So..if we take Gov Walker at his word.....

...this morning he said:

1. The protests haven't changed his mind;and,
2. ".. that stripping the workers of collective bargaining rights is necessary to give the state the flexibility to get its finances in order for the state to balance its budget...."

We've been guffawing at the Governor's position that the elimination of bargaining rights to everything but wages (and that limited to the CPI) has any effect on the state's budget.

but does it?

Maybe we're not thinking in an evil enough mode.....what if the reason he wants all rights stripped out of collective bargaining is so that Wisconsin workers cannot fight layoffs, or work reassignments that he has planned in the budget bill that will (supposedly) be revealed on Tuesday? What if he wants to do layoffs without reference to seniority or union vs non-union membership? Would there be a valid reason to grieve?

I think that's what he's got in mind otherwise he would have tacked and jibbed away from that talking point. He's sticking to it so I think it's another subterfuge to mask the real horror of what he's up to.

Discuss?

But I am seeing two more indicators that he might be right...

first, he put off his budget announcement until 3/1...assuming the impasse would be settled, and second because he has been so roundly refuted that the limitation of bargaining topics had anything at all to do with the budget.

Aside from that we have his history in the campaign where if you were enough of a conspiracy theorist you could have predicted what he is doing now by the equivocation and euphenisms that he was using...remember the boxing gloves?....he's a "literal" person as most conservatives are...

and besides...

I simply don't trust him....

The leader of the local teacher's union believes that the principle reason is to get rid of experienced, expensive teachers. I know that this is a different state, but it is a real possibility here.

it's coming out of the same playbook.