Gov. Scott Walker called for civility on Tuesday night, declined to back down from tough stance with public employee unions and raised the possibility of thousands of layoffs in state and local government.
In a televised speech from the Governor’s Conference Room, Walker calmly laid out his position for state employees to pay a higher share of their fringe benefits, and his more controversial proposal to eliminate most of their bargaining rights.
Amidst the excitement in Egypt and in Wisconsin Timothy Geithner offered long-overdue testimony to Senate Budget Committee and his words were frightening.
Barack Obama has claimed that his budget was responsible.
“The process of collective bargaining, as usually understood, cannot be transplanted into the public service…I want to emphasize my conviction that militant tactics have no place [in the public sector]…A strike of public employees manifests nothing less than an intent on their part to prevent or obstruct the operations of Government.”
Who said it?
We are at the beginning of the most consequential domestic conflict the United States has fought since the Civil War. Like the battle between the Blue and Grey, this one is for the continued existence of the country. Today’s weapon of choice might be the legislative pen and the protest sign and there may not be blood flowing in the streets, but make no mistake, the stakes are exactly the same: The survival of the nation as we know it. If that sounds like hyperbole, think about the German inflation of the 1920’s or Zimbabwe today. At some point taxpayers will have nothing left to give, the Chinese will stop buying our debt and our creditors will begin calling in loans that Uncle Sam is unable to pay. We might survive, but America would be a decidedly different nation.
