Archive for the ‘Government Pensions’ Category

MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Republicans in the Wisconsin Senate voted Wednesday night to strip nearly all collective bargaining rights from public workers after discovering a way to bypass the chamber’s missing Democrats.

All 14 Senate Democrats fled to Illinois nearly three weeks ago, preventing the chamber from having enough members present to consider Gov. Scott Walker’s so-called “budget repair bill” – a proposal introduced to plug a $137 million budget shortfall.

The Senate requires a quorum to take up any measures that spend money. But Republicans on Wednesday split from the legislation the proposal to curtail union rights, which spends no money, and a special conference committee of state lawmakers approved the bill a short time later.

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Officials say it’ll cost $7.5 million to clean up glue, tape, posters left from protesters

Can you imagine this happening at a Tea Party rally?  Neither can I.  But, if it could, I can imagine the reaction of the lame stream media.   I’ve been to many, many Tea Party and other Conservative grassroots rallies and have never seen anything like this.  In fact, I’ve seen the complete opposite.  Because of time needed to set up and take down Tea Party Brewing’s booth, I am often one of the first to arrive and the last to leave.  When these rallies are over, the places where they are held are void of any sign that anyone’s been there.  The trash cans, not the venues where the events are held, are full of trash.  In true form, attendees at these rallies practice what they preach, INDIVIDUAL RESPONSIBILITY, and clean up after themselves.  They do no make a mess and then expect someone else to clean up it up or expect others, taxpayers in this case, to pay for it.

Go forth BOLDLY and spread the TRUTH.  Do your part in helping to WAKE UP AMERICA!

South Florida Congressman Allen West branded the runaway state senators of Wisconsin a bunch of “cowards,” comparable to Army deserters.

Allen West

“What kind of representative democracy have we become when elected officials run from executing their prescribed duties?” West said in a weekly newsletter to constituents and fans that begins, “Dear Patriot.”

“In the military we have General Order number one: `I shall not leave my appointed place of duty or post until properly relieved,’” said West, a retired Army lieutenant colonel. “If a leader takes off, we call it `desertion.’ What manner of person runs and hides instead of making a stand, making a decision?”

The blunt-spoken Republican from Plantation, a favorite of the tea party movement, sees the standoff in Wisconsin as part of a wider ideological battle.

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Denver, February 22, 2010 by El Marco

White House political arm, Organizing for America, teamed up with Service Employees International Union (SEIU), for their latest astroturfing effort in Denver. Teamsters and other workers were bussed in to the State Capitol in an increasing effort by the White House to interfere in relations between states and public sector unions.

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February 19, 2011

By Patrick McIlheran

Somewhere, Franklin Delano Roosevelt is grinning past his cigarette holder at Wisconsin’s governor. They are on the same page regarding government unions.

Except that Scott Walker — Republican cheapskate, his visage Hitlerized on signs waved by beet-faced union crowds besieging the Capitol — is kind of a liberal squish compared to FDR. He’s OK with some collective bargaining.

Walker, you might have heard, wants some changes in how Wisconsin deals with unions. He wants state employees to pay 5.8% of their salaries toward their pensions (they pay almost nothing now) and he wants them to cover 12.6% of their health care premiums (their share would go up from $79 a month to about $200; the average private-sector sap pays about $330).

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Gallery

Wisconsin budget battle: Protesters rally against anti-union bill

An estimated 25,000 protesters gathered at the Capitol building in Madison to protest Republican Gov. Scott Walker’s legislation to cut public employees’ benefits and eliminate most of their collective bargaining rights.

» LAUNCH PHOTO GALLERY

By Richard Cohen

Monday, February 21, 2011; 8:00 PM

In New York City, the No. 2 guy in the fire department retired on a pension worth $242,000 a year. In New York State, a single official holding two jobs and one pension took in $641,000. A lieutenant with the Port Authority police retired with an annual pension of $196,767, and 738 of the city’s teachers, principals and such have pensions worth more than $100,000 a year.

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