Standoff In Badgerland

Image by Getty Images via @daylifeGovernor Scott Walker of Wisconsin, who's only been in office a few weeks, had to know what kind of havoc he just created.  He and his fellow Republicans are behind a bill that's going through the state legislature that would restrict collective bargaining for state employees, which in turn would help solve their budget crisis.  Without it, the governor says, layoffs would become necessary.  And he's not interested in compromise, which could be a big mistake politically.

Tell that to the protestors who jammed the state capitol in Madison, the 14 Democratic state senators who fled across the border to avoid voting on the bill, and to the parents whose kids stayed home from school because their teachers called in sick--but not sick enough to keep them from joining in the protests.

Unions have become less and less important as corporations have figured out that they could include many of the same provisions, such as a shorter workday and an hourly wage, that they had been resisting for a century without hurting their bottom line.  Now government is catching on.

Wisconsin and Minnesota are among several states that are now millions of dollars in debt.  The GOP and the Tea Partiers tell us that wasteful government spending is the problem, but it is also the national economic climate with fewer people working and more companies either shutting down or moving elsewhere.  That means those states aren't collecting as many tax revenues as they used to.  And still they have to provide certain services, such as health care and unemployment benefits,  for those who can't afford them any other way.

What's happening in Madison could soon be playing out on a national stage.  Republicans in Congress are threatening to shut down the federal government, which is trillions of dollars in debt, unless they get the budget done their way and not President Obama's.  They tried this tactic back in the mid-1990s when they took control of both houses of Congress, with the results being so disastrous for the GOP that President Bill Clinton was re-elected.

We're told by those who think they know that government has to live within its means, just like the rest of us do.  That's a nice thought, but is it possible?  What does "living within your means" actually mean, anyway?  You can cut and cut and cut your way to a balanced budget, only to find that the people you serve are going to suffer needlessly.  Is that what the Republicans really want?

This latest example of political gridlock would be mere farce if the stakes weren't so high.  The protestors who are fighting this possible law are also fighting for their lives.  Trouble is, so is the state of Wisconsin.