Theres a War Going on in Wisconsin

Naturally Barack Obama has sided with the union goons. His Organizing for America is sending protestors to astroturf Wisconsin in favor of more bloat and corruption. This is as much about saving him politically in 2012 as it is actually defending unionization. Democrats and unions are comparing what is happening to Wisconsin to the Alamo. It puts me in the unusual position of backing the Mexicans. Welcome to the reckoning. We have met the fiscal apocalypse and it is smack dab in the middle of the heartland. As Wisconsin goes so goes the nation. Let us pray it does not go the way of the decrepit welfare states of the European Union.         The lowdown: State government workers in the Badger State pay piddling amounts for generous taxpayer-subsidized health benefits. Faced with a $3.6 billion budget hole and a state constitutional ban on running a deficit new GOP Gov. Scott Walker wants public unions to pony up a little more. He has proposed raising the public employee share of health insurance premiums from less than 5 percent to 12.4 percent. He is also pushing for state workers to cover half of their pension contributions. To spare taxpayers the soaring costs of Byzantine union-negotiated work rules he would rein in Big Labors collective bargaining power to cover only wages unless approved at the ballot box.         As the free-market MacIver Institute in Wisconsin points out the benefits concessions Walker is asking public union workers to make would still maintain their health insurance contribution rates at the second-lowest among Midwest states for family coverage. Moreover a new analysis by benefits think tank HCTrends shows that the new rate would also be less than the employee contributions required at 85 percent of large Milwaukee-area employers.         This modest call for shared sacrifice has triggered the wrath of the White House-Big Labor-Michael Moore axis. On Thursday President Obama lamented the assault on unions. AFL-CIO and Service Employees International Union bosses dubbed Walker the Mubarak of the Midwest while their minions toted posters of Walkers face superimposed on Hitlers. Moore goaded thousands of striking union protesters to shut down the new Cairo while the states Democratic legislators bailed on floor debate over the union reform package.         Education Secretary Arne Duncan spurned the opportunity to condemn thousands of Wisconsin public school teachers for lying about being sick and shutting down at least eight school districts across the state to attend capitol protests (many of whom dragged their students on a social justice field trip with them). Instead Duncan defended teachers for doing probably the most important work in society. Only striking government teachers could win federal praise for NOT doing their jobs.         Yes the so-called progressives truly believe that bringing American union workers into the 21st century in line with the rest of the workforce is tantamount to dictatorship.         Yes the so-called progressives truly believe that by walking off their jobs and out of their classrooms they are putting children first.         If ever there were proof that public unions no longer work in the public interest this is it. Big Labor dragoons workers into exclusive representation agreements forces them to pay compulsory dues that fatten Democratic political coffers and then has the chutzpah to cast itself as an Egyptian-style freedom and human rights movement.         Meanwhile union leaders elsewhere are quietly forcing their low-wage members to share the sacrifice in order to preserve teetering health funds. In New York state Skidmore College campus janitors dining service workers and other maintenance employees received late notice from the SEIU that 4.15 percent of their gross earnings will now be deducted from their paychecks to cover the cost of the health plan provided through the behemoth 1199 SEIU Greater New York Benefit Fund. (If the name sounds familiar its because this is one of several privileged SEIU affiliates that has received an Obamacare waiver.)         These workers are forced to join the union in order to preserve their jobs and unlike non-union workers they are locked into a single health plan. The SEIU has now decreed that they must pay new fees to include spouses on their plans and has hiked employee co-pays for doctor visits and prescription drugs.         Whats necessary for New York union workers is necessary for Wisconsin union workers -- and for the rest of the protected union worker class in bankrupt and near-bankrupt states across America. The persuasion of power so ruthlessly and recklessly exercised by the SEIU and its thuggish allies must be broken by the moral courage of fiscal discipline.

Mrs. Malkin is author of Unhinged (Regnery) and Culture of Corruption: Obama and his Team of Tax Cheats Crooks & Cronies (Regnery 2009).