Wisconsin Unions willing to give into everything, BUT collective bargaining, right?

[cecilfirefox]

Now, throughout this whole controversy I read a lot of news, much of which insinuated that the Union heads all agreed to every financial concession Governor Walker wanted them to give. BUT, they drew the line at collective bargaining. Now, I have a dear friend who is a bit of a crazed right winger, can anyone give me news links that prove that the Union heads were willing to give into everything but collective bargaining? He's insistent that the Unions were not willing to negotiate on anything. He's a Fox News type who gets a very slanted, if not deranged, view of the world.

[Contrary1]

1. If your friend is into Fox News, no number of news links from the "Liberal Media"

will be enough to change his mind. Save yourself the time. and forget about it.

[kster]

2. ...

http://www.jsonline.com/blogs/news/116502958.html

[dkf]

3. Walker was concerned about the municipalities ability to manage their budget, beyond

what the state Government needed to do to balance it's budget. This seems to have been lost in the argument. The state was going to be keeping a lot of the funds they had been supplying downstream. Walker was concerned he was taking funds from them and leaving them no flexibility to negotiate their own situation.

People don't get this point.

[cecilfirefox]

4. Right, but couldn't they have just capped raises with inflation? Why bust the unions? :/ nt

[Hannah Bell]

5. you have no point. walker came to office with the budget 99.7 balanced.

first thing he did was hand out billionaire tax breaks to unbalance it.

wingers are liars.

[dkf]

6. He plans to help balance the budget by taking funds from the municipalities.

Just like the state of Hawaii wants to take the hotel room tax away from the counties and they want to take the extra 0.5% excise tax we raised for our planned rail project away from the city and later float bonds to pay it back. This will leave our city services in bind.

It is completely understandable to me that this is what they will do in Wisconsin.

http://www.jsonline.mobi/news/statepolitics/109998884.html?ua=iphone&dc=smart&c=y

Wisconsin’s budget troubles may worsen
By Jason Stein of the Journal Sentinel
Nov. 22, 2010 | (157) Comments
Madison — Already reeling from a projected deficit in its next budget starting in July, the state faces an even more immediate challenge - rising costs in several programs that could set up a shortfall for the current year ending in June, budget documents show.

That possible shortfall was not included in budget estimates released Friday but could easily top $100 million without action from either outgoing Gov. Jim Doyle or Governor-elect Scott Walker after he takes office January.

Any immediate shortfall would be in addition to the up to $3.3 billion deficit already projected for the 2011-'13 state budget. Plus, it could trigger a legal requirement for a budget repair bill early on in the Walker administration - a major potential distraction to the incoming Republican governor who must already deal with high unemployment and the next two-year budget.

A report released Friday by the Doyle administration showed the projected deficit for the 2011-'13 budget could rise as high as $3.3 billion. That amounts to up to 11% of the overall $29.23 billion being requested by state agencies for the two-year budget. To put it another way, the shortfall would be enough to pay the state's share of running the University of Wisconsin System and the Wisconsin Technical College System for two years and still have money to spare.