For Immediate Release
July 15, 2011
Contact: Donna Seidel
608-266-0654
MADISON – Appearing on CNBC this morning, Governor Scott Walker made the comment that “...collective bargaining, which is not a right, it is an expensive entitlement.”
In response, Assistant Democratic Leader Donna Seidel (D-Wausau) released the following statement:
“Facing a disapproval rating of nearly 60%, Governor Walker has spent the past few weeks engaged in a desperate campaign to rehabilitate his image with the citizens of Wisconsin. When appearing in Wisconsin, Walker has tried repeatedly to portray himself as a responsible statesman interested in working with Democrats to find solutions to the very serious issues facing our state. Yet when attempting to boost his national conservative profile on cable television, Walker makes inflammatory, anti-middle class statements which only further divide our state.
“Collective bargaining rights have helped to establish a strong middle class in Wisconsin and throughout our nation. Evidently Walker does not believe that Wisconsin’s working families have the right to have a middle class lifestyle, but he does believe that large corporations and the wealthy have a right to larger tax loopholes and increased tax breaks. In the first six months of his term as governor, Walker has had no problem signing legislation which hands out nearly $2.3 billion in tax loopholes for corporations and tax breaks for the wealthiest 1% of Wisconsin’s residents.
“Governor Walker has already admitted, under oath in a Congressional hearing, that the collective bargaining changes included in Act 10 have no impact on the state’s bottom line, which confirms information contained in a memo released by the non-partisan Legislative Fiscal Bureau. In fact, by definition these changes had to be nonfiscal in nature or it would have been unconstitutional for legislative Republicans to pass them in the manner in which they were passed. What’s more, Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald admitted on Fox News earlier this year that the collective bargaining changes had more to do with trying to defeat Barack Obama in 2012 than they did with improving the state’s finances.
“In a recent interview, Governor Walker said he does not know where the polarization in Wisconsin has come from. If Governor Walker honestly wonders why our state is so divided, he needs to look no further than his own comments.”
###
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment
This blog is created to not only keep you informed, but to receive feedback from you as well. Please feel free to comment on any posts. We reserve the right to remove any post we deem inappropriate in language and/or content.