High Noon in Wisconsin Turns Out Well: The Middle Class as a Whole Wins
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No matter what Liberals and the MSNBC carnival barkers say, the public sector is but a portion of the middle class, and a pampered one at that
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Today, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker faced ”High Noon” in a recall election. Fortunately, the good citizenry turned out to support the sheriff who has done a good job to protect them. Sometimes shrill politics has good endings.
For those who do not recall the classic 1952 movie with Gary Cooper, the longtime marshal got married and turned in his badge. He learns that a criminal he brought to justice is due to arrive on the noon train. He and his wife leave town, but fearing that the gang will hunt him down and be a danger to the townspeople, he turns back. He reclaims his badge and scours the town for help with little success. The worried townspeople encourage him to leave, hoping that would defuse the situation. In the end, he faces the Miller Gang alone. He guns down two of the gang. As the townspeople emerge, he contemptuously throws his marshal’s star in the dirt and leaves town with his wife.
In this case, the Wisconsin public workers unions came to town and wanted to run “Sheriff Walker” out of town so they could continue to feed heartily at the taxpayer trough. It didn’t work
As is in many states, the public fisc is being blown out with deficit spending in Wisconsin. A good portion comes from the pay and benefits, relatively higher than private industry, of the public workers which they negotiated through collective bargaining. Realizing this had to change, Governor Walker came in and, with the legislature, repealed collective bargaining rights. The results have been positive as ever-rising property taxes have stabilized, local governments have been able to get better labor deals that are reasonable for all, and the state’s bond rating has gone up.
But the victory did not come easy.
Unions leaders in the Badger State put up a ferocious fight and aided by their Liberal wing-men, especially at MSNBC, they portrayed Mr. Walker’s reforms as a “war on the middle class.” Hardly. If anything, it was a defense of the middle class. The hard truth of the matter is, over the last several decades, a new and second middle class, specifically government workers, has emerged via wealth transfer (read: taxpayer money). This group enjoys a significantly higher overall compensation package, and attendant standard of living, than their middle class counterparts who are best described as the “wealth-production” (private industry) middle-class. And, ironically, it is the wealth production middle class who pay for the government workers. The wealth production middle class showed in this Wisconsin election that they have had enough and they should not be forced to care more for ostensible fellow “middle classers” who, at the moment that even the slightest hint of economic reality is asked of them (pension/medical contributions), storm the capitol and start screaming and demonstrating. No matter what Ed Schultz on MSNBC blathers, all middle class people are not equal.
This is something that even tin-eared union leadership has quietly and finally understood and accepted, hence their lack of attacking Governor Walker’s union reforms during this recall campaign.
And of course, look for accusations of voting irregularities and the money Governor Walker’s campaign spent to be maligned as the reason why voters went for the incumbent. Hopefully such voices will be around in the Fall when Mr. Obama has another campaign of blowout spending, but don’t hold your breath for such rainy-day scolds.
More than anything else, the results tonight show that there is ultimately a limit to how far union leaders can push the envelope….and how far taxpayers are willing to be pushed.
-I.M. Windee
