12K government employees in Wisconsin may lose their job because of the budget deficit
Riots in Wisconsin
Fox news is reporting that up to 12,000 government employees in Wisconsin may lose their jobs due to the budget shortfall.
Here’s what Fox had to say…
If changes aren’t made to the benefit contributions paid by Wisconsin’s nearly 300,000 public sector employees, about 10,000-12,000 workers will lose their jobs, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker warned Sunday.
The Republican governor has been targeted by protesters for nearly a week for negotiating a bill now in the state Senate that would require workers to increase their contributions to pensions and health care coverage, would limit collective bargaining rules and tie raises to inflation.
But Walker said while the state enjoys a lower-than-average unemployment rate — about 7.5 percent compared to 9 percent nationally — about 5,000-6,000 state workers and 5,000-6,000 local government workers could lose their jobs if they don’t accept changes to their benefits plan.
“I don’t want a single person laid off in the public nor in the private sector and that’s why this is a much better alternative than losing jobs,” Walker told “Fox News Sunday.”
The budget vote was supposed to take place last week, but was delayed when state Senate Democrats fled to Illinois to avoid having to vote on the plan, which would cost public sector employees about $300 million over two years, or less than 10 percent of the deficit total.
“If we’re going to be in this together, (cut) our $3.6 billion budget deficit, it’s going to take a whole lot more than just employee contributions when it comes to pensions and health care,” Walker said. “But it’s got to be a piece of the puzzle because as I saw at the local level, it’s like a virus that eats up more and more of the budget if you don’t get it under control.”
President Obama, whose group Organizing for America, has bused in some of the nearly 70,000 protesters outside the state capitol on Saturday, last week called the bill “an assault on unions.”
Walker said the president should stay focused on fixing the federal budget, which is $1.5 trillion in deficit this year. The president’s plan, rolled out last week, proposes $1.65 trillion in deficits next year.
So…that means that because those idiotic senators fled the state instead of doing their job and voting on a reasonable budget…those state employees that have been rioting…uh, I mean protesting…may lose their jobs. You can’t pay someone with NO MONEY.
Way to go senators.
Good job.
© 2011, Bridget. All rights reserved.
Also Recommended:
- Ground Report from Wisconsin: Governor Scott Walker and the “Budget Fix” bill
- Wisconsin leading the way in efforts to strip public employees of collective bargaining rights.
- Wisconsin Ground Report: No sympathy for public unions from private sector employees out of work
- Wisconsin democrat senators found at Illinois resort.
- Rally in Madison, Wisconsin to support Governor Walker’s stand against the greedy and corrupt unions…tomorrow at noon
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Nice gunshot poster. I’m glad they are so sensitive to the violent rhetoric in light of the shootings in Arizona. /sarc
That kid better hope no government official has an assassination attempt against him or he’ll get blamed for his with his violent imagery. Oh, wait – no he won’t. He’ Left and we all know that they never say things like that. Someone photoshopped that picture, I’m sure of it.
Michelle,
The signs are more of the left’s emphasis on civility! Not!!
Maybe they figure they can raise taxes, like Illinois did.
Oh, wait. Isn’t Wisconsin one of the states trying to coax Illinois businesses into moving out of Illinois?
I wonder how all those union tools who have been protesting for the benefit of their union bosses will feel when they loose their jobs if the bill isn’t passed. I know that I will feel like it serves them right.
I hear you. I hope everyone who loses his or her job is one of those useless douches with phony Dr. excuses that dragged kids to this mob scene.
“Mommy, mommy…I thought u said that if we skipped school and held up signs, things would get better for us. Why do we have to cancel my i-phone?”
I think we should just call the mobs and such the “F*** the Taxpayer Coalition.”
Fine by me..fire them.They were offered a more then fair option.
I wish that I had alternatives when my company went through layoffs. Did we protest that we had a right to demand that we can’t be laid off? Who do these people think they are? They had no idea how good they have it when there is an option to avoid layoffs??? We didn’t have such options. When our bottom line was retreating, we had to be creative about how we were each going to help reduce costs. These guys are nothing but well-fed pets of the democrats! There is no sensitivities displayed by a group that is suppose to be sensitive to everything!
I hope that someone in WI does an audit to be sure that none of these cowards charged the state for the time and expense they incurred while being out of state and avoiding their duties. It would be a double slap to the citizens of WI that they would be screwing the taxpayers of WI. In fact, for all of the days that they avoided their responsibilities, one has to demand that their pay and benefits be docked. Again, this is proof that statism seeks to triumph against free market capitalism. Imagine, if I avoided going to the office to do my job and yet, demand that none of those days be counted as vacation days and that I also charged all of my expenses on my corporate card. I would have been fired on the spot.
These are the same liberals who reject relatively small changes in their contracts but have no qualms about costing jobs in coal, oil, gas, nuclear, and mining industries.
Gov. Walker said in that interview
1900 emails arrived in support
of his plan.
Go Gov. Walker!
19,000 emails.
Hey, CJK you’re right.
Didn’t mean to offend. I thought maybe the smaller number was just the result of an inadvertent typo, and simply hoped to correct it in order to better show the widespread support for Gov. Walker’s budget-fixing bill. I enjoy all of your comments, patti!
No offense taken.
Thanks for the correction, CJK,
sundays are always
busy days for me.
I posted that so
fast my brain
didn’t know what
my fingers were
doing, good thing
someone is paying
attention.
I read on Drudge that the president of the teachers union told them to report to work. We’ll see.
I lot of them won’t on Monday simply because we’re getting blasted by a major winter storm in Wisconsin.
And Monday is President’s Day and they have the day off.
For each day they don’t come back to work, Walker should issue a list of 1000 people who get canned. Post it on the Capitol doors.
For sure fire the staff of these 14 weasels. We have no use for them anymore either.
At the very least, the staff and the AWOL Dems should lose their pay for the time they’ve been gone.
One of the things that is missing from most media reports is the two aspects of Walker’s plan that the unions are REALLY fighting: 1) The annual vote to certify the union, which must be approved by a majority of the workers covered, rather than only one certification vote that has to be approved by a majority of those VOTING, and 2) the change that the government will no longer withhold union dues, but instead the individual worker will have to pay their annual dues, which amount to between $1,000 – $1,200 per worker. The unions HATE both of these ideas because they are the beginning of a worker revolt against the union.
Hold on now, that can’t be true. I thought they were just concerned about the children.
On a related note, the state legislature of Indiana is voting on a right-to-work bill that allows any employee to opt out of union membership if they so choose. The unions are fighting it tooth and nail, threatening the same kind of mayhem that is taking place in Wisconsin. My question is, if union membership is so great, why are unions terrified of any legislation that allows people to avoid membership and still keep their job?
This is exactly what the governor should be enacting in Wisconsin. Georgia is a right-to-work state (as are most southern states) and this is why non-American car companies moved so many of their operations down here. Scott Walker’s next battle should be to make Wisconsin a right-to-work state.
I guarantee, when they pass the new law that allows for a de-certification vote ANNUALLY and to stop withholding of workers’ union dues (which will require every union member to have to write a $1,200 CHECK to the union annually) the union sheep will begin to realize that it is THEIR money that is going to the unions…for WHAT??? De-certification here we come!
Why do you think the American government prefers to keep on withholding our federal taxes from our pay? Because if you had to write a $12,000 from your savings every year to pay the government, wouldn’t you pay a lot more attention to how that money is spent? There would be a tax revolt in this country!
Thanks for this information! I haven’t seen this. Imagine, if I had charged my professional dues to my company, I would have had that slammed back to me.
A government court and its lawyers orders a baby to be taken off life support, the parents are pleading for help.
This is the future of RationCare is ObamaCare is ever implemented. This is just in America’s northern neighbor, Canada.
http://www.allamericanblogger.com/14139/canadidan-death-panel-decides-baby-should-die-canadian-court-agrees/#
oh no. oops.
Sorry, I just realised I posted this on the wrong thread.
But I thought Obama was all about “sharing the wealth”, so he should totally be in favor of everyone ponying up so that more people can keep their jobs, right? HA!
It’s infuriating that 70,000 people have to be bussed to a state they don’t even live in to protest something that doesn’t really affect them, just the media will have a shot of “all” the protestors. Do these people get paid to take these protesting trips?
Yes, in many instances, they are paid. The buses and other incidentals are paid for by OFA, which essentially is a mutation of MoveOn.org, known to be funded by Soros.
Obama’s ideas about sharing the wealth remind me of a funny birthday card I got from my sister when we were young. Something along the lines of how much she liked to share with me, especially when we were sharing my stuff. Cute as a funny card from a pre-teen sibling, not cute coming from the POTUS. Obama’s in favor of sharing wealth if it’s private sector wealth being shared with his friends and allies.
These 12,000 Wisconsin public workers need to “have some skin in the game”
—-Michelle Antionette Obama, Vail, Colorado
btw = Please see pictures of M. Antionette mooching it up in Vail on a “private family trip” paid for with public tax dollars
US LSM will not report on the story – we again have to reply on the foreign press to see how our tax dollars are being spent in Vail (at least the Wisconsin Dems went to a Best Western)
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1358829/Obama-accused-double-standards-family-holiday-telling-Americans-to.html
Michelle, “let them eat cake”, “Antoinette” Obama, in Vail with daughters on a “family ski weekend,” sans BO.
http://content.usatoday.com/communities/theoval/post/2011/02/michelle-obama-daughters-on-colorado-ski-trip/1
According to reports, the Obama’s are paying the trip’s “personal expenses.” Wonder whether that includes the costs for flying the family and friends by government jet, the 15-car motorcade to and from the airport, all the secret service protection, not to mention the costs for the town of Vail to close off roads and virtually sequester itself, etc., etc., to accommodate the Queen’s (er FLOTUS’s) little whim Vail ski weekend. She continues to gluttonously devour every imaginable luxury at the everyday American taxpayers’ expense. Yet, Camp David seems to have sufficed for virtually every other previous FLOTUS enjoying a holiday family weekend. Enjoy, Michelle. We can see 2012 from here, and the gravy train has already left the station.
12,000 state government workers to lose their job?
for once we agree with Speaker Boehner: “SO BE IT!”
So, how’s that Constitution-violating, OFA/Soros-funded, bused-in, vitriolic, barbaric leftist union thuggery workin’ out for BO?
“The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Sunday shows that 23% of the nation’s voters Strongly Approve of the way that Barack Obama is performing his role as president. Forty-one percent (41%) Strongly Disapprove, giving Obama a Presidential Approval Index rating of -18 …”
CJK?
http://www.grouchyconservativepundits.com/index.php?topic=27862.msg221028#msg221028
” Madison city salt trucks circle Capitol Square blowing horns”
I can’t believe how plumb stupid these Union Thugs & their supporters are acting.
If I wrote a script “How to Alienate & Offend the average Working Joe & Jane,” I could not have done better in my wildest fantasies.
He should lay off 12,000 people AND still cut the collective bargaining rights. That’ll teach the teachers….HA!!!
So the next episode of Strikes&Consequences is called “12,000 pink slips”?
Perhaps the AWOL Obamacrat Senate members could be fined for their refusal to attend session and perform their duties according to their oath of office…the one where they swore they would uphold the U.S. Constitution and Wisconsin Constitution, the one they’re violating with their absence. They could be fined to help cover the severance packages for the up to 12,000 public employees who may receive layoff notices because of these weasels’ protracted, unnecessary absence. Come to think of it, why not also fine each of them for their individual portions of the interest accumulating on the state debt, as well as other costs the state is incurring, for every day they’re truant?
Unions have a monopoly in states without right-to-work laws. Especially government workers unions. They have become too powerful. California has it really bad. The benefits and pension plans of state workers far exceed the private sector. Fiscal reform in California cannot be done for that reason. The unions prevented the reforms that Gov. Schwarzenegger wanted to impliment. Bankruptcy comes next. Looks like Wisconsin is trying to avoid bankruptcy, but the unions want their way, no matter what.
Here are the doctors who were allegedly writing fake passes and where to call or write to report them..
http://www.patriotactionnetwork.com/forum/topic/show?id=2600775%3ATopic%3A3248206&xgs=1&xg_source=msg_share_topic
Ohio is next with its Senate Bill 5 on collective bargaining – check out this union thug’s vulgar attack of a tea party member
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NtB0gUuLBf0&w=640&h=390]
What jumps out at me the most here is that Wisconsin has 300,000 public employees. With a population of 5.5 million that probably means around 2 million jobs in the state. If 300,000 are public sector, that means 15% of the workforce is govt. employees. That is a huge burden for the rest of us and the way I read this it doesn’t even include federal employees. Seeing numbers like this really drive home how far this country has slid towards socialism and how great is the task we face to restore sane, limited govt. Even more sobering is the realization of the huge opposition we are up against and that will be mobilized to support the government class as the fiscal situation starts to unravel, which is just in its early stages.
Teachers are always complaining. They act like they’re coal miners. And that they have extraordinarily horrible working conditions. I’ve never seen a more miserable and self righteous group of people. I don’t think they are getting the public on their side at all with this. I would never send my kid to public school if I could at ALL help it.
Teachers would have a lot easier time of it if children were taught manners at home by parents instead of MTV. It used to be if a student got in trouble at school they were REALLY in trouble when they got home. No more. –Then there are the union leaders taking advantage of teachers and shoveling money into their own pockets. I don’t know any teachers who like the NEA.
I think that teachers have an unrealistic view of how others perceive them. They seem to think that they’re God’s gift, however, they’ve forgotten that most people in this country have had interactions with teachers, and most of them haven’t been good. In all my years of schooling I can count on one hand teachers who were good at their jobs and those of us who currently have children in school also know how low the quality of instruction is.
It’s hard of us to feel sympathy for them. Those of us who were stuck in stifling schools as children, who couldn’t wait to get away from “the teacher,” and those of us who now have to navigate the educational system with our own children have heard and seen enough. Not all teachers are bad, but too many are, and we will never be able to get rid of them until we break the teacher’s unions.
Good teachers have nothing to fear, they’ll be well compensated, but the incompetent ones will have to find somewhere else to flaunt their vaunted “educations.” Many of them look down on us parents and treat us with contempt. It’s time we turned the tables. Let them find another job where they only have to work 9 months a year, get Christmas and Spring Breaks, have great benefits, and retire with a healthy pension. Those jobs do not exist outside the public sector so good luck to them!
Teachers always think they should be paid based on their noble existence. But to be honest, considering the sheer numbers that want to be teachers, they aren’t really worth much in terms of dollars. Now, if school systems want to pay more to extract a higher quality teacher that is fine… but generally they aren’t worth it. Factor in that quality isn’t controlled under union systems means that often you can be overpaying for it.
I do I agree, however, that teachers have to take a lot of grief in extra training and long days and also that people want them to be social workers on top of teaching duties. But, if its really that bad then they’d leave the industry and force the pressure back on us.
What I really don’t like is that there is this assumption that by being mean and nasty you can somehow trump economics. Do these people not witness what has happened to various companies across our land? The real issue is that these people are painfully ignorant… which is sad as these people are the ones that are instructing our youth.
Unions have created an entitlement mentality. Here’s a suggestion to the whiny teachers: how about you have to work 12 mos/yr like the rest of us? You can use the salary from those 3 summer months to pay your benefits.
One of the major issues for the teachers/government workers in WI is that the Governor wants them to BEGIN paying a portion of the health insurance costs as well as part of their pension benefits. Presently the teachers contribute NOTHING for their health insurance or their retirement pensions. This is the same state where the teachers fought to have VIAGRA covered in their health insurance!
The teachers/government workers in WI are fighting these two provisions since it will result in less take-home pay.
Would they rather have less take-home pay and keep the majority employed or refuse to accept these changes resulting in the firing of approximately 12,000 due to lack of money?
Aren’t these the same people fighting for income distribution from the rich to the poor? Why aren’t they willing to redistribute their income for the greater good? They are hypocrites.
The majority have no idea on who wealth is created…and believe that the taxpayer is a bottomless pit of money…..just raise taxes….instead of cutting costs first!
Good, Fire them all then our taxes will become minimal. Fire them!!
If it lowers the amount of govt employees its a good thing.
Sneaking out of the state didn’t work out well for the Texas Democrats when they did it. It’s not going to work out well for Wisconsin D’s. You will know they lost everything if you hear that the unions are asking the teachers to return to the classrooms. They would have taken a poll that shows that the public is not with them. My guess is that only 30% of the state is with the unions. They elected a R for governor not very long ago…helloooo? Earth to unions – those of us working in the private sector or retired are not sympathetic to your “cause”. We don’t have lifetime tenure. We’ve lost our jobs. We’ve lost our health care and other benefits. Or, we’re retired with no lifetime health benefits. We’re paying for our own and yours. We’ve lost our homes. And we’re still paying for your salary and benefits. Are you hearing us now?