MADISON, Wis., (Reuters) – Wisconsin Republican Governor Scott Walker unveiled a two-year budget with deep spending cuts yesterday and warned Democrats more reductions could be needed if his plan to curb the power of public sector unions remains blocked.
Walker, whose proposal to curtail collective bargaining rights for public unions sparked huge protests and a national debate, said his budget would slash more than 21,000 state jobs and cut aid to schools and local governments by more than $1.25 billion.
Aiming to reduce a $3.6 billion state budget deficit over two years, Walker said the cuts would help lower the state’s structural budget deficit by 90 percent.
The budget address came as Walker and his fellow Republicans tried to end a standoff over the union plan with Democratic state senators who fled the state to block a vote.
Walker defended his push for public employee union concessions as an essential part of his plan to rejuvenate state finances and said it would provide crucial savings.
But he received a more polite reception from lawmakers in the State Capitol than from protesters against his union proposal who gathered outside. Their chants of “Hey, Hey, ho, ho, Scott Walker has got to go” could be heard in the chamber as Walker spoke, although they did not drown him out.
Representatives for the 14 Democratic senators who fled to neighboring Illinois met with Senate Republican Leader Scott Fitzgerald in Kenosha, Wisconsin, although Fitzgerald did not say what was discussed, the website Wispolitics.com reported.
In his budget address, Walker renewed his demand that Democrats return and vote on the union measure. He said his budget was predicated on the savings in the union plan and warned their home towns could face even tougher times if his union plan is not passed.
DEMOCRATS SHOULD
COME HOME
“If the 14 Senate Democrats do not come home, their local communities will be forced to manage these reductions in aid without the benefit of the tools provided in the repair bill,” Walker told a joint session of the legislature.
Walker also had warned the state would miss out on a $165 million debt restructuring and be forced to lay off workers if the Democrats did not return for a vote on the proposal on Tuesday.
But one of the boycotting Democrats, Senate Minority Leader Mark Miller, blasted the governor and said the cuts would be devastating.“The governor’s budget bill is quite simply balancing the budget on the backs of the middle class and working families; seniors, people with disabilities, children and small businesses,” Miller said.
Walker’s union plan would require public sector employees to pay more for pensions and healthcare, strip some of their unions of bargaining rights except for wages up to the rate of inflation, and require yearly union recertification votes.
The measure, included in a bond restructuring to fix a current fiscal year deficit, passed the state Assembly but stalled in the Senate when the Democratic members fled to prevent a quorum and block a vote. The dispute has grown into a national debate on union power and become the biggest government confrontation with organized labor since President Ronald Reagan fired striking air traffic controllers in 1981.
President President Barack Obama has weighed in on behalf of the unions, reliable Democratic supporters for decades, and Republican leaders have told him to butt out.
Union leaders fear the Wisconsin move could be a harbinger of things to come in other states. In Ohio, the Republican-run legislature on Tuesday considered a bill like the one in Wisconsin.
Supporters said it was needed to close Ohio’s $8 billion two-year budget deficit, which Republicans blame on excessive promises to unionized workers.
“This isn’t about deficits. This is about union-busting,” said Evan Goodenow, 46, an unemployed man who was among some 8,000 protesters who converged on the Capitol, in Columbus.
