The few unions that supported Scott Walker's election are being re-paid for their support, just as senators who supported his position on labor contracts have been or will be justly compensated.
Walker's assault on public workers may indeed be radical, but his choice of target also reveals an enormous amount of political cowardice on his part. Picking on most state workers is easy. When the cuts begin to affect police officers and firefighters, the cuts become tougher for the GOP to make. Unsurprisingly, Walker has dodged the question of why he decided to exempt cops and firefighters from the bargaining concessions, saying we've always "treated law enforcement differently."
Or it could be that hurting the pay of cops and firefighters would create an irresistible talking point for Democrats, and that a key Republican senator from a swing district, Van Wanggaard, used to be a contract negotiator for police officers.
Perhaps the only surprise is that prison guards, most of whom exist because of disastrously irresponsible and ineffective "tough-on-crime" measures pushed by Walker and others during the 1990's, were not also exempt from concessions.
But the governor assures us the police state is not in peril. If prison guards won't play ball, he'll just call in the National Guard.
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