MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Republicans in the Wisconsin Assembly took the first significant action on their plan to strip collective bargaining rights from most public workers, abruptly passing the measure early Friday morning before sleep-deprived Democrats realized what was happening.Read the rest here.
The vote ended three straight days of punishing debate in the Assembly. But the political standoff over the bill — and the monumental protests at the state Capitol against it — appear far from over.
The Assembly's vote sent the bill on to the Senate, but minority Democrats in that house have fled to Illinois to prevent a vote. No one knows when they will return from hiding. Republicans who control the chamber sent state troopers out looking for them at their homes on Thursday, but they turned up nothing.
"I applaud the Democrats in the Assembly for earnestly debating this bill and urge their counterparts in the state Senate to return to work and do the same," Assembly Speaker Jeff Fitzgerald, R-Horicon, said in a statement issued moments after the vote.
The plan from Republican Gov. Scott Walker contains a number of provisions he says are designed to fill the state's $137 million deficit and lay the groundwork for fixing a projected $3.6 billion shortfall in the upcoming 2011-13 budget.
The flashpoint is language that would require public workers to contribute more to their pensions and health insurance and strip them of their right to collectively bargain benefits and work conditions.
Lost and Found
13 hours ago
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The flashpoint is language that would require public workers to contribute more to their pensions and health insurance and strip them of their right to collectively bargain benefits and work conditions.
Horrible. Who could possibly afford to live under such appalling terms of employment. /sarc
Two articles exploring the application of the "shock doctrine" in the U.S. (Wisconsin is the first domino).
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/25/opinion/25krugman.html?_r=2&smid=tw-NytimesKrugman&seid=auto
http://rortybomb.wordpress.com/2011/02/24/walkers-budget-plan-is-a-three-part-roadmap-for-conservative-state-governance/
This is where their War on the working class continues. The Republicans have always been against the working class. American history proves it over and over again and I will go even further and say that the Republicans are destroying the very fabric of America. Which political party follows more along the lines of the Beattitudes ?? Certainly not the Republicans with their Coorperate Capitalistic worship of Money and constant war mongering. Hopefully and it even looks to be true , that this will stir up the Blue Collar Working class to respond to these oligarch lovers. Glen Beck, Sarah Palin, Rush Limbaugh and O'Reilly are all boobs for Coorperate "Amorica" and are far from being Christian. They feed the public with propaganda for the wealthy. We are really supposed to worry about the saleries of these workers when the budget for America's wars are in the hundreds of billions ?? c'mon now, wake up. The wealthy want to cut un-employment beacause we have no money for it but at the same time , they do not want to be properly taxed ??? c'mon now !!!
Oh please. Government employee unions are inherently parasitical and inconsistent with the ideals of public service. They are not justifiable even under traditional labor economics.
Rather than do nothing while their States were driven to bankruptcy, the voters put the adults in charge. Now the children are behaving as children are wont to do.
It is the Republicans who are driving them into bankruptcy with their no taxes from the rich , lining their croney buddies pockets with tax dollars and endless war all over the world monies which are in the multi trillions. They are dekiberately destroying the working class.
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