Relentless protests in Madison, AWOL State Senate Democrats, and an embarrassing prank call thrown in for good measure — still, Gov. Scott Walker (R) isn’t yet budging one bit on what he wants.
On Sunday’s Meet The Press, Walker reiterated his resistance to the compromises already offered to him by the Democrats and labor unions, repeating that layoffs could come as soon as Tuesday if the still AWOL Democratic Senators don’t return.
When host David Gregory challenged Walker to respond to charges that changes to collective bargaining weren’t really about improving the state’s finances, Wisconsin’s governor held fast.
“If you’re really serious about the state being broke, you have a deal that you could take, why not separate that out from your views about collective bargaining,” asked Gregory.
Walker replied, “But, David, my point is repeatedly, as a former local government official, I know that collective bargaining has a cost and when I’m cutting more than $1 billion from aid to local governments, in this next two-year budget, I need to do what no other governor is doing across the country.”
Again, as TPM’s Brian Beutler and many others have reported restructuring collective bargaining will have little impact on Wisconsin’s bottom line. In addition, Wisconsin’s immediate budget shortfall has been caused less by “rising pension increases”, but by Walker’s own decision to give $140 million in tax breaks to big business in his state.
Walker repeated his pledge that if Senate Democrats down return to Madison, layoffs will begin.
“Those 14 State Senate Dems need to come back and do what they were they were elected to do,” he said. “If we fail to pass this bill by Tuesday, we lose a $165 million dollars in savings, if we continue down that path, we start seeing layoffs.”
” My hope is at least one of those 14 state Senators feel the same way.”
Watch the video below:
