How the Budget Repair Bill Passed
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Minority Leader Miller made it quite clear, in a letter to Majority Leader Fitzgerald, that the Democrats had no intention of returning until and unless the collective bargaining provisions were stripped from the bill.
Senator Taylor requested an absentee ballot for the April 5 spring election.
Republican senators were convinced that the Democrat 14 weren’t interested in …
Last Night’s Vote Was Legal
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There was some discussion today about the notice provided for the legislature’s conference committee. In special session, under Senate Rule 93, no advance notice is required other than posting on the legislative bulletin board. Despite this rule, it was decided to provide a 2 hour notice by posting on the bulletin board. My …
The Democrats Are Coming Home
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Sen. Jim Holperin said Thursday that he was on his way home to Conover and other Democrats were either on their way back or would be leaving soon.
He says there was no reason for them to stay away any longer since Senate Republicans passed the bill without them on …
Badgering the Witless
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Iowahawk returns to the subject of whether or not Wisconsin’s unionized school system trumps the non-unionized nightmare that is the Texas public school system.
Spoiler: it doesn’t. Further spoiler: Wisconsin is not doing well, at all, in educating minority students.
The Unions Didn’t Agree to Anything
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Wisconsin public unions have been saying for weeks now that they had agreed to Governor Walker’s benefit cuts and that the Governor should leave their collective bargaining “rights” alone.
Well, they’ve been busy signing new 2-year contracts that either don’t include the cuts or (in some cases) actually have pay and benefit increases. Guess they haven’t …
Is a Texas Education That Bad?
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Iowahawk steps out of character for a moment to set Paul Krugman straight. Krugman has been claiming that Texas, without collective bargaining, has an education system that ranks far, far below the education system of Wisconsin, which does have collective bargaining.
It turns out that, once you control for the ethnicity of the overall population, Texas …
Walker’s Budget and Collective-Bargaining Reform
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Scott Walker has intended to cut state spending by $2.4 billion all along. The Budget Repair Bill, that limits collective bargaining, was intended to give local governments more tools to reduce costs besides just eliminating programs.
Christian Schneider details some of the ways that Walker’s repair bill will help cut costs.
Channel your inner Jim Doyle!
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Wisconsin’s Senate Democrats have finally proposed their own financial fixes, for the 2009-2011 budget shortfall. The Recess Supervisor pokes fun at it.
In other words, $79MM in additional cuts made by DOA that they say they can’t find yet, $43MM of payments delayed to the 2011-13 budget that will cost us $7MM to execute, …
I Support Governor Walker
A little over 2 weeks ago, Governor Walker introduced his Budget Repair Bill for the 2009-2011 biennium. This bill includes several changes related to collective bargaining for public sector employees.
Here is the Wisconsin State Journal’s summary of the changes:
Makes various changes to limit collective bargaining for most public employees to wages. Total wage …
Unions: Public Sector Unions Are Different
Not all unions are created equal. Public sector unions are fundamentally different from private sector unions. While private sector unions can serve a valuable function, public sector unions exist in a different world, with different constraints and a different history.
Private and public sector unions are different historically. While there’s a long of history of private …