Originally, more than a week ago, it was unclear exactly what was going on in Wisconsin. A new Republican governor, a tea party candidate, was trying to extract concessions from a union. No surprises here. Everyone assumed that Wisconsin, like all other states, was in financial peril. Nothing could be further from the truth. As a matter fact, Wisconsin’s budget was just fine before the governor started giving away tax cuts to businesses. Let’s be clear, business tax cuts do not stimulate the local economy. Business tax cuts make business leaders happy. States hope that happy business leaders will expand their businesses within the state and hire more employees. Past experience has shown us that this is not necessarily the case.

I’ve edited a couple of Rachel Maddow shows to hone down to the crux of the problem. The problem is that unions support Democratic candidates. That’s the problem. If you’re able to break the union, you’re able to break the funding mechanism of Democratic candidates. This is what the crisis/showdown in Wisconsin is all about. Watch the video:

One of the talking points that the right-wing has used during this crisis in Wisconsin was that the union workers were paying almost nothing into their pensions and paying almost nothing for healthcare. That was their argument. They didn’t go the extra step and find out that union workers in Wisconsin get paid less. It would be completely different if union workers in Wisconsin got paid at the same rate as nonunion workers. This would make their total compensation much higher than their private-sector colleagues. Reality tells us that the union workers are receiving less in salary and less in total compensation. So this government giveaway that Republicans are pushing is a crock.