Walker Exposed as Manipulator and Governor. Tom Barrett Speaks.

Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett could have been the more adult Governor, one not blinded by pure ideology and an oligarch, and someone who wouldn't have tried to trick the opposition party to pass legislation. Barrett also exposes the GOP plan as a diversion tactic, focusing like a laser on collective bargaining, all the while slipping draconian power to Walker and shedding Wisconsinites from Medicaid, and massive cuts to fund education that will result in teacher firings. No one could spell it out clearer than Barrett, on Mike Gousha's Upfront program:



How bad is Walker's deception? JOEL McNALLY: 

To its credit, The Capital Times led the way among local media in pointing out Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle in his last budget faced double the $3 billion budget deficit Walker anticipates and closed it without tearing apart state employment, dismantling public education, or raising income or sales taxes. 

Anyone who says Walker is merely doing what he said he would do during his election campaign and what voters elected him to do is absolutely wrong. 

We remember Walker’s election campaign. He campaigned on apparently hollow cliches about creating “jobs, jobs and more jobs.” So far, Walker hasn’t created a single job.
Walker definitely did not tell voters that within days of taking office he would threaten to lay off more than 10,000 state workers and rewrite state laws to gut the pay and rights of any public employee lucky enough to still have a job. 

It was Walker’s opponent, Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett, who kept pointing out that because of all the tax cuts Walker was promising to corporations and the wealthy, voters should “hang onto their hats” when Walker started slashing the budget to pay for his tax giveaways. Sure enough, the first bills Walker passed were for tax breaks for corporations and wealthy individuals with health savings accounts totaling $140 million. 

Some media continue to repeat Walker’s dishonest assertion his proposal would still allow public employees to bargain on wages. It wouldn’t. Public employees wouldn’t be permitted to bargain for raises any higher than the rate of inflation. What’s to bargain? Do you want your pay nudged up by the inflation rate or not?