Saturday, June 9, 2012

Romney sez cut teachers, fire fighters, and policemen

Mitt Romney would like to pretend Obama is "out-of-touch" for the "out-of-context" remark that "the private sector is doing fine", since it has been growing jobs for 27 weeks, compared to the public sector which has consistently lost jobs.  However, in the process of trying to to make hay of that remark by Obama, Romney mocked the idea that we need to hire more teachers, firefighters, and policemen saying of Obama, "Did he not get the message of Wisconsin?"

Hummm.....first off, in Wisconsin, firefighters and police unions were exempted from the ridiculous union-busting tactics applied to teachers in Wisconsin.  So that doesn't fly, but even Walker was not trying to fire a bunch of teachers or saying that we need a lot fewer of them.  He was just trying to cheat them a little on their pensions and nickel-dime them on wages.  I think Romney's big mouth just lost him the police and fire fighter vote.  Granted, teachers probably weren't going to vote for him because they're educated and all, but there are a lot of republicans in the police force and fire departments who don't believe that they are all a bunch of "worthless government bureaucrats", as Romney seems to see them.  

So I think that's a lot more damaging than some out-of-context statement where Romney basically complains that the economy could be better, despite the fact that he and his Republican cronies opposed any stimulus, and basically advised doing nothing, except giving more tax cuts to millionaires. Obama had to force them, kicking and screaming, every step of the way to accept any stimulus at all, and then a number of Republican governors refused to even spend the stimulus money that the federal government had given them.  In fact a great deal of the unemployment in the public sector comes from a handful of southern Republican states where they refused to spend stimulus money and then laid off a ton of public workers.  They have some nerve to turn around, after actively standing in the way of economic recovery, and whine that things didn't clean up the George Bush recession of 2008 any faster.  

Besides, the actual message of Wisconsin that they cannot avoid is that "UNIONS INCREASE WAGES".  Walker would not fight so bitterly against unions if they did not get better wages and better benefits for their members.  In the minds of people like Romney and Walker this is a BAD THING and is why unions must be destroyed -- because they will not accept minimum wage slavery for their members.  In the minds of sane Americans this is why we need more and more unions, and not the fake public workers unions who are prohibited from even striking, no matter what kinds of bad-faith deal someone like Walker tries to force upon them.  Despite outspending his opponent 10 to 1 in Wisconsin Walker only won by a few points.  If twice as many people had been in unions there then he probably would have lost and he would have had to find a way to balance budgets without stealing money out of the pockets of teachers.

It is always possible for unscrupulous people like Walker to find some minority to rob.  He could have just as easily declared that any adult under five feet tall had to contribute an extra $1000 as a "state short-person tax".  After all there is a crisis, and surely short people have something to do with it.  Furthermore, most adults are five feet tall or above, so it won't affect them.  Besides, if short people complain about it, then it should be easy to have them beaten up, because they're short and all.  That is precisely the mentality that prevailed in Wisconsin, only instead of "short people" they choose "teachers".  

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