Ian Byrne here. If you haven’t heard, the Wisconsin Senate voted Wednesday evening to strip public workers’ bargaining rights (Star Tribune, NYT, Fox News). Policy stances aside, the way this whole thing went down was bad for everyone.
The battle going on next door has been representative of a larger national trend: to compromise is to lose. When this is the case, everybody loses. People in Wisconsin on the left and right are calling for the recall of Governor Walker, Republican and Democratic legislators. You don’t need to be an expert to understand that this cannot become the new norm.
I’m pretty bummed about this. I expect partisan sentiments to be ablaze tomorrow and into the weekend. Are we not at each other’s throats enough already?
People of Wisconsin, I’m sorry the afterglow of your Green Bay Packers’ Superbowl victory has been drown out by what started out as a budget bill. High emotions and egos have hijacked the legislative process, and policy driven by emotion generally tends to make for bad policy. While cooler heads seem to be a rarity in our government, whether it be state of federal, here’s to hoping that cooler heads prevail in Wisconsin and across the nation sooner rather than later.
-Ian
