The AP article “
Layoffs
threatened in
Wis.” demonstrates once again why the left blogosphere/the netroots
exist. This is a piece that is very highly slanted against the unions
in Wisconsin, it simply accepts all of the conservative talking
points at face value and completely fails to explain that the unions
have already agreed to all of the demanded conditions (Pension and
health care concessions) with the sole exception of the right to
bargain collectively. Unions can't surrender that last item without
losing their whole reason for existence.
The piece adopts the passive tense when
it describes how Governor “Walker warned that state employees could
start receiving layoff notices.” No indication there that the
Governor himself would decide exactly which workers would be let go.
How do we know that layoffs wouldn't be part of an automatic and
uncontrollable process?
Later in that same paragraph, we read
that
“Walker wouldn't say which jobs he would go after first.” In
other words, the Governor has complete discretion as to which jobs
he'll cut in response to union “insubordination.”
Nor does the piece explain that the
$137 million that Wisconsin is short on and that has allegedly caused
the crisis there was created entirely by the Governor's own actions.
The
Wisconsin Capital Times showed on February 16
th that
the Governor “did not inherit a budget that required a repair bill”
and then specified the spending that he and his cronies engaged in,
knowing full well that the Wisconsin budget would thereby be pushed
into a deficit by their actions.
