Wednesday, February 23, 2011

One Person's Freedom Fighter is Another Person's Wingnut

As I've mentioned before, the time I spent furiously debating on political blogs taught me two important lessons: 1) neither side of any argument generally has a stranglehold on the truth, and so it's important to understand that what you're arguing is simply your opinion, but that's ok...it's good to have strong opinions and I firmly believe in defending mine passionately, but 2) since it is only just your opinion and not a universal truth, the people who disagree with you, simply disagree. They are not, simply because of that disagreement, evil or crazy or necessarily someone you wouldn't enjoy sharing a beer with in any other context.

That's not always easy to remember in the heat of debate, but the political firestorms brewing in Wisconsin, Indiana, and Ohio (my home state) have provided another illustration of that. As is usual when the media are too busy stoking the flames for ratings to provide accurate assessments of the situations, for the sane analysis, we turn to Jon Stewart (his piece turns to my point at about the 5:00 mark):


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As Stewart brilliantly illustrates, whether the Tea Party or the Wisconsin protesters are "thugs" or "hard-working Americans" depends on which channel you watch.

Now I happen to agree with The New York Times on what is truly going on here:
Like a wind-whipped brush fire, the mass union protests that began in Madison, Wis., last week have spread to the capitals of Ohio and Indiana where Republican lawmakers also are trying to cripple the bargaining power of unions — and ultimately realize a cherished partisan dream of eradicating them. In each case, Republican talk of balancing budgets is cover for the real purpose of gutting the political force of middle-class state workers, who are steady supporters of Democrats and pose a threat to a growing conservative agenda.
Indeed, it is extremely hard to believe that three Republican governors independently and unmotivated by politics decided at the same time that the magic fix to their states' financial woes would be to permanently end the ability of state employees to collectively bargain for better wages. It takes a huge dose of blind faith and more than a little idiocy, in my opinion, to accept (as Wisconsin governor Walker claims) that these decisions are not about busting the public-sector unions.

Now I think it's fair to argue that public-sector unions shouldn't exist (I disagree strongly, but that's just my opinion), but to do so under cover of saying you're trying to fix the budget deficit (which Walker could more easily do if he wasn't also handing out more tax cuts for businesses that analysts suggest are merely symbolic and will not attract new businesses) is patently dishonest. Perhaps state workers need to make sacrifices, like everyone else, but the truth is, they're willing to do so. In the face of that willingness, Walker's insistence that their collective bargaining rights must end, is clearly an anti-union initiative.

Again, if that's his position, fine. People can debate whether he's right about unions in the next election cycle. He should really own up to it, though. Or simply admit that he's a fully transparent tool of the Koch brothers, and not torture the good people of Wisconsin with his mangled logic and lies.

Of course, that's just my opinion on the matter. Those who disagree with me are welcome to comment below (we'll have a few beers at some later date):

UPDATE: Nathaniel provide a link to this video by Rachel Maddow that, while just her opinion, of course, makes a very strong argument that Walker is simply lying his a** off saying that this isn't a union-busting effort: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LJcdIyaNNQ4.

Labels: politics

30 Comments:

Blogger Fulvia said...

This comment has been removed by the author.

2/23/2011 10:56:00 AM  
Anonymous JBraun said...

J. Stewart does a good job of pointing out the similarities between the tea party-ers and the Wisconsin protesters, and I realize it just depends on which side you agree with...but I disagree with his writing off the connection between the middle east revolutions and the Wisconsin protests. It seems to me that witnessing what peaceful, persistent protests can accomplish in Egypt, must be having an influence. Obviously Americans will rarely face death by protesting, (tho it has happened) and that's why we're often so lazy...we don't have the sense of urgency that other's face. But with the kind of media we have now, and the hugeness of what's going on in the Middle East, I think there's obviously a connection.

2/23/2011 11:02:00 AM  
Blogger nathaniel said...

I was wondering when you'd post about this, Ed! As a state employee in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, I waiver between feeling defeated by what is coming, and inspired by the protests; I was in Madison on Saturday, and it was utterly amazing to be a part of civil and well-argued protests in the face of disappointment and dishonesty. I think Rachel Maddow has connected all the dots in amazing ways http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LJcdIyaNNQ4

2/23/2011 11:04:00 AM  
Anonymous jbraun said...

The point IS being made.. that the protesters agreed on the financial issues...the budget can be balanced NOW. Just NOT on the collective bargaining. It's great that there is a simple central point...and it's a civil rights issue, not about money.

Also I love that this has bonded the firefighters, police....with the progressives. Though unions do connect them in elections, there are often cultural divides that are more pronounced.

2/23/2011 11:34:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

My problem with what is going on is that the voters elected the representatives. Apparently they voted in a Republican majority. They must have known the politics of the people they voted in, which is fine. I'm OK with all of that.

What I'm not OK with is the representatives, Democrats in this instance, leaving the state so they don't have to vote on a bill they can't vote down. How is that following the will of the people? How is that part of democracy, refusing to take part in democracy?

If they truly wanted to be a part of democracy then I think they should have resigned their elected posts. That would have defeated the bill and would have thrown the situation back to the people to vote in another round of representatives. I wouldn't like that, but I would have respected them for doing it.

2/23/2011 11:36:00 AM  
Blogger Edward_ said...

They must have known the politics of the people they voted in

Anonymous, I agree with you in a vaccuum, but in this instance there are two reasons that the politics of the people they voted in may not have been clearly (i.e., honestly) represented during the election.

First, as Stewart notes in his piece, Walker's campaign focused on revisiting state worker's benefits. He said nothing that I can see about ending their collective bargaining rights. He only introduced that idea AFTER he was elected.

Secondly, he's still not being totally honest about his goals here in my opinion. So what part of his "politics" are the people of Wisconsin supposed to have known when they voted him in and what part are they supposed to guess he "really" means?

You can only hold people responsible for the policies of the people they elected when the politicians were honest about those policies.

2/23/2011 12:04:00 PM  
Blogger JMF said...

At its onset, the showdown in Wisconsin reminded me of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in that one can understand the ideals of each side
(the state needs to save money and the unions need to protect their workers) and yet deplore the actions of both sides. Now, the Governor's maneuvers just make me sick as they represent just another bait-and-switch by Tea party candidates and I am someone who generally looks at contemporary unions with great cynicism.

2/23/2011 01:00:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

This is not about unions as much as it is about PUBLIC unions. In New Jersey, where property taxes have become prohibitively high, $3 of every $4 of property taxes taken in by the local govt goes to pay for the pensions of teachers. Just think of that. The other part of this that no one wants to hear is that, contrary to what we've all been fed over the years, teachers apparently make a pretty good living: $50,000 per year (with the summer off) and full Cadillac health coverage for their family and a pension for life. Combining salary with benefits, that's an annual compensation of over $100,000 per year. I realize that I'm writing about NJ and the subject is Wisconsin, but really the subject is the corruption of public union bosses, the complicity of Democratic (and some Republican) politicians, and the courageous few who have the audacity to speak the truth and right this wrong. On this issue, the Republicans are on the moral high ground. I recommend anyone who truly wants to understand this issue to watch in its entirety NJ Gov. Chris Christie's speech in Washington last week. For the sake of fairness, just put out of your mind that he's speaking at the American Enterprise Institute and listen to what he has to say. It's an astonishing speech.

http://www.aei.org/video/101395

2/23/2011 03:07:00 PM  
Blogger Edward_ said...

As I've noted, Anonymous, it's certainly fair to argue that public-sector unions shouldn't exist (although they do help strengthen the private-sector ones through their alliances, and without them the private-sector ones would be weaker, so to say it's only about public-sector unions isn't exactly describing the big picture), but the argument you're putting forward is NOT the argument Walker is putting forward. He's saying it's all about the deficit, which the Maddow pieces pretty much blows to smithereens.

If the argument is sound and he really believes in it, why lie about it (other than cowardice or political expediency, that is)?

Also, do you have a citation for your $3 of every $4 of property taxes goes to teachers' pensions statistic? That seems unlikely.

2/23/2011 03:17:00 PM  
Anonymous Bernard Klevickas said...

@Anon 3:07,

$50,000 in NJ is not living high, especially if you have a family to provide for. Whatever happened to a family supported by one person? These days it takes two or more to work to support a household. Educating our youth SHOULD be a well paid profession. Instead Banksters who move pools of imaginary money around seem to pocket the most of the countries wealth and it is getting worse.

Regarding Gov. Walker there is speculation that he is pushing to destroy unions so that the Koch brothers can move in and take over the energy sector.

Ever notice how the rich get richer and the poor lose more and more bargaining power and money? Sure, there is opinion but down at the base of it all is truth somewhere and opinion is just a manner of skewing the facts toward your own or someone else's benefit.

2/23/2011 04:19:00 PM  
Anonymous Bernard Klevickas said...

Few more thoughts:

Global warming? Opinion or fact

Evolution? Opinion or fact

An uneducated population can be led more easily to make stupid choices and follow the "wrong" opinion.

2/23/2011 04:55:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

You can find this in the Comprehensive Annual Financial Report of any school district in NJ and you will find that 50-75% of their budget is spent on salary and pay-as-you-go retirement and health benefits for teachers. For many of these school districts 85-90% of funding for the school district comes from local taxes and the balance comes from State and Federal appropriations. Last year, the State, because it is in a financial crisis, was forced to cut appropriations to school districts by approx 11%. The only reason the school districts could reach budget was because the Federal govt passed ARRA in 2009. ARRA expires at the end of 2011. So for the 2012 budget, unless NJ raises property taxes yet again, the schools will not meet their budget. You can find all of this information in the Comprehensive Annual Report of school districts in NJ ....as unbelievable as it may be to you or to me.

@Bernard: We're not in disagreement. I'm just stating actual facts from financial reports. As for "$50K not living high," no it's not. But who ever went into the teaching industry to get rich? (The answer to that would be Randi Weingarten and union bosses, who are loaded. Weingarten is now a lobbyist in D.C.) Also, I'm not an economist so I'm not about to speak to your comment about what happened to one person supporting a family. Again, I'm in agreement. But, this doesn't only affect teachers. It affects store clerks and plumbers and computer programmers and everyone in between. And they don't have life-time pensions or Cadillac health plans. Come to think of it, neither do I. Do you?

2/23/2011 05:41:00 PM  
Blogger Edward_ said...

You can find this in the Comprehensive Annual Financial Report of any school district in NJ and you will find that 50-75% of their budget is spent on salary and pay-as-you-go retirement and health benefits for teachers.

OK, so that's already different from what you first wrote.

Any actual citations? I only respect data I can verify. Otherwise I assume it's fiction.

2/23/2011 06:33:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

It's your blog, your world.

Read the following, if you care:

http://www.state.nj.us/cgi-bin/education/finance/cafr.pl

I participated in the thread because I care about the issue and it affects my life and I happen to know a lot about it (first hand). I'm not about to spend my day sending "citations" and references and tax language to an art blog, or splitting hairs over tax complexities that, in NJ, are further complicated by the plethora of counties, cities, and townships.

Real estate taxes in NJ (and elsewhere) are not fiction. People losing their homes because they can't afford their real estate taxes is not fiction, and what Christie cites in the link above is also not fiction.

This is not fiction:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/21/nyregion/21taxes.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=rising%20property%20taxesa&st=cse

The only fiction is the one you stubbornly cling to.

Lastly, as it pertains to unions:
Unions are relics of America's manufacturing past. After WWII, probably half the country belonged to a union. Over decades, the American economy has, for better or worse, changed. Manufacturing declined and the kinds of private sector work Americans do today is not union-oriented. The percentage of union workers in America has declined steadily over the course of time, and decreases annually.

http://www.bls.gov/news.release/union2.nr0.htm

Yet local governments are spending more and more to placate an unabashedly corrupt, outmoded institution.

You think they work so well, why not unionize the Winkleman Gallery? After you've shelled out full health for your employees, not to mention your full stable of artists, you can work on compensating them with a pension plan worthy of the lifestyle to which they've become accustomed. Then you can add an addendum to your book detailing how you went out of business.

2/23/2011 08:10:00 PM  
Blogger Edward_ said...

wow...see how quickly people get cranky without beer.

The only fiction is the one you stubbornly cling to.

which is?

You can always say you don't have the citation (and we'll form our own conclusions based on that), but you can't just through stats out there and expect to be taken seriously if you cant' produce the cites. I learned that (the hard way) on some very strict political blogs I used to write for (this isn't my first gig doing this). It's your responsibility to show us your argument is credible, not ours to do the research to discover whether it is.

This link returned an error message:

http://www.state.nj.us/cgi-bin/education/finance/cafr.pl

2/23/2011 08:16:00 PM  
Blogger Edward_ said...

er...meant "can't just throw stats out there"

I know English...really.

2/23/2011 08:35:00 PM  
Anonymous Franklin said...

I participated in the thread because I care about the issue and it affects my life and I happen to know a lot about it (first hand).

I was just reading this morning, in a gardening book of all things, that the problem with ignorance isn't what you don't know, it's that so much of what you do know just isn't so. Asserting that 3/4 of NJ property taxes go to teacher pensions and getting huffy when you can't back it up just makes life hard for the rest of us fiscal conservatives.

Yesterday David Brooks nicely outlined the argument against public sector unions and even he doesn't give Walker good marks.

2/23/2011 08:46:00 PM  
Blogger Edward_ said...

A few quibbles with Our Mr. Brooks:

Whatever you might say about Walker, he and the Republican majorities in Wisconsin were elected, and they are doing exactly what they told voters they would do.

Not "exactly" (there was no hint that I can find that collective bargaining was on the chopping block).

public sector unions push against the interests of taxpayers.

Strongly disagree. Are taxpayers better served by incentives that attract the most qualified to public service? I think they are.

states with public sector unions tend to run into fiscal crises.

Er, but Wisconsin isn't one of them. They were projecting a SURPLUS this year until Walker gave businesses all those tax breaks. The fiscal crisis, if there really is one in Wisconsin, is Walker's creation, not the unions. Besides, Brooks argues against himself here when he writes:

There are many states without collective bargaining that still face gigantic debt crises.

and this The process has to be balanced. It has to make everybody hurt.

is the sort of masochistic rhetoric I expect from someone as clearly tightly wound as Brooks, but not at all a convincing argument, let alone a salable one.

2/23/2011 09:38:00 PM  
Anonymous Franklin said...

there was no hint that I can find that collective bargaining was on the chopping block

Agreed.

Are taxpayers better served by incentives that attract the most qualified to public service?

Is that what the unions ensure? I rather doubt that.

The fiscal crisis, if there really is one in Wisconsin, is Walker's creation, not the unions.

Also agreed. I have no reason to doubt Maddow's reporting on this. This whole thing stinks a bit because these union-driven deficit problems exist. In California. Walker is not in California.

this ... is the sort of masochistic rhetoric I expect from someone as clearly tightly wound as Brooks

That's not fair. Brooks's point is that there's no good reason to exempt the police and firefighter unions from any ostensible cost-cutting measures aimed at every other union in the state, and Walker's doing so looks disreputable. That's a legitimate assertion.

2/23/2011 10:48:00 PM  
Anonymous LHT said...

My husband has worked for the City of New York for over thirty years. Every elected official campaigns on promises to cut the fat from City bureaucracy, so each election cycle is followed by a purge, particularly if there is a new mayor. Typically they alternate between replacing employees with consultants and vice versa. When they get rid of employees they can point to savings on benefits, hiring consultants with no claim on a job in their stead; with the next round they replace expensive consultants with lower-paid employees. The union is often the only entity that stands between peoples' jobs and politicians regularly campaigning on eliminating them, not because it is better for the city but simply to win the election.

Anonymous @3:17 and 5:41, you use the term "Cadillac health plans" in both your posts. Besides just repeating the phrase as it appears in the press, what do you mean? NYC workers are covered by GHI or HIP. If you live in NYC and are covered by private-sector insurance, try checking the GHI website to see if your doctors participate with it. Most likely not. Their reimbursements are so paltry that many doctors have nothing to do with it.

2/23/2011 10:58:00 PM  
Blogger Edward_ said...

Ok, so I've more or less loathed Brooks since the Bush years when he was the most obnoxious and transparent of hacks for the administration, but let me give him some benefit of the doubt and address the issue here:

Brooks's point is that there's no good reason to exempt the police and firefighter unions from any ostensible cost-cutting measures aimed at every other union in the state, and Walker's doing so looks disreputable. That's a legitimate assertion.

Sure it is, but Brooks' conclusion that the solution is one where "everybody hurts" is unrealistic politically (not to mention hardly going to trickle up to Walker's puppetmasters, the Koch brothers), so it doesn't pass the laugh test.

I'm not at all opposed to debating the value to society of public-sector unions. I think the corruption within them stinks, and there's room for serious reform. But I also think the oligarchical trend in the US needs a counterbalance desperately, and that the unions are one of the last barricades against the rich totally subjugating the poor in this country.

2/23/2011 11:02:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I don't know what is really going on in Wisconsin, but in California we have serious problems with overpromising and underfunding.

Frankly, we were all taught to believe that teachers were underpaid... in reality they are well-paid compared to any comparable corporate job (though many of them are overstressed through large class sizes and lack of student discipline). Their pensions are a dream -- on average 50 to 60% of their ending salary *or more*:
"CalSTRS' formula, which is based largely on employee salary, age and longevity, tends to reward retirement at age 61½. For example, a teacher who has worked for 35 years, making $90,000 in her final year, could retire at age 62 and reap a $75,600 annual pension -- 84 percent of salary. Teachers can add to their pensions by "buying" additional years."
http://www.mercurynews.com/california-budget/ci_17446295?source=rss&nclick_check=1

Pretty sweet deal, eh? No wonder the union helped vote Jerry back in....

2/24/2011 01:02:00 AM  
Anonymous Franklin said...

I've more or less loathed Brooks since the Bush years

He wasn't on my radar then. I became aware of him when he came to the Times, replacing Bill Kristol, a partisan hack if there ever was one. Brooks is the very picture of nuance by comparison.

Brooks' conclusion that the solution is one where "everybody hurts" is unrealistic politically

But what you're witnessing in Walker's tenure is political realism in it's purest form - take money from whom will give it to you, get elected, and screw your opponents so you can get elected again. Brooks deserves credit for calling Walker's actions out as inequitable and short-sighted.

2/24/2011 07:12:00 AM  
Blogger Edward_ said...

Franklin, fair enough. Credit where it's due. Brooks IS the picture of balanced nuance compared to Kristol (but he's still too hacky for my tastes).

California anonymous,

Truly sorry that it's so tough out there right now.

Still not convinced that it's smart to chip away at what would attract someone bright to become a teacher, though. $75,600/year sound sweet as a retirement (wish my portfolio was sure to return that), but does the stress of the large classrooms and undisciplined children guarantee that result for every teacher, or is that an extreme example?

And when you say "comparable corporate job" ... how exactly are you making that comparison? At the secretary level? Middle management? Which industry (the pay varies greatly depending on the industry)?

My point, I guess, is that scapegoating teachers as if they're the source of our financial woes strikes me as grotesque and short-sighted. Especially when corporate profits and cash reserves are so freaking high and the upper 1% of the population are living like emperors.

2/24/2011 08:09:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Blogger Edward_ said...
"Still not convinced that it's smart to chip away at what would attract someone bright to become a teacher, though."

*Sigh*... at the very well-known university that I attended, if you failed in any hard or soft science, you tried the business school next -- if you couldn't make it as an accountant or a human resources major, you went into the School of Education. Only the people who *really wanted* to become teachers (a life calling) chose education at the beginning of their college education, and they didn't ask for the salary carrot (but I guarantee that the others did).


Blogger Edward_ said...
"...but does the stress of the large classrooms and undisciplined children guarantee that result for every teacher, or is that an extreme example?"

No, you misunderstand -- because I've worked in classrooms (volunteering and hired as an outside resource) I know firsthand that it *can be* a tough situation when the class size is huge and the students are acting-out. The example I pulled was from the cited article, and has NO CORRELATION with class size or discipline issues.


Blogger Edward_ said...
"And when you say "comparable corporate job" ... how exactly are you making that comparison? At the secretary level? Middle management? Which industry (the pay varies greatly depending on the industry)?"

Fair question -- and it is across the board, especially once you figure in a nine-month year! They make more than EMTs, they make more than police officers, they make more than fire fighters; they make more than basic accountants, they make more than basic architects, they make more than retail store managers. ( See http://www.imdiversity.com/eon/salarycalc_california.htm )

See, in California we *always* have loved education and supported our teachers, and voted repeatedly in favor of them, and now it's coming back to bite us -- there appears to be a "teaching bubble", like there was a "housing bubble" -- with no real way to fix it.


Blogger Edward_ said...
"My point, I guess, is that scapegoating teachers as if they're the source of our financial woes strikes me as grotesque and short-sighted."

I never scapegoated teachers.

However, their salaries and pension plans do not reflect the current economy at all, and that's probably one of the reasons that people look at them (but their pension plans especially) as a financial hemorrhage.


Blogger Edward_ said...
"Especially when corporate profits and cash reserves are so freaking high and the upper 1% of the population are living like emperors."

I agree that the wealthy get wealthier, and that corporations are soulless entities (now given full rights thanks to legislation), but since they aren't public sector, all you can do is try to restructure the tax liability. But remember that the wealthiest corporations (and people) can hire the finest tax attorneys and accountants, and what they are trained to do best is to find those tax loopholes and pay the least amount possible, no matter what the law appears to say.

It's a problem.

2/24/2011 02:58:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

In the midst of all this, there wasn't much press last week that MN Rep. Betty McCollum got a threatening fax for proposing that the US Army not be allowed to spend nine million dollars on NASCAR sponsorship. Where's the fiscal conservative outrage? Oh no-they're too busy talking about "Cadillac" health plans and cushy $50k salaries. My father was an elementary/jr. high teacher and I can assure you, it was his Army retirement and health care that gave our family a reasonably middle-class life, not his teacher's wages. The institutionalized fear and contempt for artists, educators, and intellectuals in this country is exactly what will destroy it if we don't stand up to this madness.

2/24/2011 05:52:00 PM  
Blogger nathaniel said...

Hi again everyone - sorry not to be online, I was in the classroom and student meetings from 7 am til 8 pm last night, and answering student emails and teaching and doing committee work from 5 am til just 5 mins ago. I think Edward has made most of the points I would have (and better than I would have), but I want to add I made more as an intern in San Fransisco with a Bachelors than I do as an Associate Professor with a PhD and an MFA in the public sector. Just because I didn't go into teaching and the arts to be rich, doesn't mean I want to have to take on a second job to send my daughter to day care. And the thing everyone is leaving out is that this is NOT money saved. In academia, for example, I have already been asked to apply to other jobs. If and when I apply and get one, which is looking pretty attractive right now, my university will either have to counter-offer, or else do a search to replace me - both of which are expensive. The cost will be passed on to the students, in the form of tuition. This will similarly happen in poorer and middle-class neighborhoods that will have to pitch in for things like neighborhood watches and volunteer work for security and schools and firefighting. Yet again, like so many Republican policies, this cut will only benefit the rich, and only in the short term.

2/24/2011 05:53:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Hi Edward,

I don't expect you to publish this reply either (I'm California Anonymous) -- what's funny is that I wasn't even aware of the whole teacher salary/pension disparity until after I read your blog post, was curious, and started looking up just a couple of things...

You know that I wasn't skewing the results, just reporting them -- I was actually pretty surprised at what I found.

2/24/2011 08:25:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Having worked for my state I can say first hand that many state employees abuse their positions in the sense that they often do not work as hard as they should. I observed that for 25 years. Call me crazy if you want.

The cycle is always the same. Older workers will fight hard for better benefits only to see fresh face younger workers reap the rewards of that struggle while not giving their 110%. It happens in factory settings as well.

With teacher mess I do think teachers should be paid more. But I also think that should include stricter overviews of how well a teacher is doing as well as monthly random drug testing. Now for some reason when that is mentioned the teacher unions get very upset.

It does not say much for our teachers when they suggest they would do a better job of teaching our youth if they were paid more. They should be doing their job the best they can now. Teachers often blame parents when state exams show that students are not doing well. But when they want more money they imply they would do better at teaching if paid more. Which is it?

Teachers also make more than they let on. I know teachers in my hometown start at $40,000 a year in an area where most adults earn less than $20,000 per year. So in rural America teachers are doing just fine in my book.

With public service I don't think we are getting the best that we could right now. Why would further pay change that? A McDonald's worker earns a bonus and still flips hamburgers the same way. My point is that if these people are not putting their all into the job what makes you think that they will if paid more?

I vote Democrat and will admit openly that we want those workers and teachers to vote our way. That is why you see so many rush to support them no matter have absurd it is. But at some point you have to put the idiocy aside and think about what is best for the country.

2/27/2011 09:49:00 PM  
Anonymous Bernard Klevickas said...

Here's a dumb question:

Why is it that teachers who make a moderate income or for that matter (and going back a bit to reaganomics) welfare mothers getting a tiny bit of "free" money causes an uproar while CEO's and financial hucksters who rake-in millions at taxpayers expense are applauded?

The facts are skewed and fed to us as opinions by those who can gain the most while the humble are chided for wanting moderate relief.

3/07/2011 02:40:00 PM  

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