Editor: In response to the guest editorial by Mike Smith, entitled Wisconsin’s Wake up call, Mr. Smith paints a very rosy and one-sided view of the state union workers and their union bosses. For example, he points out how “ brave” the 14 Democratic State Senators were for abandoning their posts and leaving to another state in protest. The simple fact is they were AWOL and should have been fired. You try leaving your job for any length of time without permission and see what happens to you.
He also points out how this was a non-violent protest. Reports, however, to the contrary say these protesters caused upwards of 7.5 million dollars in damage to the state capitol building and are making death threats through email and phone messages to Gov. Walker and other GOP leaders. One wonders how “ non-violent” these protesters really are.
The main focus of Gov. Walker’s actions were not to break up the union but to reduce that state’s budget deficit, which could reach as high as $4 billion. His options are to get state workers to accept lower wages and pay more into their pensions or do what companies do during times of recession, which is downsize. By downsizing, companies make themselves smaller and more efficient with less people but still manage to get their products and services to market, there is no reason why government can’t do the same thing. Gov. Walker is doing something that is rarely seen these days, being responsible with taxpayer’s money.
At some point people are going to have to realize that there is only so much money to go around and government is going to have to live within its means and stop whining about how broke it is. I’m tired of hearing about it. Also stop the same old cliché of “tax the rich” and complaining about tax breaks for large corporations. The wealthy became wealthy because they were responsible with their money unlike government, which spends money like there’s no tomorrow.
Someone has to do something and I applaud Governor Walker for having the courage to make a stand and doing the right thing.
Dan de la Torre
Sonoma
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