Synecdoche Wisconsin: Neoliberalism and Economic Inequities in America
A brief history of the battle for Wisconsin
The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed…by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.
– H.L. Mencken
In January, Wisconsin swore in Scott Walker, an ambitious and opportunistic politician. Using traditional neoliberal rhetoric, Walker denigrated expansive governments and bloated bureaucracies and vowed to restore the economic vitality of Wisconsin by cutting business taxes, reigning in cumbersome regulations, and shrinking the state government. In February, he moved beyond these traditional neoliberal encomia to free markets and small governments, and proposed a budget repair bill that included provisions that would drastically reduce public unions’ bargaining power and force public sector pay cuts. (The pay cuts were cleverly described as forcing public employees to contribute more to their health insurance and pensions; however, as noted by David Cay Johnston, employees already pay for the entirety of their insurance plans and pensions through deferred wages.)