Is Wisconsin’s Gov. Scott Walker out to fix his state’s budget or out to politically bust a union? Despite the usual spin (spin equaling comments that almost everyone knows are not really what’s going on but if a R or a D says them people are somehow expected to believe it is so even though no one does..get it?) the more you read on the showdown in Wisconsin, the more it sounds like a political ploy to bust a union that backs Democrats.
First, read Andrew Sullivan HERE who takes issue with the union but has concluded that the governor is going beyond what he says his goal is.
Second, read Sullivan HERE where he checks and finds that despite what is being said by some on Fox News, Walker never campaigned on a pledge to end collective bargaining for public sector employees. (It sounds as if some newsperson has swallowed a political sources political spin here..)
Now read The Plum Line’s Greg Sargent’s analysis wondering why Walker won’t declare victory now since the union has pretty much agreed to his demands — except ending collective bargaining. He also presents what increasingly seems the logical conclusion for what is really going on: Walker is playing to the GOP’s conservative base and/or his real motivation is not financial but political: to break the back of a union that has supported Democrats.
And the debate in the Wisconsin legislature has gotten heated…indeed:
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.