On Wisconsin

I'm torn.

Really and truly, I'm torn on this one. It's got to be hard for people who have been working ten, twenty, thirty years now to be told that, no, there's no beer and pizza waiting at the end of the rainbow and everything the government has promised you has been a flat out lie. People have a right to protest that and they have a right to be angry about that.

But, unfortunately, the party is over for much of the Boomer Generation (it didn't even begin for my generation, nor do I expect it too) and there's no use rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic pretending that the math is going to suddenly rearrange itself into something more palatable for everyone. We HAVE to make changes- and while I'm pleased that there are Governors and elected officials willing to step up and fight the big battles, I have some concerns.

First and foremost: this HAS to be about the public good. Althouse has made this point a few times in her great, ongoing coverage of the events in Madison and I'm in complete agreement with her. Battles with public sector unions are going to be intense and have to be fought to a certain degree, but there's no getting around the fact that if Republicans can break public sector unions, they will effectively neuter the Democratic Party as we know it. That might provoke some ideological revitalization of the Left, which I personally think is sorely needed, but still I worry about the implications of engaging in trench warfare designed to gut both budgets and your political opposition.

Second: while Walker's tilt at stripping public sector unions of their collective bargaining rights concerns me, there's a real case to be made against the need for public sector unions- and when no less a Democratic Titan as FDR was against them, it's hard for me to jump up and down in excitement about them. Basically, just read this and discuss amongst yourselves.

Third: the debate on collective bargaining aside, I'd like to see evidence of some forethought about this. Let's transition to a sane, sensible and more importantly sustainable level of government- workers my age should be able to read the writing on the wall. I don't think it's unreasonable for me to chip in for health insurance and I want to start my own retirement plan, separate from anything I've got at work with the Missus at some point this year, because I don't think I'm getting squat from the government. That said, if you're retiring in the next ten years, you should retire with what was promised you. The next ten to thirty years, you should be asked to do a little more, because you've got time to make those adjustments and then when you're my age, you should be asked to do still more, because you've got TONS of time to plan- and should.

Fourth: yes, a lot of public sector employees live way too high off the taxpayer hog, but I'm sick and tired of Republicans bringing a sledgehammer to a heart surgery when it comes to budget cutting- and this extends way beyond Wisconsin, by the way. Gutting everything in sight will essentially gut the middle class, because teachers, police officer, firefighters, nurses- all public employees, by the way, to me form the bulwark of the Middle Class, plain and simple- and if they're not the bulwark, then they're certain a wide swathe of the middle class and hitting them where it hurts cannot be good for the economy or the country, plain and simple. We need finesse, not a total mess- entitlement reform, tax reform and yes public sector union reform, but remember: we need and want SOME government. Corporatizing everything is only going to make life very, very expensive for all concerned.

P.S. In the battle of protest signs, I'm sorry, but it's Tea Party 1, Unions 0- I burst out laughing when, upon flipping through various photos of the Tea Party protests Saturday in Madison, I caught a glimpse of a sign that read: 'SCOTTY KEEP YOUR PIMP HAND STRONG' (Am gonna try and find a pic of this awesomeness. Didn't have much luck last night.)

Epic win, Tea Party. Unions: step it up! Comparing Republicans to Hitler is so passe.