Wisconsin Demonstrations Feb 2011

All of us have friends who are "public employees." What is happening in Wisconsin is of concern to us all. The purpose of this brief note is to try to focus on "facts," rather than offer opinion.

State government workers in the Badger State pay small amounts for generous taxpayer-subsidized health benefits. Faced with a $3.6 billion budget hole and a state constitutional ban on running a deficit, new GOP Gov. Scott Walker wants public unions to pay a little more. He has proposed raising the public employee share of health insurance premiums from less than 5 percent to 12.4 percent. He is also pushing for state workers to cover half of their pension contributions. To spare taxpayers the soaring costs of union-negotiated work rules, he would limit Labor's collective bargaining power to cover only wages unless approved at the ballot box.

As the free-market MacIver Institute in Wisconsin points out, the benefits concessions Walker is asking public union workers to make would still maintain their health insurance contribution rates at the second-lowest among Midwest states for family coverage. Moreover, a new analysis by benefits think tank HCTrends shows that the new rate "would also be less than the employee contributions required at 85 percent of large Milwaukee_area employers."

Michelle Malkin thinks of this as a modest proposal for shared sacrifice that has triggered wrath. Many of the protesters are from other states. I have seen posters that paint the governor as another Hitler. Some of the posters have the governors face in the "cross-hairs." From the perspective of the governor, everyone else is experiencing cuts, and the state employees need to share in that.