Thread: WI Recall of Gov. Walker Produces 1 MILLION Signatures

Originally Posted by goober

So you have a Republican president praising a tax system that does not eat away a paycheck, at a time when the top tax rate was 93%....

It's so funny that you mention that. The canard oft repeated by those who think that government actually took 93%- No, there were so many tax havens available it was more like 40%- about what they take today-

I am all for a flat tax - no exemptions- Allowing those below the poverty line to pay a lower flat tax.

But I digress- you still miss Eisenhower's attitude- he began cutting taxes because they were too high- even though there were numerable tax havens! Only one in twenty men between 24- 52 was not working when he was president. That you wish to ignore that labor unions have chased manufacturing out of our country is a major part of the problem- wake up! That you ignore that public unions are sucking the private workers dry via taxes on everything, including their pay checks, is also part of the problem.

Originally Posted by Bfgrn

I already did. You are just too lazy to keep up with the thread.

http://www.uspoliticsonline.com/brea...ml#post2029875

Are calling that proof, that the union teachers unions have not been favored by liberal legislators giving unions higher wages and benefits in exchange for votes. You need to try harder. I say again you can not fire a bad teacher or reward a good one. Further when a teacher is hired they get automatic tenure, at which time they inter retirement. Thus they can not be fired for not teaching students.

I repeat the teachers unions have destroyed our education system. We have poured more and more money into the education system yet get less and less results. What is it you do not understand.

Originally Posted by Eclipse

It's so funny that you mention that. The canard oft repeated by those who think that government actually took 93%- No, there were so many tax havens available it was more like 40%- about what they take today-

I am all for a flat tax - no exemptions- Allowing those below the poverty line to pay a lower flat tax.

But I digress- you still miss Eisenhower's attitude- he began cutting taxes because they were too high- even though there were numerable tax havens! Only one in twenty men between 24- 52 was not working when he was president. That you wish to ignore that labor unions have chased manufacturing out of our country is a major part of the problem- wake up! That you ignore that public unions are sucking the private workers dry via taxes on everything, including their pay checks, is also part of the problem.

Flat taxes are unfair, and economically inefficient, they fail to account for the effects of marginal utility, and result in huge inefficiencies, look at how weak the economy has been after the Reagan and Bush tax cuts, it took trillions in stimulus just to keep it afloat.

Originally Posted by Forplay

Are calling that proof, that the union teachers unions have not been favored by liberal legislators giving unions higher wages and benefits in exchange for votes. You need to try harder. I say again you can not fire a bad teacher or reward a good one. Further when a teacher is hired they get automatic tenure, at which time they inter retirement. Thus they can not be fired for not teaching students.

I repeat the teachers unions have destroyed our education system. We have poured more and more money into the education system yet get less and less results. What is it you do not understand.

You can keep repeating the same thing over and over. But it will never make it true. Neither teachers nor unions have destroyed our education system.

The major problem is we teach kids to pass tests instead of teaching them to problem solve, and we try to cram information into them instead of a teaching an in depth understanding of a topic.

Most people went to public schools and can probably name teachers that were mentors in their lives. And like me, they had children who went through public schools and got to know all their children's teachers. They came across dedicated professionals who genuinely cared about our kids, worked extra hard and were role models and mentors. They KNOW teachers are not the problem in this country.

BTW, my kids went to a public school. A 4th grade teacher disciplined a student for disrupting the class by lightly plopping a book on his head. The teacher was fired.

Originally Posted by C-B-M

By the way, that last paragraph of the Times story is the best. It's filled with utter irrelevance. Let's say it's 100% true. Then the argument is that the average teacher's pay is equal to a toll taker or bartender. So? Is it "supposed" to be higher? It's more liberal "this person is 'worth' more and therefore we should SET their pay higher than this other person." There's no grasp of "supply and demand" as it relates to jobs and need. And this is the Times, supposedly the newspaper for the "smartest" people who went to the most elite schools in America.

Let's compare, OK.

What are the qualifications needed to be a toll taker?
What are the qualifications needed to be a bartender?
What are the qualifications needed to be a teacher?

United States

Teachers in almost all states must have a Bachelor's degree with the appropriate teacher preparation course and complete either a content-based or teaching-based Master's degree within a stated number of years. Additionally, to be permanently certified, many states require that teachers pass exams on pedagogy, general knowledge and knowledge of a content area. Some states require teacher candidates to be fingerprinted prior to certification.

I have a question. During the Senate recalls, Walker's collective bargaining bill was not mentioned. Are the unions trying to unseat Walker going to avoid talking about collective bargaining again?

Originally Posted by adaher

I have a question. During the Senate recalls, Walker's collective bargaining bill was not mentioned. Are the unions trying to unseat Walker going to avoid talking about collective bargaining again?

I think they should talk about it. Maybe they could recall the words of a former President of the United States:

"Samuel Gompers believed with all his heart that if a worker was properly and fairly paid for his work, he could provide for himself without having to hold out this hand to a caseworker for government-provided benefits. He was a champion of collective bargaining.

Collective bargaining in the years since has played a major role in America's economic miracle. Unions represent some of the freest institutions in this land. There are few finer examples of participatory democracy to be found anywhere.

I can guarantee you today that this administration will not fight inflation by attacking the sacred right of American workers to negotiate their wages. We propose to control government, not people. Now, today I want to express again my belief in our American system of collective bargaining and pledge that there will always be an open door to you in this administration."


"But restoring the American dream requires more than restoring a sound, productive economy, vitally important as that is. It requires a return to spiritual and moral values, values so deeply held by those who came here to build a new life. We need to restore those values in our daily life, in our neighborhoods and in our government’s dealings with the other nations of the world.

These are the values inspiring those brave workers in Poland. The values that have inspired other dissidents under Communist domination. They remind us that where free unions and collective bargaining are forbidden, freedom is lost. They remind us that freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. You and I must protect and preserve freedom here or it will not be passed on to our children."

ref ref

Gompers and his contemporaries did not believe in public sector collective bargaining.

And while you may think they should talk about collective barganing, for some reason they think it's a losing issue. To the point where when they were asked about it, they claimed that wasn't why they were doing the recalls.

Originally Posted by Bfgrn

You can keep repeating the same thing over and over. But it will never make it true. Neither teachers nor unions have destroyed our education system.

The major problem is we teach kids to pass tests instead of teaching them to problem solve, and we try to cram information into them instead of a teaching an in depth understanding of a topic.

This is a common talking point from teachers: "oh, we're forced to teach to a standardized test, so kids aren't thinking!" Which is always endlessly amusing to me because it's funny how, when teachers "teach kids to think" or "teach kids to problem solve" they are unable to pass standardized tests. In other words, put it like this: if you can teach a kid to "critically think" and these smart thinkers can't read or add ......complete the sentence. LOL.

Originally Posted by Bfgrn

Let's compare, OK.

What are the qualifications needed to be a toll taker?
What are the qualifications needed to be a bartender?
What are the qualifications needed to be a teacher?

Again, this proves you, like most liberals, don't know anything about anything. You think "oh, this person has a Bachelor's degree and this other person does not ...therefore the first person must be paid more than the other person." Now, the funnier thing is that if we discuss anyone except teachers, that never holds true for liberals. If I say "well, I have an advanced degree and therefore I make a few hundred thousand dollars and the grocery store bagger doesn't and therefore makes minimum wage," it's like "right ...that's why we have to tax you to give more to the grocery store bagger, because you have more than you need." Basically, the argument boils down to some retarded emotional-based love affair with teachers, which is how this always works.

Originally Posted by fishjoel

I read your post #116 and the only thing you have in there is that he wants voter ID laws. The rest is you complaining that he is ruining their collective bargaining rights. Well, duh, he busted the unions. That, in itself, is not a negative effect. Has teacher salary gone down? Have teachers been fired causing bigger classroom sizes? You know, real things, not imagined ones. Oh, and just to show how you're wrong about this "inevitable" BS then here.....

Let me google that for you

First of all, I find it comical, to say the least, how easy it was to call out your question as merely a set up only meant to rationalize Walkers policies. I predicted what you were going to say and how you were going to try to downplay my post. Nonetheless, YOU are wrong my friend, not me, you! And this isn't denial talking, this is proven empirically.. meaning, unlike anything you have provided, the numbers below are observable, testable, and provable and are without discrepancies.

Even so, I still gave you the benefit of the doubt anyways, and followed through with your results. And what I found was, to no surprise, that one lonely district, the Kaukauna School District, in at least four or five separate links, was the sole justification of Walkers policies they touted as being "proof of success". There was also one Yahoo article which cited the School District of Rhinelander, where it states they "began hiring in May due to an influx of teacher retirements caused by the budget repair bill" and that "this allowed the district to hire teachers to replace those locked into their positions by tenure." Thusly you, and Governor Walker for that matter, are able to imply, as disingenuous and as wrong as it truly is, that school districts in WI were able to "hire more teachers" while at the same time saving "hundreds of millions of dollars" in the process.

It turns out that is some epic pants of fire bull shit.

PolitiFACT has already debunked these outrageous lies. It turns out Walker conveniently left out all retirements of staff numbers for EACH DISTRICT when touting "growing school districts". And as one who considers accuracy to be of paramount importance this is worth addressing.

PS, if you're not going to read up on my source don't bother replying back.

SOURCE

You won’t find Walker’s numbers cited in the survey’s summary, because the survey calculated the staffing changes using a number -- a critical one -- Walker leaves out: retirements of staff.

In all, more than 4,700 school employees retired in the last year -- a level many school officials attribute to Walker’s own budget’s push to force them to pay more for pensions and health care.

For each district, the survey arrived at a staff loss or gain by adding up all the staff departures (retirements, layoffs, contract non-renewals) and subtracting the new hires.

The survey showed Racine schools, for instance, reported a net drop of 100 staff, mostly teachers aides. But by Walker’s method, Racine shows a net gain of 14, according to our calculations.

The reason for the difference: Walker doesn’t count the 114 retirements in the district.

When we analyzed the survey results using the complete statistics used to calculate the staff change, we found the opposite of Walker’s conclusion: Three out of four districts reported a net loss of staff, including all four categories of staff.

A reduction in teachers drove that result: Nearly two out of three districts (63 percent) reported a net loss of teachers. That trend was much less pronounced in the other categories: for teachers aides, 38 percent of districts saw reductions, we found. For support staff, 31 percent saw a loss. For administrators, 21 percent reported a loss.

Walker spokesman Cullen Werwie said the governor excluded retirements because a teacher can retire for any number of reasons unrelated to budgets.

True, but the same claim could be made about new hires -- something Walker includes. Indeed, new hires were often necessitated by the retirements. Pulling out just one of the categories unravels any attempt to get at what actually is happening.

"We would have had to lay off way more teachers" if 28 hadn’t retired, said Burlington Area School District Superintendent David Moyer. The district rehired 20, according to the survey.

Most new hires in the Muskego-Norway district were replacing teachers who retired, said Superintendent Joe Schroeder. Retirements tripled over the previous year.

Werwie, the governor’s spokesman, said that ultimately Walker’s counting method shows "new teachers had an easier time getting a job in Wisconsin."

That seems like a safe statement, but it’s a different point than saying most districts had the same staffing or greater.

Werwie also argued that "staffing" should be judged by broader measures such as class size. It’s possible, he said, for class sizes to hold steady even if staff is reduced because the budget granted freedom from various work rules. In Kaukauna, for instance, the district required educators to teach six hours a day instead of five, as the Journal Sentinel reported.

It’s true that very large majorities of districts reported no increase in class sizes -- 74 percent in grades kindergarten to three, and 66 percent in grades 4-6, for example.

We think Werwie’s point about judging "staffing" by what happened to class sizes has some merit. Increases or decreases in class size can result from changes in teacher staffing.

But enrollment and other factors can affect class size too.

In the end, it’s a really a broader topic than the one in front of us on the breadth of the staffing cuts. In any event, Walker’s reference to staffing levels of "the same or greater" makes it clear he was quantifying staffing, not discussing class size.

Our conclusion

Walker referred to school survey results, saying "the overwhelming number of districts saw that staffing was the same or greater."

But he cherry-picked figures in his favor, leaving out a key factor -- retirements -- that formed the basis of the survey’s conclusions on overall staffing reductions. When they are included, the survey actually shows the opposite of what he said.

We rate his statement False.

Originally Posted by adaher

Gompers and his contemporaries did not believe in public sector collective bargaining.

Did Calvin Coolidge know that?

You continue to portray the beliefs of others without documentation. That is dishonest and it should be corrected.

I will let Ronald Reagan respond:

I would like to speak of one more thing. Earlier in my remarks, I spoke of the history of organized labor in our country and quoted Samuel Gompers, the founder of the American Federation of Labor. The United Brotherhood of Carpenters was a mainstay of that early crusade and of the federation. The AF of L supported municipal, county, State, and Federal employees when they began to unionize. But from the very first, organized labor predicated its help and support on the condition that public employees could never be allowed to strike. Indeed, they insisted that unions of government employees would recognize this in their constitutions.

They were the first to point out the difference between public employment and private employment -- that government could not close up shop, that government workers were employed by the people, and the people could not give any group the right to coerce the people's elected representatives. However, to protect the rights of government employees, labor offered to support legislation to ensure wages and working conditions comparable to those for similar work in the private sector.

When the National Labor Relations Act, known to most of us as the Wagner Act, was ratified in 1935, even liberal labor leaders such as Phillip Murray and John L. Lewis proclaimed they had no intention of allowing any segment of government to be organized with the right to strike.

President Franklin Delano Roosevelt declared: ``Militant tactics have no place in the functions of any organization of government employees. A strike of public employees manifests nothing less than an intent on their part to prevent or obstruct the operations of government until their demands are satisfied. Such action, looking toward the paralysis of government by those who have sworn to support it, is unthinkable and intolerable.'' He likened public employee strikes to insurrection.

Reflecting these views, the Federal Government has a law prohibiting strikes by public employees. Some other levels of government have adopted similar statutes and ordinances. Yet in recent years some in labor have retreated from labor's earlier stand against public employee strikes. Strikes against the public safety by public employees have increased over the last many years, and many, like this last strike in PATCO, were in violation of the law and of oaths sworn to by individual union members.

Our very freedom is secure because we're a nation governed by laws, not by men. We have the means to change the laws if they become unjust or onerous. We cannot, as citizens, pick and choose the laws we will or will not obey. And I hope that organized labor today and its leadership will recognize that you, the rank and file they represent, are the supreme authority in our land, that you are the employers of all who serve in government, elected or appointed, and none of us in government can strike against you and the interests of you, the sovereign people.

Remarks in Chicago, Illinois, at the Annual Convention and Centennial Observance of the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners

Originally Posted by goober

Flat taxes are unfair, and economically inefficient, they fail to account for the effects of marginal utility, and result in huge inefficiencies, look at how weak the economy has been after the Reagan and Bush tax cuts, it took trillions in stimulus just to keep it afloat.

Flat tax is the very definition of fair. Everything else is ideological twister. Now, included in that flax tax is absolutely no tax loopholes, none.

Originally Posted by Bfgrn

You can keep repeating the same thing over and over. But it will never make it true. Neither teachers nor unions have destroyed our education system.

The hell they haven't, when you can't fire a bad teacher, the education system is a failure. When the states hire a new teacher they automatically get tenure, thus there is no incentive to teach but instead sit on their ass and do nothing except collect paychecks. Of course you would not want to compare teacher unions against the private sector where they can fire a under performing employee and pay good employees more.

The major problem is we teach kids to pass tests instead of teaching them to problem solve, and we try to cram information into them instead of a teaching an in depth understanding of a topic.

Now the answer to that is kill (get rid of) the Department of Education

Most people went to public schools and can probably name teachers that were mentors in their lives. And like me, they had children who went through public schools and got to know all their children's teachers. They came across dedicated professionals who genuinely cared about our kids, worked extra hard and were role models and mentors. They KNOW teachers are not the problem in this country.

Well good for those teachers and they should be paid well, while those that don't perform should be FIRED.

BTW, my kids went to a public school. A 4th grade teacher disciplined a student for disrupting the class by lightly plopping a book on his head. The teacher was fired.

No, no, no you can't fire a teacher. You are misinformed.

This from the New York Times, the liberal's paper

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/25/ed...25teacher.html