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NANCY FOLBRE, On Monday February 28, 2011, 6:00 am EST
Nancy Folbre is an economics professor at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.
No matter what the short-term outcome, the upsurge of resistance in Wisconsin to efforts by Gov. Scott Walker to crush public sector unions will make history.
The extraordinarily passionate yet disciplined, virtually nonstop demonstrations in the state capitol building have dramatized opposition to a national Republican strategy: tax breaks for the rich, reductions in public sector wages and benefits, privatization of public enterprises and strategic investments in political camouflage.
I happened to be visiting the University of Wisconsin in Madison last week. The handmade posters carried through the streets and taped to the gilded columns of the rotunda vividly summarized deeper economic analysis.
"We need to come up with a budget that involves shared sacrifice." Like the Democratic state senators who left the state to prevent a quorum vote on the governor's proposed legislation, the demonstrators acknowledge the need for budget cuts.
"Budget fix, tax the rich." Part of that shared sacrifice, they argue, should include increased taxes at the high end. Some pointed to a recent proposal by Gov. Mark Dayton, a Democrat, of Minnesota to do exactly that. Other signs point out that Governor Walker handed out $140 million in new corporate tax breaks before pointing to a budget shortfall of about the same amount (Forbes and others reported on those tax cuts in more detail)."United we bargain, divided we beg." Many other signs summarize research on Wisconsin's work force showing that public sector workers there do not receive higher wages and benefits than comparable workers in the private sector.
Both posters and T-shirts request respect for the predominantly female public sector workers who have been the particular target of Governor Walker's proposed legislation: "Care for Teachers the Way They Care for Your Children" and "Nurses' Rights = Patient Rights."
Other, more detailed signs explain that Wisconsin ranks exceptionally high on student test scores. Not all of these signs reflect entirely up-to-date statistics, and some overstate their case. Still, they effectively challenge the polemical assertion that all public employees are overpaid.
Governor Walker proposed to exempt firefighters and police officers (predominantly male unions) from his new rules. Nonetheless, many showed up (some in uniform) to support the demonstration.
"Walker Is a Koch Head." The Koch (pronounced "coke") brothers, billionaire owners of Koch Industries, one of the largest privately held companies in the country, made large contributions to the governor's campaign.
They donated even larger sums to the state Republican Party and helped set up a group called Americans for Prosperity, a conservative activist group with a 2010 budget of $40 million that just initiated a $320,000 television advertising campaign in favor of Governor Walker's legislation.
Koch Industries currently employs seven lobbyists in Wisconsin and stands to gain from the governor's initiative to privatize state-owned utilities without requiring competitive bidding.
In a prank phone call with the governor that was taped by a Buffalo Beast editor posing as David Koch, Governor Walker expressed considerable sympathy for Mr. Koch's larger anti-union strategy and thanked him for all his support (including an invitation to come out to California to celebrate once the fight was over).
Meanwhile, the less-affluent critics of the governor's plan were contributing money to send pizza to demonstrators camping out in the capitol. The large white boxes were immediately converted to additional poster boards. When pizza satiation set in, New Yorkers started a fund-raising campaign called "Send Pastrami to the Cheeseheads."
On Saturday, demonstrations of support for efforts in Wisconsin and other states to defend public unions unfolded in state capitals around the nation.
Governor Walker may have his way (and his California vacation). But the committed progressive activists of Wisconsin have raised the level of news organizations' attention to state politics and broadened the public debate over the fiscal crisis. They have accomplished more in two weeks than mere eggheads (policy wonks like me) could accomplish in 100 years.
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