Texas too has had its own Wisconsin-Scott Walker drama. Do you remember the last session of the Texas Legislature? The Texas affiliates of the big public employee unions rallied many times at the Capitol. They spewed forth propaganda daily through allies in the press and, sadly convinced many Texans of their made-up, bull-hockey.
Fortunately Texas is a place of general personal Liberty and isn’t overrun with union communist, oops, I mean collective, bargaining. But Texas does have all the same unions for government employees you’ve seen at work attempting to destroy Wisconsin and other states. In Texas the unions are mostly called “associations” such as the Texas State Teachers’ Association.
These groups told you that the last Legislature’s budget cuts, which were made to have the constitutionally mandated balanced budget, would devastate Texas. Are we devastated yet? We’ve only got the lowest unemployment rate of any large state with positive economic growth in the private sector. I guess to these unions that must be what devastation is.
The Texas unions told you that budget cuts would lead to 100,000 teachers laid off. After all was said and done fewer than ten percent of that number were let go and within months a huge part of that number were hired back by the supposedly broke school districts.
The conservative caucus in the Texas House and Senate, along with Governor Perry deserve the same accolades as Wisconsin’s Scott Walker. They stood strong and did what was right. The unions didn’t forget and their allies funded quite a few primary challenges but, in the end, responsible conservatives have come out on top.
