewarned.

For the people of Wisconsin, the contrast with their neighbors is even more instructive. Facing similar prospects in early 2011, the Illinois legislature took a pass. Wisconsin Democrats even fled to Illinois to avoid the reform vote. Now in full crisis mode, Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn has proposed reforms for state employees, including raising the retirement age and increasing contributions to health and pension plans — not just for future workers, but for current ones as well.

Better late than never, perhaps; but for years, liberals like Brown sold a “progressive” fantasy that took too many states down a path of unsustainable concessions on health care and pension liabilities. The bad news for big labor is that the people of Wisconsin don’t have to look far to see what they’ve avoided, and most of them are glad.

In fact, the battle in Wisconsin is surprisingly devoid of any mentions of the legislation that started it all — because the reforms have worked. Property taxes fell last year, and the unemployment rate stands at 6.8 percent — well below the national average. The voters have come to realize that this is about more than just getting the budget math to look good for a year; this is also about competitiveness — much the same kind of distinctions that set Germany apart from Greece.

States with a competitive and productive workforce, limited government, and lower taxes simply perform better economically. Last month, a survey of CEOs ranked California as the worst state in which to do business.

(and we wont even get into which one was likely 2nd)

As businesses scale back operations or avoid the state altogether, generating tax revenues will only become tougher. For the moment, California’s debt can be managed against the scale of its $2 trillion economy. Default is unimaginable. Even so, the last two years in Europe have provided us with a textbook case of how the inconceivable — Greek default — became quite acceptable, and how the impossible — Greece abandoning the euro — now seems inevitable.

Things change. In Wisconsin, they have changed markedly for the better; in California and Illinois, not so much. Soon, we’ll know whether voters can tell the difference.

http://bostonglobe.com/opinion/2012/...eform-punting/

so.. i guess it gets down to who will the voters really trust - take it from a guy who ran one of the few states that actually functions for the benefit of its citizens, NOT for the betterment of its political/crony class and unions

[doom&gloom]

Re: some goodnews for 'a change' WI Got It Right

never confuse ideology with results...

[lektrode]

Re: some goodnews for 'a change' WI Got It Right

or the reverse...

in the case of the state of wisconsin, where RESULTS are being confused with ideology

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...188861694.html

• Updated June 4, 2012, 7:26 p.m. ET

The Wisconsin Recall Stakes

A test of whether taxpayers can control the entitlement state.

A single election rarely determines a democracy's fate, but some matter more than others. Tuesday's recall election of Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker is one that matters a great deal because it will test whether taxpayers have any hope of controlling the entitlement state and its dominant special interests.

Specifically, we will learn if a politician can dare to cross government unions and survive. Mr. Walker isn't facing this extraordinary midterm challenge because he and a GOP legislature asked public workers to pay 12.6% of their health insurance premiums and put 5.8% of their paychecks toward their pensions. Those are small sums compared to what private employees typically pay.

His political offense was daring to challenge the monopoly sway that public unions have come to hold over modern state government through collective bargaining. Public unions aren't like private unions that negotiate labor terms with a single company or workplace. Public unions have outsize influence because they can often buy the politicians who are supposed to represent taxpayers. The unions effectively sit on both sides of the bargaining table.

Thus over time they have been able to extort excessive wages, benefits and pensions, as well as sweetheart contracts like the monopoly provision of health insurance. Their focused special interest trumps the general interest of taxpayers, who are busy making a living and lack the time to focus on politics other than during elections or amid a fiscal crisis.

Democrats—even liberals—once understood this danger and opposed collective bargaining for public workers. No less a Democratic hero than Franklin Roosevelt once said that collective bargaining "can not be transplanted into the public service." As recently as the 1970s, Jimmy Carter signed the Civil Service Reform Act, which reduced collective-bargaining rights for federal employees. But as public unions began to dominate the modern labor movement, collective bargaining became a sacrosanct part of the liberal agenda.
Related News

Recall Stirs Passion in Wisconsin

Mr. Walker and his fellow Republicans challenged that status quo, and the unions have reacted with such vitriol because they realize the threat to their long-unchallenged clout. They're especially incensed that the reforms ended the state's practice of automatically collecting union dues. Now dues are voluntary—and lo, many government workers are finding they don't want to join the union after all.

Since Mr. Walker's reforms went into effect, membership in government unions has dropped. At the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (Afscme), membership fell to 28,745 in February from 62,818 in March 2011, according to a Journal report. If the union can no longer guarantee monopoly wages and benefits, workers are better off keeping dues that can add up to several hundred dollars a year.

Shaking off union control of state finances has also been good for taxpayers and Wisconsin's business climate. Statewide property taxes fell by 0.4% in 2011 for the first time since 1998. The Governor's office estimates that the reforms have saved Badger State taxpayers more than $1 billion, as local school districts have been able to renegotiate health-care and labor contracts.

According to a survey released last week by Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce, 62% of employers in the state say they plan to add employees over the next six months, an increase from 53% a year ago and 44% in December. Overall, the survey reported, 73% predicted moderate to good growth at their own companies and more than half said they planned to expand in the state in the next two years—the highest rate in a decade.

All of which helps explain why Mr. Walker's Democratic challenger, Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett, has made his campaign chiefly about jobs, women's rights, the environment, community safety and especially an investigation into the conduct of aides who worked for Mr. Walker when he was Milwaukee County executive. Mr. Barrett is running on everything except the collective-bargaining reforms.

Meanwhile, Afscme chief Gerald McEntee has criticized the national Democratic Party for not throwing more money into the recall: "We think they could and should have done more." And President Obama, who once promised solidarity with Wisconsin unions, flew over the state on Friday for a fundraiser in Minnesota. Perhaps he doesn't want to associate himself with what might be an embarrassing union defeat.

Students of democracy from Alexis de Tocqueville to Mancur Olson have pointed out that the greatest threat to self-government comes from the tendency of democracies to become barnacled with special interests that vote themselves more benefits than society can afford. This is the crisis of the modern entitlement state, which is unfolding from California to Illinois, Greece, Italy and even Washington.

Wisconsin is a critical test of whether democracies can reform before the crisis becomes debilitating.

A version of this article appeared June 4, 2012, on page A16 in the U.S. edition of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: The Wisconsin Recall Stakes.

my .02 on this one?
if they take down walker, there's little hope for ANY kind of 'reforms' anywhere in The US
and...

so goes WI, so will go The USA in november and we'll have another 4 years
(of the present nightmare)

and its gonna be too close to call once again... but IF walker prevails,
MAYBE there'll be 'a change we can ALL believe in'

otherwise = no clear way 'forward'

[c1ue]

Re: some goodnews for 'a change' WI Got It Right

What exactly does property tax have to do with collective bargaining?

Given that we're in the bursting stage of a real estate bubble, I'd expect any reasonable current assessment program for real estate to be reducing property taxes since the values are falling. I very much doubt this has anything whatsoever to do with collective bargaining or even Walker's presence as governor, though I don't know anything specific about Wisconsin.

Frankly this WSJ piece is what would I expect - a pro-business publication. It has very little facts and the reasoning in the article above is more than a little suspect.

[touhy]

Re: some goodnews for 'a change' WI Got It Right

Just voted for Walker this morning. Felt good. Real good.

Polls were packed. I think the silent majority is waking up.

[vt]

Re: some goodnews for 'a change' WI Got It Right

Collective bargaining has never been allowed for federal empployees because nattional leadership knows that would be a total conflict of interest. All Walker has done is to end the special privileges the union had in Wisconsin to ensure fairness for the beleaguered taxpayer.

In addition Walker asks the coddled publics unions to pay a modest amount for their pensions and healthcare, still far below what employees in private industry have to pay.

The public unions had placed themselves above the public they are supposed to serve. The government is supposed to serve the people, not the other way around.

You can see what out of control unions are doing to completely destroy California and Illinois.

You might recall EJ's chart on the percentage of income that goes to each industry compared to it's percentage of population. Federal government emoloyees make up 3% of the population and get 7% of the income! State and local is not as bad, but still probably much better if you compare the total pay package.

Of course the other sector that is paid far more than it's percentage of population is executives. Media is paid more than Finance, which is interesting. Some can be justified by talent and results, but we still have to also bring the FIRE economy down to a much smaller part of the overall national economy.

[charliebrown]

Re: some goodnews for 'a change' WI Got It Right

I live in illinois to compute your property tax do the following.

(total local tax levy) * (your assesed property value) * K / (total taxable assesed property value in district)

the total tax levy is the sum of all local taxing bodies. schools, police, fire, city, county, township, park district, library etc,
total taxable propery is the sum of all the values of all the property in the taxing district. Homes, businesses, apartments etc.
K is some fudge factor, it pretty much stays the same each year.


So unless your property is depreciating faster than the general property value in your district, your tax bill can and does go up even though your propery is declining in value. I have yet to see a smaller bill. Thank goodness my bill only went up $50.00 this year. Usually it has been closer to $400 per year increase. I can probably not afford to live in my house due to the taxes once I retire. Nice taxed out of my house in my golden years.

I don't know if other states compute property taxes the same or not.

The largest taxing bodies are the schools, Without looking at the bill, I think it is about 70% of the bill. So if schools raise their levy your tax bill is going up.
Our school salaries are a matter of public record. Grammar school seems fine, but our high shools seem high. There are many 6 figure salaries. IMHO Some teachers
might deserve this but they would have to be kick - a teachers not just ones putting in time.

[Raz]

Re: some goodnews for 'a change' WI Got It Right

112 - Letter on the Resolution of Federation of Federal Employees Against Strikes in Federal Service August 16, 1937

Franklin D. Roosevelt 1937 My dear Mr. Steward: As I am unable to accept your kind invitation to be present on the occasion of the Twentieth Jubilee Convention of the National Federation of Federal Employees, I am taking this method of sending greetings and a message. Reading your letter of July 14, 1937, I was especially interested in the timeliness of your remark that the manner in which the activities of your organization have been carried on during the past two decades "has been in complete consonance with the best traditions of public employee relationships." Organizations of Government employees have a logical place in Government affairs. The desire of Government employees for fair and adequate pay, reasonable hours of work, safe and suitable working conditions, development of opportunities for advancement, facilities for fair and impartial consideration and review of grievances, and other objectives of a proper employee relations policy, is basically no different from that of employees in private industry. Organization on their part to present their views on such matters is both natural and logical, but meticulous attention should be paid to the special relationships and obligations of public servants to the public itself and to the Government. All Government employees should realize that the process of collective bargaining, as usually understood, cannot be transplanted into the public service. It has its distinct and insurmountable limitations when applied to public personnel management. The very nature and purposes of Government make it impossible for administrative officials to represent fully or to bind the employer in mutual discussions with Government employee organizations. The employer is the whole people, who speak by means of laws enacted by their representatives in Congress. Accordingly, administrative officials and employees alike are governed and guided, and in many instances restricted, by laws which establish policies, procedures, or rules in personnel matters. Particularly, I want to emphasize my conviction that militant tactics have no place in the functions of any organization of Government employees. Upon employees in the Federal service rests the obligation to serve the whole people, whose interests and welfare require orderliness and continuity in the conduct of Government activities. This obligation is paramount. Since their own services have to do with the functioning of the Government, a strike of public employees manifests nothing less than an intent on their part to prevent or obstruct the operations of Government until their demands are satisfied. Such action, looking toward the paralysis of Government by those who have sworn to support it, is unthinkable and intolerable. It is, therefore, with a feeling of gratification that I have noted in the constitution of the National Federation of Federal Employees the provision that "under no circumstances shall this Federation engage in or support strikes against the United States Government." I congratulate the National Federation of Federal Employees the twentieth anniversary of its founding and trust that the convention will, in every way, be successful. Very sincerely yours, Mr. Luther C. Steward, President, National Federation of Federal Employees, 10 Independence Avenue, S.W., Washington, D.C. http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/in...#axzz1wwSBbb8L

[flintlock]

Re: some goodnews for 'a change' WI Got It Right

Also check the non teacher salaries. Principals, shrinks, administrators, etc. My wife teaches at a school currently laying off teachers. But not a single administrator was let go. Principal has two Asst Principals. Most schools this size have one. This "wonderful" principal made a teacher about to get the ax wait around on her all day on the last day of school. The teacher arrived for her appointment that morning with the principal only to be told she didn't have one.( despite a confirmation email) It turned out the principal lost her nerve and got in her car and was driving around town, trying to get up her nerve to fire the teacher. So the poor lady had to sit in the office all day waiting on the gutless principal. The receptionist called her and was literally told to stall. When she finally arrived she made the teacher sit through a pep rally, a party, and other silly stuff before she finally broke the news, presumably while running out the door.

Same principal had been going around earlier, encouraging teachers to dig up any dirt they could on fellow teachers that might justify their firing. Nice Soviet style approach.


Moral is bad at many schools because the teachers feel they have no one on their side. Or even the kids side. Public schools are run by petty, career ladder climbing bureaucrats, who's main interest is hitting test scores that kick in bonus pay. And this is one of the best systems in the country. Shudder to think how bad morale is at the mediocre schools.

That's where a lot of your money is going. That and the problem children the law makes them coddle and hire extra staff to deal with. Oh, and the Ipads handed out to my wife's class despite the fact they never asked for them. Come on its free anyway. Its just taxpayer money!!!!

[Raz]

Re: some goodnews for 'a change' WI Got It Right

Also check the non teacher salaries. Principals, shrinks, administrators, etc. My wife teaches at a school currently laying off teachers. But not a single administrator was let go. Principal has two Asst Principals. Most schools this size have one. This "wonderful" principal made a teacher about to get the ax wait around on her all day on the last day of school. The teacher arrived for her appointment that morning with the principal only to be told she didn't have one.( despite a confirmation email) It turned out the principal lost her nerve and got in her car and was driving around town, trying to get up her nerve to fire the teacher. So the poor lady had to sit in the office all day waiting on the gutless principal. The receptionist called her and was literally told to stall. When she finally arrived she made the teacher sit through a pep rally, a party, and other silly stuff before she finally broke the news, presumably while running out the door.

Same principal had been going around earlier, encouraging teachers to dig up any dirt they could on fellow teachers that might justify their firing. Nice Soviet style approach.


Moral is bad at many schools because the teachers feel they have no one on their side. Or even the kids side. Public schools are run by petty, career ladder climbing bureaucrats, who's main interest is hitting test scores that kick in bonus pay. And this is one of the best systems in the country. Shudder to think how bad morale is at the mediocre schools.

That's where a lot of your money is going. That and the problem children the law makes them coddle and hire extra staff to deal with. Oh, and the Ipads handed out to my wife's class despite the fact they never asked for them. Come on its free anyway. Its just taxpayer money!!!!

My wife just retired after 28 years at the state department of education and in the classroom. She taught 4th grade until May but decided she'd had enough of "No Bureaucrat Left Behind". She was tired of being a records clerk and social worker with no time left for teaching - unless she put in an additional 15 hours each week at home.

[charliebrown]

Re: some goodnews for 'a change' WI Got It Right

In the mind of the statist, the gvt is all knowing and all beneficient etc. If this is true why does their have to be a public union? The gvt would never give them a bad deal would they. Unions are only for protecting the worker from those greedy corporations.

[Master Shake]

Re: some goodnews for 'a change' WI Got It Right

Thank you, Cheeseheads!

Here's something for you, SEIU, AFSCME, and other public sector unions.

[dcarrigg]

Re: some goodnews for 'a change' WI Got It Right

Thank you, Cheeseheads!

Here's something for you, SEIU, AFSCME, and other public sector unions.

While I do have a soft spot in my heart for Johnny Cash, one that grows larger as I grow older, I fail to see what SEIU has to do with public sector unions. This despite SEIU's misdeeds.

And I fail to see what AFSME has to do with teachers.

And I fail to see how any union has anything to do with public school administrators being overpaid, overhired, useless, and omnipresent in public schools. They are all non-union "management" after all.

In fact, I fail to see what teachers have done wrong at all.

But perhaps I am the minority.

But if we are to "hate on" public sector unions, at least let's get it right. Otherwise, it becomes a "Rush Limbaugh" style nonsense show where we string names and acronyms together whilst we spit our Budweiser out at the fire. Which is cool. Especially whilst listening to Johnny Cash. But not when you're 100% factually f'ed. It takes whiskey for that.

Besides, for every crooked public sector union you could name, someone could name three crooked companies on the S&P 500. It doesn't make any of them right. Choosing sides is like picking which leg you want to keep.

Besides, I thought EJ and Metalman set us straight in a recent thread.

Let gov leave entrepreneurs and small biz alone. Let gov regulate FIRE. The rest is incidental.

[lektrode]

Re: some goodnews for 'a change' WI Got It Right

http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/in...#axzz1wwSBbb8L

and TADA!

Fifty Years Ago This (year) JFK Signed Order Allowing Federal Workers To Collectively Bargain For First Time

the princpal bitch my ole man had with JFK - and typing as a former united steel worker (like my ole man was immed after ww2) i will say that altho private sector unions pull only as hard to the left as the corporations pull to the right, my experience was that the UNION 'leadership' is The Problem (as i watched the bastards drive the co i was working for at the time into the dirt) and particularly with the public sector, the 'leadership' isnt always or even most of the time representing the best interests of the membership, never mind the folks, The Public - they are _supposed_ to be 'serving' (esp when it comes to 'binding arbitration', the taxpayers, aka The Rest of US - ALWAYS lose)

and tho i hesitate to repost something (again) from rupert's place on this particular topic, methinks this one sums up the background/reasons for not only walker's win in wisc (hey! another dubya dubya dubya ;) but will also determine whether warren makes it, the rest of the way, in mass

on the one hand, i think we need more people in gov who are more attuned to the realities of the middle class, than just more of the same poly-sci-major/lawyer brigade that infests washington - on the other hand, i'm somewhat suspicious of her pedigree and tho i'd be more inclined to vote for mr brown's type (but again, somewhat suspicious of a republican who wins in mass, tho i still say they voted more against obama&the dems than they voted for him)
needless to say, its going to be VERY interesting in the bay state, now that the recall in the dairy state has failed.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...515688120.html

• January 21, 2010, 2:00 p.m. ET

The Fall of the House of Kennedy

The battle over who defines the work and institutions that make a nation thrive and grow.

Scott Brown's victory in Massachusetts will not endure unless Republicans clearly understand the meaning of "the machine" that he ran against and defeated.

Yes, it is about a general revulsion at government spending, what is sometimes called "the blob." But blobs are shapeless things, and in the days ahead we will see the Obama White House work hard to reshape the blob into a deficit hawk. Unless the facade is ripped away, the machine will survive.

The revolt against the machine began with voters' 2006 ouster of the Republican majority in Congress for making a mockery of fiscal rectitude. An angry electorate then swept Barack Obama into office. Now Mr. Obama is saying voters elected him on the same wave of anger that elected Scott Brown. (???) Sorry, but Messrs. Obama and Brown are not surfing in the same political ocean.

The central battle in our time is over political primacy. It is a competition between the public sector and the private sector over who defines the work and the institutions that make a nation thrive and grow.

In 1962, President John F. Kennedy planted the seeds that grew the modern Democratic Party. That year, JFK signed executive order 10988 allowing the unionization of the federal work force. This changed everything in the American political system. Kennedy's order swung open the door for the inexorable rise of a unionized public work force in many states and cities.

This in turn led to the fantastic growth in membership of the public employee unions—The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and the teachers' National Education Association.

They broke the public's bank. More than that, they entrenched a system of taking money from members' dues and spending it on political campaigns. Over time, this transformed the Democratic Party into a public-sector dependency.

They became different than the party of FDR, Truman, Meany and Reuther. That party was allied with the fading industrial unions, which in turn were tethered to a real world of profit and loss.

The states in the North and on the coasts turned blue because blue is the color of the public-sector unions. This tax-and-spend milieu became the training ground for their politicians.

Until the Obama exception, the only recent Democrats electable into the presidency had to be centrist Southerners little known to the country. Every post-Kennedy liberal who tried, failed, including Teddy.

What an irony it is that in the same week the Kennedy labor legacy hit the wall in Massachusetts, the NEA approved a $1 million donation from the union's contingency fund to the Edward M. Kennedy Institute for the United States Senate. It is this Kennedy legacy, the public union tax and spend machine, that drove blue Massachusetts into revolt Tuesday.


Getty Images He sent public budgets toward the cliff.


Yes, health care was ground zero, but Massachusetts—like New Jersey, like California, like New York—has been building toward this explosion for years.

According to a study done for the Massachusetts Institute for a New Commonwealth, spending in specific public categories there skyrocketed the past 20 years (1987 to 2007).
Public safety: up 139%; social services, 130%; education, 44%. And of course Medicaid Madness, up 163%, before MassCare kicked in more Medicaid obligations.

But here's the party's self-destroying kicker: Feeding the public unions' wage demands starved other government responsibilities. It ruined our ability to have a useful debate about any other public functions.

Massachusetts' spending fell for mental health, the environment, housing and higher education. The physical infrastructure in blue states is literally falling apart. But look at those public wage and pension-related outlays. Ever upward.

Enter the Obama administration, the first one born and raised inside this public bubble, with zero private-sector Cabinet members. Act one: a $787 billion stimulus bill, which they brag mainly saved state and local jobs.
(read: bought their votes) Then came the six-month odyssey for Obama's $1 trillion health-care bill, dripping with taxes. Independent voters felt like everything was being sucked into a public-sector vortex.

This is why New Jersey's Chris Christie won running on nothing. It's why in California Carly Fiorina is within three points of Sen. Barbara Boxer. It's why the party JFK enabled, "the machine," is hitting the wall.

There's no way out for these Democrats. They made a Faustian bargain 40 years ago with the public unions. For the outlays alone, they'll get some version of the Obama health-care bill. They'll also go to the same old "populist anger" well.

Scott Brown's victory has given the GOP a rare, narrow chance to align itself with an electorate that understands its anger.

Now the GOP has to find a way to disconnect from a political legacy that smothered governments at all levels and is now smothering the Democratic Party.

Write to henninger@wsj.com

signed
a former resident of The Live Free or Die state (and where small-r types still know why its called that)

dc?
whats your take here?

(i gotta git, am in RDU for a wedding and no can blog no mo)

[lektrode]

Re: some goodnews for 'a change' WI Got It Right

In fact, I fail to see what teachers have done wrong at all.

But perhaps I am the minority.

But if we are to "hate on" public sector unions, at least let's get it right. Otherwise, it becomes a "Rush Limbaugh" style nonsense show where we string names and acronyms together whilst we spit our Budweiser out at the fire. Which is cool. Especially whilst listening to Johnny Cash. But not when you're 100% factually f'ed. It takes whiskey for that.

Besides, for every crooked public sector union you could name, someone could name three crooked companies on the S&P 500. It doesn't make any of them right. Choosing sides is like picking which leg you want to keep.

Besides, I thought EJ and Metalman set us straight in a recent thread.

Let gov leave entrepreneurs and small biz alone. Let gov regulate FIRE. The rest is incidental.

+1
you and i really DO agree on more than we dont.
methinks that, far as the teachers, its their 'leadership' thats screwing not only them, but The Rest of US too.
and NO WASTING THE BEER.