Thank You Dean Baker !!! (Re: Wisconsin Fight) [View All]

Dean Baker
Co-director, Center for Economic and Policy Research

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You have to give Gov. Walker and his wealthy patrons credit. Here we have a situation where Wall Street fat cats wrecked the economy - people like Richard Fuld, Robert Rubin, and Angelo Mozilo - and they've somehow managed to blame schoolteachers and the highway patrol.

Now we have a situation where the villains are sitting on their hundreds of millions of dollars, while tough guys like Gov. Walker are beating up school teachers to take away their $2,000 a month pension. And, the best part of the story is the Walkers are being heralded as statesmen for their efforts.

This situation speaks to the incredible corruption of U.S. politics. There have been numerous studies done by serious economists that all show the same thing, public sector employees are not paid on average more than their private sector counterparts.

The right has been very effective in highlighting the few cases of overpaid workers or excessive pensions and convincing large sectors of the public that their problems are due to overpaid government employees. Of course it helps to have a news media that show about as much independence as Pravda did back in the days of the Soviet Union.

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Link: http://www.politico.com/arena/archive/unions-badgering-wisconsins-finances.html#9D1EFAAB-B0CD-4DEF-A201-1FFB01BAF363

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