It's amazing how stupid some adults think kids are.
No, we're not talking about Charlie Sheen. For all the "news" he's made lately, he seems to be a surprisingly good father in some ways. At least when he put his kids in their car seats he didn't lie to them, and tell them he'd see them tomorrow.
Political hacks attacking workers and unions, however, don't seem to be as bright, or have as high an ethical standard as Charlie Sheen.
While continuing to lie to Wisconsinites and other Americans about what his real goal is in Wisconsin, Gov. Walker this week released his state budget for 2012 which contained $834 million worth of cuts to his state's public schools. Walker continues to claim that he's doing what both Wisconsinites and Americans want. However, the overwhelming facts - including the latest poll from the Wall Street Journal - say Americans strongly oppose attacks on unionized workers, meaning Walker's words are just more lies.
His state's GOP-led Senate also quite obviously doesn't seem to care about the desire of the people to find an effective compromise. A GOP-ONLY group of Senate Republicans passed a resolution in the Wisconsin state senate Wednesday that will now fine the senate Democratic lawmakers $100 for every day they miss in the legislature after the first two absences.
Ohio's GOP-led state Senate didn't do much better, passing a bill Wednesday that would gut the collective bargaining rights of public workers, and attempts to strip away their right to strike - a right we've already noted in previous commentaries that has been upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in other states.
It isn't that we lack concern for the budget problems of the states or that we have no empathy for states, legislators, and governors who face massive budget deficits created during the last decade. We simply have no patience for those arrogant imbeciles who seem to think that if they wield a bigger ideological hammer, they can still force a square peg into a round hole of a smaller size.
We've quoted Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes on this issue previously: "Taxes are the price we pay for a civilized society." And so they are.
Nowhere, in any legally binding document in this country, does it say that businesses and the wealthy are exempted from paying taxes which would keep roving bands of homeless people from killing said business owners. On the contrary, taxes are levied, as Justice Holmes noted, to keep things running that maintain a civil society.
There are those that believe the wealthy should pay more in taxes - including us. We have also said, however, that before more taxes are imposed, states - like Wisconsin - should be FAR more responsible in collecting the taxes they say they already impose, but really don't.
We're not against the idea of budget cutting, and we've made that clear in the past. We've also made it crystal clear that we think ideas that unions and workers have continued to support - like being willing to contribute more to their pension funds - aren't necessarily bad.
The idea that is truly bad is the one that insane conservatives are continuing to chase - that the budget problems of America's states and cities can be solved exclusively by cutting spending far beyond the point of sensibility, while continuing to drive tax levels below what they were 20, 30, 40 or more years ago.
They are robbing from the futures of our children and lying about it the whole time. From our perspective, they are doing so unwisely. Some day those children will be adults and vote - and will be taking care of the parents and grandparents who robbed them blind, and then lied and cried about it.
