The High Cost of Nothing

Here is today's riddle with what seems like the answer: What cost $200 million for nothing? The answer seems to be the Wisconsin recall election. The latest polls show governor Scott Walker of Wisconsin with a 4-5% lead over Tom Barrett, the Democrat chosen to try to unseat him. The election is in less than three weeks, and the electorate seems to have made up its mind; there are exceedingly few undecided voters. If, as now seems likely, Walker survives the recall, it will be an enormous defeat for the public employee unions and the Democrats in Wisconsin.

The recall movement was born after Walker and the Republican state legislature passed a budget bill that forced public employees in Wisconsin to pay for part of their own health insurance and also modified the nature of their pension plans so that again the employees had to contribute part of the cost. The Walker plan basically made the public employees pay about half as much for these two benefits as an employee in the private sector. In order to prevent the change and the resulting savings from being given back by compliant local governments, the law also removed health insurance and pension rights from collective bargaining in Wisconsin.

When the law was under consideration, the Democrats in the legislature actually ran away and hid in another state in order to deprive the legislature of a quorum so that the bill could not pass. It also set off enormous demonstrations of union anger in Madison. Weeks and months passed, but Walker and the GOP did not back down. Eventually they found a way to get the measure passed.

There have been two main effects of the passage of the Wisconsin measure. First, budget gaps for localities all across Wisconsin have been eliminated. Taxes were not raised. Even the state budget has been balanced with no new taxes. In a few areas, property taxes actually declined. The second effect was the birth of a movement to recall the governor. It has run with enormous funding from the unions as well as from Democrats and their supporters around the country. One show on MSNBC has been promoting the recall movement often -- at least weekly -- for the last year. The total spent on the entire recall effort has been estimated at $200 million.

If the Democrats lose this election in Wisconsin, it is hard to imagine what they will do next.