Believe it or not, Scott Walker had me confused. I knew the governor’s plan to cut public employees’ salaries and benefits was not about a budget shortfall since he recently signed into law a $130 million in tax breaks for corporations. I could not fathom an elected official being against education which is one of the pillars of the American dream.
Of course, there is the popular argument that Republicans want to privatize education. The new”budget crises” would allow states to cut funds for education reducing public schools to babysitting facilities. This would give momentum to private schools and school voucher programs where people are given vouchers to help offset the cost of tuition at the private schools.
But not everyone can afford a private education even with a state voucher. The economically challenged public schools would fail to provide a quality education and fail to provide the skills and knowledge required to succeed in today’s high-tech world. At that point, I realized that this is what these Republicans want. The poor public educational system will produce under-skilled and uneducated graduates. Poorly educated people will accept poorer working conditions and not look for advancement and of course accept lower wages with no benefits. This is the same reason that Republicans do not support unemployment benefits for those out of work. As the pool of unskilled graduates and unemployed workers without benefits grows the pool of cheap labor expands and wages drop and benefits are cut. This is the the ideal pool of labor for America as more and more of the skilled and highly qualified jobs are shipped to cheaper labor sources overseas.
One more lesson from Wisconsin with the constant battle against the unions and their right to exist. All of the sudden I realized the reason why several Republican governors have refused federal money for high-speed rail despite the fact that it will bring immediate jobs to the states as construction starts and will continue to provide jobs as the new high speed trains are operational. Also, this rail should improve commerce and business in the area. So why should a governor refuse these funds? Scott Walker gave me the answer. It is because the high-speed rail would most likely bring union jobs to the state. The construction jobs would most likely be union jobs and the rail jobs would also most likely be union jobs. As we learned from Mr. Walker and his supporter David Koch, unions are an anathema to the Republican politicians and their ultra-rich supporters. It is more important to keep unions out then bring jobs to a state with high unemployment. This is not the state of Wisconsin, this is the state of the Union.
H O W A R D S B E N D 
Dave Reynolds March 9 at 1:18am [object Object]
I think you’ve cut through a lot of fog and noise with this one. For years, the Republicans’ apparent disdain for education has puzzled me, I’ve put it to two possible explanations: One, having an educated and intelligent American society is not at the top of their priorities list. Two, they are intentionally attempting to turn the clock back to the mid-19th, early 20th centuries, when education was a privilege for the wealthy elite class and the rest of us, the working classes, stayed on the farms and the docks where we belonged. Actually, I think both are components of the explanation and what Howard succeeds in doing here, is to connect the dots in the 21st century: “The poor public educational system will produce under-skilled and uneducated graduates. Poorly educated people will accept poorer working conditions and not look for advancement and of course accept lower wages with no benefits. This is the same reason that Republicans do not support unemployment benefits for those out of work. As the pool of unskilled graduates and unemployed workers without benefits grows, the pool of cheap labor expands and wages drop and benefits are cut.” There is a new Republican domino plot afoot nationwide, that is presently making its full dress review in Wisconsin, Ohio, Illinois, Florida (how many did I miss..) and whose aim it is to destroy unions, which will in turn undermine the Democratic Party – the only two forces that stand in the way of the complete corporate privatization of not only schools and the infrastructure, the highways and bridges, but – if Rachel Maddow’s guest tonight, Naomi Klein, author of Shock Doctrine, is to be believed – the privatization of locally elected town and city governing bodies within those states wherein a “state of emergency” can be legally declared by governor fiat. According to Klein, Tea Party Republican governors have, or will shortly be introducing legislation granting themselves this power, which would of course give them absolute power to set agendas and dictate budgets and cuts. But wait, it gets worse: The concept behind all this is that the administration of local services would be contracted out to, ready? Large corporations! Maybe I should’ve at least read the book before entertaining the conspiracy, or even typing about it out loud on FB, but before you send the guys in white coats with the butterfly nets, watch this whole segment from the Rachel Maddow Show tonight. I’ve never seen Rachel go out on a limb this far without first thinking things through and checking her sources… So call me an alarmist. In any event, it certainly fits neatly with Howard’s storyline here, as well as with the new Teaparty Governors’ Playbook on how to create, then exploit budget crises by giving billions of their states’ treasury away in tax bonuses to corporations, then shrieking “We’re broke – we’re broke – and we need to cut your kids’ schools to the bone right away!”
Rachel Maddow Show
http://www.msnbc.msn.com
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