{"id":21418,"date":"2011-07-26T06:29:50","date_gmt":"2011-07-26T11:29:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=21418"},"modified":"2011-07-25T18:00:38","modified_gmt":"2011-07-25T23:00:38","slug":"youve-got-to-save-things-to-save-them","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=21418","title":{"rendered":"You’ve Got To Save Things To Save Them"},"content":{"rendered":"

It’s become a Democrat clich\u00e9; any move to touch any government spending will “destroy” the program in question, inevitably starving the elderly and freezing the children, or something.<\/p>\n

Lost in much of the barbering and protesting over GOP public-spending reforms – DC, Wisconsin, Minnesota and everywhere else – is that without conservative reform, the programs the lefty is yapping about will collapse under their own weight; it’s only through significant reform that the programs will be sustainable at all.<\/p>\n

We’re seeing that in Wisconsin already<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Emily Koczela had been anxiously waiting for months for Wisconsin governor Scott Walker\u2019s controversial budget repair bill to take effect. Koczela, the finance director for the Brown Deer school district, had been negotiating with the local union, trying to get it to accept concessions in order to make up for a $1 million budget shortfall. But the union wouldn\u2019t budge.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe laid off 27 [teachers] as a precautionary measure,\u201d Koczela told me. \u201cThey were crying. Some of these people are my friends.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And what happened?<\/p>\n

On June 29 at 12:01 a.m., Koczela could finally breathe a sigh of relief. The budget repair bill\u200b\u2014\u200bdelayed for months by protests, runaway state senators, and a legal challenge that made its way to the state\u2019s supreme court\u200b\u2014\u200bwas law. The 27 teachers on the chopping block were spared.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It was the reforms – the ones that were going to “destroy” education – that saved the teachers.<\/p>\n

Not <\/em>the unions and their screeching about Madison last winter.<\/p>\n

With \u201ccollective bargaining rights\u201d limited to wages, Koczela was able to change the teachers\u2019 benefits package to fill the budget gap. Requiring teachers to contribute 5.8 percent of their salary toward pensions saved $600,000. Changes to their health care plan\u200b\u2014\u200bsuch as a $10 office visit co-pay (up from nothing)\u200b\u2014\u200bsaved $200,000. Upping the workload from five classes, a study hall, and two prep periods to six classes and two prep periods saved another $200,000. The budget was balanced.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I wonder how many of those 27 teachers called in sick to go to Madison last winter?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It’s become a Democrat clich\u00e9; any move to touch any government spending will “destroy” the program in question, inevitably starving the elderly and freezing the children, or something. Lost in much of the barbering and protesting over GOP public-spending reforms – DC, Wisconsin, Minnesota and everywhere else – is that without conservative reform, the programs […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,123],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21418","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-conservatism","category-taxes"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21418","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=21418"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21418\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21420,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21418\/revisions\/21420"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=21418"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=21418"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=21418"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}