Unions are not the cause of state budget crises

By Leigh Pomeroy

Many of us have closely watched the events unfolding in and around the Wisconsin state capitol. Few of us, I would guess, are neutral. But whether we're for or against union workers, what these events show is how far a political philosophy has come towards reaching its goal. That goal? To concentrate more and more of the nation's wealth and power into the hands of a very few.

How has this been accomplished? By the stealth use of the media to reframe political, ethical and moral assumptions, and by dividing the middle class into warring sides by creating false arguments. An example of the former is the concept that the free market is (always) good and taxes are (always) bad. An example of the latter is that if a union worker is doing better than I am, then he or she doesn't deserve it.

The causes of our current economic woes include: (1) tax cuts benefiting the very wealthy resulting in an overall loss of government revenue, (2) deficit spending to support the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, (3) a relaxation of government oversight of the financial and mortgage markets, (4) declining net receipts of tax revenues from corporations due to tax loopholes, and, because of these and other factors, (5) a widening gap between the very wealthy and the rest of society.

Unions, whether they represent private or public employees, have had nothing to do with our current economic woes. It's true that the standard of living of most middle class workers has declined over the last 30 years, but that also includes union members. If public employee unions can be faulted, it's only because their members have been able to tread water.

The real problem in Wisconsin and elsewhere is the concentration of money and power into the hands of a very few and the political lackeys in both parties who serve them. As these people watch the events take place in Madison they see their long-planned handiwork unfold ... and laugh all the way to the bank.

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Next Season on 'Survivor'

(Vox Verax note: This is traveling about the Net but is worth repeating. Hat tip to the anonymous person or persons who created it.)

Have you heard about the next planned "Survivor" show?

Three businessmen and three businesswomen will be dropped in an elementary school classroom for 1 school year.  Each business person will be provided with a copy of his/her school district's curriculum, and a class of 20-25 students.

Each class will have a minimum of five learning-disabled children, three with A.D.H.D., one gifted child, and two who speak limited English. Three students will be labeled with severe behavior problems.

Each business person must complete lesson plans at least 3 days in advance, with annotations for curriculum objectives and modify, organize, or create their materials accordingly. They will be required to teach students, handle misconduct, implement technology, document attendance, write referrals, correct homework, make bulletin boards, compute grades, complete report cards, document benchmarks, communicate with parents, and arrange parent conferences. They must also stand in their doorway between class changes to monitor the hallways.

In addition, they will complete fire drills, tornado drills, and [Code Red] drills for shooting attacks each month.

They must attend workshops, faculty meetings, and attend curriculum development meetings. They must also tutor students who are behind and strive to get their 2 non-English speaking children proficient enough to take the SOL tests.  If they are sick or having a bad day they must not let it show.

Each day they must incorporate reading, writing, math, science, and social studies into the program. They must maintain discipline and provide an educationally stimulating environment to motivate students at all times.  If all students do not wish to cooperate, work, or learn, the teacher will be held responsible.

The business people will only have access to the public golf course on the weekends, but with their new salary, they will not be able to afford it.  There will be no access to vendors who want to take them out to lunch, and lunch will be limited to thirty minutes, which is not counted as part of their work day.  The business people will be permitted to use a student restroom, as long as another survival candidate can supervise their class.

If the copier is operable, they may make copies of necessary materials before, or after, school. However, they cannot surpass their monthly limit of copies.  The business people must continually advance their education, at their expense, and on their own time.

The winner of this season of Survivor will be allowed to return to their job.

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Progressive Ponderings: On the Ground in Madison, Part 4

How’s the War Economy Going for You?

by Joe Mayer
Feb. 24, 2011

One of the protestors’ signs in Madison read, “How’s the War Economy Going for You?” Most politicians of both parties are so captivated by our military strength that no thought is given about the effect this growing commitment has on us economically – individually and as a nation. This military mentality, morphing into an American “exceptionalism,” dominates our culture and dismisses the devastation we do to ourselves as well as to our world neighbors.

This year $1.4 trillion of our U.S. budget is discretionary with about 50% ($733 B) going to military and related security costs. This does not include the $170 B budgeted for wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. As political leaders, both state and federal, scream “we’re broke, we’re broke, we’re broke,” they refuse to include “cuts” to the defense budget. Even when these “cuts” do happen, they come after loading up on requests, so that the cuts actually are INCREASES.

While we believe “we’re number one!” and revel in our “exceptionalism” the world passes us by:

• U.S. ranks 25th in the world in infant morality, 21st in child mortality
• U.S. ranks 37th in the world in overall health care, 17th in life expectancy
• U.S. is the only industrial country in the world without universal health insurance
• U.S. has the highest level of childhood poverty in the industrialized world (1 of 6 children)
• U.S. ranks 49th in world literacy, 13th in college-bachelor degree enrollments
• Of the 650,000 homeless in the U.S. every night, 250,000 are veterans

In the face of these grim statistics both our state and federal governments are cutting programs that help our most vulnerable citizens, with our middle class targeted for further cuts.

Iraqis are emulating their neighbors by protesting an “imposed” democracy by their occupiers. Afghans have never stopped protesting its occupation by either the Soviet Union or the U.S. Our government must decide which side to take in our imposed “nation building,” sometimes regretting the results. Backing dictators in countries we call “democratic” has an imperialistic stench.

As the U.S. itself erupts we need to throw the cost of war on the cutting table. The $170 B proposed for fighting these wars would have provided:

• 2.6 million elementary teachers or
• 2.6 million Police or Sheriff Patrol Officers or
• 22.5 million Head Start Slots for children or
• 30.8 million college students receiving Pell Grants of $5,550 annually or
• name your greatest loss.

Foreclosures, unemployment, lost educational funding, lost health care, environmental devastation, energy depletion, standard of living decline, wealth and income stratification have reached an acute position. The Tea Party, the GOP, and many Democrats say this is the “new normal,” with extreme wealth for the few being pumped up with tax breaks, secret dollars to buy “for sale” politicians, privatization of everything, and a democracy of money, by money, and for money.

One encouraging note: a growing numbers of citizens are responding and making their voices heard. Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker may have awakened the sleeping progressive beast.

So, how’s the war economy going for you?

(Part 1 of this series is here, part 2 is here, part 3 is here.)

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Progressive Ponderings: On the Ground in Madison, Part 3

What common good?

by Joe Mayer, Feb. 23, 2011

“First they came for the communists, and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a communist. Then they came for the socialists, and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a socialist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a trade unionist. Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a Catholic. Then they came for me, and by that time there was no one left to speak up.”

This quote is from German Pastor Martin Niemoller regarding the silence of intellectuals and churches that followed the rise of Nazi power.

What has this got to do with Madison? Look at who was targeted; communists and socialists, Jews and Catholics, and TRADE UNIONISTS; with their strength in numbers and influence on citizens, they were a threat to the combined corporate and state power (fascism). This targeting worked for the Nazis! People like Niemoller stood alone.

Fast forward to President Ronald Reagan, 1981-1989. Reagan still influences the conservative corporate agenda. He had two disastrous effects on our democracy and on our attempts at being a more equitable people. 1) He fired the unionized air traffic controllers which set the stage for massive union busting. 2) In his first inaugural address, Jan 20, 1981, he stated, “Government is not the solution to our problems: government is the problem.” For these and other “war-on-the-middle-class” initiatives, conservatives and corporations have attempted to canonize him.

But look at the results:

• In the 1970s the upper 1% of income recipients amassed 9% of total U.S. income. It is now over 20%.
• The top marginal income tax rate has dropped from 70% in 1980 to 35% today.
• Income from investments is now taxed at lower rates than earned income.
• Percentage of workers in unions was about 25% in the mid ‘70s, today about 9%.
• Top corporate federal income tax rate: 1981 – 46%, 2010 – 35%. This number is meaningless as Exxon, the highest profit earner in world history paid zero income tax in 2009 and actually got a rebate. Corporations receive rebates, depletion allowances, credits for thousands of items, subsidies and entitlements along with re-chartering all or some of their business in tax havens which allow them to exist tax-free.

The above bullets indicate that as union membership declined, government FACILITATED the increased economic stratification of American society.

Refer back to the first paragraph. Think of the victims as scapegoats. Now substitute the following as victims: immigrants, gays and lesbians, union members, protesters (environmental, war, nuclear...), pregnant women and women in general, Muslims... Fascism was and is a combination of corporate and state power that rules with an iron hand over individuals that are their scapegoats.

By claiming “government is the problem,” corporations have stepped into the vacuum and purchased power – the power of the people – for their own selfish interests. Many states are lined up to follow Wisconsin if Governor Walker destroys the working class.

Notice that Pastor Niemoller refers to the inactivity of the churches in speaking out against fascists. When was the last time you heard a Sunday sermon about social justice and the role of government to provide for the common good?

(Part 1 is here. Part 2 is here.)

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Progressive Ponderings: On the Ground in Madison, Part 2

“We all do better…”

by Joe Mayer, Feb. 22, 2011

A few years ago I was invited back to the school at which I had taught for nearly 27 years to explain why I was a Democrat to a class of senior students. A State Representative was invited to explain why he was a Republican. I graciously suggested that he go first. He proceeded to explain that Republicans believe in individual responsibility and that people succeeded or failed based on their own initiative and hard work, and government had no place in helping them.

He failed to mention that he had graduated from a state college, that he arrived at the school on state roads, that he enjoyed police and fire protection provided by the city, that the court system enforced “law and order,” that his wife and children enjoyed the public library and public parks. He didn’t mention that the company he worked for thrived because of thousands of patents and copyrights granted by the government. He finished his self-made pontification by asking, “How will you like it when you start working and the government takes your money and gives it to someone else?”

Then it was my turn. I told these students that when I began teaching at their school there were no athletics for girls. They looked incredulous. They had never lived in a period of time in which females had zero opportunity to participate in sports. I explained that a civil rights law known as Title IX, initiated and passed by Democrats, mandated that schools provide equal opportunity in extra curricular activities. I then mentioned other Democratic initiatives, passed by Democrats, that made life more equitable and enjoyable. Nearly all the students’ questions were directed to me.

Just as these students had never experienced such discrimination in their lives and took girls athletics as normal, so too do the majority of our citizens take for granted their many employee benefits. Unions and Democrats are responsible for nearly all of these benefits – the forty hour work week, time and one-half for extra hours, child labor laws, paid holidays and vacations, safety rules in the workplace, arbitration for workplace differences, employer-paid or partially-paid benefits such as pensions, life insurance, and health insurance.

Unions and the State Government of Wisconsin were the first to provide two state benefits paid for by employers – workman’s compensation and unemployment insurance. Now is a great time for unions and Democrats to remind Wisconsinites and our nation that ALL workers, not just union workers, enjoy the benefits listed above.

School principals and superintendents, nursing superintendents, law enforcement superiors, and many workplace bosses who came up through the ranks all reap higher salaries because union workers set the base.

Conservatives have a hissy fit when citizens are educated about the struggles that laborers have endured to improve the workplace. Most came through negotiation – negotiation from a position of “strength in numbers” provided by union representation, but other advancements came with putting their lives on the line – and they sometimes lost.

Employers organize through the Chamber of Commerce and trade associations. They use their “strength in numbers” to deny employees THEIR “strength in numbers.” Conservative Corporate/Statists do everything possible to divide citizen/employees, causing them to fight among themselves. Citizen/employees, public and private, union and non-union, need to remember “WE ALL DO BETTER WHEN WE ALL DO BETTER.”

(Part 1 is here.)

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Progressive Ponderings: On the Ground in Madison, Part 1

Teachable Moments

by Joe Mayer
Feb. 21, 2011

70,000, 80,000, 100,000 – We’re not sure of the size of the crowd at the State Capital in Madison this past Saturday, but the enthusiasm of those gathered was contagious. Elaine and I were intrigued by the creativity of the signs and the diversity of the crowds – young, prime-of-life, old like ourselves, laborers, retired, students, teachers, professionals, firefighters, police (on and off duty), in state, out of state.... We were joined by family members during the day.

Yes, the Tea Partiers came, many bused in, courtesy of the Koch brothers who had contributed $100,000 to Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker’s campaign. Many of their signs took aim at the 14 Wisconsin Democratic Senators who fled the state to deny the Republicans a quorum necessary for a vote. Of course, the democrats are being accused of thwarting democracy. These Tea Partiers and conservatives are the same people who, for the past two years, encouraged and highly approved the Republicans in the U.S. Senate who filibustered and put secret holds on both legislation and Obama nominees for administrative positions and judges.

This is not Scott Walker’s first shot at middle class public employees. As the Milwaukee County Executive he gave double digit percentage pay increases to his executives and used decreasing revenue as an excuse to lay off many lower level union employees. Walker is best described as “point man” for the Koch brothers. He mimics the Republicans on the federal level by using a fiscal crisis – caused by wealthy and corporate class entitlements – to push deficit austerity cuts onto the middle and poorer classes.

Walker CREATED the fiscal crisis in Wisconsin for the current year. He insists that Wisconsin has a $130 million deficit but neglects to mention that one of his first acts as governor was to reward his corporate sponsors by giving them $140 million in tax breaks, many of the recipients being multinational corporations.

Walker’s true intention of using the deficit as a political tool is revealed by his exempting police, firefighters, and state patrol from collective bargaining restrictions. The unions for these middle class workers supported Walker in the recent election. Fortunately, many of them understand that they will be the target tomorrow as Walker serves the corporate class today.

Wages and benefits that Wisconsin public employees earn are 4.8% LESS than private sector employees doing similar jobs, according to the Economic Policy Institute.

This issue is not about wages and benefits for public employee workers. It’s about power, power purchased by wealthy campaign contributions, power exerted by lobbyists to purchase legislation, power derived through corporate think tanks framing issues to deceive citizens into voting against their own economic self-interest, power to corrupt both our governmental and economic systems.

On Saturday we guessed that the Tea Partiers and the pro-Walker counter-protesters were outnumbered about 20 to 1. We didn’t encounter any violence but we did hear a few passionate debates. A friend, though, took a different approach in talking with a Tea Partier who was incensed about paying taxes for exorbitant wages to lazy government employees. She calmly suggested that he was there because unions had pushed for a 40 hour, five day week, that the real issue was collective bargaining, not the budget crisis. He asked what she meant by collective bargaining.

Madison is a teachable moment.

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