Yes, what Scott Walker has done to today is bad. He has hurt education, health care, Badgercare, the environment, women’s rights, seniors, the poor, single mothers, children, the right of workers to collectively bargain, equal pay and contraception choices, and mass transportation. This is nothing compared to what he will do if he remains in office after June 5.
Based on his taped conversations with big-money donors, he is working for the American Legislative Exchange Council, Koch brothers, and the other richest 1 percent in this country. If you earn more than $250,000, you can possibly benefit from his policies. If you earn less than $250,000, you are voting against yourself, your small business, and your local economy.
The states around Wisconsin invested in wind energy, creating real jobs. Walker decided not to create these jobs for some reason, but rather come up with his job numbers using a magical mathematical scheme to make us think he has created jobs out of calculations. This is a very important election and is a message to the rest of the country as to policies that benefit the wealthy. A “right to work” state, which is the goal of corporations and the top 1 percent, will close down the Main Streets of small towns like ours because we will all have less money to spend, or we will move out of Wisconsin and there will be less local revenue.
As a college teacher, my retirement decisions were based on my conservative spending and saving for my retirement. I lived comfortably without buying mass quantities and cooked most of my meals at home. During my full-time job for 32 of my 40 years, my employers and I agreed on a salary that included my deferred compensation package, which is now part of my retirement. Donald Driver and other sports players get a much larger salary with a deferred compensation package and I don’t see anyone complaining about what they earn.
If the well managed Wisconsin Retirement System is found to be deficient in being able to fund itself, then Walker can turn it over to his financial friends with the hedge funds like Bain Capital, and they can ruin it as has been done with other retirement systems around the country. These same unregulated financial “geniuses” nearly bankrupted the country and world in 2008. Keep them away from Wisconsin.
Please do all you can to talk to the folks you know and let them know just what is at stake in the June 5 election. I can’t imagine anyone who isn’t affected or who won’t be affected by all of this.
Oh, and if you’re a tea party follower, you will soon learn that “conservatives” like Walker and the ALEC 1 percent plan to get rid of Social Security because that will not benefit the wealthy either. While you are placated with having a tea party, it means you will be working until you die.
In this free country, fear has imprisoned the minds of the voters. Don’t be divided or conquered.
Linda Bernhardt
Platteville
