Wisconsin Revolt

Who do you support in the Wisconsin Revolt?


  • Total voters
    118

SSHZ

Well-Known Member
Lots of misinformation here..........they don't contribute towards their pensions, which can pay them near their current pay for the REST of their lives after they retire! And their medical benefits are 100% free. Where else in the working world do you find that. You don't and that's why the state is $3 billion in the hole. This will spread from state to state as union enrollment continues to drop and they try to make a big deal out of it. Unions represent only about 10% of the working force now- and a lot of workers would opt out (and save th $200/month union dues) if they could. Death to the unions!!!!
 

BudMcLovin

Active Member
Do you really think teachers only work 9 months a year? I know for sure that most work far more than that. EVEN IF this was just about teacher pay, having the teachers soley bear the burden of budget shortfalls is lame. What if it was just you chosen employment path that was singled out for benefit, pay reduction, and bargaining elimination?
pssssttt.......most teachers do not get paid for 12 months.
I know teachers my man. I almost married a teacher. I know they only work 9 months a year, unless they are a couch or something but then they get extra compensation for that.

Average salary of teacher from Wisconsin $ 48,743. LINK If you divide that by 9 that’s $5416 a month. That’s a pretty good pay check. Not to mention the benefits and 3 months off plus vacation time dam maybe I should be a teacher.

The public sector workers are not the only ones bearing the burden of a slow economy. The private sector has been dealing with it for a while. Is this the only thing the legislature has proposed to cut cost? It’s not entirely about cost though. What about the people who don’t want to join a union should they be forced? Why didn’t the elected democrats do their job by staying and fighting instead of running away? If the teachers cared about educating the students wouldn’t they be doing that instead of trying to shut down the state government? If I were governor I’d fire all state employees who did not report to work on Monday.
 

Johnnyorganic

Well-Known Member
0.0175 * 5,700,000 = 99,750

99,750 =/= 10,000

forget about your mathematical aptitude, let's just put the rough numbers into perspective...

40,000 expected. 5,700,000 population. 40,000/5,700,000 = 0.7% of the total population protesting.

egypt has roughly 80,000,000 million citizens.

80,000,000 x .007 = 560,000

rough estimates of the protests in cairo put it at about 2 million protesters, probably not all at once though.

if it only takes 2 million out of 80 million (2.5%) to overthrow a dictator, surely 0.7% of the population of one state should be enough to at least get their voices heard.

your grudge against unions is unparalleled, johnny. but you are wrong here.

this IS about quality of education. would the more logical thing for these teachers be to stay in class and teach as incentives for good teachers gradually vanish?

if you think scraping a few pennies off the backs of teachers is a smart investment move, here is my salute to you: :dunce:
I gratefully accept your dunce cap on behalf of my mathematical error. As I previously stated, I was high.

The calculation error does not diminish my point, however. In fact, your correction further clarifies it.

Thanks Buck!

If it was about education, public school teachers would not be closing down schools due to 'sick outs.'

It's about union demands and cowardly Democratic state Senators who refuse to honor their oath to the state Constitution.
 

Chad Sexington

Active Member
Yes they would, how else would they strike? That is like saying if a miner is on strike they would still work in the mine. I just believe they are under that thing where it is an essential service and cannot strike (like cops, paramedics and firefighters). They found a loophole, let them take advantage of it.
 

Johnnyorganic

Well-Known Member
Sorry, I don't work with metal. I no idea what an obtuse metal process is.
So you choose to deflect based on a typographical error. Brilliant.

I have a feeling you have no idea on many issues.

Wow.. you are contradicting yourself all over the place. So once again, what were the Unions demanding that prompted this bill? Not the protests, but the bill itself. What were they demanding? In what Bill? What legislation? How were they being "thugs?" You made the accusations. the burden of proof is on your shoulders, not mine.
Unions constantly make demands. Which is why many states are in the fiscal peril they currently find themselves in.

The state of Wisconsin is trying to walk back some of those overly-generous concessions made to government employees when times were good.

Now the unions are encouraging people to mob the state capitol to DEMAND that the legislation not pass.

Why do you insist on asking about legislation which is the topic of a thread YOU started? :dunce:

Yeah, union goons are thugs. If you need proof of that then 'obtuse' does not even begin to describe you.
 

Johnnyorganic

Well-Known Member
Yes they would, how else would they strike? That is like saying if a miner is on strike they would still work in the mine. I just believe they are under that thing where it is an essential service and cannot strike (like cops, paramedics and firefighters). They found a loophole, let them take advantage of it.
They can't strike. They strike, they forfeit their jobs.

A sick-out is a strike, albeit a very cowardly one since they are still getting paid. And any public employee proved abusing a sick day should be terminated.

I hope school boards are examining all video of the protests and taking notes of who they see protesting while 'sick.'
 

Rob Roy

Well-Known Member
Where is your justification for a system that relies on forced redistribution?
This is not forced redistribution. Welfare is forced redistribution. Workers in Wisconsin are not forced to work at any place so being forced to pay union dues is not even a valid argument as you could leave anytime.

Sorry to tell you but we are all "forced to fund" public servants. Do you expect them to work for free? Interesting how the police union and fire union are not part of this and nobody is complaining. We have firefighters who net over $125,000, and they are not chiefs.

Wisconsin isn't much higher than the neighboring states for public sector and personally I would rather over pay any employee and have them happy and maintain gainful employment. I am not saying there is not room for some pay and benif changes, but to ax any bargaining is wrong.
Thank you for responding. Perhaps you could clarify your response or misunderstood my question. You first state that "this is not forced redistribution". Then in your second paragraph, you say "sorry to tell you but we are all "forced to fund" public servants." That sounds like you responded with two opposing answers.

I don't expect anyone to work for free. I'd prefer that the people that purchase the "services" have a say in which service they want to purchase and the ability to say no thank you if they decide not to purchase that service or seek other solutions. As you point out many salaries are high. If there were competing fire departments do you think the consumer would benefit?

What if I or somebody else would rather not "overpay" for a service, or if we don't use the service? Should people be force to pay for things they do not want or do not use ?

Since you think axing bargaining is wrong, shouldn't the persons doing the paying be able to "shop" for different services or people to provide the services ? What would happen if you could only purchase groceries from one store? Where would your ability to bargain be then?
 

redivider

Well-Known Member
this is a plain and simple attack on the middle class by the wealthy. they use the notion that the public school system sucks to justify draining it of the resources that at one point in history made it great, while not suffering any of the impact, all their kids go to private school.

they complain the public school system sucks, yet sap it dry of funds that would improve it. it's the rich, wanting to earn more and be taxed less, at the expense of services vital to the less fortunate, like education.
and teachers do not make a killing.

this notion that the government is extremely generous with teachers is wrong. teaching isn't a career known for high salaries and jetsetting. why?? b/c teachers don't make a lot of money. and you want to make them earn less..... just so some rich motherfucker somewhere else can have a tax cut..........
 

BudMcLovin

Active Member
this is a plain and simple attack on the middle class by the wealthy. they use the notion that the public school system sucks to justify draining it of the resources that at one point in history made it great, while not suffering any of the impact, all their kids go to private school.

they complain the public school system sucks, yet sap it dry of funds that would improve it. it's the rich, wanting to earn more and be taxed less, at the expense of services vital to the less fortunate, like education.
and teachers do not make a killing.

this notion that the government is extremely generous with teachers is wrong. teaching isn't a career known for high salaries and jetsetting. why?? b/c teachers don't make a lot of money. and you want to make them earn less..... just so some rich motherfucker somewhere else can have a tax cut..........
Here we go again. You can’t support your opinion with logic and facts so you try wealth envy. People are getting sick of hearing it’s the rich guys fault. If someone doesn’t have a child in the government school system why should they have to pay taxes to support it?

You claim the rich get rich by stealing from the poor by keeping their own money. How does that work? The poor use the government to steal money from the rich. Here’s an idea if a person don’t like being poor let them get off their ass and do something about it.

” You give a man a fish you feed him for a night. You teach a man to fish you’ll feed him for a life time.” Or how ever it goes.

If you had read my post above you would see the average teacher in Wisconsin makes 5,416 dollars for every month they work. That’s a pretty good pay check that’s 64,992 for 12 months of work. Not to mention the benefits. I have zero sympathy for government workers trying to extort more from the taxpayer.
 

Rob Roy

Well-Known Member
this is a plain and simple attack on the middle class by the wealthy. they use the notion that the public school system sucks to justify draining it of the resources that at one point in history made it great, while not suffering any of the impact, all their kids go to private school.

they complain the public school system sucks, yet sap it dry of funds that would improve it. it's the rich, wanting to earn more and be taxed less, at the expense of services vital to the less fortunate, like education.
and teachers do not make a killing.

this notion that the government is extremely generous with teachers is wrong. teaching isn't a career known for high salaries and jetsetting. why?? b/c teachers don't make a lot of money. and you want to make them earn less..... just so some rich motherfucker somewhere else can have a tax cut..........
The government is extremely generous with other people's money and liberty. Most Cannabis users understand the liberty part regarding owning THEIR bodies, but develop blinders when somebody wants to be consistent and also own their property or the fruit of their labor / money. If a person should be able to control their bodies why wouldn't you want them to be able to control their financial decisions too?

Why don't you believe people have property rights and a right to make decisions about their money and how it will be spent? Who gave a permanent gun in the room to the "public sector" to be guaranteed anything? Is the person in private business guaranteed anything, but the taxman will steal his house if he doesn't ante up?

If teachers worked at private schools, wouldn't they have the opportunity to earn as much as the market would bear, thus their value would be determined by demand ? Good teachers = good schools = more demand = more pay.

Oh and check it out...government schools....10th plank of the Communist manifesto if my memory serves me correctly.
 

redivider

Well-Known Member
another bit of mis-information being spread around by the powers that be.

first, it's a fact. the bush tax cuts for the wealthiest americans have drained both federal and state budgets. what's happening is that schools are loosing their budgets so a few rich guys can buy a few extra boats. and those rich guy's kids probably go to private school.

and you can distort the numbers all you want. but what the facts are is that average salaries are around 50k. the schoolyear lasts about 9 months so it averages out to around 5000 a month. it's not 64grand per year, you can distort the facts in your mind, but not in front of me. i'll call you out on it.

and teachers are not known for drinking 1,000 dollar bottles of wine, wearing Rolex and Cartier, and zooming around in bentleys because of their enormous salaries. most teachers have to give up about 1/4 of their salaries to give themselves and their students enough supplies to be able to teach a class. some of these are deductible from taxable income at the end of the year, but it still takes a big chunk of their salary.... all teachers HAVE to do this,. even private school teachers in the best private schools in the nation end up spending about 1/5 to 1/4 of their salaries on class-related expenses.....

this view that the middle-class is over-paid while they struggle to pay their bills has spread like wildfire and it's not true. plain and simple. it's NOT TRUE.
 

redivider

Well-Known Member
The government is extremely generous with other people's money and liberty. Most Cannabis users understand the liberty part regarding owning THEIR bodies, but develop blinders when somebody wants to be consistent and also own their property or the fruit of their labor / money. If a person should be able to control their bodies why wouldn't you want them to be able to control their financial decisions too?

Why don't you believe people have property rights and a right to make decisions about their money and how it will be spent? Who gave a permanent gun in the room to the "public sector" to be guaranteed anything? Is the person in private business guaranteed anything, but the taxman will steal his house if he doesn't ante up?

If teachers worked at private schools, wouldn't they have the opportunity to earn as much as the market would bear, thus their value would be determined by demand ? Good teachers = good schools = more demand = more pay.

Oh and check it out...government schools....10th plank of the Communist manifesto if my memory serves me correctly.
oh and check this out: the public school system of the USA has been universally accepted as the single greatest pedagogical achievement of the last century. NO ECONOMY HAS BEEN ABLE TO BECOME 'DEVELOPED' WITHOUT HAVING A WIDELY AVAILABLE, AFFORDABLE, ORGANIZED, AND EFFECTIVE PUBLIC SCHOOL SYSTEM. NONE. ZERO. ZILCH.
 

ink the world

Well-Known Member
IS this really the path the Republicans are going to take? Look at whats happened over the last few weeks:

Getting rid of child labor laws in Missouri:http://www.komu.com/KOMU/d7e2017e-80ce-18b5-00fa-0004d8d229cb/35ed36cf-80ce-18b5-019b-0d698051d94e.html

John Boehner outright lies about the amount of government employees (fact is govt employment is the LOWEST its been in over 40 years) and then says "so be it" to job losses:.......So I have to ask the Orange man the same question he asked of Obama "WHERE ARE THE JOBS?"\

And now trying to bust the unions, way to stand up for the common working person Republicans. The contempt for all govt. employees is ridiculous. The idea of laying the blame for our economy at the feet of teachers, cops, firefighters and other govt employees is pathetic.

I could actually take this a little seriously if the Republicans were actually serious about balancing the budget. If they were they would stop the farm subsidies, oil company corporate tax bailouts (you realize they get tax REFUNDS right?) and end the 2 pointless wars we are in. Yep, tax breaks for Exxon while we cut pay and benefits for teachers, cops and firefighters.

LOL great strategy for success in 2012.
 

Rob Roy

Well-Known Member
The irony of the Republican majority standing up to "public workers" is THEY are public workers too. Thieves are thieves, be they Republican or Democrat.
 

ink the world

Well-Known Member
The irony of the Republican majority standing up to "public workers" is THEY are public workers too. Thieves are thieves, be they Republican or Democrat.
Maybe right there, the difference is who each party chooses to steal from.

Another point if we are so damned concerned about balancing the budget why not end farm subsidies (youknow where we pay farmers to NOT grow) and the the corporate tax bailouts to the oil companies?

I'll tell why the republicans including the Tea Party wont touch oil subsidies, they wont bite the hand that feeds them. If the Te Party is so "grass root" and for the "common man" why wont they stand up for them. Like Ive said before the teabaggers got bamboozled, they people they elected arent concerned about balancing the budget as much as breaking unions.

If the Tea Party is "grass roots" I know exactly where the roots really are :
oil_barrel11.gif
 

undertheice

Well-Known Member
You're using generalizations. This is a specific issue. They weren't ASKING for anything. This came out of the blue. They just took a huge cut to help out. It's not about the money. It's about losing their rights as employees to address employer abuse and to voice complaints. What MORE were they asking for that prompted this? Everyone keeps giving vague generalizations and uses it as an opportunity to union bash.
the simple fact is that this didn't come "out of the blue". it's been building for decades and our rather unresponsive representatives are finally being forced to do something about it. we have been placing more and more restrictions on management, giving labor a free hand, and it's been slowly destroying our industrial capabilities. public sector employees just happen to be a facet of the problem that government can do something about directly. these are unions that negotiate not with the people responsible for paying the freight, but with temporary representatives that bear little financial responsibility. usually just appointed, these representatives merely shift from position to position within government and have no real "skin in the game" when it comes to these negotiations. taking advantage of this lack of responsibility and an absence of any alternative, public service unions have been raking the taxpayers over the coals for decades.

you're damn right i'm bashing the unions. they have had favored son status in the liberal establishment for far too long. much like the abuses of affirmative action, they have reversed the roles they were set up to abolish and justify their abuses with anecdote and historical wrongs. they have become every bit as corrupt as the abusive system they were designed to combat and it is the society as a whole that is paying the price.

My niece is a teacher. she has been teaching for 10 years. Why? Because she loves it. THE JOB. Not the benefits or the pay. Which by the way, is barely over the poverty line. They match the pension packages of fortune 500 Executives? And you expect us to take that seriously?

Oh and most of the people protesting are teachers, nurses, police, firemen, municipal employees, state workers, etc.. These are all hard working folks that only wish to keep their employee rights.
i specifically added the term "percentage" to that sentence because i knew some joker would try to take it out of context. only a fool would expect a janitor who makes thousands to have a pension package worth the millions that a highly paid ceo could expect and i thoroughly expected to be countered by fools. we eagerly cry foul when an executive that runs his company into the ground retires with a private sector funded pension worth 75% of his salary, but you expect the taxpayers to fund the mediocre performance of public sector employees with retirement accounts that often exceed 100% of their salary. their benefits exceed most anything in the private sector and their job security is unparalleled, what makes these people's short careers worth such extravagant expenditures?

i'm sure your niece is a sweet and altruistic person (can't you just taste the sarcasm dripping off of those words?), but your heartbreaking anecdotal evidence is disingenuous and quite beside the point. we are talking about the public sector employee system as a whole. i see you've included municipal and state workers in your post, but do you even understand the scope of the system you are defending? this includes thousands upon thousands of people, down to overpaid janitors and window washers, who the taxpayers must support through their golden years with pensions that are in no way tied to the financial health of the society that is paying the bills. the state is inherently the largest single monopoly in any society, producing nothing and supported by its own demands, and these people are a part of that behemoth. your poll is as disingenuous as your sister's sob story. this isn't a matter of the state against the people, it is the state attempting to pare itself down to some manageable level in an era where the excesses of the past are unsupportable.
 

Rob Roy

Well-Known Member
All government relies on theft. No political party has a monopoly on that. The illusion of choice they foist on you with Donkey Thief or Elephant Thief is one of the reasons the theft continues. It keeps the slave on slave debate going. Yes Rebublicans suck, you are correct. Now look in the mirror and acknowledge the Donkey sucks too.

Not to mention the fact their theft is backed by the threat of, or actual use of, violence against you if you fail to comply.
 

BudMcLovin

Active Member
another bit of mis-information being spread around by the powers that be.

first, it's a fact. the bush tax cuts for the wealthiest americans have drained both federal and state budgets. what's happening is that schools are loosing their budgets so a few rich guys can buy a few extra boats. and those rich guy's kids probably go to private school.

and you can distort the numbers all you want. but what the facts are is that average salaries are around 50k. the schoolyear lasts about 9 months so it averages out to around 5000 a month. it's not 64grand per year, you can distort the facts in your mind, but not in front of me. i'll call you out on it.

and teachers are not known for drinking 1,000 dollar bottles of wine, wearing Rolex and Cartier, and zooming around in bentleys because of their enormous salaries. most teachers have to give up about 1/4 of their salaries to give themselves and their students enough supplies to be able to teach a class. some of these are deductible from taxable income at the end of the year, but it still takes a big chunk of their salary.... all teachers HAVE to do this,. even private school teachers in the best private schools in the nation end up spending about 1/5 to 1/4 of their salaries on class-related expenses.....

this view that the middle-class is over-paid while they struggle to pay their bills has spread like wildfire and it's not true. plain and simple. it's NOT TRUE.

First it’s a fact the politicians on both sides have drained federal and state budget. Like the republicans supporting the army sponsoring a nas car. That’s a bunch of bullshit. If people being taxed are able to keep more of their own property to me that’s a good thing. What they do with it is their business. Guess what happens when they buy a boat. A boat maker has to hire someone to build a boat.

Let me make my point a little clearer for you since you don’t seem to get my point. The average pay for a teacher in Wisconsin comes out to 5,416 a month. If they worked a full year at that rate that’s 64k plus. They work 9 months. They could always get a summer job if they desire more money.

Please when you start using numbers post a link to your source otherwise it’s just internet babble. Who cares what a rich person spends their money on. It’s their money not yours. You should spend more time taking care of your own affairs instead of worrying about what some guy is having for lunch.

I never said middle income Americans are never paid. I just believe it’s up to each person to improve their own life. Hell my wife and I are making huge sacrifices today so that in a few years we will be better off. I gave up 50k a year to go back to school. It’s tough to lose half your household income. But I went back so I could afford to send my children to private school. Honestly thats the main reason I went back to school, I actually like the job I had but family is more important.

We as a society have to make more pies we can’t just divide the current supply we have among everyone. Sooner or later we’ll eat everything.
 

medicineman

New Member
with education, like with most other things in life, what you put in effects what you get out.

you want to treat our teachers like walmart employees and take away their collective bargaining rights, expect to get walmart quality students.

you want to treat our teachers like the college-educated professionals they are, expect a better chance at getting professional, college quality students.

trying to balance a budget on the backs of educators and the students they teach is short-sighted at best, downright stupid at worst.

as much as i dislike ed schulz, i give him props for running this story like he is doing.
What is so wrong with ed schultz? He is the antithesis to Glenn Beck, and if ever anyone needed an antithesis, it certainly would be the Beckster. The people are getting fucked all accross the country by the idiotic right wing.. Who do they think will do all that bureaucratic work if they get rid of government. Do I agree that government is way too big, heavy handed, and infringes on our rights way too much, hell yeah.. I also believe that unions made the middle class and the fastest way to dismantel it is to get rid of them. Having to support myself from 14, and never really having a decent chance to get a college degree, (I did get 2 years worth, going to night school for 6+ years) I do see the need for blue collar, (Non-college educated) jobs, union jobs. Union jobs allowed me to make a decent living and pay my fair share of taxes for nigh on to 40+ years. With unions gone, it will be back to serfdom for poor non-college educated youths, and what the white collar workers fail to understand is, they, the elites, are coming for your jobs next.
 
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