MILWAUKEE – As they try to convince voters to oust Republican Gov. Scott Walker before the end of his term, liberals in Wisconsin have embraced the Democrats’ national “war on women” theme. The local version they use is “Scott Walker’s war on women.”
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Though this second fictitious war probably resonates well with focus groups and in polling ahead of the June 5 recall election, it is distracting from the all-out political assault on Wisconsin that out-of-power liberals have been waging for nearly 16 months.
It began with the massive protests in Madison, orchestrated by liberal groups that specialize in Astroturf uprisings. If it weren’t for the professional protesters and labor bosses, there would have been no massive march on the state capitol, no widespread death threats against Republican lawmakers and staff, and no defacing of public property in the name of free speech.
The protests and successive round of recall elections started in their wake are not so much about the specifics of Walker’s policies as they are ongoing attempts by the Left to reassert political power in a state that rejected liberal candidates in 2010.
Labor bosses rallied their political teams to protest common-sense collective bargaining reforms. They defended plush pension and health care packages that were costing taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars they could no longer afford.
They opposed giving local governments the flexibility they would need to achieve cost savings while lowering property taxes — essentially holding taxpayers hostage and threatening the fiscal stability of local governments across Wisconsin.
Progressive leaders joined forces with unions to kick off a round of recall elections because they disagreed with votes cast by some conservative lawmakers. They were slapping the state’s voters in the face and telling them they elected the wrong people.
You could almost say the Left is waging war on Wisconsin.
Beyond the current political battle, the policies that have waged war on Wisconsin are much older, going back years. Big-spending governors in both parties managed to grow state government to an unsustainable size before Walker’s election. To maintain the pretense of following a constitutional mandate for a balanced budget, outgoing Democrat Gov. Jim Doyle resorted to accounting gimmicks that would have impressed even an Enron executive. The real budget deficit stood at $3.6 billion in a state where job losses had totaled 150,000 under the leadership of a liberal governor.
Thanks to the policies of the Left, at the end of 2010, more Wisconsinites held government jobs than manufacturing jobs. Major employers were threatening to leave the state after liberals in the legislature pushed through a series of tax increases that put Wisconsin employers at a competitive disadvantage. The future was grim, and the closest thing the liberals had to an economic development plan was to build a $1 billion high-speed passenger rail line between Milwaukee and Madison.
Reckless spending, wasteful projects, massive job losses and employers looking to flee the state are among the consequences of the Left’s war on Wisconsin prior to 2011. Since the cleanup began, the Left’s reaction has run the gamut — from outrageous rhetoric and death threats on conservative lawmakers, to recall election after recall election. These events signal a desperate gamble, and perhaps a sort of final electoral battle to decide who will win the war on Wisconsin.
Whatever their choice, citizens of the state should know there is a difference between a “war” theme fabricated to win an election and a real political war, where the outcome will define Wisconsin for a generation to come.
Brian Sikma is the communications director of Media Trackers, a conservative, nonpartisan investigative watchdog group in Wisconsin.
