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Bookwrack wrote:Unfortunately, as the whole situation in Wisconsin demonstrates, the Republican side doesn't give a feth about moderates, it's their way or nothing. The democrat counter bill was to agree to everything in the republican one, save for the loss of collective bargaining, but nope that was too extreme for them, I guess.

Can you post a link?

The only note I've heard on negotiations between the sides was this.

In related news...

First one I've found:

[quote=http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/political_commentary/commentary_by_scott_rasmussen/what_you_can_learn_about_wisconsin_dispute_from_differences_in_poll_questions

I'll dig up links later when I have the chance.

I think it's pretty damn indicative of something that it took until now, after spending weeks actively pissing off tens of thousands of people that the loonies have started popping out, although I bet there's at least a 75% chance those e-mails didn't come from anyone in Wisconsin, 30% they were written by a hard core republicans (who was it who said ,'something something, plant troublemakers amongst the protesters?' ), and a good, round, 23% chance they were all written by Walker himself.

Anyway, here are the brass tacks on the issue, and where the Republicans have failed in every way, shape and form, they have presented NO evidence that collective bargaining rights, in this context, are more financially detrimental than not cutting corporate taxes and by permitting local municipalities to determine their own property tax rates.

Bookwrack wrote:I'll dig up links later when I have the chance.

I think it's pretty damn indicative of something that it took until now, after spending weeks actively pissing off tens of thousands of people that the loonies have started popping out, although I bet there's at least a 75% chance those e-mails didn't come from anyone in Wisconsin, 30% they were written by a hard core republicans (who was it who said ,'something something, plant troublemakers amongst the protesters?' ), and a good, round, 23% chance they were all written by Walker himself.

You must have gone to a unionized public school.

Bookwrack wrote:Anyway, here are the brass tacks on the issue, and where the Republicans have failed in every way, shape and form, they have presented NO evidence that collective bargaining rights, in this context, are more financially detrimental than not cutting corporate taxes and by permitting local municipalities to determine their own property tax rates.

They also haven't proven that collective bargaining rights are any better than collecting magical unicorn turds and reselling them to fairyland.

Unless these proposals were proposed as options to walker's bill, they're irrelevant.

biccat wrote:

Eldanar wrote:Most public sector jobs are skilled work, and they require some form of higher degree. When you start making direct skilled level comparisons, studies have proven that public sector employees make about 10% less than private sector. The trade off is job security, benefits, and life-work balance.

Shouldn't those benefits, including health insurance, pension, and working hourse, factor in to deciding who is paid better?

If I make $60,000 per year working 60 hours a week and you make $40,000 per year working 40 hours a week, isn't that the same pay? Or would you say that the second person is taking a pay cut of $20,000 per year?

I also found this interesting. It shows that only 30% of education spending goes towards teacher expenditures. Maybe instead of cutting teacher salaries we could find some middle ground and cut some administrator salaries and other expenses.

No, that simply means that we are paid at the same hourly rate (foregoing any overtime, etc.). In your example, you would still be making $60,000 and I would still be making $40,000.

I used my own situation as an example earlier. I worked as an attorney in a small firm and made approximately $10,000-15,000 more in income, had my health insurance paid for 100% by the firm, and had an unlimited leave policy. However, I had to hit a target number of billable hours per month; which meant I had to work copious amounts of unpaid overtime, I could not afford to take any leave, and I couldn't be sick.

I much prefer my current working situation with the government, where I make a little less and pay for half of my health insurance, but can actually take vacations and stay home when I am sick. Obviously, I place a value on all of those things, above and beyond the loss in income. I ran the numbers when I first changed jobs, and again assigning a dollar value to evertything, I am actually being paid at the same hourly rate I was at the private firm, when you factor in the unpaid OT. I also am a lot happier, and I feel, much more productive (except of course when I take a break and pop in here... ).

Neither am I trying to defend teachers, per se. This has nothing to do with salaries though. Teachers in WI make (or made) a nice salary plus benefits. But as I pointed out earlier, they had already agreed to all of the salary and benefit reductions that the governor wanted. They simply opposed losing the right to collectively bargain on future contracts. This is further compounded by the fact that select groups of public employees, firemen and police, who are generally viewed as Republican-leaning, were excluded from this draconian demand.

Whether or not public employees can collectively bargain on future contracts has no bearing whatsoever on current budgetery concerns. The budget shortfall was presumably the driving force behind this, but collective bargaining has nothing at all to do with austerity measures. This is purely a means to strike at unions.

Melissia wrote:How dare you mock this sign, Frazzled:

Oh I didn't say I mocked it. Me likey!

I actually liked those signs! The Star wars one were the best.

Yeah, because everyone knows how overpaid teachers and social workers are... oh wait...

Whatever, if people are really upset, the Republicans and Walker will get nailed on the next pass.

As someone who's pretty middle of the road: what the heck Republicans? I was hoping for fiscal responsibility not "screw the Democrats and everyone who votes for them".

I get the distinct impression that elected officials are more and more concerned with campaigning 24-7 and less concerned with actually governing.

Lord Scythican wrote:I actually liked those signs! The Star wars one were the best.

They weren't bad, but am I the only one who gets pissed off at the Harry Potter references.

Seriously, stop. You're not a wizard.


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McNs wrote:Whatever, if people are really upset, the Republicans and Walker will get nailed on the next pass.

And hopefully the Republicans skip town when the Democrats try to raise taxes or spend money.

You mean that way when they try to claim moral superiority they can't?

McNs wrote:
I get the distinct impression that elected officials are more and more concerned with campaigning 24-7 and less concerned with actually governing.

Pretty sure that's what 90% of politicians do.

Melissia wrote:You mean that way when they try to claim moral superiority they can't?

No.

Either it's right or it's wrong. Doesn't matter who does it.

People who defend the Democrats on this are saying that it's part of the democratic process. If so, then don't when the Republicans do it. Don't say "ZOMG MORAL SUPERIORITY MY ARSE". No. Say it's part of the democratic process and support their actions, after all, they're only representing the electorate.

Since I think it's wrong now, I will not defend such an action if (hah!)/when the Republicans do the same. Any representative that leaves the state to subvert the process won't be getting my vote, Republican or Democrat. Similarly, I think the Republicans are wrong to fillibuster judges. It was worng when the Democrats did it, it's wrong now.

You're acting like I give a gak who does it.

I will never see in my lifetime the repugs walk out of my state legislature, because they control it so fiercely and so immorally, bending every tiny bit of law, regulation, zoning, and districting to their wills to ensure they keep it no matter WHAT the people of Texas think.

Melissia wrote:You're acting like I give a gak who does it.

Which is totally inconsistent with this:

Melissia wrote:I will never see in my lifetime the repugs walk out of my state legislature, because they control it so fiercely and so immorally, bending every tiny bit of law, regulation, zoning, and districting to their wills to ensure they keep it no matter WHAT the people of Texas think.

Republicans aren't evil mindless zombies. Neither are voters. As long as the people of Texas keep voting Republicans into office, you're going to have Republicans in control of the state. If the people of Texas didn't like it, they'd vote the Republicans out of office.

I assume there are Democrats in Texas, although I'm not sure if it's illegal to shoot them on sight.

biccat wrote:Republicans aren't evil mindless zombies. Neither are voters. As long as the people of Texas keep voting Republicans into office, you're going to have Republicans in control of the state. If the people of Texas didn't like it, they'd vote the Republicans out of office.

You don't understand the districting issue then.

The party in control of the state legislature determines whose vote counts for what district. So you see districts like a fething maze as the repugs redistrict every chance they can to minimize the control democrats have and maximize the control they have.

Even if there were more democratic votes than republican votes in Texas, because of the redistricting issue, republicans would STILL control the state legislature and have the majority of representatives in congress.

Melissia wrote:

biccat wrote:Republicans aren't evil mindless zombies. Neither are voters. As long as the people of Texas keep voting Republicans into office, you're going to have Republicans in control of the state. If the people of Texas didn't like it, they'd vote the Republicans out of office.

You don't understand the districting issue then.

The party in control of the state legislature determines whose vote counts for what district. So you see districts like a fething maze as the repugs redistrict every chance they can to minimize the control democrats have and maximize the control they have.

Even if there were more democratic votes than republican votes in Texas, because of the redistricting issue, republicans would STILL control the state legislature and have the majority of representatives in congress.

Yes, but that's not a problem that's exclusive to Texas. And looking at Texas' redistricting, it's nowhere near as bad as Florida, California, or New York. Here's some of the worst offenders. Besides, the governor has to approve any redistricting plan, and that's a statewide race.

But considering how handily Republicans win state-wide races (governor and senators), it's likely that Texas really is mostly Republican.

Wow, those districts look absurd. FL-20 and PA-12 definitely take the cake.

I think Texas is actually mostly republican, since the only place that is really blue is Austin.

Frazzled wrote:Jeez no wonder democracies don't survive.

Well, now embodied with the Dogma/Warboss Tzoo standard of democracy, I look forward to the mass culling of opposition members. I for one welcome our new "democratic" overlords, and am sure that once the correct purges have been carried out, all will be right in the world. Hail Our New Enlightened Leaders!

Note how I said "so long as the rule of law applies"?

Yeah, its against the law to commit murder in the United States, and so works against the will and interest of the state. However, this does not have to be the case, murder could be legal, or killing in the course of conflict over legislation could be considered just amongst representatives. Neither change I've just mentioned would prevent a state from being democratic.

Keep in mind I'm not saying that either change would be likely to be conducive to sustained democracy, but simply because they were legalized would not necessarily prevent a state from being a democracy. As is often the case, you're burdening democracy with a number of attributes that have absolutely nothing to do with the core concept.

biccat wrote:

Bookwrack wrote:I'll dig up links later when I have the chance.

I think it's pretty damn indicative of something that it took until now, after spending weeks actively pissing off tens of thousands of people that the loonies have started popping out, although I bet there's at least a 75% chance those e-mails didn't come from anyone in Wisconsin, 30% they were written by a hard core republicans (who was it who said ,'something something, plant troublemakers amongst the protesters?' ), and a good, round, 23% chance they were all written by Walker himself.

You must have gone to a unionized public school.

Elmbrook, actually, and proud of it. If you'd bothered to pay attention before succumbing to the rush to snark, you would've noticed that those weren't exclusionary.

Bookwrack wrote:Anyway, here are the brass tacks on the issue, and where the Republicans have failed in every way, shape and form, they have presented NO evidence that collective bargaining rights, in this context, are more financially detrimental than not cutting corporate taxes and by permitting local municipalities to determine their own property tax rates.

They also haven't proven that collective bargaining rights are any better than collecting magical unicorn turds and reselling them to fairyland.

Did you just have a stroke, or are you having that much trouble maintaining a train of thought? The bill is supposed to be about 'The Budget.' Collective bargaining rights have nothing directly to do with 'The Budget.' Walker says that being able to collectively bargain is actively detrimental to 'The Budget.' Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof, but he has provided none.

Say it's part of the democratic process and support their actions, after all, they're only representing the electorate.

This pretty much reeks of false equivalency bs. If they do it in response to a terrible bill, like the one in Wisconsin, then I will applaud them, because they are thwarting malicious and bad legislation and giving time for people to demonstrate their feelings about what's going on, and hopefully shift opinions( It's telling that Walker and Co have completely ignored what many of their constituents are now saying, determined to stay the course no matter what. It's very telling that the recall procedures for the eight eligible republicans are proceeding at a good clip, while the recall launched against the democrats seems to have stalled. ). If it follows the current republican behavior patterns of being used simply for the sake of pettiness and obstructionism, then I'll excoriate them for it, and won't suffer the least pang of hypocrisy.

Going to make several points

The vote was completely legal. The presence of the Democratic senators was only required to pass bills that involve spending, so once the Republicans removed everything from the bill exception and made it a 100% pure union busting bill that says nothing about spending it can pass legally without the Democratic Senators. You can make a good case that what they did was a gakky thing to do, but the bill is legal and it will stand up in court.

For the most part most school teachers unions do not work in the best interests of the taxpayers, students, or even the teachers they are supposed to protect. Who protects the teachers from the teachers union? Every time the California state workers union doesn't get their way the new teachers who are the most enthusiastic, least burnt out, and least paid get pink slipped off in droves. The union is only interested in collecting dues and protecting highest payed senior members often at the expense of new hires. In LAUSD the end result of the union's policies has been huge job instability for any new teachers, massive increases in class size, experienced teachers burning out in droves, and a drop out rate that is about 50%

All of that being said the Wisconsin teachers union was one of the most reasonable unions in around, and one of the least deserving of getting busted. When they were asked to actually pay for 6% of their retirement instead of 0.2% they said yes, which is something you would never see them do in California where they would instead opt to fire a bunch of new hires and increase class size instead. Collective bargaining is not killing Wisconsin in the same way that it is driving California into bankruptcy. As someone with generally anti union views I'm actually sad to see Wisconsin's teachers union get busted because they were one of the least deserving unions of a busting, and there are so many other unions are far more deserving of getting busted.

schadenfreude wrote:The vote was completely legal. The presence of the Democratic senators was only required to pass bills that involve spending, so once the Republicans removed everything from the bill exception and made it a 100% pure union busting bill that says nothing about spending it can pass legally without the Democratic Senators. You can make a good case that what they did was a gakky thing to do, but the bill is legal and it will stand up in court.

My understanding was that it was passed illegally because of insufficient debate/whatever time, not because there wasn't a quorum.

Frazzled wrote:I have no problem with playing procedure games. Leaving the state is not a procedural rule. I'm surprised you don't get that incredibly basic difference.

It's exactly the same thing, a procedural game played to avoid a quorum. The only difference is that one involves turning up to delay the democratic process, the other doesn't turn up to delay the democratic process. Presence in or out of the state is an irrelevant side point, what matters is playing silly games to prevent legislation being passed.

You know this. But you pretend that the type of game played really does matter, because the alternative is having to be honest enough to admit that that you didn't mind it when the congressional Republicans played games to avoid passing a bill you didn't like, but you do mind it when state Democrats play games to avoid passage of a bill you like.


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biccat wrote:When the government secures a mortgage, it is increasing the value of that mortgage.

Normally, a $100,000 mortgage might have a market value of $120,000. (for example, amount someone is willing to pay TODAY for a 6% return on $100,000 over 30 years)
When the government backs that mortgage, it increases the market value. Banks are willing to pay more because they know the value is guaranteed. So now the value is $150,000 (again, by example). Someone might default in the future, cutting off interest payments, but the principal of the loan is guaranteed.

Please tell me you've never, ever taken a finance class.

The problem wasn't regulation or a lack thereof, the problem was the meddling of the government in the market that artificially inflated home values beyond what the market would normally bear.

That is an incredibly ridiculous claim. Just stop. Give up on politics and go away. You don't have the interest in forming sensible opinions on politics, you just look to invent fantasies that line up with your own ideology. It produces absolute nonsense like the above. So please, just stop.


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dogma wrote:So you would prefer that the Wisconsin Senators resigned in protest, and so forced special elections that would have made it even harder to build a quorum?

As many have observed in the past, democracy is as much about what legislators can get away with as what they are explicitly permitted to do. Simply saying that X isn't democracy is basically meaningless, especially when votes were tallied, and representatives were elected.

The problem comes when you look at the procedural rules, and how they were written with the assumption of a notion of fair play by members. When that fairplay fails to exist you get, as you say, democracy built on what legislators can get away with as much as what they're explicitly permitted to do.

I think it is fair to call members to act according to fair play, put democracy and the quality of the debate ahead of representing their members. Or not, and accept that a member should do whatever he can for the people who elected him. Both are valid, it's just you have to pick one, and not chop and change based on whether it's a donkey or an elephant screwing around.

The problem with Fraz's argument is that he's one eyed, condemning one side and not the other, for the pretend reason that one game involved turning up and stopping democracy, the other involved not turning up to stop democracy. Either both are fine, or neither is.


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Eldanar wrote:The critique of public employees is often misguided, and factually incorrect. One of the dumbest things I have seen argued is that public employees are better paid, without qualifying who they are being compared against. And it is really an apples to oranges comparison.

Most public sector jobs are skilled work, and they require some form of higher degree. When you start making direct skilled level comparisons, studies have proven that public sector employees make about 10% less than private sector. The trade off is job security, benefits, and life-work balance.

I am a public service employee, and I make approximately 10% less than what the average is for people with my education level, age, years worked, etc., have reported as making in my state. Anecdotally, I make about 10-15% less than my last private sector job. However, my benefits are better, I'm not working 60 hour weeks, I have a generous leave schedule, I can work from home, etc. To me, that overode the little bit of extra money I could make.

On the flip side, anecdotally, I have a sister-in-law who is a teacher in a private church based school. She makes less than what she would make in a public school, and has minimal benefits. But she left the public sector because she did not want to have to deal with the extra-large class sizes, unruly students, and extra out-of-pocket expenses required of public school teachers.

All that you get when you start to cut and cut and cut on the backs of people who provide basic services to society, is a crappier society. Ultimately, you either ignore the problems created by the cuts, and things in turn get worse; or you address the problem with outsourcing, or new hiring (which in turn means more training for new employees, plus less experienced and skilled staff), which actually leads to higher costs.

The following article discusses this phenomenon:
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2011/1103.gravois.html

That was an excellent post, thankyou for that.


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biccat wrote:If I make $60,000 per year working 60 hours a week and you make $40,000 per year working 40 hours a week, isn't that the same pay? Or would you say that the second person is taking a pay cut of $20,000 per year?

For equivalent skill levels public sector employees are paid less per hour. Countless studies back this up.

You're such a fan of the free market it should be obvious to you. The public sector offers job stability, as such it needs to offer less pay to be as attractive to employees.

I also found this interesting. It shows that only 30% of education spending goes towards teacher expenditures. Maybe instead of cutting teacher salaries we could find some middle ground and cut some administrator salaries and other expenses.

That would require a greater understanding of where the extra money goes. You assume it's on admin but it's very unlikely. How much is spent on building maintenance? How much is spent on utilities, on support services like school buses and the like?

We need more than a pie chart with two components.


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Frazzled wrote:No. Its not. Its the entire process.

Then you must also think that congressional Republicans should not have abused procedural rules to deny a vote on HCR. Except you don't, because...


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Ahtman wrote:If a bunch Republicans had done this to black a lefty platform vote than Fox would be calling them shrewd for cutting the tyrannical Democrats legs out from under them. Politics isn't just introducing bad legislation after all.

There's no if about it. The GOP were abusing congressional procedural rules less than a year ago to avoid a vote on HCR. FOX and Fraz were both fine with that.

Thing is, I think democracy means accepting that sometimes you'll be on the losing side. Suck it up and try and win the next election. Playing stupid games is bad for the country.

Mind you, being so hopelessly blinkered that you'll criticise one party for playing games but never the other is worse, so....


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Frazzled wrote:Well, now embodied with the Dogma/Warboss Tzoo standard of democracy

Now? For feth's sake Lincoln pulled the same trick. It's hardly new, and while it isn't good form it isn't the death knell for democracy.

Melissia wrote:

biccat wrote:Republicans aren't evil mindless zombies. Neither are voters. As long as the people of Texas keep voting Republicans into office, you're going to have Republicans in control of the state. If the people of Texas didn't like it, they'd vote the Republicans out of office.

You don't understand the districting issue then.

The party in control of the state legislature determines whose vote counts for what district. So you see districts like a fething maze as the repugs redistrict every chance they can to minimize the control democrats have and maximize the control they have.

Even if there were more democratic votes than republican votes in Texas, because of the redistricting issue, republicans would STILL control the state legislature and have the majority of representatives in congress.

Gerrymandering is not a new phenomena, nor is it exclusive to one party or the other. If you don't like it, move to another state.

To quote Nancy Pelosi: "Elections have consequences"

biccat wrote:Can you post a link?

The only note I've heard on negotiations between the sides was this.

In related news...

The governor stated in his taped phone conversation that calls to negotiate with the Democrats were just a trick to lure them back into the state. Pretending the Republicans were trying to negotiate in good faith is fantasy.


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Stormrider wrote:I ask, who is at the bargaining table when these government union's CBA's expire? Union reps, governmental represenatives and no citizens. So the people that pay the lion's share of the benefits costs get absolutely zero say in how much benefits these unions get. That sounds fair.

The government reps are there on behalf of the citizens. That's the whole point of democracy. Stop being silly.


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biccat wrote:You must have gone to a unionized public school.

Which would be a clever little bon mot on your behalf, if only the categories were mutually exclusive. But the statistics of inclusive categories must be something that only gets taught in unionised government schools, with all the extra stuff they teach kids from being quantitively superior to non-unionised public schools.

When comparing public sector employees to private sector employees there is a huge difference between who makes more money and who costs their employer more money.

In Wisconsin they are averaging 38k/year in benefits.

A 50k a year private sector job with 38k in benefits costs 88k/year costs the employer which is more than a 60k/year public sector job with 18k in benefits adding up to 78k/year

Low pay and high benefits is a terrible way to handle school teachers, especially when it comes to the pensions. I don't object to paying 88k/year for a good teacher, what I object to is 38k of that money primarily going towards a pension. Underfunded pensions create pension bombs that are about to explode like Calpers, but more importantly it's a bad idea to trap burn outs in a job they don't like but can't quite because they are too close to collecting their pension. It's also very difficult to lay off or fire employees that have put 10 years in and are counting on a pension because doing do would destroy morale. I'm not sure how much of that 38k is in Wisconsin goes towards to pension, but if it's 25k/year the state would have been better off giving teachers 25k/year in an unmatched 401k contribution than throwing it in a pension. When people burn out they need to be able to leave their job and find a new one, and with a 401k they are able to do so. With a pension far to many people will feel trapped in their job after 10 years, burn out, and then others will need to pick up their slack before they themselves burn out. It creates a toxic work for many school districts.

sebster wrote:

Frazzled wrote:I have no problem with playing procedure games. Leaving the state is not a procedural rule. I'm surprised you don't get that incredibly basic difference.

It's exactly the same thing, a procedural game played to avoid a quorum. The only difference is that one involves turning up to delay the democratic process, the other doesn't turn up to delay the democratic process. Presence in or out of the state is an irrelevant side point, what matters is playing silly games to prevent legislation being passed.

Except you're wrong. It's not procedural, and in/out of the state does matter.

sebster wrote:Please tell me you've never, ever taken a finance class.

Are you really so deep in the DNC horsehooey that you don't believe that government backing actually changes the value of something?

I offer you a piece of paper that says "$10" in crayon. How much will you give me for it?
Now I offer you a $10 bill of legal currency. How much will you give me for it?

If you won't give me $10 for my 'fake' bill, then you've demonstrated the point.

sebster wrote:That is an incredibly ridiculous claim. Just stop. Give up on politics and go away. You don't have the interest in forming sensible opinions on politics, you just look to invent fantasies that line up with your own ideology. It produces absolute nonsense like the above. So please, just stop.

You're kidding, right? We're seeing the exact same thing happening with the current student loan bubble. The only difference is student loans aren't dischargable, and so the bubble isn't going to burst in the same way the mortgage bubble burst.

Easy access to student loans are inflating tuition prices. It's not ideology, it's economics. When there's a high demand for a product and a limited supply, price goes up.

You can bury your head in the sand all you want and try to pretend that economics doesn't matter, but if you do, please don't vote. Those of us who actually have to pay for this are getting tired of the unintended consequences.

sebster wrote:

biccat wrote:If I make $60,000 per year working 60 hours a week and you make $40,000 per year working 40 hours a week, isn't that the same pay? Or would you say that the second person is taking a pay cut of $20,000 per year?

For equivalent skill levels public sector employees are paid less per hour. Countless studies back this up.

You're such a fan of the free market it should be obvious to you. The public sector offers job stability, as such it needs to offer less pay to be as attractive to employees.

Which would be true, except the public sector isn't subject to the free market. There are plenty of studies that show government workers make more than private sector employees, once you factor in benefits.


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sebster wrote:The governor stated in his taped phone conversation that calls to negotiate with the Democrats were just a trick to lure them back into the state. Pretending the Republicans were trying to negotiate in good faith is fantasy.

If the answer is "no, I don't have any facts to support the absurd statement that was made," then just say that. Stop deflecting.

I haven't been to the US in like 15 years. Every time I read a news story from the mainland U S and A it just seems to me that the whole place is turning into one giant gas station men's room.

What the hell happened?!

Khornholio wrote:I haven't been to the US in like 15 years. Every time I read a news story from the mainland U S and A it just seems to me that the whole place is turning into one giant gas station men's room.

What the hell happened?!

I think the only appropriate reply to that is this.

Frazzled wrote:

Khornholio wrote:I haven't been to the US in like 15 years. Every time I read a news story from the mainland U S and A it just seems to me that the whole place is turning into one giant gas station men's room.

What the hell happened?!

I think the only appropriate reply to that is this.

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sebster wrote:

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Stormrider wrote:I ask, who is at the bargaining table when these government union's CBA's expire? Union reps, governmental represenatives and no citizens. So the people that pay the lion's share of the benefits costs get absolutely zero say in how much benefits these unions get. That sounds fair.

The government reps are there on behalf of the citizens. That's the whole point of democracy. Stop being silly.

Ah, but when a Private Union negotiates, shareholders in the companies they work for get a direct say in what the pay and benefits will be. With government unions, the share holders (tax paying citizens) get vicarious representation instead of voting on it. Sounds like: "Here's the proposal, now take it since you have no choice" And the best part is, we get to pay for most of it! I'm sorry if you think I'm being silly, maybe I saw through the bs long ago and decided that people working in goverment should make more sacrifices, not less. (I'm alluding to bureaucrats and politicians themselves) If a state wants to pay through the nose for teachers fine, but why the hell do they need a union? Would it be that they don't neccessarily attract the best candidates most of the time?

This whole problem can be solved if the country get's off of it's addiction known as government. We're practically insolvent thanks to massive entitlement programs and wasteful spending. But breaking up a public sector union in Wisconsin is somehow evil. Our problems are structural at this point, we could slash the DOD's budget to $0 and we would still have a deficit of $3.1 Trillion.

The only sector in the US that has shown any kind of real growth since 2007 is the government bureaucracy, with massive pay, a powerful union and insane beneifts.

Pardon my skepticism and cynicism on the topic, I've grown rather disenfranchised with government.

Stormrider wrote:
Ah, but when a Private Union negotiates, shareholders in the companies they work for get a direct say in what the pay and benefits will be.

No they don't. Shareholders don't have all that much to do with the operation of any given corporation. No organized body of significant size, public or private, could ever function reliably if everyone with a stake were given a direct say in all matters.

Stormrider wrote:
I'm sorry if you think I'm being silly, maybe I saw through the bs long ago and decided that people working in goverment should make more sacrifices, not less.

More relative to whom? Private sector workers? Why not simply have them make the same sacrifices as private sector workers?