From the Associated Press:

Riot police fired tear gas at youths hurling rocks near the Greek finance ministry Tuesday, trying to quell the anger unleashed by a general strike as parliament debated new cost-cutting measures.

The latest austerity measures must pass in two parliamentary votes Wednesday and Thursday if Greece is to receive bailout funds from the EU and the IMF to stave off a possible default in July. If the votes don’t pass, Greece could become the first eurozone nation to default on its debts, sending shock waves through the global economy.

The clashes with police came at the start of a two-day strike called by unions furious that the new euro28 billion ($40 billion) austerity program will slap taxes on minimum wage earners and other struggling Greeks. The measures come on top of other spending cuts and tax hikes that have sent Greek unemployment soaring to over 16 percent.

(more…)

My 401K is down 40%, my employer just cut the match; and it looks like I may have work until I’m 70 years old. I also pay for pensions to public employees who retired in their 50s.

I don’t have enough money to go on vacation this year, but I paid my share of the federal government’s $2.6 million grant to teach Chinese prostitutes to drink responsibly. I pay for bridges to nowhere.

I drive a 1997 Honda Accord, but I had to pay for my neighbor’s $41,000 electric car.  I also bailed out the United Auto Workers.

I contribute to my children’s 529 college savings plan, but since I don’t qualify for financial aid I pay for other people’s kids to go to school as well. I also pay for the sociology classes where I am sneered at for my lack of social conscience and denounced as the very essence of greed, racism and environmental insensitivity.

I exercise regularly, watch my cholesterol, and pay for my own health insurance as well as copays and deductibles. I also pay for Other People’s tonsillectomies, appendectomies and occasional rhinoplasties. I pay taxes for Medicare, Medicaid and for various medical programs for poor children and now I will get to subsidize the health care of several million more non-elderly, non-impoverished Americans.

(more…)

These People Are Disgusting…
The far left is using a woman’s suicide to attack Governor Scott Walker.

The Progressive, a liberal website in Wisconsin, reported this week that a Wisconsin teacher committed suicide because of Governor Scott Walker’s union bill. The website says she was “distraught” to learn that she was going to have to pay 12.6% instead of 6% of her insurance premium cost?
Really?… Really?

Jeri-Lynn Betts, an early childhood teacher in the Watertown, Wisconsin, school district, died on March 8 of an apparent suicide.

A colleague says she was “very distraught” over Gov. Scott Walker’s attacks on public sector workers and public education.

(more…)

From The Courier Post:

John Willliamson, president of the union representing Camden’s police officers, said he and his members would be at the meeting whether they were invited or not.

“We will be there,” he said. “Camden City needs Camden police officers. As far as firefighters, same thing.

“We know the city, we know the people and we know the terrain.”

In town hall meetings, the Republican governor has chided Camden’s police and fire unions for being unwilling to give up perks such as paid birthdays off. But, Williamson said, his members have never been paid for birthdays off.

Williamson did not say it directly, but he cited an historical figure to imply that the countywide plan is part of a larger plot to dismantle public employee unions in New Jersey.

“‘We must close union offices, confiscate their money and put their leaders in prison. We must reduce workers’ salaries and take away their right to strike,’” he read aloud.

“That was said on May 2, 1933, and the person who said it was Adolf Hitler.”

(more…)

From the Associated Press:

Wisconsin lawmakers voted Thursday to strip nearly all collective bargaining rights from the state’s public workers, ending a heated standoff over labor rights and delivering a key victory to Republicans who have targeted unions in efforts to slash government spending nationwide.

The state’s Assembly passed Gov. Scott Walker’s explosive proposal 53-42 without any Democratic support and four no votes from the GOP. Protesters in the gallery erupted into screams of “Shame! Shame! Shame!” as Republican lawmakers filed out of the chamber and into the speaker’s office.

The state’s Senate used a procedural move to bypass missing Democrats and move the measure forward Wednesday night, meaning the plan that delivers one of the strongest blows to union power in years now requires only Walker’s signature to take effect.

(more…)

From Badger 14 blog:

According to a report on the Althouse blog this morning, it appears that Cory Mason, a Democrat member of the Assembly (or a member of his staff) is Wisconsin’s Benedict Arnold — the person who last night forced open a ground-floor window (all of them had been bolted shut as a security measure) and allowed a few protesters into the building after hours, who apparently were the ones who then opened various doors to permit a mob of something like 7,000 people to invade the Capitol Building – in violation not just of state law, but of a judge’s order:  “Staying after the building is closed, is prohibited.”

Rep. Mason, a hard-left progressive who apparently has a penchant for defying orders and whose top special-interest campaign contributors are, unsurprisingly, labor unions and teachers (see here), has been a member of the Wisconsin Assembly since 2006, representing Racine.

According to the Racine Post article accompanying this photograph, in his speech Rep. Mason portrayed the budget-repair proposal currently before the Legislative as involving cataclysmic stakes, and he vowed “to fight them” literally to the death(“until we draw our last breath”), so it hardly seems a stretch to suppose that Mason is the Benedict Arnold who felt justified in prying out a few bolts and letting a few protesters in so they could perform a “Trojan horse” maneuver:

Every generation is called upon to fight for the rights it inherited and improve these rights for the future. Brothers and sisters, this is the fight of our generation.

This is history in the making.

Rarely are we as Legislators called upon to make decisions with so much consequence for the rights of our citizens.

(more…)

This thirty second video will show you everything that is wrong with public sector unions.

The budget debate in Wisconsin has forced a long-overdue discussion about public sector unions. Always a questionable proposition, unionization of the public sector, for a period, seemed a luxury we could afford. Yeah, public workers had job security and great benefits, but their pay was lower, so it seemed a fair trade-off. Over the last couple decades that implicit understanding was upended…public sector pay moved much higher and those great benefits were jacked up on steroids. Worse, we’ve recently learned that the benefits aren’t actually ‘paid for.’ As a result, we face the prospect of far higher taxes to meet these past promises.

At the same time, globalization and the natural forces of competition changed the economic equation for many of us in the private sector. We have had to become more productive, shoulder a greater share of our benefits and assume greater responsibility over our retirement. We’ve also realized that past politicians’ promises about Social Security were checks that couldn’t be cashed.

For the past couple of years, we’ve stayed awake at night wondering whether we would keep our job or whether our employer would stay in business. We saw our take-home pay eroded by higher state and local taxes and higher contributions to our own benefits. We watched in December as politicians of both parties congratulated themselves that they weren’t going to take even more of our earnings–well, for at least a couple more years. After that, who knows…

But, that isn’t the worst of it.

(more…)

The world is backwards. It should be the taxpayers striking in the streets of Wisconsin. But, private sector taxpayers can’t afford to take a day off, let alone a week. Doesn’t that say everything? Only government employees with their powerful unions, lifetime job security, short work-weeks, loads of sick days, nonstop holidays, early retirement, and bloated pensions, can afford to stand in the street protesting. Common sense tells us anyone with this much time to protest and the ability to abandon their work duties, is greatly overpaid.

It’s time for a reality check. These $100,000 per year teachers keep talking about “the kids.” Exactly who is teaching those kids while their teachers abandon their jobs and commit fraud with fake doctor’s notes? If they cared about the kids, they’d be in the classroom. They’d leave the striking and lobbying to their union leaders and lobbyists. It’s the students (and their parents) who should be on strike. Wisconsin teachers are the highest paid in the Midwest, but their students’ performance hasn’t improved. Where’s the taxpayer’s union? Where’s the students’ union? Are students and taxpayers getting their money’s worth? Perhaps they should be on strike.

I’m a small businessman. Like all private sector workers, I have no time to protest or strike. Take a day off? How could I do that? I run a business. People depend on me. I’m on call 24/7/365, weekends, holidays, birthdays and anniversaries. Vacations are “working vacations.” The phones never stop ringing, the emails never slow down. I have to work 16-hour days just to pay my taxes. Who benefits? Those government employees protesting in the streets of Wisconsin.

(more…)

Well, this last week has been yet another shining example of our public sector employees at work. The unions have overreached by such a wide margin that they can no longer cross back over their self-made chasm. To all of you folks at BigGovernment, I ask you this; please just keep giving them rope. It only helps us. I’m sure that you could already tell as much by the desperate Governor Scott Walker/Hitler comparisons. Those are always a crowd-pleaser, right folks? Regardless, the antics in Wisconsin now have even most blue-collar, union-supporting, red-blooded Americans asking themselves “… Really?!”

(more…)

The Democratic/government-union days of rage in Madison, Wis., are a disgrace. Wisconsin congressman Paul Ryan calls it Cairo coming to Madison. But the protesters in Egypt were pro-democracy. The government-union protesters in Madison are anti-democracy; they are trying to prevent a vote in the legislature. In fact, Democratic legislators themselves are fleeing the state so as not to vote on Gov. Scott Walker’s budget cuts.

That’s not democracy.

The teachers’ union is going on strike in Milwaukee and elsewhere. They ought to be fired. Think Ronald Reagan PATCO in 1981. Think Calvin Coolidge police strike in 1919.

The teachers’ union on strike? Wisconsin parents should go on strike against the teachers’ union. A friend e-mailed me to say that the graduation rate in Milwaukee public schools is 46 percent. The graduation rate for African-Americans in Milwaukee public schools is 34 percent. Shouldn’t somebody be protesting that?

Governor Walker is facing a $3.6 billion budget deficit, and he wants state workers to pay one-half of their pension costs and 12.6 percent of their health benefits. Currently, most state employees pay nothing for their pensions and virtually nothing for their health insurance. That’s an outrage.

(more…)

Charlie Gasparino in today’s New York Post:

The municipal-bond market is in crisis, with prices fall ing and investors running for cover — and for good reason.

Munis — bonds sold by states, cities, counties and other localities to finance government operations — are in trouble because the Ponzi scheme of Big Government is coming unglued. The markets are merely reflecting this reality, as they always do.

The $3 trillion muni market was once regarded as the safest of all investments because the bonds are backed by government taxes. Now it’s showing all the earmarks of the 2007-08 meltdown.

(more…)

Speaker Pelosi is calling the 435 House members to DC next week for the purpose of spending another $26 billion we don’t have. We were on a six week hiatus, and members had scattered to the four corners of the Earth.

Speaker Pelosi and President Obama have already spent $3.6 trillion on “stimulus,” so for them, $26 billion doesn’t rise to the level of a day at the beach, so why bring us all back to DC?

Could it be because their most loyal constituency and political foot soldiers, many of whom could be facing the never before seen horror of a government employee let go due to lack of state and local tax receipts, need to be reminded whose hand quite literally feeds them?

Spending is the least popular item on the public’s mind right now, but it looks to me like this $26 billion has more to do with fully funding the union political action coffers and making sure the left’s political “volunteers” get the message to get out the Democrat vote.

(more…)

From The Hill:

Speaker Nancy Pelosi threw lawmakers’ summer plans into chaos Wednesday, announcing the House will interrupt its six-week recess and return to Washington next week to act on Medicaid and education funding for states.

Pelosi (D-Calif.) announced the news via Twitter, saying, “I will be calling the House back into session early next week to save teachers’ jobs and help seniors & children.”

Pelosi made the decision in consultation with congressional leaders following the Senate’s morning vote to move forward on the $26.1 billion aid package. The Senate is expected to pass the bill Thursday.

A K Street lobbyist said the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) pushed Pelosi to call back the House for the vote. States would have to lay off thousands of teachers if Congress doesn’t approve the money by the end of August.

(more…)

The American public education system is going the way of the auto companies and just like the $17.4 billion American taxpayers forked over to bail out outrageous employee contracts and spineless spending decisions of management, labor unions are hoping their allies in Congress will throw them a lifeline.

The difference, of course, is that prior to the bailout, those private sector companies could actually go bankrupt – no one was “too big to fail.”  There was an invisible mechanism that prevented labor from pushing too far because while it’s greedy, even the UAW knew that there would be a limit to the pay and bennies it could extract from the auto manufacturers.  In that instance, the parasite knew when to stop sucking.

Public schools, largely a monopolistic system not held accountable by competition, don’t have that same invisible force keeping labor in check.  Therefore, if the outrageous demands of labor and current spending practices of school districts outpace the money coming into the coffers, they’ll go out and wring their hands, tell sob stories about Johnny having to sit on Georgie’s lap in class because of a lack of desks and demand more “revenue.”  From you, the taxpayer.

This should be a huge issue for the Tea Party movement.  This has been a problem for far too long and we’ve allowed the tax eaters, that is, teachers unions, to fleece the American public into thinking that more spending, which ultimately ends up in their members’ pockets, somehow equates to better outcomes.

(more…)

From today’s San Francisco Chronicle:

Despite record high membership and dues, and years of unparalleled clout in state capitols, public-sector unions find themselves on the defensive, desperately trying to hold onto past gains in the face of a skeptical press and angry voters. So far has the zeitgeist shifted against them that on one recent weekend, government employees were the butt of a “Saturday Night Live” skit, and the next day, a New York Times Magazine cover article proclaimed “The Teachers’ Unions’ Last Stand.”

Public unions’ traditional strength – the ability to finance their members’ rising pay and benefits through tax increases – has become a liability. Although private-sector unions always have had to worry that consumers will resist rising prices for their goods, public sector unions have benefited from the fact that taxpayers can’t choose – they are, in effect, “captive consumers.”

At some point, however, voters turn resentful as they sense that:

– They are underwriting, through their taxes, a level of salary and benefits for government employment that is better than what they and their families have.

– Government services, from schools to the Department of Motor Vehicles, are not good enough – not for the citizen individually nor the public generally – to justify the high and escalating cost.

We are at that point.

(more…)