Important social science lesson

I think the past week or so has definitely served as an important lesson: the importance of voting.

Did you cast your vote last fall? I have hopes that you did, but I am also a bit pessimistic.

This mostly has to do with past conversations I've had with a few college students. Some voted, but most didn ' t. And the ones who didn ' t made sure to give me an excuse.

"Too much homework." "Rehearsals." "I'm not registered in Milwaukee County."

Call me harsh, but none of those "good enough" seemed to miss an opportunity to participate in local politics.

I voted. I was actually off from work, so I really didn '' t have an excuse not to. Even if I wasn ' t off from work, I still would have made sure to set aside time to vote. This is what the responsible, informed and active citizens do.

When I ventured to my polling place last fall, I even made sure to take my 1-year-old son with me. My hope is that they will see me being an active citizen and one day will do the same when he is old enough to cast a ballot.

Thinking about non-voters, I'm curious how many of the people at the Capitol demonstrations actually voted in last fall's elections. I'm sure a lot of them did, but because of my pessimism, I highly doubt all of them did.

If they did vote, I can understand their fury. (Full disclosure: I'm a state employee.)

But if there are people in Madison who were registered but didn't vote, they should be furious with themselves. Last fall was their chance to cast a vote and say, "well, Mr. Walker. I don ' t want you to raise my health care contributions to national levels until my salary can compete with the national levels. "

Or they could have voted and said, "Yes, Mr. Walker. Let's stick it to all the unions! Well ... not all of them. "

Tallying up the number of registered voters in Wisconsin in 2010, and subtracting the amount of people who voted for a gubernatorial candidate leaves over 1 million voters.

Over 1 million people did something other than cast a ballot.

I'm curious what was so important that so many people the room away from the polls. Was this, when "American Idol" was holding auditions? Or was this the day when the happy-hour specials were too good to turn down? Or did the good ol ' forgetfulness just set in?

Whatever the excuse, I do hope those registered non-voters have learned an important lesson. All elections matter, and this is why one should make sure to vote.

The coming weeks ' important lesson: protesting.

Some might think it is antiquated, but based on what I saw during the past week, I'm a bit more optimistic.

About Walker truth is nefarious outside Agitators

. Gov.Jo: Scott Walker needs to cough up a minimum of $ 462,346 as a matter of principle and consistency.

Here's why.

Walker told "Fox and Friends" recently: "But, I've also pointed out, at least for those from Wisconsin-there's a lot others coming in from D.C. and elsewhere. But at least those coming from Wisconsin, they have the right to have their voices heard. "

This is what they said after President Barack Obama weighed in on the Madison showdown and it became clear that unions and Democrats nationally were energized: "We're not going to be intimidated by people coming in from outside of Wisconsin trying to tell us what to do to balance our budget."

And in his "fireside chat" on Tuesday evening: "I head on, however, that this civility will continue as people pour into our state from all across America."

So, in the Walker world, there is apparently no interstate guarantee for freedom of speech. Do all that free speaking and associating freely in your own darn state, thank you. You can't be trusted to be civil in our state.

The president of The United States? Apparently Walker doesn't realize that Obama is president of the residents of all the states, otherwise they would be POTUSEW-President of the United States, excluding Wisconsin.

And the union folks nationally and other Democrats motivated by Walker's move is in the public employees ' t apparently aren't supposed to have opinions what might just become a new chapter in the national GOP playbook for the fat-cat public employees who are also Obamacare-loving socialists, repeating "Obamacare" as many times as possible.

Which brings us to principle and consistency. An alert reader brought the possibility of inconsistency to my attention. I was skeptical that Walker, who liked smoking restrictions for Milwaukee County employees but is willing to repeal the ban statewide, might be inconsistent. I thanked her anyway.

The Wisconsin Democracy Campaign says gubernatorial candidate Walker received at least $ 462,346 in individual campaign donations from the out-of-state agitators-er,-since January 2009 contributors. He needs to give that money back, lest these out-of-state buttinskies think they ' ve got his ear.

This is especially true of money from outside political action committees, not included in this figure of $ 462,346.

OK, I'm having a little fun with a predictable gambit when throngs, made up mostly of people he's supposed to represent, to show up. Suggest broadly that outside agitators are at work. Look, there's Jesse Jackson!

Yes, there are those agitators at work-collective bargaining assaulting. That would be the governor, among others.

No doubt, the unions would have been stirred had the governor simply tried to drive a hard bargain has benefits. But they went after collective bargaining as a whole. "Pants on fire" is how the Journal Sentinel's PolitiFact judged the governor's claim that "collective bargaining is fully intact," under his proposal.

Speaking of consistency. It's a matter of legislative gospel-presumably even subscribed to by a former state representative from Lynnfield named Walker that policy doesn't belong in budget bills.

Gutting collective bargaining is a policy measure, the unions are conceding is eliminating benefits if Walker takes off the bargaining table. Walker is pursuing the policy issue of collective bargaining in the budget repair bill anyway.

Governors of both parties have been guilty of putting policy in budget bills. They argue that their non-policy policy issue has fiscal impact. But, of course, virtually every piece of legislation costs something.

There is one matter is which Walker has been consistent, however. In 2002, then-Rep. Scott Walker offered an amendment that would give the Milwaukee Deputy Sheriff's Association, which endorsed him-issue-by-issue arbitration rights such as now enjoyed by the Milwaukee Police Officers Association. The measure was naturalism defeated.

The City of Milwaukee is asking be .gov Walker to rescind issue-by-issue arbitration for city cops. Others unions have their contracts arbitrated as complete packages.

If the governor really wants to show he is not favoring police and firefighters for purely political advantage, they would either lift the exemption for them or give the city what it wants to be is issue-by-issue arbitration.

I'll be surprised if he does. If there has been one other thing which he has been consistent, it's that political advantage for Scott Walker comes first.

A small step. honey, all it takes

From Madison, Wisconsin and beyond, a daily dose of political news and glimpses of behind the scenes

. Gov.Jo: Scott Walker sat down Tuesday night for a heart-to-heart talk with the people of Wisconsin, and they gave it to them straight: We're in a real fix. We have a big budget hole to fill.

The Democrats responded that Walker is assaulting a basic right to collective bargaining.

Boiled down, here's what we heard: No one is budging.

We ' re right. "You're wrong.

Enough.

There is still room for compromise.

Walker is right to take collective bargaining and has a budget busting benefits. The Democrats are right that the unions have conceded is one of the benefits and that parts of Walker's budget repair bill unfairly target collective bargaining for public employees.

The state faces a fiscal emergency-a $ 137 million deficit for the rest of this fiscal year; a $ 3.6 billion hole over the next two years. Faced with similar deficits, past governors have patched over the holes. Wisely, the Walker is vowing to fill them.

"Some have questioned why we have to reform collective bargaining to balance the budget," Walker said in his televised speech. "The answer is simple. The system is broken: It costs taxpayers serious money-for particularly at the local level. "

The deal they offered the public workers for pensions and health insurance is a good one. In addition to asking workers to pay a greater share of the state should limit bargaining in some respects. Where Walker overreached is trying to push through changes in state law that would make it nearly impossible to bargain.

But here's the thing: Both sides seem to view compromise as a weakness.

Republicans want to pass Walker's proposals intact.

Those 14 Senate Democrats say missing they want a compromise but aren't ' willing to return to hammer one out-even though there's a lot at stake.

"The missing Senate Democrats must know that their failure to come to work will lead to dire consequences very soon," Walker said. He's right.

But life is good in Illinois. Senate Democrats have raked in more than $ in donations in the campaign is a recent days, and Jon Erpenbach of Middleton is the cable television lately is almost as much as Rachel Maddow.

Besides that, since this mess began, some of the rhetoric hasn ' t lent itself to compromise. We're talking to you, the Lena Taylor. Playing the Hitler card is Walker? A fact-check by PolitiFact showed how outrageous your comments were.

Walker was re-elected to make changes in how Wisconsin does business. But he has to be fair. As David Brooks argues, the Walker should ask for shared sacrifice. So far, what we've seen is sacrifice demanded from one set of workers-justifiably-but an exemption for a large swath of others. That would be most public safety workers.

Democracy can be messy. That doesn't mean it has to be this messy. Governor, Democrats, clean it up. It takes a first step.