SLIDESHOW: WI Protest<http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/gallery/2011/02/mad-in-madison-wisconsin-workers-protest-against-governors-budget-proposals.php?img=1&ref=fpa> http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/gallery/2011/02/mad-in-madison-wisconsin-workers-protest-against-governors-budget-proposals.php?img=1&ref=fpa
Wisconsin Gov. Walker Ginned Up Budget Shortfall To Undercut Worker Rights Brian Beutler<http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/brian_beutler_1/2011/02/13-week/>| February 17, 2011, 1:47PM 5549Share<http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Ftpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com%2F2011%2F02%2Fwisconsin-gov-walker-ginned-up-budget-shortfall-to-undercut-worker-rights.php&src=sp> 821tweets<http://topsy.com/tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/02/wisconsin-gov-walker-ginned-up-budget-shortfall-to-undercut-worker-rights.php?utm_source=button> TOP100 <http://topsy.com/top100?q=site:talkingpointsmemo.com>retweet<http://button.topsy.com/retweet?nick=tpmmedia&url=http%3A%2F%2Ftpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com%2F2011%2F02%2Fwisconsin-gov-walker-ginned-up-budget-shortfall-to-undercut-worker-rights.php&title=Wisconsin%20Gov.%20Walker%20Ginned%20Up%20Budget%20Shortfall%20To%20Undercut%20Worker%20Rights&shorturl_service=bit.ly&shorturl_user=tpm&shorturl_auth=R_d5686e228fd6750ba88881bed17a58ce> 17diggsdigg Gov. Scott Walker (R-WI) Read MoreLabor <http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/labor/>, Scott Walker<http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/scott-walker/>, Wisconsin <http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/wisconsin/>, collective bargaining <http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/collective-bargaining/> Share [image: Twitter]<http://talkingpointsmemo.com/twitter_share.php?url=http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/02/wisconsin-gov-walker-ginned-up-budget-shortfall-to-undercut-worker-rights.php> [image: Fark]<http://www.fark.com/cgi/farkit.pl?u=http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/02/wisconsin-gov-walker-ginned-up-budget-shortfall-to-undercut-worker-rights.php&h=Wisconsin Gov. Walker Ginned Up Budget Shortfall To Undercut Worker Rights> [image: Reddit]<http://www.reddit.com/submit?url=http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/02/wisconsin-gov-walker-ginned-up-budget-shortfall-to-undercut-worker-rights.php&title=Wisconsin%20Gov.%20Walker%20Ginned%20Up%20Budget%20Shortfall%20To%20Undercut%20Worker%20Rights> [image: Send to a Friend] Send to a friend! To email: Your Name: Your email: Wisconsin's new Republican governor has framed his assault on public worker's collective bargaining rights as a needed measure of fiscal austerity during tough times. The reality is radically different. Unlike true austerity measures -- service rollbacks, furloughs, and other temporary measures that cause pain but save money -- rolling back worker's bargaining rights by itself saves almost nothing on its own. But Walker's doing it anyhow, to knock down a barrier and allow him to cut state employee benefits immediately. *Mad In Madison: Wisconsin Workers Protest Against Governor's Budget Proposals<http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/gallery/2011/02/mad-in-madison-wisconsin-workers-protest-against-governors-budget-proposals.php?img=1> * Furthermore, this broadside comes less than a month after the state's fiscal bureau -- the Wisconsin equivalent of the Congressional Budget Office -- concluded that Wisconsin isn't even in need of austerity measures, and could conclude the fiscal year with a surplus. In fact, they say that the current budget shortfall is a direct result of tax cut policies Walker enacted in his first days in office. "Walker was not forced into a budget repair bill by circumstances beyond he control," says Jack Norman, research director at the Institute for Wisconsin Future -- a public interest think tank. "He wanted a budget repair bill and forced it by pushing through tax cuts... so he could rush through these other changes." "The state of Wisconsin has not reached the point at which austerity measures are needed," Norman adds. In a Wednesday op-ed<http://host.madison.com/ct/news/opinion/editorial/article_61064e9a-27b0-5f28-b6d1-a57c8b2aaaf6.html>, the *Capitol Times* of Madison picked up on this theme. In its Jan. 31 memo to legislators on the condition of the state's budget, the Fiscal Bureau determined that the state will end the year with a balance of $121.4 million. To the extent that there is an imbalance -- Walker claims there is a $137 million deficit -- it is not because of a drop in revenues or increases in the cost of state employee contracts, benefits or pensions. It is because Walker and his allies pushed through $140 million in new spending for special-interest groups in January. You can read the fiscal bureaus report here<http://legis.wisconsin.gov/lfb/Misc/2011_01_31Vos&Darling.pdf>(PDF). It holds that "more than half" of the new shortfall comes from three of Walker's initiatives: - $25 million for an economic development fund for job creation, which still holds $73 million because of anemic job growth. - $48 million for private health savings accounts -- a perennial Republican favorite. - $67 million for a tax incentive plan that benefits employers, but at levels too low to spur hiring. In essence, public workers are being asked to pick up the tab for this agenda. "The provisions in his bill do two things simultaneously," Norman says. "They remove bargaining rights, and having accomplished that, make changes in the benefit packages." That's how Walker's plan saves money. And when it's all said and done, these workers will have lost their bargaining rights going forward in perpetuity. Wisconsin Senate Dem: 'We Were Left With No Choice' Eric Lach<http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/eric_lach_1/2011/02/13-week/>| February 17, 2011, 3:07PM 596Share<http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Ftpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com%2F2011%2F02%2Fwisconsin-senate-dem-we-were-left-with-no-choice.php&src=sp> 28tweets<http://topsy.com/tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/02/wisconsin-senate-dem-we-were-left-with-no-choice.php?utm_source=button> retweet<http://button.topsy.com/retweet?nick=tpmmedia&url=http%3A%2F%2Ftpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com%2F2011%2F02%2Fwisconsin-senate-dem-we-were-left-with-no-choice.php&title=Wisconsin%20Senate%20Dem%3A%20%27We%20Were%20Left%20With%20No%20Choice%27&shorturl_service=bit.ly&shorturl_user=tpm&shorturl_auth=R_d5686e228fd6750ba88881bed17a58ce> 16diggsdigg State Sen. Jon Erpenbach (D-WI) Sen. Jon Erpenbach, one of the Wisconsin State Senators who participated in today's walk out, tells<http://budget.wispolitics.com/2011/02/erpenbach-we-were-left-with-no-choice.html>WisPolitics that he and his fellow Democrats "were left with no choice," and have left the state. Erpenbach would not disclose where he was or how many of the Dem senators were with him. But he said he believed all 14 were already out of state by early this afternoon. "The question is when are the Republicans going to sit down seriously with the other side on this issue and try to work something out," Erpenbach said when asked how long Democrats would stay out of the state. "When are we going to be reasonable about this and slow things down?" Demonstrators have flooded<http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/wisconsin-protests/>Wisconsin's state capitol in Madison this week, to protest Republican Gov. Scott Walker's plan to strip nearly all government workers of their collective bargaining rights. Earlier today, state Senate Democrats staged a walkout, depriving Republicans of the three-fifths majority needed to pass the budget and its controversial provisions. Erpenbach said the move "isn't a joke." 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