June 7, 2012--On Wisconsin

On the same day that Wisconsin voters opted to retain their controversial governor--not recall him--voters in San Diego and San Jose, California overwhelmingly voted to cut pensions and benefits for city workers.

The common theme--

To people struggling to hold onto jobs or find work much less keep up with mortgage payments and pay for health care insurance and college tuition for their children, as they look at their neighbors who are teachers or cops, while taking note of how they can retire with full pay at 55 and along the way contribute very little or nothing to their generous package of benefits, resentment sets in and they shout, "Enough!"

To them fairness is not so much millionaires paying a little more in taxes--how many people do they know who make $1.0 million a year--but people in pretty much their own circumstances getting a free ride at taxpayer (their) expense.

Up in Maine when we get our real estate tax bill attached to it is a breakdown of how our tax money is allocated--much more than half of it is designated for public schools. And almost all of that to pay for teachers' salaries and benefits. Pretty much everyone else in New Harbor is working two, three jobs if they are fortunate just to make ends meet. There is nothing itemized on that bill that shows how much of our tax money goes to pay for tax loopholes for the wealthy. That remains obscure and abstract.

So it is no stretch to understand that the frustration, fear, and anger that is building up in America is turned much more toward unionized government workers who, the conservative media and their corporate sponsors, have identified as the cause of all our economic woes.

And it doesn't help make the counter argument when, for example, so many public schools are ineffective. It's hard to convince struggling taxpayers that teachers should have such a "sweet" deal when so many of their students can't read or write.

Thus we have San Diego, San Jose, and Wisconsin.

Sure there is a disproportionate amount of right-wing money flowing toward union-busting activities and to demonologize teachers and sanitation workers, but there are in fact abuses that progressives refuse to acknowledge. No one should be able to retire at 55 (while everyone else is feeling they'll have to work until they drop) and all workers should have to contribute to their pension and health care packages. Liberals would be on much firmer ground if we fessed up to this before turning attention to all the individual and corporate welfare that is available for the wealthy and powerful.