Pronk Pops Show 76, June 6, 2012: Segment 0: Wisconsin Citizens and Governor Scott Walker Defeat Government Union Thugs and Their “Big Pal” Barack Obama–Recall Obama Golfing–Videos
Pronk Pops Show 76: June 6, 2012
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Segment 0: Wisconsin Citizens and Governor Scott Walker Defeat Government Union Thugs and Their “Big Pal” Barack Obama–Recall Obama Golfing–Videos
Sarah Palin On Wisconsin: “Obama’s Goose Is Cooked”
BO:”Now what do I do?”
Bill:”First–Replace Joe with Hillary,
Second–Let Hillary Do Your Job
Third–Play more golf!
BO: Sounds like a plan.
Note: Color Co-ordinated Golf Shirt & Shoes!
It’s Been Three Years
Clinton: “No Question” Being Gov And “Sterling Business Career” Makes You Qualified
Scott Walker Will Survive Wisconsin Recall: Reason-Rupe Poll Results
Did it Right – It’s Working Wisconsin
Records
Governor Walker “On The Record” w/ Greta Van Susteren 05/16/12
What Is Wisconsin Recall All About?
Scott Walker CPAC vs NEA Teachers Union
You + Two= Victory
Governor Walker on “Hannity” 05/30/12
Gov Scott Walker Recall Election Victory Speech
Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker Easily Wins, But So Might Obama
“Obama’s Goose is Cooked” Sarah Palin on Greta 6/5/2012
Gov. Scott Walker Wins!
Background Articles and Videos
Wisconsin Recall Amnesia
Why aren’t Democrats running against Scott Walker’s union reforms?
“…Since Mr. Walker’s reforms went into effect, the doom and gloom scenarios have failed to materialize. Property taxes in the state were down 0.4% in 2011, the first decline since 1998. According to Chief Executive magazine, Wisconsin moved up four more places this year to number 20 in an annual CEO survey of the best states to do business, after jumping 17 spots last year.
The Governor’s office has estimated that altogether the reforms have saved Badger State taxpayers more than $1 billion, including $65 million in changes in health-care plans, and some $543 million in local savings documented by media reports. According to the Wisconsin-based MacIver Institute, Mayor Barrett’s city of Milwaukee saved $19 million on health-care costs as a direct result of Mr. Walker’s reforms. Awkward turtle.
Some of the good news has been in the schools, because districts have been able to avoid teacher layoffs and make ends meet because of flexibility created by the changes. In the Brown Deer school district, savings created by pension and health-care contributions from employees allowed the school to prevent layoffs and save some $800,000 for taxpayers.
In Fond du Lac, school board president Eric Everson says the district saved $4 million as a result of last year’s reforms, including $2 million from the changes in employee contributions to their pensions.
Another 52 schools across the state saved an average of $220 per student thanks to the ability to introduce competitive bidding for health insurance, rather than automatically going through WEA Trust, the favored provider of the Wisconsin Education Association Council. If the savings are even half as large as the Governor’s surveys indicate, they are still enormous.
All of this is making an impression on Wisconsin voters. According to a Marquette University Law School poll released Wednesday, only 12% of Wisconsin voters say “restoring collective bargaining rights” is their priority, which explains the Democratic decision to fight on other issues. …”
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303916904577377963809965708.html?mod=googlenews_wsj
Why aren’t Wisconsin Democrats running against Walker’s PEU reforms?
by Ed Morrissey
“…Democrats and Big Labor — pardon the redundancy, but it matters in this story — teamed up to recall Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, Lt. Governor Rebecca Kleefisch, and a handful of Republican state senators over the public-employee union reforms passed by Walker and the state legislature. One would then expect that the recall election would feature a debate over the PEU reforms and their outcomes on Wisconsin … right? Wrong, as the Wall Street Journal reports — because the outcomes are relentlessly positive:
Since last summer, unions have been throwing millions at defeating the man who reformed collective bargaining for government workers and required union members to pay 5.8% of their paychecks toward pensions and 12.6% of their health insurance premiums, modest contributions compared to the average in private business. As the May 8 Democratic recall primary nears to determine who will run against Mr. Walker on June 5, this should be their rhetorical moment ne plus ultra.
So, let’s see. Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett, the front-runner, has focused his campaigns on jobs, education, the environment and “making communities safer.” One of Mr. Barrett’s ads singles out “Walker’s War on Women,” with nary a mention of collective bargaining. Former Dane County Executive Kathleen Falk is heavily supported by union groups, but even her issues list makes only passing reference to collective bargaining.
No wonder. Since Mr. Walker’s reforms went into effect, the doom and gloom scenarios have failed to materialize. Property taxes in the state were down 0.4% in 2011, the first decline since 1998. According to Chief Executive magazine, Wisconsin moved up four more places this year to number 20 in an annual CEO survey of the best states to do business, after jumping 17 spots last year.
The Governor’s office has estimated that altogether the reforms have saved Badger State taxpayers more than $1 billion, including $65 million in changes in health-care plans, and some $543 million in local savings documented by media reports. According to the Wisconsin-based MacIver Institute, Mayor Barrett’s city of Milwaukee saved $19 million on health-care costs as a direct result of Mr. Walker’s reforms. Awkward turtle.
So now the recall election will be fought on mundane political issues like jobs, education, and the environment? Why, pray tell, did Wisconsin need a recall election to revisit these long-term issues? If Wisconsin voters want two-year terms for their chief executive, they could amend their state constitution to provide for that. That way, they could budget properly for two-year terms and plan for all of the costs of the elections.
And don’t kid yourselves — those costs are considerable: …”
Public Employee Union Membership in Wisconsin Drops After Collective Bargaining Law |
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| By: David Dayen Thursday May 31, 2012 11:06 am | |
“…To figure out what will really happen, I think you have to factor in what Sargent writes here:
Labor and Dems are widely believed to have a superior ground game to that of Walker, though it’s still unclear whether it will be enough to compensate for Walker’s seeming lead in the polls. A Clinton visit, Dems hope, will galvanize base turnout (the black vote in Milwaukee, for example) just enough to put Barrett over the top.
Ah, the ground game. This is seen as the savior, with labor throwing a lifeline to Barrett to pull him over the finish line. There’s one thing about this that I can’t get past. The goal of Walker’s anti-worker bill was to decimate public sector unions, to ruin the funding base for Democrats in Wisconsin elections. In other words, the bill was designed to deal with close races like this, to give Republican candidates an advantage. And a story in the Wall Street Journal sticks out like a sore thumb on this point:
Public-employee unions in Wisconsin have experienced a dramatic drop in membership—by more than half for the second-biggest union—since a law championed by Republican Gov. Scott Walker sharply curtailed their ability to bargain over wages and working conditions […]
Wisconsin membership in the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees—the state’s second-largest public-sector union after the National Education Association, which represents teachers—fell to 28,745 in February from 62,818 in March 2011, according to a person who has viewed Afscme’s figures. A spokesman for Afscme declined to comment.
Much of that decline came from Afscme Council 24, which represents Wisconsin state workers, whose membership plunged by two-thirds to 7,100 from 22,300 last year […]
Membership declines could be self-perpetuating, said Mr. Chaison of Clark University. With diminished dues, unions deliver fewer services, making membership less appealing and hampering recruiting.
Simply put, public employee unions were decimated by the assault on collective bargaining. They’re losing members at a rapid rate. That means they’re losing their funding base. And that means that their efforts will be that much less effective. That was the entire point.
This could be much of the reason why, in that Marquette poll out yesterday, when asked whether they supported restrictions on collective bargaining for public employee unions, one year after the anti-worker law, 55% of Wisconsin voters said yes, and 41% said no. There isn’t really anyone left to tell voters otherwise. …”
Insurance Scam Driving Wisconsin Union Debate
Kyle Olson
“…Much of the current controversy in Wisconsin involves the impending loss of most collective bargaining privileges for state employees, including public school teachers.
The fact is that the Wisconsin Education Association Council, the largest teachers union in the state, has grossly abused that privilege for decades, resulting in the unnecessary siphoning of millions of dollars from Wisconsin public schools. Under current Wisconsin law, the identity of the insurance company that provides health coverage to school employees is a matter of collective bargaining in each school district. I
n the majority of districts around the state, WEAC negotiators have used that law to pressure local school boards into purchasing coverage from WEA Trust, an insurance company established by and closely associated with the union.
WEA Trust offers very comprehensive health coverage, at a very high cost to schools. Most of the districts with the most expensive health premiums in the state are clients of WEA Trust. Most of the districts with the lowest premiums do business with other insurance carriers.
A few dozen districts have managed to dump WEA Trust insurance over the past few years, despite the protests of teachers and their union. Officials from many of those districts say they managed to save at least six figures their first year with a different carrier, and maintained steady rates in subsequent years, while still offering quality health coverage to employees.
Officials from other districts say they’re also eager to dump WEA Trust coverage, but need their employees’ anonymous claim histories from WEA Trust to share with other bidders. Several say they have never requested that information because they were told WEA Trust would punish them by pulling them out of local insurance pools, resulting in skyrocketing premiums.
Today many Wisconsin school boards consider themselves stuck with expensive WEA Trust health coverage, until state law is altered to take the identity of the insurance carrier off the collective bargaining table. Gov. Scott Walker’s current legislative proposal would do just that, giving school boards the opportunity to freely shop for insurance and save millions of tax dollars for instructional purposes.
In fact, Gov. Walker recently cited WEA Trust as the #1 reason for collective bargaining reform. …”
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