I consider myself middle class even though I do not make as much, nor do I have a paid for pension, like most of the people that are protesting in Madison.
I do not feel condemned if Governor Walker’s Budget Bill is passed. What I feel is condemned if it is not.
I will become a slave to the government unions!! If they have their way all private sector employees will be forced to work and pay taxes so that they can keep their cushy jobs with total protection from being fired and no accountability or expectations. Their ads say that the middle class will be crushed by this bill, however, it affects less then 7 percent of the state and most, if not all are upper middle class making wages and benefits in excess of $80,000.
The runaways make you feel like they are sacrificing for the poor middle class that is going to loose everything, and that the kids will suffer in schools because funding is being cut. Then they turn around and say that the Republicans should change the way they are voting or face loosing their jobs. Maybe, just maybe, these runaways are just worried about their own jobs because they were put into office by the same people that they are trying to keep happy. They, being the unions that pump more money into the Democratic Party than any other source.
The middle class union workers are more in danger of loosing everything if the state goes bankrupt than with this deal. This deal will assure them their jobs and pensions now and in the future. They should be thanking Governor Walker.
As for the kids, paying higher wages and pensions will not help educate them any better. Private school teachers make less and their kids earn more scholarships, have better test scores and go onto college many more times over than public school kids. Just as State Senator, Chris Larson, who has obviously forgotten about his private school upbringing (grade school and high school).
So honestly (I know, asking a runaway to be honest) runaways, it is not about the middle class (me included), it is not about the rights of your people (federal employees do not have this collective bargaining “right”), it is not about the kids (private school teachers make less and achieve much better results), it is about you (the Democratic State Senator) saving your jobs by helping the people that “bought” you into office.
Jaime Maliszewski is president of RPW Inc. in Milwaukee.
