Menzie Chinn reports more dispatches from Wisconsin, this time on recent Congressional testimony by Wisconsin’s Governor Scott Walker.  It’s clear the union-busting efforting in Wisconsin is NOT about the state budget or saving money.  It’s ideological. It’s opposition to unions period.  The budget is and was irrelevant. It was pure propaganda by Walker and the Wisconsin Republicans to cover their real objectives.  This is shock doctrine stuff.  Neo-liberals used to force this kind of undemocratic social change onto third-world and developing nations. Now they do it here.

That is Governor Walker’s answer to the question of how much money rescinding collective bargaining for public unions saves the state government. From the Capital Times:

Kucinich said he could not understand how Walker’s bill to strip most collective bargaining rights from nearly all public workers saved the state any money and therefore was relevant to the topic before the committee, which was state and municipal debt.

When Walker failed to address how repealing collective bargaining rights for state workers is related to state debt or how requiring unions to recertify annually saves money — one of the provisions in Walker’s amended budget repair bill — Kucinich tried one more time.

“How much money does it save Gov. Walker?” Kucinich demanded. “Just answer the question.”

“It doesn’t save any,” Walker said.

“That’s right. It obviously had no effect on the state budget,” Kucinich replied.

…

[Emphasis added — mdc]