Governor Scott Walker is an effective, effervescent reformer, one which the Republican Party should support and champion as much as possible for the next two election cycles.
His remarks regarding a pathway to citizenship for illegal immigrants are pragmatic, but for the sake of politics and propriety, Walker must recommend, as should all Americans, that the United States permit state government to defund tax-supported subsidies, as well as authorize public schools and medical facilities to require proof of citizenship before anyone can request their services.
Regarding Walker’s budget-repair reforms, they deserve greater attention than his views on immigration.
While Rhode Island and California face bankruptcy because of overzealous public sector unions and their overgenerous pensions and benefits, states like Wisconsin have not only enacted long-term solutions to their deep budgetary problems, but have also enfeebled one of the most entrenched and frustrating interests groups in state-level politics: the political arm of public sector unions, which would buy campaigns for accommodating candidates, who in turn supported lavish benefits, kickbacks, and broadened autonomy for the unions, all on the taxpayers’ dime. Well-informed and well-invested Wisconsin voters rejected the sclerotic, incestuous relationship benefited the few and well-connected at the expense of everyone else. Now that unions must request membership every year, more public workers are opting out of the dubious and unreliable representation which in the past they were forced to accept.
Congratulations once again to Walker, his party leaders, his legislative colleagues, and Wisconsin voters who elected him twice in two years.