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Lefties Love Insurance Companies
Gov. Scott Walker's labor reforms finally took effect last Wednesday. Literally the next day, Byron York of the Washington Examiner had a report showing why they are a boon to Wisconsin's taxpayers:


***** QUOTE *****
The Kaukauna School District, in the Fox River Valley of Wisconsin near Appleton, has about 4,200 students and about 400 employees. It has struggled in recent times and this year faced a deficit of $400,000. But after the law went into effect, at 12:01 a.m. Wednesday, school officials put in place new policies they estimate will turn that $400,000 deficit into a $1.5 million surplus. And it's all because of the very provisions that union leaders predicted would be disastrous. . . .

Some of the most important improvements in Kaukauna's outlook are because of the new limits on collective bargaining.

In the past, Kaukauna's agreement with the teachers union required the school district to purchase health insurance coverage from something called WEA Trust--a company created by the Wisconsin teachers union. "It was in the collective bargaining agreement that we could only negotiate with them," says Arnoldussen. "Well, you know what happens when you can only negotiate with one vendor." This year, WEA Trust told Kaukauna that it would face a significant increase in premiums.

Now, the collective bargaining agreement is gone, and the school district is free to shop around for coverage. And all of a sudden, WEA Trust has changed its position. "With these changes, the schools could go out for bids, and lo and behold, WEA Trust said, 'We can match the lowest bid,' " says Republican state Rep. Jim Steineke, who represents the area and supports the Walker changes. At least for the moment, Kaukauna is staying with WEA Trust, but saving substantial amounts of money.
***** END QUOTE *****

Free of work rules that limited teacher hours, Kaukauna is also able to reduce class sizes.

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, meanwhile, reports that the WEA Trust "is refusing to release hundreds of thousands of dollars in federal money to school districts that recently dropped the company in favor of less expensive providers."

These stories show how so-called collective bargaining in the public sector is actually a conspiracy to rip off the taxpayers. But if you've been reading this column, you already knew that. What even we didn't realize until now is that the lefties claiming to champion "worker rights" were actually defending insurance companies!

Democrat Foreign Affairs Expert: Fawning Media Spare Al Gore The Mocking He Deserves

By Noel Sheppard | June 27, 2011 | 11:17

Foreign affairs expert Walter Russell Mead wrote a fabulous piece in "The American Interest" Friday that should be must-reading for those on both sides of the global warming debate - especially members of the Al Gore-loving media.

In "The Failure of Al Gore," the registered Democrat and Obama supporter listed the reasons why the former Vice President has actually been a terrible leader for the green movement, and why a "fawning establishment press" have aided and abetted his disgrace:

The state of the global green movement is shambolic.  The Kyoto Protocol is withering on the vine; it will almost certainly die with no successor in place.  There is no chance of cap and trade legislation in the US under Obama, and even the EPA’s regulatory authority over carbon dioxide is under threat.  Brazil is debating a forestry law that critics charge will open the floodgates to a new round of deforestation in the Amazon.  China is taking the green lobby head on, suspending a multibillion dollar Airbus order to protest EU carbon cutting plans.

Indeed. As Mead noted, there was a climate change meeting in Bonn earlier this month that accomplished absolutely nothing while garnering very little press. Regardless of what the global warming loving-media want people to believe, Gore's movement is dying.

Mead explained why:

The former vice president has failed to grasp the basic nature of the kind of leadership the global green cause requires.  Vice President Gore, like all who aspire to lead great causes, must reconcile his advocacy with his conduct — that is, he must conduct himself in a way that is consistent with the great cause he seeks to promote.

As NewsBusters readers are well aware, we for years have been pointing out the hypocrisy that is Gore - a man that professes imminent doom and gloom at the hands of manmade carbon dioxide as he omits more of the stuff than virtually everyone on the planet while profiting mightily from his activism.

Mead agreed:

You can be a leading environmentalist and fail to pay all of your taxes.  You can be a leading environmentalist and be unkind to your aged mother.  You can be a leading environmentalist and squeeze the toothpaste tube from the middle, park in the handicapped spots at the mall or scribble angry marginal notes in library books.

But you cannot be a leading environmentalist who hopes to lead the general public into a long and difficult struggle for sacrifice and fundamental change if your own conduct is so flagrantly inconsistent with the green gospel you profess.  If the heart of your message is that the peril of climate change is so imminent and so overwhelming that the entire political and social system of the world must change, now, you cannot fly on private jets.  You cannot own multiple mansions.  You cannot even become enormously rich investing in companies that will profit if the policies you advocate are put into place.

It is not enough to buy carbon offsets (aka “indulgences”) with your vast wealth, not enough to power your luxurious mansions with exotic low impact energy sources the average person could not afford, not enough to argue that you only needed the jet so that you could promote your earth-saving film.

You are asking billions of people, the overwhelming majority of whom lack many of the basic life amenities you take for granted, people who can’t afford Whole Foods environmentalism, to slash their meager living standards.  You may well be right, and those changes may be necessary — the more shame on you that with your superior insight and knowledge you refuse to live a modest life.  There’s a gospel hymn some people in Tennessee still sing that makes the point:  “You can’t be a beacon if your light don’t shine.”

Bingo. There may never have been a bigger hypocrite than Gore, and the media are partially responsible:

A fawning establishment press spares the former vice president the vitriol and schadenfreude it pours over the preachers and priests whose personal conduct compromised the core tenets of their mission; Gore is not mocked as others have been.  This gentle treatment hurts both Gore and the greens; he does not know just how disabling, how crippling the gap between conduct and message truly is.  The greens do not know that his presence as the visible head of the movement helps ensure its political failure.

Exactly. Rather than recognize and report his hypocrisy, the media enabled it by withholding from the public how Gore was using 20 times the energy at his Tennessee home than the average citizen. They also failed to disclose his personal investments in companies that would benefit from the green policies he was advocating.

By doing so, they shielded Gore from criticism while preventing his dismissal as green leader. This only acted to further anthropogenic global warming skepticism:

What this tells the skeptics is that Vice President Gore doesn’t really believe the gospel he proclaims.  That profits from his environmental advocacy enable his affluent lifestyle only deepens their skepticism of the messenger and therefore of the message.  And when they see that the rest of the environmental movement accepts this flagrant contradiction, they conclude, naturally enough, that the other green leaders aren’t as worried as they claim to be.  Al Gore’s lifestyle is a test case for the credibility of his gospel — and it fails. The tolerance of Al Gore’s lifestyle by the environmental leadership is a further test — and that test, too, the greens fail.

The average citizen is all too likely to conclude that if Mr. Gore can keep his lifestyle, the average American family can keep its SUV and incandescent bulbs.  If Gore can take a charter flight, I don’t have to take the bus.  If Gore can have many mansions, I can use the old fashioned kind of shower heads that actually clean and toilets that actually flush.  Al Gore looks to the average American the way American greens look to poor people in the third world: hypocritically demanding that others accept permanently lower standards of living than those the activists propose for themselves.

There are gospels that can be preached by the comfortable and the well fed.  But radical environmentalism is not one of them.

Indeed, and the richer and more opulent Gore's lifestyle became as he was preaching doom and gloom - while the media fawned and gushed over his every public appearance - the more Americans began to feel they were being conned.

You want to talk to the talk, you better walk the walk, and Gore refused to do so.

The good news for climate realists is that the media once again backed the wrong horse as global warming alarmism and the belief in this myth is fading all around the world.

We therefore should thank Gore and his adoring press for doing such a poor job at spreading their gospel.

We couldn't have done it without them.

Read more: http://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-sheppard/2011/06/27/mead-fawning-media-spare-al-gore-mocking-he-deserves#comments#ixzz1QVUqDXTh

The Master Of Disguise - The Turtle Club HD

Kelo Update: Guess What New Developer Wants Before Going Forward?

By Tom Blumer | April 23, 2011 | 19:00

In its infamous June 2005 Kelo vs. New London ruling, a Supreme Court majority allowed the city of New London to seize the properties of holdout homeowners in that city's Fort Trumbull area for the "public purpose" of economic development, not a "public use" as the Constitution's Fifth Amendment requires.

It has been eleven years since the litigation began, six years since the court's ruling, and almost five years since the final settlement between the City and final holdouts the Cristofaro family and Susette Kelo, whose former home now stands elsewhere as a de facto monument to the perils of overbearing government. The land involved is still vacant, and nothing of substance has since happened. In late 2009, Pfizer, the economic linchpin which supposedly drove the city's need to remake the area, announced that it was pulling out of New London.

After several false starts, the city is working with a new developer. As of February of last year, this developer wanted to put rental townhouses in an area where century-old, largely owner-occupied homes once stood.

Early Friday, the New London Day's Kathleen Edgecomb reported a new twist. Wait until you see what the developer wants before going forward.

Yep, tax abatements:

Would-be Fort Trumbull developers seek tax break

A developer hoping to build housing at Fort Trumbull said Thursday they will seek tax abatements from the city to move the project forward.

Robert and Irwin Stillman, the father and son owners of Westport-based River Bank Construction, said the abatements were necessary to make the project financially feasible.

"If abatements are not approved, we would have to reconsider,'' Robert Stillman said during a meeting Thursday afternoon with The Day's editorial board.

The city has granted tax abatements to two other residential developments over the past few years, including Harbour Towers and Shaw's Landing, both on Bank Street.

Michael Joplin, president of the New London Development Corp., said the city should offer the abatements because it will help increase homeownership and eventually bring in more taxes.

The NLDC does not look at short-term economic rewards, he said. Rather, it seeks to increase the tax base and create economic development that will be (sic) span the next 30 to 40 years.

The Stillmans said they expect the two-bedroom units, which make up 70 percent of the construction, to sell between $300,000 and $375,000. They will first be available as rental units and then sold as condominiums when the real-estate market improves.

"Our intent is to sell the units,'' Irwin Stillman said. "We do not own a single rental unit. Our history is, we are not renters.''

The 90-acre Fort Trumbull development area has been an ongoing issue in the city for more than 10 years. The NLDC presented a plan in 2000 that the city approved that in essence leveled nearly all the buildings in Fort Trumbull to make way for new construction. Several property owners fought the eminent domain taking of their land all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, where eventually justices ruled in favor of the city.

Edgecomb continued what is now a disgraceful five-year tradition at The Day of not mentioning "Kelo" any time it writes a story concerning the Fort Trumbull area.

The establishment press is in the sixth year of its own tradition: Not following up on what has really happened in the area involved in the most important and disastrous property-rights ruling in several decades. Perhaps they'd prefer that the country not be aware of the post-Kelo reality, because it might cause average people who aren't necessarily politically active to question the "wisdom" of the elites who think they can do a better job with the nation's land and other resources than private property owners.

In its opinion (scroll to Section IV), the Justices opined in 2005 that "The City has carefully formulated an economic development plan that it believes will provide appreciable benefits to the community, including–but by no means limited to–new jobs and increased tax revenue." In 2011, a city which could have collected five more years of property taxes from established homeowners by now is instead contemplating and appears likely to approve tax breaks to a developer of rental units it hopes to convert to condos when the real estate market gets better. 

This outcome makes a complete mockery of the Supreme Court majority's belief that a "carefully formulated ... economic development plan" was ever in place. The press's five-year lack of coverage makes a mockery of its claim to be interested in meaningful story follow-up.

Cross-posted at BizzyBlog.com.

Read more: http://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/tom-blumer/2011/04/23/kelo-update-guess-what-new-developer-wants-go-forward#ixzz1KUlpFOQ1

Government Cash Handouts Now Top Tax Revenues

By Elizabeth MacDonald

Published April 20, 2011

380

| FOXBusiness

U.S. households are now getting more in cash handouts from the government than they are paying in taxes for the first time since the Great Depression.

Households received $2.3 trillion in some kind of government support in 2010. That includes expanded unemployment benefits, as well as payments for Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and stimulus spending, among other things.

But that’s more than the $2.2 trillion households paid in taxes, an amount that has slumped largely due to the recession, according to an analysis by the Fiscal Times.

Also, an estimated 59% of the 308.7 million Americans in this country get at least one federal benefit, according to the Census Bureau, based on 2009 data. An estimated 46.5 million get Social Security; 42.6 million get Medicare; 42.4 million get Medicaid; 36.1 million get food stamps; 12.4 million get housing subsidies; and 3.2 million get Veterans' benefits. 

And the handouts from the government have been growing. Government cash handouts account for a whopping 79% of household growth since 2007, even as household tax payments--for things like the income and payroll tax, among other taxes--have fallen by $312 billion.

That is a tough feeding trough to take away from voters.

One of the recurring themes FOX Business has been covering is “how the world has been turned upside down – well, the business world at least,” notes FOX Director of Business News, Ray Hennessey. “In a free market, profit is generated by hard work and enterprise," Hennessey notes, adding: “Because of the labor of the worker, companies generally have the ability to prosper and make more money, both for their employees and their owners," which in turn creates tax revenues.

Seems like common sense, right? That’s because it is. But not in our country today. Somehow the DNA of our country is changing. Wealth creation is coming from DC, not from America’s entrepreneurs.

In short, Americans have the government, not private enterprise, to thank for their wealth growth.

Obviously, there are big implications to this. 

For instance, Hennessey asks, if indeed more households have the government to thank for their wealth, does that mean those households are more inclined to re-elect politicians who are pushing for more government handouts? 

Does the workforce erode because it is easier to collect a check than answer to an alarm clock each morning?

Is our competitiveness as a nation hurt because profit is generated not by American capitalism but by European-style socialism? Can we, as taxpayers, afford to carry the burden of government-sponsored wealth creation?

All this comes at a time when a growing number of Wall Street houses, including JPMorgan Chase (JPM: 44.56, -0.09, -0.20%) and Barclays Capital (BCS: 19.38, +0.25, +1.31%), Bank of America (NYSE: BAC) and Morgan Stanley (NYSE: MS) are cutting their U.S. GDP growth forecasts by as much as a percentage point or more.

It also comes as President Barack Obama is already in re-election mode, as he bets his massive spending will woo independents. It also comes as Standard & Poor’s has joined the International Monetary Fund and Pimco, which runs the world’s biggest bond fund, in downgrading their outlook on US debt.

The negative outlook comes as the government has added the equivalent of Germany and Russia combined in spending from the time Democrat Rep. Nancy Pelosi gaveled in as House Speaker in January 2007. The government, like never before, has put the thumb on the scale as it picks winners and losers.

Yes, the dollar rallied and Treasuries bounced higher after the news that S&P had issued a negative outlook on the U.S. debt picture. Some argued that happened because eventual austerity would slow growth, which is deflationary and in turn good for bonds. 

But that ignores the flight away from rocky overseas markets toward the Treasury's safe haven status, which drives yields down. Potential sovereign debt defaults are a huge problem in the Eurozone, particularly in Greece, where yields rocketed above 13% earlier this week.

The bullish view about U.S. bond prices also ignores the fact that the Federal Reserve has been buying Treasury bonds and notes, $600 billion so far this year, more than half of the Treasury Dept.'s issuance. That keeps a lid on bond yields. When bond prices rise, the government doesn't have to lure investors with higher yields. When bond prices fall, the government offers higher yields to reel investors in.

The bullish view about U.S. bond prices also ignores the negative trend in the dollar, which has been weakening. 

And it ignores the bond market’s brutal reaction to spending under President Bill Clinton, where yields spiked several percentage points higher beginning in 1994, rising from around 5% before topping out above 8%, before then-Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin forced austerity, leading to welfare reform. 

Republicans now want to shrink the U.S. government, but Democrats want to stymie their efforts. This, after the President touted $38 billion in spending cuts as the largest in our nation’s history, just four months or so after touting the massive spending increase pushed through in the lame duck Congressional session.

And after the White House shelved the Bowles-Simpson debt commission report, a panel which the President asked for, endorsed and then ignored, hoping such hard decisions might be delayed until after the election.

President Obama had asked for the debt commission to "address the long-term quandary of a government that continually and extravagantly spends more than it takes in," only to initially set aside  the commission's recommendations.

And earlier this year the White House first introduced a budget that would have added $6.7 trillion more in deficit spending over the next 10 years, yanking the national debt higher to more than 75% of gross domestic product, according to the Congressional Budget Office. That, until GOP Rep. Paul Ryan offered his $4.4 trillion in spending cuts over ten years, causing the President to offer $4 trillion in cuts over 12 years.

The Fiscal Times reports that “the only other time government income support exceeded taxes paid was from 1931 to 1936.” The Times notes that “government transfers of income to households started to overtake personal taxes at the start of 2008, and the gap has been widening.”

The difference between what households received and what they paid in taxes is about $125 billion, equal to a little more than “three times the amount Republicans and Democrats agreed to cut from government spending through Sept. 30,” the Fiscal Times said. Typically, the gap between government transfers and taxes runs the other way, the Times reports.

“In normal times the household sector gives about eight percentage points more of its income in taxes than it receives in direct transfers,” the Times quotes J.P. Morgan economist Michael Feroli as saying, adding that a return to normalcy, or this eight-percentage-point spread, is equal to about $1.2 trillion in income.

So the question is: What government policies will bring the U.S. labor market back to robust health, enough to drive economic growth, consumer spending -- and higher tax revenues?

When will the U.S. government pull back from its intervention into the U.S. economy, so the economy can try to stand on its own?

Read more: http://www.foxbusiness.com/markets/2011/04/20/government-cash-handouts-exceed-tax-revenues/#ixzz1KA3CJ35C

The Confederate constitution.  If secession was about states rights, you'd expect a different enumeration of federal v states rights in the Confederate constitution compared to the US one, with new limitations on federal government power. Except--that doesn't happen. The only new limit on federal power, the only new right states explicitly have, is slavery.

Look at the secession resolutions. They were all about slavery.

The south went to war for slavery, and the north went to war because South Carolina fired on a US fort. 

Pakistan

Waziristan has been the issue since Bora Bora.  We are not serious, and they know it.

The Speech Obama Hasn't Given

"It all seems rather mad, doesn't it? The decision to become involved militarily in the Libyan civil war couldn't take place within a less hospitable context. The U.S. is reeling from spending and deficits, we're already in two wars, our military has been stretched to the limit, we're restive at home, and no one, really, sees President Obama as the kind of leader you'd follow over the top. "This way, men!" "No, I think I'll stay in my trench." People didn't hire him to start battles but to end them. They didn't expect him to open new fronts. Did he not know this?

He has no happy experience as a rallier of public opinion and a leader of great endeavors; the central initiative of his presidency, the one that gave shape to his leadership, health care, is still unpopular and the cause of continued agitation. When he devoted his entire first year to it, he seemed off point and out of touch. This was followed by the BP oil spill, which made him look snakebit. Now he seems incompetent and out of his depth in foreign and military affairs. He is more observed than followed, or perhaps I should say you follow him with your eyes and not your heart. So it's funny he'd feel free to launch and lead a war, which is what this confused and uncertain military action may become.

What was he thinking? What is he thinking?"....

Muslims around the world survey

http://pewglobal.org/2010/12/02/muslims-around-the-world-divided-on-hamas-and-hezbollah/#prc-jump

Wisconsin

Here is a text of a published letter from one of the WI senators. 

"Dear friends,

I know most of you are aware of what has been transpiring in Madison over the last weeks.

Amidst a looming budget deficit of $3.6 billion, the State of Wisconsin is facing an immediate $137 million deficit in the fiscal year that ends of June 30th. Every day that we don't take action to correct this fiscal crisis, we fall further behind.

Governor Walker introduced a budget repair bill that includes, amongst many other things, asking government workers to pitch in for 5.8% of their pension benefit, and contribute 12.6% of the cost of their health insurance benefits. The bill also includes some changes to collective bargaining procedures for these workers. There are many questions surrounding this bill, and I have attached below some material that may be useful to you.

I would also like to share that I firmly believe in my democrat colleagues' right to disagree with and oppose this bill. What I do not agree with is how they have handled themselves over the past weeks.

Last November, the citizens of Wisconsin elected Governor Walker and new majorities in the State Senate and State Assembly with the expectation that fiscal sanity will be restored in our great state. The various questionable actions to impede passage of this bill - most notably 14 Senators fleeing the state - do nothing but disenfranchise the voters of the last election. When the missing 14 Senate Democrats walked out of the Senate and into Illinois, they walked out on a 160-year old institution and their constituents.

Lastly, while these Senators have been gone, I have received threats of violence. I have been yelled at while entering and exiting the Capitol building. I have personally watched opponents of this bill attempt to intimidate my colleagues into changing their position on this legislation. Please know that no matter how long it takes for the 14 elected officials to come back to Wisconsin, no amount of personal or political threats will keep me from coming to Madison to do the job that you elected me to do. 

Sincerely,

Randy Hopper

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: What will be the required pension contribution for state employees?

A: State, school district, and municipal employees that are members of the Wisconsin Retirement System (WRS) would be required to contribute 50% of their annual pension payment. The payment amount for WRS employees is estimated to be 5.8% of salary in 2011.

Q: What will be the required health insurance contribution for state employees?

A: State employees would be required to pay at least 12.6 percent of the average cost of annual health insurance premiums. Local employers participating in the Public Employers Group Health Insurance Plan would be prohibited from paying more than 88% of the lowest cost plan. Local government employers who use other health insurance plans or are self-insured would be able to set the contribution rate and the subject would be prohibited from the process of collective bargaining.

Q: Will legislators and the Governor be required to contribute the same amount to their pensions and health insurance coverage?

A: All elected officials including legislators and the Governor will be required as of April 1, 2011 to make these contributions for health care and pensions. For elected officials the pension contribution is estimated to be 6.65% of salary in 2011.

Q: Why is the Governor proposing a budget repair bill when the Legislative Fiscal Bureau says that the state will end the biennium with a surplus?

A: The LFB revenue memo from January 31st indicated a general fund surplus of $121.4 million, but also indicated several appropriation shortfalls. In practical terms, this means that the legislature did not appropriate enough money for these purposes in the last biennial budget. Here is a list of our bills:

• Deficit in Medical Assistance Programs to fulfill spending requirements under current law ($153.2 million)

• Deficit in Medical Assistance admin services ($16 million)

• Deficit in Income Maintenance Activities ($5 million)

• Deficit in State Public Defenders Office ($3.5 million)

• Deficit in Department of Corrections ($21.7 million)

• MN Reciprocity Payment ($58.7 million)

This results in a Fiscal Year 2010-11 Net General Fund Deficit of $136.7 million.

In addition, Wisconsin still owes $200 million to the Injured Patients and Families Compensation Fund.

Q: Why won't the Governor negotiate with the unions?

A: We simply cannot afford to wait. Over the last ten years, ALL state employee contracts have been signed late - on average, 15 months late - even thought they ALL contained net compensation increases. Wisconsin faces a current year deficit of $136.7 million and a biennial budget deficit of $3.6 billion. Both must be fixed no later than June 30th.

Q: Aren't the collective bargaining changes in the budget repair bill non-fiscal?

A: All aspects of public employee collective bargaining reform affect the bottom lines of state and local governments. Requiring bargaining over everything from work rules to health care policy details limits the ability of state and local governments to effectively manage their budgets and provide value to the taxpayers.

Public employee collective bargaining excesses have also affected the quality of government services. Under the current system, employees are compensated based primarily on seniority rather than merit, talent and work load. This promotes longevity over innovation and creates a stifling effect on reforming the way government works.

There are countless examples of both of these effects, here are just two:

• In 2009, Madison's highest paid employee was a city bus driver. He earned $159,258, including $109,892 in overtime.

• In 2010, a teacher who had been named an Outstanding First Year Teacher was laid off from Bradley Tech High School in Milwaukee because she lacked seniority. The principal at Bradley Tech was quoted as saying, "Based on the pressures we're under as a low-performing school, I absolutely would have chosen a different nine (for layoffs)."

Q: Will public employees still be allowed to form unions?

A: Yes, public employees will still be allowed to form unions, however, members will not be required to pay dues and the unions must collect dues - not the employer. Also, an annual vote will be required to maintain the certification of the union. In order for the union to remain certified, 51% of the members of the union must vote in favor to certify.

Q: Will any collective bargaining be allowed?

A: Collective bargaining will continue for the base wages for public employees represented by unions.

Q: Will base pay be capped?

A: Base wages cannot increase in excess of the consumer price index (CPI) unless it is approved by a referendum.

Q: Will this bill affect current leave benefits (e.g. vacation, legal holidays, personal holidays, sick leave)?

A: No. Accrual of leave benefits will remain the same.

Q: Does this bill include wage cuts or furlough days?

A: No. There are no wage cuts and no furlough days in the budget repair bill or the 2011-2012 Biennial Budget.

Q: What will happen to items like overtime, premium pay, merit pay performance pay, pay schedules, and automatic pay progressions?

A: These items will be determined by the local employer (school board, local municipality, county board, etc.).

Q: What will happen to workplace rules that are currently bargained for collectively?

A: At the local level these items will be managed and approved by the local employer. For state employees, work place rules would be developed by Office of State Employment Relations and approved by the legislature's Joint Committee on Employment Relations.

Q: What protections will remain for public employees after passage of the Budget Repair Bill?

A: Budget Repair Bill does nothing to alter Wisconsin's civil service system - one of the strongest in the nation. These protections include, but are not limited to:

• Civil service hiring (by merit vs. seniority) remains

• Access to other state positions through transfer, promotion, etc., is still available, although application process may vary

• Just cause requirement for discipline; due process must still be followed

• Still assured a discrimination-free, harassment-free work environment

• Same access to health insurance and other insurance benefits

• Layoff process, if it were to become necessary, is the same

Also, the bill requires that a local government employer either adopt WCSS or establish a grievance system that covers at least all of the following: a) a grievance procedure that addresses employee; b) employee discipline; and c) workplace safety. If a local governmental unit creates a grievance process under the above provisions, the process must contain at least all of the following elements: a) a written document specifying the process that a grievant and an employer must follow; b) a hearing before an impartial hearing officer; and c) an appeal process in which the highest level of appeal is the governing body of the local governmental unit.

Q: Opponents argue that that the bill is being pushed through the legislature with little public input. Is that true?

A: The Joint Committee on Finance held a public hearing which lasted 17 hours - longer than any public hearing in recorded history. Not to mention, the State Assembly debated the bill on the floor for an astounding 60 hours.

There have been a lot of rumors and misinformation regarding this pivotal bill, and I hope that the above information helps to clarify some common misunderstandings.

Earlier this week, Governor Walker introduced his proposed 2011-2013 Biennial Budget. As the budget process continues, I am sure there will be many questions, and I will keep you posted about budget developments as they occur. You can read my initial reaction here."