Hold on to your hat, Whell. For the most part, I agree with your take on the Wisconsin issue. I wrote a post a month or so back that read much the same way (you friggin' plagiarist
).
There are a couple of things that give me pause WRT to the Wisconsin situation. From what I understand, one of the first actions the new Gov took was to cut taxes from high income individuals and businesses. Now it seems like he intends to balance the books on the backs of public sector employees who have wages/benefits based upon existing collecting bargaining agreements with the state. It seems reasonable that the teachers feel that he has reneged on an existing agreement in order to afford tax cuts for his cronies. Right or wrong, that's a reasonable perception.
Then he doesn't demand similar concessions from police and firemen. This seems somewhat akin to the GOP at the national level not wanting to touch defense spending. It reeks of jingoisim IMHO. If things are bad enough to warrant unilateral trashing of a CBA, then the police/firemen should also be subject to the ax.
Lastly, the manner in which he undertook his actions. It seems to me if you intend to back out of a collective bargaining agreement (even a bad one), you don't do it unilaterally. It must be negotiated in good faith.
Accordingly, I'm of two minds on this one. The Governor's Rambo style seems as much the problem as the intrasigence of the unions.