Cut Our Throats – Please!
This ought to be the rallying cry of Scott Walker and his band of fiscal “patriots.” Their solution for budget problems caused by exempting the wealthy from all civic obligations is to destroy public sector unions, which are just about all that remains of social democratic America. And before the advent of social democracy, there was virtually no middle class in this country.
It should be an obvious point, but you don’t balance the budget by destroying the right to collectively bargain. Anyone who wants to know what a Tea Party utopia would look like should read up on 19th century U.S. history, when utter destitution was the lot of most U.S. workers. No medical insurance, no retirement pensions, skinflint wages, company housing, company stores to shop in, company scrip instead of money, children railroaded to an early death in mines and mills throughout the country. This is the nightmare unions delivered us from.
Walker and his supporters ignore the fact that his austerity measures were