Baghdad on Lake Mendota

Paul Krugman compares the situation in Madison, Wisconsin to "Baghdad — specifically, Baghdad in 2003, when the Bush administration put Iraq under the rule of officials chosen for loyalty and political reliability rather than experience and competence." Krugman says:

What’s happening in Wisconsin is, instead, a power grab — an attempt to exploit the fiscal crisis to destroy the last major counterweight to the political power of corporations and the wealthy. And the power grab goes beyond union-busting. The bill in question is 144 pages long, and there are some extraordinary things hidden deep inside.

The Times moderators are playing scrambled comments again today, so here's mine:

According to Tim Fernholz of the National Journal, Walker is really just faking the "budget crisis." Fernholz explains

... while Walker argues that his budget-repair legislation must be passed soon to avoid job cuts, the most controversial parts of his bill would have no immediate effect. The state's entire budget shortfall for this year -- the reason that Walker has said he must push through immediate cuts -- would be covered by the governor's relatively uncontroversial proposal to restructure the state's debt. By contrast..., his call to curtail the collective-bargaining rights of the state's public-employees, wouldn't save any money this year. [Emphasis added.]

As we learned earlier, Walker pushed through about $120 million in tax cuts, then cried "budget crisis." Now it turns out he has taken care of the budget shortfall by restructuring the debt. All those added "goodies": ending collective bargaining, giving himself the ability to give away power companies to his backers, cutting back health coverage for the poor -- those are what Walker described as "the bomb" he dropped on Wisconsin. That description, by the way, came in a prank call in which Walker thought he was taking a call from his financial backer David Koch.

To try to diffuse the "the bomb," Walker is now claiming,

I campaigned on (the proposals in the budget repair bill for Wisconsin) all throughout the election. Anybody who says they are shocked on this has been asleep for the past two years.

No. He didn't. PolitiFact rated Walker's assertion --

Walker, who offered many specific proposals during the campaign, did not go public with even the bare-bones of his multi-faceted plans to sharply curb collective bargaining rights. He could not point to any statements where he did. We could find none either.

During the prank call, Walker also revealed that he planned to trick state senate Democrats into returning to Madison, then declare the legislature in session & have the senate pass his draconian bill. Moreover, he told "David Koch" that, to ensure he got his way, he was going to keep sending pink slips (as Jon Stewart put it, "the streets will be pink with slips") to state workers. To him, those teachers and other state workers are just pawns in his little game of Destroy the Middle Class. His game strategy? Deception.

Funny thing, too. Walker has refused to talk with Democrats. He has refused to compromise with unions. But he can hardly wait to talk to David Koch. Really a man of the people, isn't he?

Weirdly, a Utah group is attempting to set up a recall of Wisconsin's Democratic state senators. Contra that effort, I'd suggest Badgers check out the state constitution to see what-all it says about impeachment and/or recall of a governor. If Cheeseheads don't want the Koch brothers as their de facto governor, they should get someone in the governor's mansion who isn't the Koch boy's puppet.