The Wisconsin Government Worker Protest Update

With history unfolding in Madison, Wisconsin over the past few days, I’ve written a number of articles describing the scene.

Here’s an op-ed I wrote for the New York Times giving a basic breakdown of the issue:

So far, Walker’s plans have been fiscally modest, but politically bold. Public employee unions will continue to protest, even though the governor is the first politician who has told them the truth in ages. If government workers continue to call his bluff, their protests will likely be much smaller in the future.

Here’s a column I wrote for the National Review Online discussing teachers’ use of their students in the protests:

In the meantime, the capitol was packed with thousands of government employees, many of whom had staged a “sleep-in” the night before. One sign-wielding protester approached a tie-wearing GOP staffer and sneered, “You must be a Republican.” He turned and asked, “Because I’m working?”

The raucous, drum-beating crowd was mostly made up of teachers, high-school kids, and University of Wisconsin students. On Thursday, school districts all over the state began canceling classes as their teachers called in sick en masse — government-employee strikes are illegal in Wisconsin — and teachers continued to bring their students to protest with them.

I wrote this column for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that ran on Thursday:

Yet if you tell Democratic legislators that a vote against Walker’s plan is a vote to cut government jobs, they likely will look at you as if you just tried to stuff a live halibut into their mouths. They will tell you that there are many options available to balance the budget – options that are so popular, they enacted exactly zero of them in the last budget, when they had full control of state government. Their deficit-reduction plan consisted of hoping the Green Bay Packers won the Super Bowl, so people didn’t notice the giant hole in the state’s finances. (They got half their wish.)

In the Isthmus last week, I wrote about Wisconsin union leaders’ tendency to call people “whores.”

So, for the record, it appears Beil’s hierarchy of insults runs the gamut between “whore” (the worst), “prostitute” (not quite as bad) and “purveyor of the world’s oldest profession.” Yet some might even be tempted to include “paid union lobbyist” in their “pyramid of prostitution.” It’s a wonder Charlie Sheen hasn’t given Beil a call to go party in a hotel room.

And, of course, there are the updates I’ve written for WPRI – my column on Monday here and a blog post from last Friday here.

Stay tuned for more – should be more exciting developments to come.  And we’ll be there.