These monsters just want it all.

[seafan]

Investors want Wisconsin governor to beat unions

By Joseph N. DiStefano
Tue, Feb. 22, 2011

Of all the Republican proposals for not paying retired teachers and state troopers the pensions promised in more prosperous times, investors prefer Wisconsin-style union-busting over the state-bankruptcy gamble proposed by ex-U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich and ex-Florida Gov. Jeb Bush.

State bankruptcy could let governments break their union contracts and cancel benefits, but it "is less desirable to the bondholder, because it creates a higher level of uncertainty that would increase borrowing costs for states and local municipalities," says Michael Crow, who manages $3 billion in clients' bond investments in state and local governments for Glenmede, the Philadelphia trust bank.

Barring unions from negotiating benefits, as Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker wants to do, is more likely to improve states' credit ratings, Crow told me.

Why are radical measures being considered at all?

It's not just the recession, Crow says: "We've had a structural imbalance, with state far outpacing state revenue growth, over the 10-year period from 1999 to 2008," even before the economy stopped.

He blames two factors: Medicaid spending on congressionally mandated health care for the poor, and state-funded public school spending, which has risen faster than inflation because of rising salaries and benefits negotiated by local districts - sealed in union contracts and protected by state bargaining laws.

How do we know weaker unions would mean lower pay and benefits? "I do not have any research to back that up," Crow acknowledged. New Jersey teachers can't strike, yet "the state has one of the highest per-student costs in the nation," he said.

Doesn't the specter of Wisconsin teachers pouring out of classrooms to occupy state buildings make investors nervous? "I don't think there's a long-term impact" just from protesting, Crow said. But if unions "succeed in forcing what is obviously a state with very strong Republican control to back down, it would create a blueprint for opposition." That blueprint would make radical change harder in other states.

.....

God, these people make me sick.


Here's Jeb Bush weighing in, via Twitter:

Good graphic from The Daily depicting what the WI ruckus is about. http://bit.ly/gxQloO 9:54 AM Feb 19th via web

Here is the graphic that Jeb is licking his chops over:





More from the Philly story:

If Wisconsin beats the unions, will Pennsylvania copy? Pennsylvania is not in as bad a shape, said Crow, who credits milder debt loads in the years in which Tom Ridge and later Ed Rendell were governors.

"New Jersey, on the other hand," says Crow, faces a massive budget shortfall. But, as in cash-strapped Massachusetts and Illinois, the Legislature in New Jersey is still dominated by Democrats, who don't want to cut allied labor unions too deeply, and GOP Gov. Christie "has not pushed," as Crow puts it.

Cities - especially in New Jersey, where the state gives more generously to urban schools than Pennsylvania - face pressure for more radical cuts.

"Fiscal conservatives are seeing this as an opportunity to correct those structural imbalances," Crow said. "Any success on their part is positive," from an investors' point of view. Even if government workers and retirees have to make do with less.

But, YOU won't have to make do with less, will you, Mr. Crow? That must work out nicely for you and your ilk.


These criminals are going after Medicaid for poor people, public education and workers' unions with everything they've got. Money. Citizens United. Rabid operatives. Controlled Media.


Hell, Jeb tried mightily to *reform* Medicaid in Florida. And he hates public education with a level of zeal not often encountered. He might be out of office, but Jeb Bush's operatives are hard at work in Tallahassee.



People of the United States, we must rise up to throw off these serpents of hatred, greed, endless war and targeted economic starvation aimed at the people of this country.


We must arise.

[DJ13]

1. K&R

[Mayflower1]

2. I agree with most of your post, however

I don't think the public education is very successful. Where am I wrong? Just seems like the more money we pour into the schools, the worse the results are.

Just read somewhere that 2/3 of the 8th graders in WISC. are not proficient in reading.

Tell me, (kindly, please) where I am wrong.

[leftstreet]

3. Do you think public education is not successful because salaries are too high?

:popcorn:

[Mayflower1]

8. Absolutely not,

but salary and results obviously are not tied together.

[leftstreet]

9. Oh. You said 'the more money we pour into the schools...'

Not sure what you meant - you brought up money

[sudopod]

5. Sweden's teachers are not vastly smarter than ours, but their schools work much better.

Clearly, teachers are not the problem, else we could just copy the methods of more successful countries and there would be no problem. Taking what little power they have over their own fates while making them poor won't make the solve anything, either.

The problem is a cultural one.

[seafan]

11. To put it very simply

The very foundation of public education in this country has been deliberately dismantled by those hoping to privatize it, and to steer all of that money into their own pockets.

So, our kids, teachers and parents, and all the rest of us, lose out, as the expectation that we will turn out very large numbers of well-educated young citizens who will successfully make their way in the world, grows dimmer.


Florida is a microcosm of it. And it is by design.



Here are some of the primary reasons public education is faltering. Again, it is by design, orchestrated by a relative few.


1. Robbery of state funding for public education by steering state constitutionally dedicated public funds into voucher systems, private schools and charter schools that are shielded from any accountability for how they operate. Corporate tax credits for donating to private schools was also pushed by Jeb Bush.

The Corporate Tax Credit for Scholarships in Florida is an example of a politically charged tax credit that would be acceptable in some States, but more than likely resisted and opposed in other States. The idea is to give low income students access to private schools and this is objectionable to some taxpayers who are already being heavily taxed to support a public school system. The implication that a better education can be received at a privately run school and that tax credits would fund students to escape the public school system or go out of district to find a better school is disturbing to some taxpayers.

2. Weakening teachers' job security by cutting their pay, arbitrarily coupling "merit" pay with performance of students on widely despised standardized tests; crippling their protective unions that exist to provide them with a living wage and benefits. This is Jeb Bush's fondest dream.

3. Weakening the university systems via lack of proper oversight; efforts to politicize financing and steering it to political cronies who cycle out of government and into lucrative university positions, such as Marco Rubio, Frank Brogan and other Jeb Bush associates have done here in Florida.

4. Interfering with the curriculum such as the infamous Neil Bush Ignite! COW educational software, pushed into Florida schools with the help of brother and Governor Jeb Bush. Fights over whether to teach evolution. Fights over whether to enforce school prayer. Jeb Bush ridiculously pushed for 9th graders to declare a major in order to graduate.

5. Trying to put too many students in a class. We in Florida voted for smaller class sizes to facilitate better learning, but Jeb Bush made it his devious mission to destroy the small class-size amendment we voted for on the ballot.

6. Pushing these extreme ideas onto other states. Enter Jeb Bush. He's been barnstorming around the country pushing school vouchers, merit pay, standardized tests and breaking up teachers' unions.



As we are seeing, these conservative zealots will not be deterred from permanently starving public education into oblivion, so this huge pot of money can be diverted to their own and their cronies' private pockets.


The theme is "Let's starve public education so it will fail, and then we will have all the reason we need to bury it once and for all."


They are trying to do the same thing to Social Security right now.



We must break the stranglehold of these people who have cheated and bought their way into far too many positions of power in our country.

[HereSince1628]

4. I know it's no comfort, but when they've finished with us

they will turn and eat each other.

[moondust]

6. Dictators.

They want absolute control of everything.

[alterfurz]

10. bingo

in Jungian terms: lots of id, cunning ego, not much super-ego/conscience. Current Republican party membership ranges from mild to raging sociopathic. Wisconsin's Walker is in a league by himself.

[moondust]

13. Hang tough, Madison.

:fistbump:

[alterfurz]

14. Madison thanks you for your support!

I was a UW student back in the 60s, when Madison was Ground Zero in The War at Home. I can't tell you how gratifying it's been to this geezer to witness such a transcendent resurgence of this old town's righteous raging glory. Probably just an old man dreaming here...still, who knows: Some day the history books may even say, "It was on a day in February, in Madison, Wisconsin, when a spark of resistance to right-wing insanity lit a fire that swept across the nation..."

[stockholmer]

7. insanity, why would the Unions ever agree to those insurance rates of 12.6%!

If you make $1000 US a week pre-tax, (which due to the dollar collapse of last 6 months is now less than our per capita GDP) that means you will have to pay $500 a month just for health coverage!

This amount would come very close to renting a small 2 room flat here in a fairly inner suburb of Stockholm, due to our rent policies.

And, if that rate is considered (by right-wing capitalist scum) a great perk of 'spoiled' government workers, I cannot even begin to think of what some minimum or near-minimum wage workers have to pay as a percentage of income.

Fight back, do not let this raping of the working class stand!

[Initech]

12. Here in LA, the mayor of Bell was caught on e-mail saying he wanted to the town for every cent

They had - to the chief of police for that town!! Not only does this shit happen on a local level, it happens everywhere!!

What are going to do with these out of control executives? :argh: