On, Wisconsin

The unions in Wisconsin didn't like Scott Walker's budget reforms that included a scaleback of those things public unions can negotiate.  That allowed him to proceed to increase public employees' contributions to their pensions and healthcare costs to relatively modest levels of 5 and 12 percent respectively.

The outraged unions proceeded to initiate a recall petition, which succeeded in collecting more than enough signatures to force a special election that happens tomorrow.  They'll either succeed in replacing Walker with a democrat or will fail and keep the governor in office.

My primary thought on the whole event is that a recall isn't justified.  Walker got elected and proceeded to implement the policies he promised.  Mounting the recall over policies with which others disagree isn't justification for recall.  If enough citizens disagree with Walker's changes, all they have to do is vote for his challenger in the next election who promises to roll them back. 

In my opinion, recalls are only appropriate in cases of illegal or immoral behavior of the elected official, not just because of policy disagreements.

By all accounts, Walker's reforms are working wonderfully well.  The state's enjoying budget surpluses without cuts in services.  The outraged union folks are being exposed as a bit greedy, demanding free cadillac health coverage and outrageously generous pensions while their peers in the private sector have to contribute much more for much less health coverage and mostly have no pensions at all.  Polling suggests the unions are making a losing argument, so Walker's opponent isn't even campaigning on the union "rights" issue anymore.

Whether or not a Walker victory tomorrow means Wisconsin becomes a Red state that will go into Romney's column in November remains to be seen.  But the two sides of the argument are pretty clear.

Unions see this as Armageddon, as a Walker win will encourage many others to proceed to weaken their power, until one day soon they become irrelevant.  Conservatives hope they're right, because unions are the primary source of funding for liberal democrats, and the coming irrelevance will translate into GOP dominance of politics over the long term.  Both sides seem a bit delusional.

What seems to have occured over the last couple of decades, especially in the Blue states, is the public employee unions have accrued too much power.  They helped establish a vicious cycle that pours their member dues into pro-union democrat candidates who promist to keep extending their compensation and benefits and created a machine that guarantees the government class receives benefits in excess of their private sector brothers.

I am optimistic that Walker will win.  If the trend continues, will we see the pendulum swing back too far the other way, with public sector employees seeing their wages and benefits and working conditions eroded to unfair levels?  I don't expect that will happen, but if it does and creates a backlash that brings the Left back into power, those who caused it will have nobody to blame but themselves.