From Think Progress: http://thinkprogress.org/2011/02/18/business-teaparty-wisconsin/
By Lee Fang
Feb 18th, 2011
Wisconsin’s newly elected Republican Gov. Scott Walker is facing a growing backlash over his attempt to cut pay and eliminate collective bargaining rights for public employees in his state. Although Walker is claiming his power grab is an attempt to close a budget gap, the budget “crisis” was engineered by Walker as soon as he got into office. As Brian Beutler reported, half of the budget shortfall comes from Walker’s own tax cuts for businesses and other business giveaways enacted in January.
A number of the big business interests standing with Walker are beneficiaries of his administration’s tax giveaways. But the greatest ally to Walker is the dirty energy company Koch Industries. In response to the growing protests in Madison, Koch fronts are busing in Tea Party protesters to support Walker and his union-busting campaign. Last night, MSNBC’s Ed Schultz reported on the involvement of Club for Growth and the Koch-financed Americans for Prosperity in the pro-Walker protest scheduled tomorrow. Watch it:
Koch Industries is a major player in Wisconsin: Koch owns a coal company subsidiary with facilities in Green Bay, Manitowoc, Ashland and Sheboygan; six timber plants throughout the state; and a large network of pipelines in Wisconsin. While Koch controls much of the infrastructure in the state, they have laid off workers to boost profits. At a time when Koch Industries owners David and Charles Koch awarded themselves an extra $11 billion of income from the company, Koch slashed jobs at their Green Bay plant:
Continue reading at: http://thinkprogress.org/2011/02/18/business-teaparty-wisconsin/
February 19, 2011 at 9:14 pm
I care about Wisconsin, too, Suzan. There are a lot of interesting links here everyday to stuff that isn’t all that accessible. I probably would have stopped visiting this site a while ago if you weren’t such a good source for news.
February 20, 2011 at 12:59 am
I’m glad because we live in a world beyond the on line “Transworld” where everything happens to us because we have some sort or other of a relationship with a trans prefixed word.