DiscussMormonism.com

bcspace wrote: The unions have been bloodied, hopefully next year to be crushed. Christie and Walker have been heroes in this regard.

Imagine the jubilation at the National Manufacturers Convention when 70 hour work weeks are reinstated.

Don't imagine the insurance companies will be happy with ending health care plans, but hey, that's the wheels of regress.

Odd that BSCspace doesn't think Walker's team blanketing the airwaves with advertizements, enjoying something like an 8-1 spending advantage, has something to do with his polling. Because if it doesn't, why go through all the trouble and expense of doing that in the first place?

MCB wrote:
You have to LIVE in Wisconsin to appreciate this. The TV stations are making a mint. It is really excessive.

Knowing how big of an economic and financial mess the State of California is in now, I completely understand why GOP Governor Scott Walker did what he did.

Bueno column: Don’t hand state over to unions

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I know of a governor who wants to cut Medicaid programs, cut payments to healthcare providers, make state workers contribute more toward their pensions and raise their retirement age to 67.

The governor is a Democrat – Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn. After nearly a decade of Democratic leadership, Illinois is on the brink of insolvency. The state is facing a $2.7 billion budget deficit and has the nation’s most underfunded employee pension system, with a current liability of $83 billion. Future obligations are accumulating twice as fast as tax revenues.

Illinois’ economy is so bad it doesn’t even have money for school buses. The state Board of Education expects to either cut bus transportation or charge parents for the service.

California has the nation’s third-highest unemployment rate at 11 percent. It’s economy is flat and it also faces crippling public pension obligations.

Both states are notorious public union enablers, and are now suffering the consequences of too much taxing, spending and borrowing.

Gov. Quinn raised corporate taxes from 7.3 percent to 9.5 percent last year, and also raised the personal income tax rate from 3 percent to 5 percent. A family of four earning $60,000 had to wave goodbye to $1,040.

Illinois also rakes in a lot from residents via sales taxes – up to 11.5 percent between state, county and city surcharges. And Quinn hasn’t forgotten the “sin taxes.” He wants to raise the cigarette tax by $1 a pack.

Taxpayers take note: Democrats absolutely will tax the middle class once they’ve tapped out businesses and “the rich.” They’ll just quietly spread the tax hikes around and hope you don’t notice that you’re paying higher income taxes, property taxes, sales taxes and government fees for everything – including school buses for your kids.

Democrats will tax the middle class long before they’ll cut spending on their favorite special interest group: public unions. Public unions have massive amounts of money, and I hope no one’s naïve enough to think Democrats don’t curry favor with the rich.

At least when Republicans curry favor with businesses, their states get jobs in return. When Democrats curry favor with public unions, their states just get higher taxes.

Anyone who earns more than $48,000 in California pays 9.3 percent state income tax, “higher than what millionaires pay in 47 states,” says Joel Kotkin, a respected demographer at Chapman University in Orange, Calif.

Kotkin is a Democrat, but he told the Wall Street Journal in an April 20 interview that California’s “new regime” with its anti-business, high-tax policies, is waging “a progressive war on the middle class” in favor of “the very rich, the very poor, and the public employees.” Hollywood moguls can live with high taxes. So can the large welfare class that doesn’t pay taxes. But the over-taxed middle class, which already struggles to find jobs and afford homes, is being pushed out of the state.

Gov. Quinn, having run out of ways to squeeze the Illinois middle class, has reluctantly proposed that public workers contribute 3 percent more toward their pensions, retire at age 67 and accept fewer cost-of-living adjustments. Otherwise so much state revenue will go toward pension payments that there will be little left for other programs.

“Too bad!” bellowed the unions. “It is a clearly illegal attempt to solve the problem caused by past governors and the legislature solely on the backs of teachers, caregivers and other public workers,” scolded union spokesman Michael Carrigan

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Brackite wrote:Knowing how big of an economic and financial mess the State of California is in now, I completely understand why GOP Governor Scott Walker did what he did.

Sound familiar? It’s the same rhetoric union bosses blasted at Gov. Scott Walker when he asked state employees to contribute their fare share toward their job benefits.