from cp will - his convenient excuse to ignore honoring pensions that workers earned over thirty or forty years of service
There was no such thing ever done. Those contracts were negotiated by the parties involved - both of whom were the legal representatives with full power to do so - in complete good faith.
You are making a completely irresponsible and unsubstantiated charge that covers a half decade or more of multiple contracts, negotiated by multiple persons. Making such a serious charge demands the highest level of evidence possible.
You have presented none.
This can only be viewed as a right wing attempt to screw workers out of their rightful benefits that they earned over decades of work for the people.
It is sad that you would take such a position in the face of the conservative claim of the value of contracts.
This is blatant and utter hypocrisy of the worst sort.
For you and the right to push this defines you as the enemy of the people. I view you no differently that someone who provides a map to my home and urges people to break in and loot it because I have something that they want. And I know how most would deal with that sort of theft.
You choose to look at only one side of the equation, the gov't (union) worker side. Where does the money for these gov't salary/benefit programs come from? The general working public, i.e. taxpayers. Much of that money, at the local level, comes from property taxation, based on the value of property (much of that beaing private homes), which have gone DOWN in value by over 20% in recent years, taking property tax revenues down along with that lower "re-appraised" value.
So, even while the state has LESS money, you want the ALL of gov't workers' salary and benefits "protected", which leaves ONLY one "option", which is to raise taxation rates for the general public. You see this as "fair". yet it is clearly NOT. Why? Because the general public is being asked to pay MORE to simply get the SAME services from the same gov't employees, so that the general public bears ALL of the costs, and the gov't (union) workers bear NONE of of those costs.
In WI governor Walker and the GOP saw this injustice, explained it (rather poorly) to the voters and got elected to power. They chose, instead of raising taxes and harming 90% of the WI economy, to cut spending and "harm" mainly the gov't (union) workers. Why? Obviously they decided that, although the gov't (union) workers are quite vocal, it harms far fewer WI voters.
Was it fair? NO and YES, I will agree that it IS NOT FAIR to the current gov't (union) workers, as they are paying mainly for the past "sins" of gov't (union) workers (and politicians) that are guilty of promising FAR more than reality could sustain; It IS FAIR to the vast majority of the WI public (taxpayers) as they have done nothing, save for allowing the past politicians to promise too much, but that is a "sin" of omission, not commission, on their part and they do not deserve to be forced to pay more simply to keep what gov't services they now have.
The demorats and republicants in WI should be open and honest with each other, as well as the general public of WI, and simply admit that THEY, the WI politicians (of BOTH parties), made a mess and have taken steps, as best they could, to correct that situation. It is not, and should not be seen as, a trend to always reduce the salary/benefits of ONLY the WI gov't (union) workers, in response to any future WI budget deficit. This was a ONE TIME correction, and should WI tax revenues fall any further, that "deficit" will be shared by all of WI citizens, by using BOTH tax rate increases and cuts in total gov't (union) worker funding, on a much more "equal" basis.