Smackdown: Wisconsin

**If you are here to read about Swim/Bike/Run then I suggest you view posts other than this one.**

It has been awhile since I have gone off on one of my political tangents.  Quite frankly, I really am just too tired from all the training and I have been trying to not get myself all worked up over politics.  Well, this morning I was in the car on my way to an appointment and heard this little diddy from Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker.  It was in response to Obama's recent pro-labor union statements (source):

Today President Obama again weighed in against Governor Walker’s proposal to balance the state’s budget deficit by having state government workers contribute a modest amount toward their own pensions and pay 12.6 percent toward their healthcare premiums. 

In response to the President’s comments, the Governor’s Press Secretary Cullen Werwie issued the following statement: 

I’m sure the President knows that most federal employees do not have collective bargaining for wages and benefits while our plan allows it for base pay. And I’m sure the President knows that the average federal worker pays twice as much for health insurance as what we are asking for in Wisconsin. At least I would hope he knows these facts. 

Furthermore, I’m sure the President knows that we have repeatedly praised the more than 300,000 government workers who come to work every day in Wisconsin.  

I’m sure that President Obama simply misunderstands the issues in Wisconsin, and isn’t acting like the union bosses in saying one thing and doing another.

Did I read this wrong or did Scott Walker just backhand slap Obama across the face? Awesome!  Scott Walker needs to paint his face blue and have his staff start calling him William Wallace!

I have been following what has been going on in Wisconsin very closely.  I am upset by the Dem. Senators who have fled the state and are refusing to do their jobs.  I am upset by the teachers who are getting fake sick notes to skip work to protest and then claiming it is all about the children.  I am upset by all the special interest groups (Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, and all the usual suspects) showing up to support an issue that does not concern them.  I am upset that most of the media is referring to the Collective Bargaining as a "right" - it is not a "right" it is an "agreement" - when one side no longer agrees than it no longer needs to exist.  I am upset that those who work in the private sector have been making cuts and financial sacrifices for the last few years of this recession but these Wisconsin public sector employees feel they do not have to make any sacrifices at all.  I am upset that of the 50 states in this country public sector employees earn more in yearly salary than private sector employees in all but 9 states.

This is unsustainable.  Budgets need to be balanced.  Excessive, reckless spending needs to stop.  The bill is due and difficult decisions need to be made.  If it continues to be ignored then Wisconsin may be our version of Greece (not Egypt NYT) and once the dominoes begin to fall many other states will get knocked over too.

I for one, whole-heartedly support Gov. Scott Walker and pray that he continues to hold the line because I am afraid of what the outcome for Wisconsin and our nation will be if he fails.

Now let's move from Careless State spending to Reckless Federal Spending!

The non-partisan Government Accountability Office (GAO) released a report today on the wasteful spending at the federal level.  Here are a couple of the low highlights (Source):

The study found 33 areas with "overlap and fragmentation" in the federal government. Among them, it found: 

-- Fifty-six programs across 20 agencies dealing with financial literacy. 

-- More than 2,100 data centers -- up from 432 a little more than a decade ago -- across 24 federal agencies. GAO estimated the government could save up to $200 billion over the next decade by consolidating them. 

-- Twenty programs across seven agencies dealing with homelessness. The report found $2.9 billion spent on the programs in 2009. "Congress is often to blame" for fragmentation, GAO wrote in this section, explaining that the duplicative programs in multiple agencies cause access problems for potential participants.

-- Eighty-two "distinct" teacher-quality programs across 10 agencies. Many of them have "duplicate sub-goals," GAO said. Nine of them address teacher quality in the fields of science, technology, engineering and math. 

-- Fifteen agencies administering 30 food-related laws. "Some of the oversight doesn't make any sense," the report stated bluntly. 

-- Eighty economic development programs. 

In some cases, the programs in question struggled to account for what they did. Take, for instance, domestic food assistance initiatives. According to GAO, 18 such programs are administered by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Health and Human Services -- with GAO estimating $62.5 billion spent on them.

Duplicity, Lack of oversight, and rudderless programs - sadly this pretty much sums up the Federal Government!

This falls abuse falls squarely on the shoulders of our elected officials.  They keep saying we are broke, we are broke.  Of course we are with this lack of oversight on our spending.  We are borrowing trillions of dollars from the Chinese and they got to be sitting back laughing at the stupidity of our elected officials.  Notice the majority of the numbers in the article above are Billions and Trillions?  Just ridiculous.  We need to hold our elected officials accountable through our votes.  This is unacceptable and in my mind criminal.

Hope you enjoyed my gloom and doom post of the day!  As always please comment if you disagree or add to the post if you agree.  Or email me if you do not want to have a debate in a public forum.   But if you do be prepared to be slapped across the face like Walker did to Obama!

Thanks for Reading,

Jeff