Saturday, February 19, 2011

Our Community Organizer President

During the 2008 Presidential election, Barack Obama proudly boasted of his days as a community organizer on the south side of Chicago. It was his introduction to the political circle of power in the windy city. Old habits die hard.

He can't seem to help himself. Time after time Barack Obama has stepped outside of the lines of the Oval Office and inserted himself into local and state issues. Whether it was the Cambridge incident and the subsequent beer summit or now the open campaigning for teacher unions and public employee unions in Wisconsin. He and the DNC have come together to send rented mobs to the Wisconsin state capital as participants in the demonstrations against Gov Walker's bill to balance the state budget. Obama claims it is a move to bust unions. Once again, Team Obama is all about union loyalty and pushing the idea that their benefits and contracts are sacred. Everyone else can just foot the bill for the unrealistically low amounts that the public employees contribute towards their retirement and health care benefits.

From his press release, this is the sacrifice Gov Walker is asking public employee
s to make: Both democrats and republicans know that state workers do great work. But unfortunately many private sector workers who are also hard working, good people either lost their job, took a pay cut, or saw their benefit package reduced as a result of the recent economic downturn. Governor Walker’s budget repair bill strikes a fair balance—asking public employees to make a modest 5.8% pension contribution, which is about the national average, and 12.6% health insurance contribution, which is about half the national average.

This is what the taxpaying voters of Wisconsin wanted as they elected Gov Walker last November. Legislation proposed by Gov. Walker would limit public employee collective bargaining to salary issues alone, but it does not prevent anyone from joining a union. In any case, these are terms that are subject to review and change, and given the state’s $3.6 billion budget hole, voters last November elected candidates who promised this kind of change.

AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka spoke to protesters in Madison Friday. He used the standard thuggish rhetoric to threaten the Governor.

Richard Trumka, president of the AFL-CIO, has been shouting at a rally in Madison, Wisc., in “solidarity” with public employee workers who have been disrupting the state this week. The situation’s not funny, but Trumka’s hyperbole is hilarious. From the AFL-CIO’s Tweet coverage:

Gov. Walker, that’s too much to ask. You can’t have our freedom!” -Trumka #NotMyWI


And it is obvious that by "freedom" Trumka means taxpayer funded stellar benefits that no one else on the planet receives but unions. Somehow union members became an exalted segment of the population and their contributions put politicians into office. Barack Obama is a prime example of a politician being indebted to union support.
At every test, Barack Obama fails. This is why it is important to elect a politician with leadership experience, not one who scams the young and cynical voter with fluffy worded slogans to hide a lack of executive leadership.

The teachers on strike - against their contract agreements - claim that they are protesting "for the children". It's a lie, of course. A convenient lie based on the fact that they are more concerned about personal retirement benefits and health care benefits than actually going to work to teach these children they care so much about. Schools are closed in Wisconsin due to the teacher walk outs. Does that benefit the children? Children are being taken to the rallies and when asked why they are there, have no idea why they are there. Plus, the children are seeing some fine signage at the state capital - pictures of their governor portrayed as Hitler, with targets on his head, comparing the GOP to Nazis. Classy.

Lead by example. The President needs to learn that lesson and the protesters do,too.

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