Money Likely Not Key For Walker Win on the Peoria.com Forums

http://www.forbes.com/sites/rickungar/2012/06/06/req

As I said before, the democrats didn't have a good candidate. I am sure the money did have something to with the win... I've spent time in WI several times over the past six months and the advertising was everywhere and it Barrett look bad and the ads make Milwaukee look like a cesspool... and its actually a very nice city.

Walker superpacs have been running budget ads full of misinformation before the recall was even official, so I am not sure which date the pre-ad polls can even use for comparison?

FWIW, I didn't really support the recall in the first place, there is a reason that the terms have a limited length.

If you want to see the effect of big money on politics look at the pre-ad polls versus the results for the cigarrette tax referendum in California. The tobacco superpacs spent more in California than both the gov. candidates did in WI.

This does explain one thing, I've been saying for years now. Americans have NO idea what the role of government is in a free society. Our Government was designed to secure and protect rights, not take them.

WI voters are on the wrong side of history, and I hope for all our sake, it isn't a national trend.

Charles Krauthammer writes:

He succeeded in making an example of them as a classic case of reactionary liberalism. An institution founded to protect its members grew in size, wealth, power and arrogance, thanks to decades of symbiotic deals with bought politicians, to the point where it grossly overreached. A half-century later these unions were exercising essential control of everything from wages to work rules in the running of government — something that, in a system of republican governance, is properly the sovereign province of the citizenry.

Why did the unions lose? Because Norma Rae nostalgia is not enough, and it hardly applied to government workers living better than the average taxpayer who supports them


http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/charles-kraut

The point that "government workers are living better than the average taxpayers that support them" is highly debatable.

But if you consider that the wages and benefits of the average worker have declined and not kept pace with productivity, then perhaps there is a point. But shouldn't the point be MORE about what is structurally wrong with our economy such that the standard of living of the average worker is declining despite increasing productivity... rather than make the public worker the scapegoat for a pension problem that was created by a financial crisis and irresponsible spending problem.

The other thing that I still don't get and probably never will is why are pensions bad? A pension is a form of delayed compensation. Work for us now, we'll pay you later. This is - generally - a good thing for both companies and governments and the people who work for them. So both companies and gvts set up a retirement fund, contributions from both, and they invest this in the markets. When the markets crash, the fund has to make up the difference. So they either cut the benefits, or pay more into the fund.

And this is the nub of it - why did the market crash and cause the problem? Because of the union, or because of some risky economic activity completely unrelated to this essential contract between employer / employee? Like maybe some stupid housing bubble and bogus derivatives sold around the world has little to do with the worker - who now loses his pension.

Defined benefits plans are not sustainable. The average life expectancy 70 years ago was around 60 years of age. Today, it's in the late 70's. The population is declining, and simply cannot afford the burden of paying both current government workers and retired ones, especially when the retirement can now go on for 30+ years.

The population is declining??

He probably means the WORKING population.

Pension plans do need to be adjusted over time change in contribution amounts, date of eligibility to reflect real life changes. But I don't get the BLAMING of public workers for the economic crisis that they didn't create.

I did, thanks for clarifying.

blah blah blah

You know what this really is?

The poor are hungry, and the rich want to feed them the middle class*.


*whatever's left of them