No one likes an I-told-you-so-er. No one likes a gloater. No one likes the childish sound of someone going, “Nah, nah, nah-nah-nah!”
But I have to ‘fess it up: I am gloating. I am saying, “I told you so.” And I have this message for public employee labor unions throughout the country:
NAH, NAH, NAH-NAH-NAH!
What prompted this outburst was Tuesday’s election result in the state of Wisconsin, where Republican Gov. Scott Walker retained office in a recall election that pitted him against Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett.
The honchos who run public employee labor unions — much like liberals, Democrats and progressives in general — have this notion that they’re entitled to unlimited and unfettered taxpayer funding.
Walker, being a Republican — which means that he, like most of us, lives in the real world — realized this was neither practical nor workable. He was elected in 2010 on a promise to reduce Wisconsin’s budget. In 2011, he took action to do just that.
Before Walker took office, members of public employee labor unions contributed exactly zero percent of their incomes to their pensions. Taxpayers footed the bill 100 percent.
Members of Wisconsin’s public employee labor unions contributed only 5.8 percent of their salaries to their health insurance premiums. Walker proposed that members of public employee unions contribute 5.8 percent of their salaries to their pensions and 12.4 percent to their health insurance premiums. He also made it legal for them to opt out of paying union dues if they so desired.
All this information comes from a story by Christian Schneider in a story for Milwaukee’s City Journal. Schneider is a senior fellow at the Wisconsin Policy Research Institute.
Walker also proposed that public employee labor unions be allowed to collectively bargain for wages only; things like pensions and health insurance premiums would no longer be on the table.
The Wisconsin Legislature passed Walker’s proposals. Wisconsin’s $3.6 billion budget deficit is now a $90 million budget surplus.
Most people would call what Walker achieved good governing. Wisconsin’s labor unions, Democrats, liberals and progressives had a different name for it: grounds for a recall.
Those leading the recall charge must have figured that they’d teach this upstart Walker a lesson, that they were indeed entitled to unlimited and unfettered access to taxpayer dollars. But it looks like those taxpayers might have taught them a little something.
No amount of pouting, whining or demonizing of Walker changed basic facts for Wisconsin voters. They know the difference between a $3.6 billion budget deficit and a $90 million budget surplus, and they voted accordingly.
When Wisconsin’s liberals, Democrats, progressives and public employee union members — those who didn’t vote for Walker, anyway — get done licking their wounds, they might want to consider this option:
Move to Maryland.
This is one state where Democrats really rule the roost. When a state budget passed this year that didn’t have all the increases Democrats demanded, they labeled it a “doomsday” budget and got a compliant media to go along with their fantasy.
Here, basically, is the Maryland Democrats’ definition of “doomsday”: any scenario that prevents us from plundering the taxpayers’ wallets to our satisfaction; any situation that denies us our right to unlimited and unfettered taxpayer dollars.
So they called a special legislative session, one that allowed them to hose taxpayers in a way more to their liking.
There’s no danger of a Republican governor getting a legislature that will take a budget deficit and make it a budget surplus here. Maryland Democrats LOVE getting hosed by their state government. They feel it’s their duty.
Those Wisconsinites addicted to big government, big deficits and tax-and-spend policies will find Maryland a welcoming place indeed.
Examiner Columnist Gregory Kane is a Pulitzer-nominated news and opinion journalist who has covered people and politics from Baltimore to the Sudan.
