Fighting to Preserve Liberty in America
The line in the sand that public sector unions draw is over collective bargaining. They will give in to the requests of Governor Scott Walker in Wisconsin on contributing to their retirement and health care, but don’t you dare touch collective bargaining. Why is this sacrosanct?
So here’s the bottom line. Once fully implemented, I’m convinced the Affordable Care Act will do what it was designed it to do — cut costs, cover everybody, end the worst abuses in the insurance industry, and bring down our long-term deficits. I am not open to re-fighting the battles of the last two years, or undoing the progress that we’ve made. But I am willing to work with anyone — anybody in this room, Democrat or Republican, governors or member of Congress — to make this law even better; to make care even better; to make it more affordable and fix what needs fixing. – President Barack Obama addressing the National Governor’s Association.
Is President Obama addressing members of the House of Representatives or the Senate? No. If he were, I would have no problem with what he said. Both he and the members of both houses of Congress are part of the federal government. No law gets passed until all three play their part. There are checks and balances between them, but they do negotiate and can take various positions.
When the unions and their progressive supporters hit the streets in Madison, Wisconsin the news cameras didn’t have to look high and low to find the Hitler posters, they could probably spot them from a hundred yards off, but honestly, who didn’t think there would be Hitler posters at a left wing rally? But in a effort to modernize, somebody found a newspaper and saw there was some unrest in the Middle East and voila, we had comparisons to Hosni Mubarak and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. So Governor Scott Walker, we are to believe, is acting like a dictator not a democratically elected governor working through a democratically elected legislature? Hmmm, I wonder how the public sector unions got the “rights” they ferociously cling to?
To hear the progressives talk about the public sector unions in Wisconsin and other locales you would think collective bargaining was enshrined in the Bill of Rights. We have a right to bargain collectively. The unions are fighting for their rights. The Bill of Rights was won through the fighting of a bloody revolution. The right for all citizens to vote was won through the passage of an amendment to the Constitution. So, naturally, the right of public sector unions was won through a similar groundswell of popular support, right? No. Actually it was started by one man, fighting for his political life, in the shadow of Tammany Hall.
The Republicans in the House of Representatives led a freewheeling debate, unknown during Nancy Pelosi’s reign, to put together a continuing resolution for the rest of the current fiscal year ending in October. Hundreds of amendments were offered by both Democrats and Republicans and voted on. Some went against what the Republican leadership wanted, but it was how the House was supposed to work.
It seemed an unlikely place. But then so was Gettysburg. If you asked anyone at about the time the Tea Party started if Wisconsin would be a major battleground, I don’t think they would have agreed. But in the last few days, a new Republican governor has taken on the public unions and they have fought back with a vengeance. It is a battle they can little afford to lose.
The corrupt main stream media, the unions, and President Barack Obama are fighting their Waterloo. The voters have had enough of bloated out of control government. The private sector struggles with unemployment and a stagnant economy, while the public sector grows and out earns them while they have to pay for it. The union thugs take to the streets, shut down schools, take students out of the classroom to protest with their union teachers, while Democrat lawmakers flee the state instead of doing their job. Is this Greece? No, it is Madison, Wisconsin.
K-12 education is in trouble. A recent report on schools in New York City said that of the 60% or so of students who actually graduate, about half need remedial classes before they can perform at the college level. We have a Department of Education that has spent over $1 trillion since it was created by President Jimmy Carter and school performance has declined.
Comments submitted in response to a previous post, “The Progressive War on Federalism,” focused on the Electoral College and a movement called the National Popular Vote (http://www.nationalpopularvote.com) bill. Rather than argue against my point it only seemed to reinforce it. The objective of this movement, which before this commenter’s contribution I was unaware of, is to abolish, or should I say neuter, the Electoral College and replace it with the direct election of the president. This movement looks to further weaken the states and move us away from federalism and toward a strong monolithic central government. Here is my analysis.
Please enjoy this audio podcast
Click to PlayYour comments and feedback are welcome. Please feel free to share your thoughts below.
Fixing New York: Episode 3
