Sunday, March 6, 2011

Not A Budget - A Massacre

This past Wednesday night, I had the opportunity to join about a thousand of my union brothers and sisters at Serb Hall for a town hall meeting.  There were many speakers, including various labor leaders and Representative Fred Kessler.  Senators Chris Larson and Spencer Coggs also spoke to us, albeit telephonically.  The repeated standing ovations when those two gentlemen spoke was simply deafening!

The meeting ended with a very motivational speech by Sheila Cochran, Secretary/Treasurer of the Milwaukee Area Labor Council.  Here is her speech, which can also be found on Facebook:

Everyday this fight goes on; more people begin to understand what is at stake. Please let your voices be heard in any way you can. The Budget Repair Bill was an outright declaration of war on Organized Labor. This governor did not campaign on stripping the Collective Bargaining rights from workers, had he done so he wouldn’t have been elected. No matter how the media spins its, the polls are showing the public is with us. 
The longer the 14 brave Senators stay away the more the public gets exposed to the lies and lack of compromise the better educated we will all become in what is exactly in this budget.  It strips so many needed programs and a right from Wisconsinites it is sick. I don't know how the Governor can sleep at night, or the business community who support him can remain silent. Labor willingly entered this fight, and will remain on the front lines and we are not alone, and the longer we stand and fight the more people will see how bad this bill really is!! 
These aren't cuts this is a MASSACRE; just slashing through Medicaid, Badgercare, Senior Prescription programs, Education at every level, Family Planning, FoodShare, and WIC programs.  It will drastically cut everything at  county and city  Health Departments, including AIDS/HIV testing, breast-feeding education, care passenger safety education, family planning, postnatal home visits, immunizations and influenza clinics, nutrition education, parenting education, prenatal education, smoking cessation, WIC, Women's Health Screening Program which includes free Pap's and mammography.  Eliminating funding for recycling programs, bus services, childcare, and force W2 recipients to pay for the tax cut he gave all the corporations. How sick is it to take back $20.00 a month from a W2 mother?? How sick is this man. 
There is nothing about shared sacrifice in the over 1300 pages of this document. 
The more you read it the worse it gets, I wonder if every lobbyist has been paid off yet? Is there anything else we have to give? We as a people are awake; I just hope we stay awake. 
There were thousands marching in Madison yesterday and will again today and now we are adding cities and counties all over the state. Please do your part, out collective future is in our hands, now is the time and we are the people.

No comments:

Post a Comment