Gov. Scott Walker (R-WI) portrays his union-busting plan as an austerity measure in the midst of a severe state budget crisis. But if you step back for a moment and think about it, taking away state employees’ collective bargaining rights is unlikely to pay immediate short-term dividends for the state budget. If you take another step back and look at what — or more to the point who — created this budget crisis in the first place, it starts to show what a naked union-busting move Walker is making.

David Kurtz

David Kurtz is Managing Editor and Washington Bureau Chief of Talking Points Memo where he oversees the news operations of TPM and its sister sites.