The Wisconsin Lie Exposed

**NoAngel2u** · 02-26-2011, 10:33 AM

– Taxpayers Actually Contribute Nothing To Public Employee

source

Pulitzer Prize winning tax reporter, David Cay Johnston, has written a brilliant piece for tax.com exposing the truth about who really pays for the pension and benefits for public employees in Wisconsin.

Gov. Scott Walker says he wants state workers covered by collective bargaining agreements to “contribute more” to their pension and health insurance plans. Accepting Gov. Walker’ s assertions as fact, and failing to check, creates the impression that somehow the workers are getting something extra, a gift from taxpayers. They are not. Out of every dollar that funds Wisconsin’ s pension and health insurance plans for state workers, 100 cents comes from the state workers.

Via tax.com

How can this be possible?

Simple. The pension plan is the direct result of deferred compensation- money that employees would have been paid as cash salary but choose, instead, to have placed in the state operated pension fund where the money can be professionally invested (at a lower cost of management) for the future.

**curtinsea** · 02-26-2011, 10:51 AM

Frankly that is nonsense. No offense dear, but that is spin. That is to say, the cost of the pension and healthcare is still included in the labor costs. So saying that they took those perks "in lieu of" higher wages does not change the fact that the high costs of said pension and healthcare packages add to the total cost of government. And since the taxpayer pays 100% of government employee compensations, the title is an outright lie.

What is being asked for, essentially following the same logic, is for them to take a pay cut.

**curtinsea** · 02-26-2011, 11:05 AM

Here is my take on the Wisconsin debacle. Clearly I am not pro-union. It's not against the workers, but the unions hold the public sector hostage and we need government to reign in it's spending, that's a fact. The governor's bill may be over reaching a bit, I dunno, I haven't read it. But he is the duly elected executive of that state.

I understand the Democrats are furious over it, so what should they do? Well they should put in their "NO" vote, go on the record opposed. They can then use the issue in races next year.

Will it change the world as we know it if this bill goes to law? Hell no, there is another election next year. Maybe it will be undone that quick. Then again, maybe the people of that state will be pleased, and Republicans will be re-elected. That's how democracy works.

The trouble now is that the Republicans cannot take one step back now. They can't give in in any way, other wise the tactic of run and hide will become SOP. And those that think it's ok to do this now will definitely feel differently when it's the other side pulling the same move, and you will have nobody to blame, for you have given them the ok already.

**NoAngel2u** · 02-26-2011, 11:11 AM

The last person that called me "dear" had to put out. So watch your language! Well unless you want to put out.

Didn't they agree to the pay cut?

We will most certainly disagree that the article is ALL nonsense, and yes the title is certainly misleading. It was discussed in the comments section, and even his boss commented on it. lol

**curtinsea** · 02-26-2011, 11:18 AM

I don't disagree that there should have been some compromise done, but it's too late for that. They can't give in to this run and hide tactic. Anyone who has raised children knows that if you give in to their whining, they will only whine more, everytime they want something, because if it worked once, it will work again.

In poker terms, the dems bluffed with weak hand, and the reps are pot committed. It's time for the dems to fold, and we'll see who rakes the pot in the fall of '12

**curtinsea** · 02-26-2011, 11:22 AM

and the article, while basically true, is a semantic argument. So just as you can say that the contributions come out of the employees compensation, it's just as true to say that the taxpayers pay 100% of those contributions.

I see the title as an outright lie, not merely misleading

**skyguy2007** · 02-26-2011, 12:31 PM

That is amazing this guy is even trying to sell this...simply amazing!

But expected!

**billynomates** · 02-27-2011, 01:26 PM

Rupert Murdoch and David Koch Collude Against Wisconsin Workers
While Fox News feeds its rabble the anti-union line, Murdoch's Wall Street Journal columnists front for Koch's Americans for Prosperity and coddle elite investors.

In the week-long battle taking place in Wisconsin over Gov. Scott Walker's attempt to strip state workers of their collective bargaining rights, you'd expect Fox News to be doing what it's done: misreporting the story, mistakenly characterizing a poll supporting public workers to mean its opposite, featuring Glenn Beck painting the protests of union workers as something cooked up by Stalinists. And you might be tempted to think, well, that's just Fox playing to its base of frightened Tea Partiers who prefer a fact-free zone to the more challenging territory of actual news, where the answers are never pat, and the world is a bit more complicated than it seems in the realm of Fox Nation.

You might think it's all about what brings in the advertising dollars for Rupert Murdoch, CEO of Fox's parent company, News Corporation. But it runs much deeper than that, involving key players at the Wall Street Journal, News Corp.'s crown jewel. The informal partnership between billionaire David Koch, whose campaign dollars and astroturf group, Americans for Prosperity, have fomented the Wisconsin crisis, and billionaire Rupert Murdoch, is profoundly ideological -- the ideology being the exponential enrichment of the two men's heirs, all dressed up in the language of libertarianism and free enterprise.

Moab for one will like this!

Not my opinion btw.