the committee will come to order before i begin and i dont think that i have to remind the audience broadly but i will decorum will be maintained here so that our two witnesses both seated governors are heard without any unreasonable interruption if you agree with them smile if you disagree with them smile the fact is that this is about america hearing from two governors who have a high responsibility to serve their states and we have a high responsibility to hear them the chair cannot allow any disruptions and i appreciate that all those who came to get a message out did so before the gavel and i appreciate that if you would like to remain you can remain for the entire hearing we are open to the public but if there is any disruption your seats will go to the people waiting outside who also would like to be  the oversight committee mission statement is that we exist to secure two fundamental principles first americans have a right to know that the money washington takes from them is well spent and second americans solemn responsibility is to hold government accountable to taxpayers because taxpayers have a right to know what they get from their government we will work tirelessly in partnership with citizen watchdogs to the committees effort to examine crises brought on by out of control spending and mounting debt at the state level now let me assure you that is not to say every state is out of control but virtually every state in the union and many localities have increased their debt load at a time in which debt service is at an all time low the american people are well aware of the fiscal crisis washington faces on a national they are ready for congress to cut spending and even president obama has lauded recent spending cuts championed by the house republicans what is less known is the severe fiscal problem that some of our irresponsible spending i thank chairman mchenry for his efforts the facts we have learned from the subcommittee are telling currently states face a combined budget shortfall of roughly one hundred and twelve  billion for fiscal year two thousand and twelve an amount equal to approximately one fifth of their budgets that if nothing is done will pile on more debt for the future the evidence why this has occurred is clear since one thousand nine hundred and ninety state and local government spending has increased seventy percent faster than inflation when the recession hit state and local tax revenues simply no longer sustained that growth looming just around the corner unfunded or underfunded pension liabilities pose a daunting threat to state municipal budgets this burdens taxpayers with an estimated three dollars trillion in debt i say estimated because nobody knows the full exposure the taxpayers have due to the fact that the bond markets are not transparent and the reporting rules do not force adequate disclosure over the past twenty years state and local governments have promised to government workers that they knew they could not keep in some cases hoping that future wealth would continue to propel them today we have two governors with us and we are pleased to welcome wisconsin governor scott walker and vermont governor peter shumlin they come from two very different states one larger one smaller one in the midst of a tough downturn that may in fact continue for a very long time as many of the core industries that have created wealth begin to change and that transition may be long and painful vermont on the other hand a wonderful state filled with a great deal of industry that may be facing challenges today but are likely to be slightly less systemic than what wisconsin faces this doesnt change the fact that both governors are dealing with the issues of shortfalls in their own way and today we look forward to hearing how they are going to retain the viability of their state long after their terms have ended unionized federal workers dont even have collective bargaining rights governor walkers bold reforms seem reasonable to those of us in washington who understand that our retirement and health care system at the federal level is not subject to collective bargaining but in fact it is based on a single system uniform throughout the federal workforce and not debatable as to withholding or as to the benefits that is not to say that federal workers dont have a good program they do but their program has been based on a long list of requests considered by congress and funded so as we deal with federal issues hopefully we deal with state issues who in many cases have less room to maneuver are looking for more room to maneuver and believe that they can achieve it through changes in their laws lastly the insolvency of portugal italy ireland greece and spain most often called the pigs tells us that states within a greater union can in fact be a challenge for the union the independent countries of europe that belong to the european union are more loosely configured than our own states that means that if we have insolvency in three four five of our states we have a greater challenge to our common nation than does the european union and yet the european union has been constantly trying to figure out ways to maintain these states within the european union help them bail themselves out and in fact insist that they change policies that have gotten  problem we are not here today to intervene in the sovereign states that are before us we are here to understand what they are doing in self help with that i recognize the ranking member for his opening statement mister cummings thank you very much mister chairman  and eliminate the budget shortfalls caused by the most severe financial crisis since the great depression many states have been forced to make significant cuts in their budgets trimming critical programs that help our nation veterans assist the developmentally disabled supply health care services to the poor and provide nursing home services to our seniors these are difficult decisions and i have great respect for our governors who are able to work with governmental and nongovernmental entities to develop innovative ways to preserve as many services as possible for their citizens while making fiscally responsible choices however i strongly oppose  falsely blame middle class american workers for these current economic problems we know better than anybody else in this committee why those problems came about this recession was not caused by them working america firefighters teachers and nurses and so many others who are in the words of theologian swindell so often unseen unnoticed unappreciated and unapplauded are not responsible  wall street which led to this crisis in the first place i also strongly object to efforts by politicians who try to use the current economic downturn to strip american workers of their rights  chairman we are a country who has consistently increased rights not taken them away as a matter of fact if it were not for that principle i would not be sitting here today and the women in this congress would not be sitting here today the right to negotiate working conditions that are safe the right to negotiate due process protections against being fired arbitrarily and the right to negotiate fair pay for an honest days work todays hearing is a study in contrast we are very fortunate to have with us two state governors governor shumlin from vermont and governor walker from wisconsin and we are glad to have them both face budget shortfalls this year but they approached the rights of workers  drastically different ways governor shumlin of vermont faced a budget shortfall ladies and gentlemen of about one hundred and seventy six dollars million for fiscal year two thousand and twelve he negotiated with state employees who accepted a two year three percent pay cut vermont teachers also agreed to work three additional years before retiring and to contribute more towards their pensions and the vermont state employees association voted to increase their pension contribution by one point three percent over the next five years in addition to obtaining these concessions governor shumlin also did something else he proposed spreading additional cuts across various state agencies as well as raising additional revenue through select surcharges and assessments in other words he developed a plan to spread out and share sacrifices across the state and we should note that those employees went along with it because they to wanted to strengthen their own states fiscal situation governor walker took a very different approach in wisconsin he faced a projected shortfall of one hundred and thirty seven dollars million in the current fiscal year within days of the governors announcing a budget proposal to address this shortfall labor leaders in wisconsin agreed to accept all of his financial demands they agreed to increase their pension contributions more than twentyfold and they agreed to double their share of the health insurance premiums but governor walker did not accept these concessions instead he went much further by attempting to strip government employees of their collective bargaining rights he demanded numerous provisions that had nothing to do with the states budget and had no fiscal impact for example he wanted to require unions to hold annual votes to continue representing their members and he wanted to prevent employees from paying union dues through their paychecks governor walker refused to meet with union leaders and he declared publicly that he would not  iate with them one of the big questions we will have of governor walker today is why did he not say yes to the unions when they agreed to meet all of his financial demands and on a broader level what is motivating this extreme effort to dismantle the unions themselves in my opinion it is shameful to play politics with american workers and their families these are real people middle class americans who are trying to put food on their table for their family keep a roof over their heads educate their children and plan for retirement that does not burden their loved ones we should be helping these workers not attacking them because they are the engine and the author of the american recovery  months congressman quigley who is the ranking member of my subcommittee we have held hearings on state budgets and pensions and their impact on the municipal bond market two essential questions immediately stood out first what is the true debt burden facing our states  municipalities and second what must be done to mitigate the immediate crisis and put all forms of government back on a solvent fiscal trajectory after holding hearings with scholars state senators rating agencies and other parties about state now projecting aggregate budget shortfalls totaling one hundred and twelve dollars billion for this year along and it only gets worse from here on out if that wasnt enough there are unfunded pension liabilities upwards my colleagues on the other side of the aisle will use the words like extreme tax increases and use those words repeatedly to describe what is either happening in terms of cuts or what is necessary to get out of this situation we are not facing a revenue problem it is a spending problem but as always the numbers dont lie since one thousand nine hundred and ninety state and local governments have increased spending by roughly seventy percent faster than inflation in addition to this unchecked  the looming burden of paying out trillions of dollars in lucrative public pensions and health care benefits leaves state and local governments in dire straits i have stated before that there will be severe consequences if we are dishonest about the fiscal obligations before us and refuse to change course the cost of inaction will be borne by the young teachers who are told that their cash strapped school districts can no longer afford their retirement benefits because it must finance the exorbitant benefits of others many public servants like firefighters and policemen faced with the possibility that their vital jobs that they hold will no longer provide a standard of living for their families will simply choose another career in the end the people that we count on to teach our children and to protect our homes and our families will realize that their government has failed them and actively hurt their retirement security we have an opportunity to change that numerous states have seen the writing on the wall and decided to take action in recent years at least fifteen states passed legislation reform some aspect of their pension system for example governor mitch daniels of indiana successfully reformed collective bargaining leading to more efficient and effective government governor walker has boldly set out to push through similar initiatives in wisconsin we have seen this in the national news even in the face of extremely heated political attacks governor walker has shown that he understands and has a genuine commitment to reform and to prevent this fiscal calamity the governors proposals were recently welcomed by the bond market and moodys said th governor walkers plan will have a positive effect on the credit rating of his state in the end that will mean less cost and less expense to his taxpayers in order to get lending change is never easy but if we wish to ensure an honest retirement for those teach our children or protect our families and leave the next generation a country as economically vibrant as the one that we inherited we must be serious about the problems we it is our responsibility to be fair to our current retirees and honor our commitment to them while at the same time not punishing the next generation of america for todays free spending ways it is only possible if we take the necessary steps before it is too late it is not too late we still have the opportunity for change and that is what this discussion here today is about more over in light of the hearings that we have had and the discussion we will hear today i think it is important that taxpayers and the market generally have the transparency necessary to understand the fiscal situation states are in taxpayers and municipal debt i would like to thank the chairman of the subcommittee for his efforts in those first two committee meetings i would also like to thank our six witnesses for contributing their time and expertise today let me begin by saying in the end i do think we have a revenue problem and the revenue problem at the local level was because of the economic downturn it shrunk local governments revenue dramatically cities and states alike so it was a revenue problem now that doesnt mean that you  should raise taxes because i understand where you are coming from but raising taxes during a recession is a bad idea but we have to recognize that in the end this was in large part a revenue problem  so having addressed that the other things we will learn in these hearings is that many states had these big challenges and you dont have to tell me i come from illinois illinois failed to heed the old testament story that advised that one should save during the seven good years to survive during the seven lean years while illinoiss current administration didnt dig the hole that it got it has to move forward on substantive fiscal reform illinois and other states in similar situations owe it to their taxpayers to fix their budget like illinois new jersey and california dont get serious about reform they will never be able to keep the basic promises they have made reform should be emphasizing reinventing streamlining government and adapting to changing times but reform should not demonize public sector workers who have dedicated their careers to government service while states have the right to make their own policy i strongly support collective bargaining rights for public sector workers but recognize that we have to work together collectively to solve these problems collective bargaining rights didnt cause the recession and curtailing them wont fix state budget deficits what will fix state budget deficits are common sense reforms that restore budgets through a sustainable path consider public sector collective bargaining facts and figures a simple calculation shoes that states that allow public sector collective bargaining have an average projected two thousand and twelve deficit of fourteen percent relative to their budget fourteen percent is big but states that forbid public sector collective bargaining have projected deficits at sixteen point five percent either way you spin it ending collective bargaining rights wont reduce budget deficits workers have to play a realities it is obvious we have to reduce deficits and long term debt but we shouldnt take advantage of the economic downturn to achieve longstanding ideological goals public sector should continue to have collective bargaining rights and we need to work together to achieve responsible reform soon i will be releasing part two of a series of reports on reinventing our federal budget this reform will recommend over a trillion dollars in savings over the next ten years this report builds on part one i released in november but also on a series of reports i released as a cook county commissioner i bring this up because i remember how frustrating it was to try to achieve substantive reform at the local level the truth is these same frustrations are present here in washington but we cant let those frustrations get the better of us states like illinois need fiscal reform we need to streamline consolidate and reinvent government not because it is unimportant but because its mission is so important it is where the wheels hit the street and if we can remember the true heroes of were civil service workers that is why we should restore these local governments to sustainability rather than tear them down thank you mister chairman and i pleasure and honor today to introduce my friend and constituent governor scott walker i first got acquainted with scott about twenty years ago when he was starting to get active in republican politics he was elected seventeen years ago to the state assembly and in two thousand and two he won a recall election for chief executive or county executive of milwaukee county he was re elected to two full terms as a republican in one of the most democratic counties in the country and his political success has been based upon the fact that he tells people where he stands and once elected implements  that he faced some very tough times in milwaukee county as a result of an outrageous pension scandal that his predecessor was at the heart of he was able to pass nine county budgets or proposed nine county budgets without a tax increase and this background allowed him to be elected as the th governor of wisconsin last fall very few people here i think knew who scott walker was until the last two months or so however those of us who have known scott walker and his commitment to principle were really not surprised that the proposals that he made to close not one hundred and thirty seven  million budget deficit but a three dollars sixty cents billion budget deficit through the end of the next budget period so again i am sure that you will find governor walker as interesting as we in wisconsin have has been on the front line of creating jobs of having to pay good wages and good benefits and deal with the practical realities of keeping a business going day in and day out expanding it growing it and being an  employer he also served in our citizen legislature in vermont for many years first in the house of representatives and then for several terms in the state senate and peter as the president pro tem of the state senate that is our senate served more years as senate president than any other vermonter in history and that is ten years so he comes to his job with legislative experience with private sector experience with the obligation to pay bills and make the trains run on time he is now serving as governor of vermont after being elected in this past election just to give you a sense of how vermont operates he won a primary with four other democrats and there were a recount because his original margin of victory was about two hundred votes during the recount peter and the four other candidates rented a van and while we were awaiting the outcome of who won went on a unity tour around the state of vermont talking together rather than fighting each other during the recount every single member of five excellent candidates all said we trust our town clerks just let them do the count and we will accept the result he also comes to the job with the benefit of the tremendous history that we in vermont are proud of a bipartisan tradition  embraces really two things number one we fight hard in vermont republicans and democrats just like we do here but in vermont democrats think that republicans usually have a merit to their argument and republicans think democrats have something to say and we actually do our best to listen to each other because both sides have enough humility to appreciate that in fact there is truth on both sides and we have to come together for the good of th state just a little bit of background we had a governor snelling richard snelling very respected and revered we had a downturn in the s he did something with the democratic speaker of the house to try to adjust the fiscal situation because we pay our bills in vermont we dont have a balance budget amendment but we are cheap and we pay our bills we are frugal the democrats agreed to cut programs that were really important to them the governor agreed to a temporary surtax because we needed some revenues it worked out we came into balance the taxes went down and we were able to support our programs we then had governor dean in good times he cut taxes he is a democrat and when he did that  implemented some tough budget reforms to make sure we didnt spend just because we had a surplus we sent money back to the taxpayer and we put into place budget controls peter shumlin is carrying on that tradition when we got into a fiscal situation governor douglas his predecessor republican worked with the unions and said hey we have to share the sacrifice here they negotiated pay cuts they started looking at benefits they sat down at the table and worked it out and there was a sense of common purpose shared sacrifice and that is the second approach that has been embodied in vermont if there is pain that has to be sustained we have to share that pain together and what it has done is helped us make progress even in tough times peter just to give you an idea as senate president when we had a large democratic majority he did something that you would get mentally tested around here if you did it he appointed republicans to gentlemen we have congressmen who come before us senators who come before us and governors come before us governors are always the best witnesses they understand that the five minutes allows for the q and a that in fact you entire testimony will be placed in the record to help you with this you will see the typical green yellow and red lights as my predecessor on the committee said in all fifty states we know what red means well we got to know each other a little bit after the elections with the new training for new governors it is an honor to be here today as was mentioned by several in the testimony we are not alone in wisconsin there are forty four different states and the district of columbia that are facing  deficit now governors across the country democrat and republican alike are facing that challenge in many cases proposals that we have seen from one end of the country to the other governors cutting in many cases they are cutting billions of dollars from aid to local government school districts and others and in turn what it is forcing in many of those states is one of two things either massive layoffs or massive property tax increases and in many cases sadly some of both in wisconsin we have a different option a progressive in the best sense of the word progressive option for us we are giving state and local governments the tools they need not just to balance this year or for the next two years but for generations to come and that is important now some here and other places around the country may say that is a b political move but i would argue it is a very modest request what we are asking from government employees like myself is a five point eight percent contribution for our pension and a twelve six percent contribution for health care that protecting the middle class that protects middle class jobs and middle class taxpayers and if you ask middle class workers in my state they will tell you they think what we are offering is pretty reasonable i will give you a good example i dont have to go too far for that my brother david  works as a banquet manager part time as a bartender his wife works for a department store they have two beautiful kids one just turned four the other day they are a typical middle class family when this debate first started he said to me you know i pay some eight hundred dollars a month for my health insurance premiums and the little bit i can set aside for my k i would love to have a deal i would love to have a deal like what you are offering i hear that all across my state when i go to plants and factories and small businesses and farms they say we would love to have a deal like that because on average our middle class taxpayers are paying about twenty percent of their health insurance premiums in fact you all know this with federal employees federal employees pay on average twenty eight percent of their health insurance premiums as the chairman alluded to federal employees for the most part do not have collective bargaining rights for benefits and ultimately for salary makes me wonder why the protestors are in madison and columbia not right here in washington d c you have to look at the facts it is very clear out there what we are offering is more generous than what you offer federal government employees and yet the outrage is not here it is in our state capital more important though than just the fiscal impact because what we are talking about here ultimately saves one dollar seventy cents billion in state and local government spending over the next two years in our biennial budget it is not the only way we are balancing our budget but it is a piece of that the other important element to remember is this makes government work better i can think of no better example than a young woman by the name of megan sampson who a year ago was named the outstanding teacher of the year a teacher in the milwaukee public school system at the time and a week later she got a pink slip she was one of the teachers laid off why because her collective bargaining agreement required a contract that protected a system that pays more than one hundred thousand dollars  compensation total compensation per teacher with no contribution for health care and ultimately has a system based on seniority our reforms allows schools and other local governments to hire and fire based on performance and merit paying for performance so we put our best teachers and our best workers up front that ultimately is going to make things work better it worked in indiana when mitch daniels did this six years ago we have seen the government more efficient more effective more accountable to the public and ultimately great workers were rewarded in that state and continue to be rewarded  today the last thing i would just tell you is this ultimately is good for the economy and our state as well because in the end investors want to look at a state where the state and local government is stable we are showing that wisconsin is open for business and the thing i guess the most important point i would bring up t today is when you think about what we are doing we are really making a commitment to the future i have two high school sons in fact some of their classmates are here today from wauwatosa east high school our proposals are about making a commitment to the future so  our children dont face even more dire consequences than what we face today for more than two hundred years this country has been based on leadership where leaders cared more about their children and their grandchildren than they did about themselves it is time here in ranking member cummings thank you so much for this invitation today to all members of the oversight and reform committee and particular thanks to my friend and congressman peter welch who does an extraordinary job for us down here in washington thanks for that warm wel is great to be here also with governor walker as governor walker mentioned we met at the baby governors school out in colorado and i dont want to give you any ideas any of you congress people running for governor but if you do you get to go to school we had a wonderful dinner together  governor walker earlier i said if they had told us at baby governors school the message that we were taking over we might have rethought it but it was too late but we are dealing with some really tough economic times as you know and to help make governor walkers trip to washington more valuable i brought a little bit of vermont maple syrup down governor i just want to make clear that we are the number one maple producer in the country governor walker is number four and our syrup it doesnt come any better chairman issa governor how did you get that and raising incomes of those that are earning less money in vermont or on average the same money as they were earning ten years ago that is both of our challenges in our respective states and the other governors share it mister chair i just want to directly address the question of what is causing this fiscal crisis that both governor walker and i find ourselves in we know it is a result of the greatest recession in american history the result for us is declining revenues and expanding expenses as we face higher unemployment rates higher service calls and the rest costs and the rests that is the challenge now without getting into how we got here because i know that has been debated and we will save that debate for another day i simply want to talk a little bit about what our challenge is as governors to create jobs economic opportunities and balance our budgets and when i look at it i dont start with collective bargaining and i dont start with my public pensions i start with the true costs in vermont and this is true of most of the states in the country health care is my biggest rising cost i have watched health care costs in vermont double over the last end of life in a state where on average our people are making the same wages they were making ten years ago so i am going where the money is for both the state and the people of my state to grow jobs and economic opportunities we are trying to get health care costs under control the second driver believe it or not is corrections our corrections budget has doubled in the last decade other governors are facing similar challenges so we are trying to go where the money is now i just want to talk a little about our experience  state pension and retiree health care obligations for state employees because i think it really matters in this debate what we have learned in this area is that there are steps that you can take to significantly reduce the cost  taxpayers without undermining traditional defined benefit plants which most objective parties agree provide better retirement security serve to retain quality employees and are more efficient than a defined contribution plan that is what we have learned how did we get there and how did we work together to get the job done what we did and i was then president of the senate with a republican governor and a republican speaker is we brought the unions together and we understood that it was going to be an example of shared sacrifice and so did our state employees as congressman welch suggested what did we get in those discussions the lesson we learned was that we get more with maple syrup than we do with vinegar we brought them to the table we talked it out and here is the result shared sacrifice a three to five percent pay cut for all state employees depending upon your range of salary over a two year period with no step increases two we got higher retirement contributions from our state employees three we raised retirement ages what this resulted in was a twenty five percent reduction in our annual payment to pension funds and still have them fully funded so the point i am simply trying to make is you can get this job done you can balance your budget you can create jobs in your state without taking on the basic right of collective bargaining now the reason i feel so strongly about that is i asked the question who got us into this mess and how do we deal with it i can tell you from my perspective as governor we just came through the toughest winter in about twenty years lots of snow lots of ice our plow trucks were out almost every day we  truck driver who was working seven or eight different levers with a fourteen foot plow in front of that truck and a tractor trailer truck passing him on the right and some yahoo on the left i have to tell you in a full whiteout working a twelve to fourteen hour day for about fourteen bucks an hour that plow truck driver didnt get us into this mess when i go and visit schools and i see the challenges our kids are dealing with they didnt get us into this mess my public employees didnt get us here have asked them to share the sacrifice in getting us out but it doesnt mean that we take away collective bargaining which is what made the middle class in america strong and the folks that are under assault in this recession so in closing mister chair i will simply say this we have found as i mentioned that you can bring folks together around a table compromise get the job done balance your budget create jobs be fiscally responsible but you dont have to take on the basic principle of collective bargaining you dont take on your firefighters you dont take on your police officers you dont take on your teachers and you dont take on your hardworking employees you work together with them with maple syrup not vinegar it works thank you will now recognize myself for the first round of questions governor the sign behind me we dont normally point to the sign it is just the title here today but the last part where it says choice or necessity the cuts you made in cooperation with your various union groups of public workers because probably like most states eighty percent of what you spend you spend directly or indirectly on the people while we dont have a balance budget amendment as congressman welch suggested we have to balance our budgets to get the job done so we made the choices that we do in vermont because we really like our aaa bond rating rhetorical sense it certainly is necessary but we have seen in the past in my states history prior to us making these critical decisions right now for many it was a choice and the reason they failed to make the right choice is why we are here today and that includes democrats  republicans before for many many years lawmakers and governors in our state have failed to make the right choice deferred tough decisions to the future they raided segregated funds they delayed payments they used one time federal stimulus aid two years ago to balance their budget and that is along with the meltdown of the economy largely why we and other states i think are facing major budget crises chairman issa thank you governor one of the reasons we titled todays hearing that way knowing you would be here is i happen to be from california assets arent per se going up and your liabilities are going up you dont claim you are in balance and that is a problem that i have seen in many states and particularly my own governor shumlin you mentioned one thing in your opening statement that was very interesting you said a defined benefits plan is more efficient i would be interested to see what efficiency do you get by having a plan which promises something in the future that no one can be sure of actuarials try but obviously they often fail because you see these large adjustments what is efficient about that versus knowing that an amount of money is going into a fund and that amount of money will be invested fairly and in fact will be available you cant control a contractor that hires you today versus tomorrow so even though you try to be defined benefits you are a defined contribution plan because you only get in the year in which you are employed as an electrical contractor from that compan plan the point being the average return for us has been around eight point five percent and it gives us the ability to efficiently deliver a predictable defined benefit for an employee who is often working for less than you would get paid for their life have your answer i would like to get governor walker along that line why is that more efficient than knowing the amount that you give in a given year under the budget is the amount and even if you invest it and you try to make the same returns ultimately the state knows that the next year they are going to give a similar percentage and like i say the federal government has defined benefits but why is that more efficient versus perhaps making sure that you budget without these ups and downs that come when the yield doesnt occur governor walker well i think when you look at benefits be they in the public or the private sector defined contribution is ultimately more efficient that is not what i am advocating in our case just like you mentioned with the federal government just like vermont we have a define benefit as well particularly for retirement with a pension although i think it is important to note what we are asking for is not changing the benefit itself we are asking for people again myself included to pay more as a contribution for the cost of that  representative quigley talked in his opening statements about the state of illinois i think that is an important distinction in illinois earlier this year governor quinn and the legislature raised taxes on individuals and on businesses in a supposed attempt t their budget yet today they have a pension system that is half funded we went the opposite way we lowered the tax burden on job creators we made it easier to do business in the state we show that wisconsin is open for business and we have a pension system that is essentially one thing clear for the record the federal government currently for regular federal workers twenty eight percent of what goes into our health care benefits are paid for by the federal worker in the case of the post office it has historically been twenty percent but one of the major unions has renegotiated it to twenty five percent that is what is happening here centrally in washington i recognize the ranking member mister cummings thank you very much  know the thing that i think stands out here is the fact that and i say this to both governors that sometimes we may lose sight of and that is that just like the postal workers we had them before us a few days ago they were able to shed one hundred thousand employees out of seven hundred zero in three years and one of the things that they said is that they are americans too and they dont mind sacrificing and speaking of sacrificing governor walker when i listened to your testimony you made it sound as if you had made very reasonable offers to the unions but that they have been unreasonable by rejecting your offers for example you asked employees to contribute five point eight percent for pension and twelve six percent for health insurance premiums you went on to say that most workers outside of government would love our proposal you talked about your brothers and like many other workers in our state he would love a deal like the one i offered the government workers the thing that i did not hear though was that the unions agreed to double their share of the health insurance paper and i am just wondering what governor walker sure i will answer the question representative two of the statewide union leaders made a statement a week into the debate about suggesting that they thought they could accept that in the weeks that followed up until the bill was signed into law nearly every local union that settled the contract settled it without a pension or a health care contribution to me actions speak louder than words those two statewide leaders could not speak for the unions and nearly one thousand municipalities four hundred and twenty four school districts and seventy two counties they are the ones who decide at the local level and up until the bill was signed into law they were not following the actions of their leaders to me actions spoke louder than words the other key difference here is we got into this trouble and i acknowledge both parties in our state republicans and democrats drove us into this by failing to make tough decisions if we have a short term fix we just push the problem off to the future what we give our permanent long term solutions the tools that state and local governments need they can only get it if you make those sorts of changes and in terms of workplace protections wisconsin has the strongest civil service protections in the country that was passed more than a century ago those remain even with this new law in place that protects grievances that protects civil service protections in both hiring and firing decisions all those protections remain even after these changes mister cummings mister cummings well i am looking at an article from the wisconsin journals sentinel i guess that is the walker one of them mister cummings in this article democrat state senator jon erpenbach makes crystal clear that all the state and local public employees including teachers have agreed to the financial aspects of your proposal  and all they were asking for is that you not strip them of their collective bargaining rights that is not accurate governor walker again that was the statement made by the statewide leaders the actions they took after those statements though contradict those statements if they agreed to the five and the twelve you would have seen in janesville and la crosse and all the other communities that settled contracts that they would have put their money where their mouth is and actually did that that did not happen until after the bill was signed into law so i think you are right about the dropping your collective bargaining demands did you ever consider that governor walker for us to me i was a county elected official for eight years we talk about shared sacrifice because my county faced a crisis i gave over those eight years three hundred and seventy thousand dollars of my personal salary back i made a personal sacrifice just like i am going to pay for more for pension and more for health care as governor of the state of wisconsin during that time i repeatedly met with my unions and asked them to make modest changes modest changes in pension and health care contributions in fact one year i even asked them to consider a couple thirty five hour work weeks in order to avoid massive layoffs and every time the response i got from afscme was go ahead lay four or five hundred people off we dont care to me that is why when i talk about protecting the middle class i am not just talking about middle class taxpayers outside of government those middle class workers that would have been laid off are people i represent as well just like i do in the state of wisconsin if i have to choose between massive layoffs or making these sorts of reforms i would much rather stand on the side of protecting those middle class jobs and protecting middle class taxpayers because remember the vast majority of people in the middle class in my state and across the country have been paying the bill for the expansive government year after year after year and to me those are the people i am standing up to protect so you will never hear me speak an ill word throughout this entire debate no matter what others may say out there i have never said an ill word of any of the decent public servants who work the three hundred thousand decent people in my state who work for both state and local government i have great respect for them i just know that in this together we have to make changes to make sure their jobs are protected into the future  choices now when we are looking at what the government does there are services that municipalities and states render to their people as a matter of collection of up so there are tough choices between the services that the government provides and the obligations it has so governor walker can you discuss this challenge for a governor who walks into a very tough budget situation the challenge between do you continue to provide these services people expect taxpayers expect or do you continue providing a benefit for a select few  g you have a pension obligation you have health care benefits and these types of things that the people that are getting the benefit are largely not paying to receive and then you have the taxpayers who are footing the bill for that can you discuss that challenge governor walker sure again i will tell you not only as a governor for the last couple months for as a county official for eight years prior to that for us we saw the distinction we saw the challenge when under the environment before we passed this bill into law for local governments in particular we were forced with the sacrifice like i faced or the problem we faced where when we had a tough budget time and we had it long before two thousand and eight because of the pension scandal i inherited back in two thousand and two so we were dealing with this ahead of the curve even before the economic meltdown when we tried to make as i mentioned before i think some very reasonable changes when it came to what us as government employees paid for things like pension and health care even some other adjustments temporarily as part of the work week we did that for two reasons one to try and protect as many jobs as possible and two in turn because those jobs provide services to try and protect core services for the people we serve that essentially the impetus for me when i looked at the budget crisis we were facing going into the next two year cycle of three dollars sixty cents billion i knew we had to make a fundamental change if we werent going to go on the path that many other governors across the country are democrat and republican alike where they cutting billions of dollars from schools from university systems from local governments and other areas that affect all the things you mentioned and instead they are saying okay there are the cuts now you either make it up through massive layoffs or you make it up through massive property tax increases i said in my state i cant afford to have anybody either in the public or the private sector any more massive layoffs i need more people working we are changing the business climate in fact many of the issues republican and democrats alike we brought together to pass legislation that made us one of the most proactive pro job agendas in the country we had to do all that if we want to protect jobs by the same token we know one of the other things that would cut down that recovery would be a massive tax increase we saw it two years ago when my predecessor raised taxes on corporations and on individuals we receiving the pension benefit are the ones that are affected by the changes they are the only ones really affected the difference with that and public sector pensions is that we as taxpayers have to foot that bill so it is not to those taxpayers that have to foot the bill for those underfunded pensions or less than funded pensions so my question to you governor walker is do you believe that there is sufficient transparency and disclosure with public sector pensions today governor walker oh i think at both the state and local level as well there needs to be more transparency one of the things we are the most proud about this budget is not only that we balanced the three dollars sixty cents billion deficit but the fact that two years ago we had the largest structural deficit in state history in my budget i present at the beginning of march to the state legislature we reduced the structural deficit by more than two dollars billion a ninety percent reduction it is where moodys pointed out that they called it credit positive when is the last time you heard anything called credit positive related to government budget they called it credit positive because we finally took control of what we should have been doing for years and werent from both political parties that is incredibly positive but the more people know about it right now actuaries and a lot of others pay attention to pensions and retirement systems all of us should be because that is just deferring in many cases it has been about deferring the problem to the next generation we cant do that anymore mister mchenry thank you i know my time has expired but certainly those that are arguing now about public sector pensions you  that are saying these pensions are underfunded and it is bad those are the optimists those that look at the pension system and say this is a calamity are the other side of the coin no one is saying that public sector pensions are too well funded or even sufficiently funded so thank you for your governor walker well and the one thing important to remember i mentioned the illinois wisconsin distinction not only do they half fund it but you have the speaker of the general assembly a democrat a long time union ally spoke a month ago about the possibility of reducing the pension benefit itself that is what happens when you dont take these issues seriously that is not a republican or democrat issue this is someone who has been a stalwart defender of unions who is now talking about in illinois the prospect of reducing the benefit that to me would be unacceptable we made a promise to our public servants about what the retirement benefits were going to be we should protect that no matter what party we are in we just have to fix it in the way in chairman issa thank you governor we now recognize the former chairman of the full committee mister towns just around the nation feel that your focus is on helping the corporations and basically the wealthy at the expense of the middle class and the poor why would they have that would be erroneous maybe it is because they are watching some of the tv ads that groups from washington played in the state of wisconsin because what we have done in the first month first two months almost democrats voted for many of the measures we pushed through that create a better business environment in our state even the tax cuts we put in place were things like removing the state tax and health savings accounts which isnt about corporations it is about small businesses it is about family farmers it is about sole proprietorships the incentive put in for job creation were targeted specifically for jobs so it is ultimately about the workers when a job is created and there is an incentive to do that the other things we did in our legislative package were all things that were about making it easier to do business in the state of wisconsin and in our budget the things that are doing are about protecting jobs and protecting the middle class mister towns when you say make it easy what do you mean by that giving tax breaks to the big businesses governor walker no we dont give tax breaks to big business what we do is something that is targeted for small business and big alike we have a specific job tax credit that if you percent unemployment rate still too high obviously less than the national average first two months of this year we have had about thirteen thousand jobs created in the private sector about eight thousand two hundred new jobs in manufacturing and next week we will put out our new job numbers and i think we are going to be well on the right path cents billion deficit we had to balance for the next two year budget we had to do a series of things we made some other changes some other reforms so what we are talking about here today was one part of it it saves about one dollar seventy cents billion over the next two years for both state and local government but for state government the impact through the final couple months through june th which is the end of our fiscal year was a thirty dollars million savings by getting that savings we avoid having to lay off approximately one thousand five hundred state workers so we avoided layoffs that way me lay off people and to me that is just unacceptable if you are truly for the workers to me in this economy the last thing i want to do is see people laid off and this was a much much better approach mister towns governor shumlin how did you get people to have a different attitude and my point is if you want to go after collective bargaining which i believe helped build this country helped build the middle class that has been under assault in this recession just come out and say it i am going to go after collective bargaining but if you want to balance your budget you bring people in you talk to them you have a dialog i can guarantee you this what vermonters are looking for and what they expect is the same thing that they expect in wisconsin and the same thing they wish for and expect in america they want reasonableness they want compromise they want bright people working together to solve problems and when you use vinegar when you refuse to meet with unions when you dont sit down and talk with them when you take on an outright assault on a basic principle in a democratic society which is collective bargaining the thing that my grandfather when he got off the boat and others now rely on and relied on to make a decent living to come from a beet farmer to success in america the thing that built our country well that is a different debate so i think really what we are talking about because i sit and listen to governor walker talk about how he is approaching his challenges all we governors are doing the same things here folks the question is are you going to bring people together to solve problems or are you going to go after an assault on a basic principle in america which is collective bargaining i think we are trying to do two different things if you want to go after collective bargaining just come out and say hey we are taking you on but don try and blame the worst recession in american history on the need to go after public pensions i am listening to the question over here you know lets be honest about this taxpayers have always paid for a part of public pension retirement plans this isnt something new folks this started with pensions with asking public employees to give up economic opportunities that they might have if they did what i did and went into public sector and built a business and made a lot of money in exchange for getting a lower wage in exchange for less economic opportunity they get a guaranteed twenty five twenty two thousand on average retirement once they are all done now it is not new news that taxpayers pay a portion of that and that employees pay the other portion things that have served us well one is in our state constitution we have a balance budget amendment that has forced the issue to actually balance budget number two we have a defined contribution plan as opposed to a defined benefit plan and consequently our state has one of the lowest tax rates business is thriving and we have hundreds of millions of dollars in our rainy day fund now i went back and looked at the pew study on vermont and you actually are doing better than most states funded about ninety two percent  but explain to me you had made a comment to the chairman here about the predictability of the pension program and i want to talk about the health of that program because i cant imagine that a defined contribution plan is not superior to a defined benefit plan because how do you account for that governor shumlin well all i can tell you is that it served my and other states well that have used defined benefit plans and nobody is getting that kind of return right now governor shumlin if you look at the averages for state pensions across the history of defined benefit plans you will find that we get about an eight percent return on average and obviously there are good years and bad years but  us to assume that rate of return on our investments we are not sort of making this up as governors that is what wall street requires us to do it is based on history the second point that i think is really important if you are a governor you have to deal with the real world and the real world is if you were to move from a defined benefit to a defined contribution plan hypothetically it would cost you a ton of money in the first ten to fifteen years for the reason that the current employees help to support the pension obligations of the states  defined benefit plan if you pull the new ones out you immediately have a higher up front cost than you would otherwise because you have to support your existing defined benefit as you move to a defined contribution so there are a lot of reasons why we governors  not thrilled at the idea and you are hearing this from republicans and democrats this notion that if you just moved to a defined contribution all our problems are going to be solved isnt in the real world for us governors chairman issa would the gentleman yield very quickly  if you are fully funded that is not true if you are fully funded you would be able to stop putting money in the moment you make the switch because if you are fully funded your eight point five percent would pay out all your benefits so you cant have it both ways  issa well okay as long as we understand that adequately is kicking the can down the road so that studies show that if you only got the rate of return of the treasury you would run out in two thousand and twenty three with the current situation you depend on a high return travel down to wall street to try and convince them that we are running sound economic states that our bond rating depends on our economic future we manage our retirement funds based upon the expectations of wall street now vermont obviously doing that right since we have a aaa bond rating one reason is that we use the actuarial projections that wall street gives us which are higher than a treasury return and i am just telling you that if you really study this issue you will find that vermont not doing anything radical here we are doing what wall street expects us to do and it is a higher return than the yield you would get on a treasury yield much higher mister chaffetz governor chairman as i conclude here i dont want to go over my time i really do think that a flashing red light for investors for this country for the congress because we fully anticipate that states will try to be running back to the congress to get we cant even fund ourselves we cant even manage our books here i dont want the states to ever think the can come to the federal government to get a bailout i think the states that have not made that difficult choice and made the difficult transition to a defined contribution plan are putting themselves in peril and at great risk that is our experience in utah we made that issa i thank the gentleman we now recognize the former mayor of cleveland ohio dennis kucinich for five minutes mister kucinich thank you mister chairman governor walker you said the union leaders agreed to the financial cuts but then you blamed the local unions for not following through on these pledges that is because you refused to drop your demand to strip workers of collective bargaining rights that had nothing to do with the budget and refused to negotiate and rejected the unions offer now governor walker if the unions in wisconsin agreed to the financial cuts you sought i dont understand how this cant continue to be characterized as a debate about state budget deficits this is supposed to be a hearing about state and municipal debt i dont understand how repealing collective bargaining rights for public workers shows us anything about state debt let me ask you about some of the specific provisions in your proposal to strip collective bargaining rights first your proposal would require unions to hold annual votes to continue representing their own members can you please explain to me and members of this committee how much money this provision saves for your state budget governor walker that and a number of other provisions we put  because if you are going to put in place a change like that we wanted to make sure that we protected the workers of our state so that they had the right to know what kind of value they got out of it it is the same reason we gave workers the right to choose which is a fundamental american right right to choose whether state budget i want to ask about another one of your proposals under your plan you would prohibit employees from paying union member dues from their paychecks how much money would this provision save your state budget governor walker it would save employees up to chairman right here from the state of wisconsins legislative fiscal bureau this is a nonpartisan state budget agency much like the congressional budget office the bureau was asked to identify provisions in the governors bill that are nonfiscal nonfiscal policy items that have no state fiscal effect this letter confirms the obvious that governor walkers effort to repeal the rights of state workers is a nonfiscal  putting an official document in the record that was central to the purpose of this hearing determining whether or not you stripping collective bargaining rights governor is a financial issue or not it is not it is a political issue that is what i am prov the gentleman is incorrect chairman waxman did it repeatedly in most cases just as here by the end of the hearing items which were not part of widely distributed documents were accepted i expect to do the same and i would work with the gentleman to get it done before the end of the hearing the gentleman may continue mister kucinich well i just made it a matter of public record anyway the title of this hearing is choice or necessity i think that what we have been able to demonstrate here is that the attack on collective bargaining rights is a choice not a budget issue there are budget issues as well that need to be addressed in wisconsin for example according to the national nurses united in s states facing a budget shortfall revenues from corporate taxes have declined two dollars fifty cents billion in the last year in wisconsin two thirds of corporations pay no taxes and the share of state revenue from corporate taxes has fallen by half since  eight also points out that if they had gone to collect the estate taxes from their wealthiest citizens they could have paid down the debt now i just want to say in conclusion mister chairman that we really are here at the center of a great debate over the purpose of government whether there is such a thing as a public sphere with public servants who perform duties on behalf of the public using resources that belong to the public or is government going to be auctioned off to the highest bidder to corporations who  privatize and inevitably drive up the cost of government drive up the cost of services drive up taxes that is where this debate is headed nationally i think that governor walker has inadvertently done a public service by exposing great employees and i do concur we have some terrific federal employees as well but the employees as well by dealing with benefits you wanted to go after the real crucial issues but then you ended your statement by saying but in the previous governors time they did deal with payment all the leadership as well obviously it takes two to tango on that one as well people to be able to come together let me ask you a quick question do you think the federal government should be involved in bailing out states when they have debt issues is there a point in time that you say this state is so far in debt and so far out of balance the federal government should step in and bail case for the bankruptcy of states is greatly exaggerated for political reasons when i go to wall street and i say hey as i did a few weeks ago we are in pretty good shape in vermont wisconsin is in pretty good shape tell us about some of the states we are really worried about california new york illinois and others and they say this is wall street speak and the rating agencies we think that the case is being exploited for political reasons that there are not states that need to go bankrupt mister lankford right governor shumlin that we are going to see our way through this  there things we are doing as a federal government that drives up your cost as a state what i am looking for and what my committee has been dealing a lot with are unfunded mandates things that say i would like to get my budget under control these things i can manage these things i cannot because the federal government has these set of requirements are there you give us a block grant for medicaid that is i had to put one dollar twenty cents billion more of general purpose revenue that is state aid state funding into this next budget even though i had to cut everywhere else it is the biggest part of my budget growing it is the biggest challenge out there we have maintenance of efforts that require us to maintain things by the federal government when we have other things that would work better to manage those costs we need to get to a point we have led the country places like gunnerson luther have been ahead of the curve when it comes to the idea and concept of medical homes paying for performance paying for outcome not paying for procedure if we had that option i think any of us mister lankford now you are aware that i am also on the budget committee when we brought up that idea we have been told that the governors will certainly kick people out of nursing homes and they will ruthless to their populations response we are all concerned about health care costs medicaid and medicare the only thing i would caveat with is just a block grant makes me nervous because as our populations grow older which is happening in all of our states as costs and utilization goes up i dont want it to be an excuse for the federal government to get out of its obligation on sharing cost and saying hey we are giving you a block grant you are on your own if utilization goes up it is your problem so how that flexibility gets translated is really important to us the details matter second  another big driver for us is education costs and no child left behind and there is no question that those mandates are driving education expenses in our public schools requiring us to teach to a test and requiring extraordinary paperwork of teachers when i thank the gentleman we now recognize the gentleman from iowa mister braley mister braley thank you mister chairman my name is bruce braley and i am proud to be a public employee in fact governor walker when you were a six year old growing up in my district in plainfield iowa i got my first job as a public employee with the powesheik county conservation board and i learned how to clean toilets and i learned how to mop floors and scrape gum off the bottom of school desks and i also worked out in the blazing sun building bridges on farm to market roads driving an ax into spikes into creosote treated lumber and one day on the job my left hand caught on fire so i know a little bit about what public employees do you mentioned the tv ads that groups from washington ran against you and yet you yourself had a large amount of support from secret donor groups like the ones that attacked me in my campaign are you willing to go on the record here today and denounce the influence of outside secret in political campaign ads governor walker i thought the purpose of today was to talk about debt and mister braley well lets talk about that you ran campaign ads on the principle of good government and i thought that is what we were here to talk about  fact you ran a campaign ad called real leadership and when the campaign ad ran it says your focus was bringing people together to solve problems do you remember that ad governor walker yes and i would argue if you want me to you asked me a question and i say i remember it and that is exactly what i also ran an ad called yes we can and you said working together we can put government back on the side of the people again you also ran an ad called make it right talking about scandal benefitting politicians you ran all those campaign ads well this is your chance to make it right are you ready to apologize to the people of wisconsin for hiring the twenty seven year old son of one of your major campaign donors who is a lobbyist and that individual had no college education very little managerial experience and had two drunk driving convictions and was hired for an eighty one thousand dollars a year job when you obviously had better qualified applicants are you ready to make an apology today to the people of wisconsin that doesnt sound like good government to me ask the gentleman to suspend please turn off the clock the chair would remind all participants although members here at the dais have a right to speak for five minutes and say anything they want and we will consider it germane our witnesses are only asked to respond to items which they came here prepared to respond to that are consistent with the subject of the hearing so it is for the witness to decide whether a question is  while in fact members here have an almost unlimited right to say what they want to say during their five minutes the gentleman may continue governor walker when i grew up in plainfield at least for the years i lived there and was our state assemblyman back then there were good decent people many of whom were farmers many of whom were deacons at my fathers church who recognized when times were tough you had to make tough decisions particularly when times were tough in the finances of the church was five levels below me when that hiring was brought to my attention i and my staff go back and have that person taken out of that position and i acknowledged the fact that there were more qualified people and i asked someone else to be put into that so that is the answer to your question former state cabinet secretary under republican governor scott mccallum who had a doctoral degree and eight years of experience overseeing the cleanup of petroleum contaminated sites the second bernice madison was a professional engineer who served since two thousand and three in the post to which mister duchenne was appointed and had twenty five years of experience in state government and since the whole focus of this hearing is on good government practices and how that affects the debt that states have i think it is time that we got some straight answers from the people who are radically reforming state governments and that is why this is so important and i would ask the chairman to hold a hearing and i have a letter for the chairman since we have broad jurisdiction according to the committees website to look into the other factors that are impacting state budgets including cronyism in state government and i have a letter to the chairman to that effect i ask unanimous consent for the article from the dubuque telegraph herald titled walker insults young worker being here this is very insightful for me especially in my home state of florida where we are also going through some of the similar exercises that you all have gone through it is interesting because when we look back at the history of collective bargaining especially with public sector unions it was franklin delano roosevelt and both president john f kennedy who did not feel that there should be collective bargaining or there should be public sector unions so being here today on this issue i think shows the evolution of this and why it is such a crucial issue especially in light of the debt and deficits that each state in this country is facing the federal government and the office of personnel management has published consecutively for years up until two thousand and eight a study of the amount of time that was spent by union employees on official time the last time this was published was in two thousand and eight and it shows that federal government union employees spent three million hours of official time to engage in union related activities this was a cost to the federal taxpayers of about one hundred and twenty dollars million in two thousand and eight unfortunately upon business done on official time governor walker i wouldnt have the numbers off the top of my head but i know both at the state level and we see the same thing at the local level we certainly saw that when i was the milwaukee county executive and it is an interesting cycle because taxpayers in many cases are paying taxpayers money which not only goes to workers but in many cases then goes to government employee unions who then use that money for political purposes when then elect candidates who then advocate for more government and higher taxes on the middle class it is a vicious circle  work hard and they work long days and long nights and we are certain that that is what they are doing and that is what they do with their time you know we are a small state where everybody knows what everyone is doing and in vermont we work hard and our public employees work just as hard as our private sector employees mister ross in florida we are deliberating now in the legislature on something that was deliberated back when i was in the legislature there what was known as a paycheck protection act and it would require that the employees make an affirmative budget deficits for all we governors havent really had to be dealt with because we got so much money from washington that is over and we have to balance the budgets the old fashioned way so we are making tough cuts tough choices and i am doing it by focusing on what matters which is health care costs corrections  d other areas where i have explosive growth and i am not worrying too much about union dues mister ross in accomplishing these objectives whether they be pro union or anti union whatever they may be requires people to come to the bargaining table it requires people to come to  consensus or compromise and one of the issues that we saw in wisconsin was that there were senators on the democrat side who left the state and failed to come to the table to address and as a public official as one who was elected i take personal offense to somebody who abrogates their responsibility by not owning up to their obligations to make these decisions as difficult as they may be so governor shumlin i would ask you do you condone such activities where elected officials leave the state or abrogate their  three weeks you wouldnt be working there anymore i think that is pretty clear out there so i think there is a real challenge and obviously the individuals in those fourteen senate districts are going to decide whether or not that makes a difference in the long term but you said something else about working together and i believe in that but i also believe more important than working together is people want results so in the beginning of this year we worked together with democrats and republicans and one independent we have in the legislature we passed the most aggressive job creating legislation in the country we showed that wisconsin was open for business  from wisconsin you are the governor he is a public employee union did one of you not get the memo that you are not supposed to get along governor shumlin i dont know if i didnt get it but all i can tell you is we get along great as you know and there is nothing better than our firefighters working hard for us and sacrificing their lives for us every single day mister welch you know as i have listened to governor walker describe his problems it seems to me very similar to what you described to me this morning when we had breakfast as to the problems you face in vermont governors cannot escape the consequences of the greatest recession that we have had since the depression and that recession is brutal and shows no mercy whether is a republican governor led state or a democratic governor led state you have described your approach but clearly there are points of real contention that you have to deal with as governor you have a legislature maybe give a brief summary of how you managed to get from here to there i am going to want to be able to talk to governor walker too and i dont have that much time governor shumlin i will try to be very brief you know really as you know my guess is that my approach isnt much different than other governors across country we are trying to create jobs and economic opportunities and i mentioned the middle class has been kicked in the teeth over this recession harder than i think they have been kicked in years and we are trying to find ways to raise their income and we do that by going after real savings in health care by going after the in our corrections budget that is costing taxpayers forty seven thousand dollars a year we have a high recidivism rate and by going where the real money is while we resisting raising taxes so that we can actually grow jobs and economic opportunities you heard governor walk talk about wishing to import jobs from illinois and we are all doing that i am hoping to bring in a few jobs from new hampshire and massachusetts and new york as we manage our budget we are a great place to do business work raise a family the best place in the country in my judgment and we do it by getting along and by using common sense and reasonableness mister welch let me ask governor walker i just want to make an observation we have a problem here in congress and this is my own personal observation after serving for five years there is too much of a winner take all attitude because when i hear my republican colleagues say we have to deal with spending i happen to think they are right but i also think we have to look at other things too like the tax code and revenues i would say that quite candidly a lot of disagreement from some of my colleagues but one of our problems in congress is a winner take all approach where even if you win and you see this with the health care debate the democrats won on health care last year but now the first act of the new congress is to repeal it if you win in a way where the other side feels they didnt have a seat at the table or things were crammed down and both sides can be doing this there is a price because you end up winning on the vote but you dont make progress on the comment on your thoughts about whether there is a price that may be paid in your state as a result of the fact that the approach that was taken did result in this enormous confrontation and a lot of controversy and a lot of pain that continues even after your policy i think prevailed governor walker yes and i think the results obviously were frustrating one of the things that frustrated me the most is i think if you are going to participate in democracy have to be in the arena and when fourteen of my colleagues in the capital decided to leave for three weeks it made it pretty difficult to do that in fact in particular one of them someone we worked with before on jobs initiatives spent a good chunk of that time trying to work with us and as he revealed in the wisconsin state journal a week ago sunday he was closer to us than he was to his other colleagues my hope is that people like him and others will continue to come to the table and work on our jobs agenda the things we need to continue to do and i think we will be on the right track but again i go back to what i said before people want us to work together but they want that because they want results when i look at what mitch daniels did six years ago in indiana essentially for the state he did what we are proposing and what we propose in this legislation to do his numbers were far below mine in that first year the first six months he was in office he was dealing with some of the same passions just not as big because he did it through an executive order not through a piece of legislation but four years later he was re elected with fifty eight percent of the vote because in the end people saw the results all the fears didnt materialize for five minutes mister kelly thank you mister chairman and both governors thank you for being here i come from the private sector so i understand a little bit about having your own skin the game and being able to sign the front half of the check i know that sometimes down here we lose perspective about whose money it is we are spending and have to tell you when somebody else is picking up the tab it is easy to keep saying go ahead and keep on partying now i want to ask you this specifically because the chairman started off with a discussion also mister chaffetz about defined benefits in pensions and i know in pennsylvania that while all of us took a hit when the stock market went down with our pensions and we lost quite a bit of it at the end of the day that was a loss if you can in both your states tell me about who makes up the loss for the benefit that is calculated i really think  benefits is a complete illusion it gives us the belief that somehow the future is both predictable and reliable and we all know it isnt so please tell me the deficiency the difference between what the defined benefit is based on what the actuaries are saying and the actuality of it who makes you know i think it is really important to stick with the facts and the fact of the matter is if you look at vermont this is what happened in the worst stock market crash in a long time we watched it go from roughly twelve thousand to six  dow the average person in a defined contribution plan sold their stocks when they got discouraged somewhere between eight and six zero those who were in defined benefit plans had people like vermont advising them to hold on and hold out and that is what we did so now our retirement plans are higher than they were in the depths of the loss the average small investor now has lost what they saved for retirement so again it is a great example where a defined benefit plan protects workers more ably than a defined contribution i want to make clear because it is different than vermont and other states before this reform other than literally a handful of state employees the taxpayers were picking up both the employee contribution and the employer so i am not upping the employee contribution i am actually having the employees of the state including me actually pay the employee contribution again something that is done in the private sector as you know the employer pays part the employee pays the other part and what i found out when i was traveling the state in the midst of this debate particularly when i go to  manufacturing plants and guys would point out they were paying twenty five to fifty percent of their health insurance premiums most of them having a retirement plan it wasnt a pension it was a k and many of them to keep people working were suspending the employer match just to be able to keep people from being laid off that is the reality and then when i would walk them through what i was asking because they would see the ads and they would think hey wait a minute you are taking all this money away just as an example in the basic family plan that my family has we will go up to pay about two hundred dollars a month  premiums versus about ninety dollars a month again most people in the private sector middle class taxpayers wonder wow that is unbelievable mister kelly and i have to tell you i think that is the important thing to understand if i have a defined benefit then i can go ahead and stick with that plan because come hell or high water i am still going to get my defined benefit when you are a person whose real money their money is in the program and you have a choice to opt out now and try to keep what you have or lose it then you are really put in a box and i think most people in this country don understand now my daughter is a teacher my wife is a teacher i have a lot of friends who benefits are guaranteed and they are guaranteed by people in the private sector who will see a raise in their taxes to cover the loss of these pensions and i think that is where the divides come this is not about union workers versus non union workers republicans versus democrats this is about americans and if we are going to share the gains and we are going to also participate in the pain we better understand that when you have your own money in the game it is a vast difference between somebody who is guaranteed a benefit regardless of what they put in and that is the important thing taxpayers make up the difference in all these losses that is the model and that is what is wrong with it you dont have the safety net in your private plan but the public sector does and i think that is a vast difference and i think it makes it a lot easier important to address the question of who pays and the statement just made that taxpayers do at least in vermont maybe we are unique i dont think so eighty percent of the benefits that we pay out are paid for by return on investment  provided by the national league of cities naco nasac icma nsa and a number of other organizations pointing out as a matter of fact that most state pension systems are very solvent for governor did you campaign on the issue of collective bargaining being a problem with respect to wisconsins budget governor walker i talked about wages and benefits overall even ran campaign ads on it but i didnt specify exactly what form i talked about the broad spectrum and in fact  collective bargaining and said that is something i am going to address if elected governor governor walker i talked about the whole spectrum i talked specifically about the five and twelve percent they said how far are you willing to go i said i am willing to change the law from one end of the spectrum whether it is a modest change or an outright change i talked about it there i were you then surprised at the reaction that generated in your state governor walker not in my state for eight years i took on the status quo in a county that had never elected a republican before i was elected with fifty four then fifty seven then fifty nine percent because i think in times of crisis people arent so much concerned about republican or democrat they want leadership and that is what we took on that is what we are trying to do at the state level what did surprise me candidly was the level of national attention the folks that came in from washington and others to be a part of that debate mister connolly thank you let me ask a quick question cali and really show you a good time you responded to that by saying all right that would be outstanding what did you mean by that and what did you think he meant governor walker at that point i was down in the call i had two other people and my home state of tennessee has constitutional requirements to balance the budget obviously that constitutional requirement does not exist in washington d c do you believe that these constitutional requirements give you additional support and leverage you election it was pretty clear to me coming from the private sector that the american people have sent a referendum that they feel government overall is too large and it is too intrusive and it is in the way of creating jobs so i take he to that as we sit in these hearings and we justify a lot of the programs within the federal government and whether they are good or not and we have had discussions whether or not private sector versus public sector pay is fair governor walker how would you gage the pay and benefits afforded to the public sector workers in wisconsin critics have said that your reforms are hurting a group of workers that are already worse off than their private sector counterparts are they wrong governor walker well let me just point out t quick things in that one this debate to me has never been about the level of pay or compensation because i think there are great people who work at the city the county or school district state government i have said that repeatedly what this is about is balancing the budget and making sure we can do it constituents i have and i talk to the people in the middle class working in our factories and farms and other locations they realize they are the ones that foot the bill for more and more government and they think it is realistic that if they are paying on average twenty percent for health care they are paying something for their pension or  whatever they may have they think it is realistic that the rest of us who work in the government pay something similar to that mister desjarlais thank you governor shumlin you had mentioned in your testimony earlier that you went to where the money was to help get your fiscal house in order and  mentioned health care i was wondering if you had some insight that you could share with us to how you went about that and if you have a solution to the health care crisis and the cost governor shumlin wow well how long do we have the answer is yes we are working very hard to pass a health care bill that will be the first in country where health care is a right and not a privilege where it follows the individual is not required by the employer which we think will be a huge jobs creator but most importantly as governor walker suggested earlier when he was talking about health care where we actually reimburse providers based upon keeping people healthy health care outcomes instead of the fee per service model and we have put together an ambitious plan which is passing the senate almost as we speak for the right to collectively bargain i dont believe that my relatives or most middle class americans would have the opportunities for economic progress that they enjoy today mister desjarlais you had made a comment at the national governors association meeting that the ability to collectively bargain is a basic human right in democracy this is in direct contradiction with franklin roosevelt who was a pro union person and he said meticulous attention should be paid to the special relations and obligations of public servants to the public itself and to the government the process of collective bargaining as usually understood cannot be transplanted into public service and it goes on to say a strike of public employees manifests nothing less than intent on their part to obstruct the operations of government until their demands are satisfied can you i guess i just have a simple statement and question for you governor walker i guess for those of us that have been watching this debate play out and i think this has been covered by several of my colleagues it is hard to  square the concessions that have been made by the unions their willingness to come to the table and the continued drive to strip them of collective bargaining rights and obviously there has been a lot of conversation around the country as to how this plays in to a much broader debate that is happening around the nation when we look at the amounts of outside money that has been spent in wisconsin both with respect to your election to the fight over the legislation and then most recently in the last few weeks with respect to this election for the court it is hard to make the argument that this debate only plays out in the context of wisconsins budget fight in fact some of the key players in this drama seem to be pretty open about how this is ultimately about trying to kill a pretty important constituency for working families i think we had the quote on the board earlier when mister connolly was asking his questions but let me read it aloud the state senate leader scott fitzgerald said recently during an interview on fox news he said  win this battle and the money is not there under the auspices of the unions certainly what you are going to find is president obama is going to have a much more difficult time getting elected and winning the state of wisconsin and  power of unions in wisconsin once and for all this sounds a lot like a much broader political play to try to defeat your opponents to try to defeat the advocates for working families and i guess am sure you have a good answer to this question but i would like to know if you agree with the statements of your state senate leader scott fitzgerald and how you address the concerns of many of ours that the reason that you have two million being spent on behalf of your candidate for the court the reason that you have groups like the koch brothers pouring in thousands and thousands of dollars is because this is about a much broader effort and it seems that some of the key players in the fight certainly in the state legislative level are very open about how this is a much broader assault on unions and the allies of unions i guess probably jump to that conclusion for all the parties involved they would look at the four dollars million the unions pumped in during the debate and the tv ads that went on they would look at the money you reference and others and say outside of wisconsin there is a lot of people who are viewing this in a larger cont for others i can answer for scott walker and i can tell you for me it is about certainly in part about the budget but it is also ultimately about making government work better and i think protecting when i talk about the middle class it is not just the paying middle class it is even middle class  individuals who work for state and local government because for us we ultimately believe and we have seen the alternative we are protecting middle class jobs by avoiding what many other states are doing with massive layoffs at both the state and local level and b ultimately putting in place a system where the government is going to work better particularly for schools i have two kids in a public school i care very deeply about it i would like to have a system like we do elsewhere in society where we pay for performance not just reward based on seniority i would like to have people based on merit and performance this measure these reforms empower us to keep our best teachers in the schools to keep our best city and county and state workers in place and that is part of the package as well mister murphy my time is almost up i understand you cant speak for him but you can certainly  as to whether you agree with your state senate leader when he says that this is ultimately about trying to defeat president obama in wisconsin do you agree with governor walker i can tell you what it is for me it is not about that it is ultimately about balancing the budget now and in the future not just in the temporary because we have had too many people temporarily trying to push our problems off to the future this is a long term answer and it is about long term reform in our government so our schools our local governments and our states operate better that is what it is for me mister murphy there are millions of dollars being conciliatory tone in both your introduction and your opening statement i made a couple of notes you mentioned the unity tour which i found inspiring you said come to the table you mentioned the word reasonableness and sit at when you are not in the same state governor shumlin well you know you dont apply the reasonableness plea in the heat of the crisis you avert the crisis and i will just tell you by way of our experience under the republican governor jim douglas we needed to get roughly twenty five dollars million out of our pensions for teachers to balance our budget and things werent going so well in those negotiations with the governor so the democratic senate president myself and the democratic speaker sat down with the union and said listen we are going to have to get these savings and we can do it with you or we can do it without you and really we would like to do it with you and they turned to us and said we want to do it with you so my point is when you are going to work together when you are going to do what the american people want most desperately from their politicians and god knows they want it from washington right now and so do i reasonableness compromise common sense you have to start with that foot you cant ask for it once you have created a crisis mister gowdy but there is a concept of mutuality that is inherent or required for that to happen i know you would agree with me i also want to say haitis not the river sticks but hell we have been told that we want to kill women and my colleague from virginia just made a reference to a surreptitious phone call that was placed to an elected official will you help me and join me in decrying the rhetoric and the tactics that i just laid out governor shumlin you know i think that civility has to be applied to all public officials and i think enhances civility and discourse in this country governor shumlin all i can say is i have no disagreement with you that the civility tunnel runs both ways and we all have a responsibility as public servants and the american people expect it for us to served this country with extraordinary progress and distinction and it has allowed as i mentioned families like mine who came from nothing to succeed economically in the best democracy in the best economy thin law enforcement should be able to collectively bargain just like anybody else they have in our state and it has had great results mister gowdy in my state of south carolina we laid off prosecutors law enforcement officers and teachers we furloughed them for five days last year  because we have a fiscal crisis like almost every other state is that something that you would entertain in your state could you ever see furloughing the core functions of government which all three of those categories are could you ever see off with the unions by telling them that you were going to require them to hold annual votes to continue representing the government employees that you were going to no longer deduct union dues from the employees paycheck and then expect them to come to the table and start a really good solid conversation with you is spending is the contributions to your pension accounts governor shumlin it is about four percent and i think it is important that we remember that when i talk about the real challenges of governor having to balance a budget my health care costs are going up by double digits my corrections budget has doubled my challenge is not pensions of course it is a consideration but our pension funds are now performing quite well and we are doing okay mister tierney governor walker what percentage of tierney and basically generally in your state and i think in others that when this original situation was set up that was part of the bargaining process that the employee may have taken less in pay or some other area they were negotiating on in leaders the reported bankruptcy proposal suggests that a bankruptcy court is better able to overcome political differences restore fiscal stability and manage the finances of a state these assertions are false and serve only to threaten the fabric of state and local finance would each and the reason why i think you got the cooperation that you got is because of respect the workers felt that you respected them i heard your story and i wouldnt be here either if it were not for unions no doubt about it  my parents were former sharecroppers in manning south caroline came up to baltimore got a union job and that is why i am here today so i just wanted you to know and they felt respected governor shumlin i appreciate your comment obviously respect for our firefighters for our police officers for the folks that risk their lives every day for the folks plowing the roads and all of our public employees is incredibly important to any chief executive chairman issa presiding the gentleman from arizona states let me get this right you actually are a tax giver to the federal government and you are a tax taker from the federal government if i am not mistaken right for every dollar of tax you get only eighty two cents back and difference so my link here is that i am coming back to the basic core problem with all states is the federal mandate and things that some of the states should be doing right particularly governor shumlin you talked about health care  corrections isnt that a tenth amendment right wouldnt you like dont you like the ability to have some flexibility in regards to oversight of those funds  frankly but you need to define what we mean by flexibility because my fear is as we have this mister gosar well part of i think you are going there governor shumlin if i can just finish what we were saying as we get a little bit towards the next budget discussion is that flexibility means we are going to leave the requirements and take the money on behalf of the federal government and the states are going to be in tougher shape than we are in already with under reimbursements for medicaid and medicare mister gosar well and i understand because with the unfunded mandate there is this hidden cost that no one wants to talk about and that is for that federal law to be enacted in a state we hire more workers that are not on the private sector they are on the public sector and therefore these roles continually go up so part of this is based upon or the majority if i look across the board coming from arizona and holy cow we will get to those numbers here in a second but the problem is the budget problems in each of the states are derived by the unfunded mandate by the federal government governor shumlin you know i think that is an oversimplification i think the budget challenges in the states are derived from the worst recession in american history that was brought on by a lot of greed on wall street and a housing bubble that got transferred to main street that was the culprit mister gosar oh i have to stop you there because didnt we also have a problem with the federal government in that didnt the federal government establish itself in the risk pool and all the aspects of risk you prepared to honor those promises to communities governor shumlin absolutely mister gosar okay so when we are talking about health care and corrections i am having a problem here on where this unfunded mandate is coming  oversight in regards to the federal government that dictates exactly how you can incarcerate a prisoner or how you have to go through a process does it not governor shumlin i dont see it as a cost driver in my state budget m how about you how do you feel governor walker governor walker well there is no doubt that not only the mandates from the federal government to the state government but many times the mandates that then go on to the local governments are driven largely by the mandates that start here and to the extent that we get more freedom  medicaid but i do believe if you put the power back in the hands of the people at the state level the states are better equipped to tackle those challenges and in turn can one state versus another state is going to have very different needs and very different outcomes and the more that we oh she has returned the gentlelady from california ms speier ms speier thank you misess maloney and thank you mister chairman and thank you both for your participation here today i dont know that i would have done this if i were the two of you but i am glad that you have and it is of course funded by the koch brothers and in it they say the following when public sector workers gain sweetheart contracts filled with plush benefits unheard of in the private sector the taxpayer loses every time do you agree with that statement governor walker i havent seen that statement before but i know one of your colleagues asked me earlier who pays for example for the pensions and things of that nature it is the taxpayers so i dont know about that statement in particular but conceptually who pays for the pension and health care benefits it is the taxpayers including public sector employees who are taxpayers as well ms speier well these are quite facts about wisconsins budget repair legislation the second point is respecting the public trust when teachers choose not to teach purely to pad their already lavish contracts do you believe that statement that they have lavish contracts governor walker lavish contracts no again you werent here earlier but i was asked about that as well and i pointed out to me this is not about i forgot which of your colleagues one of the doctors asked whether i thought public employees were paid too much or too little and i said that is not what this is about this is about trying to balance the budget and provide long term reforms that make  work better one other ms speier let me ask you this excuse me for reclaiming my time do you think the teachers in wisconsin are paid adequately governor walker if we could set up a system where we rewarded based on performance and merit i would be even willing to pay more salary in wisconsin is twenty five thousand two hundred and twenty two dollars and wisconsin ranks th in the nation in terms of starting salaries for teachers governor walker and the reason for that is because that talks about starting s alaries not total benefit packages so for example if you are in a school district like many where they dont pay anything for health care that is an added benefit in terms of what the costs are ms speier you are th in the nation in what you pay your school teachers now lets talk about contributions how much have you received in contributions from the koch brothers governor walker from the koch brothers none directly that i know of there are probably other groups that supported us but i dont know what the total is ms speier well i am under the impression you received forty three thousand dollars governor shumlin i was really impressed by one of the statements many of the statements you made but one in particular in which you said that wall street really believes that this crisis creation really relative to the states and their potential bankruptcy is really a figment of the imaginations of some who are politically motivated to create that kind of angst could you expound on that a little bit make sure that our bond ratings are strong and that they know how we are managing our budgets and what they said in two of the three rating agencies is when i asked about this question that they feel like the doom and gloom about pensions of the states is greatly exaggerated for political reasons that they dont think any states are going bankrupt that they dont think it is the states biggest challenges and that they are puzzled by the current perceived cr in much of our discussion today about defined contribution what is missing is the fact that the taxpayers have to pay fifty percent of that pension benefit every single month regardless and in a defined benefit plan as you pointed out eighty percent of the cost is actually borne by the growth that the investments receive the taxpayers then end up only paying about twenty percent is that  correct and another point that is important to remember is which i mentioned earlier but i want to make sure it is emphasized that in this financial crisis we have asked our public employees our unionized employees to pay more both our teachers and state employees have agreed to pay more to increase the share that they are paying somehow that is getting lost between the trees here the fact of the matter is yes you are correct eighty percent of payments come from investments in the fund and second we have asked our employees issue and i apologize for not being here davis bacon is what we were talking about so i had to be there but i did read your testimonies and appreciate you being here so i did want to ask some questions governor walker i also appreciate the fact of what you build in milwaukee and enjoy riding my road king i understand you ride as well and i have enjoyed both in wisconsin and in the beautiful state of vermont  opposite of that two years ago when my predecessor and the legislature moved to pass a budget repair bill in twenty four hours that raised taxes by about one dollar billion and we saw obviously higher unemployment and job loss after that  cents billion budget shortfall governor snyder is taking some aggressive steps and being pushed back as well as you have experienced including dealing with an emergency manager authority over municipalities that lead to my question what do you think of that type of authority and what are some other reforms that may need to be pursued in order to strengthen the fiscal standing of have to look specifically at what rick is proposing there in terms of oversight of the local government i will tell you though this goes to the heart as a former county official of what i am talking about and why we pushed reforms that werent just about the momentary they werent just about fixing things together or even over the next two years but about providing long term relief let me be clear because i think sometimes people confuse this into thinking this has an impact on private sector unions it doesnt collective bargaining is fully intact for any of the private sector unions out there this legislation that we signed into law doesnt have an impact on that for the public sector to be able to make changes that ensure stability financial stability in governments at the state and the local level we had to make these changes and even more so to make sure that government can continue to be reformed and where we can improve the system and ultimately reward good employees that also was a part of this package as well so in totality i believe we give local governments the kind of long term tools they need not only to balance their budgets but to make prudent decisions so they can protect core services  i appreciate that well i was going to ask both governors but let me continue my questioning here at this point what steps can governor walker or should not i guess the positive and the negative  what steps can or should not congress do to help you in your budget situation and i guess following up with that do you agree that another state bailout is not the solution  me asking the taxpayers and me as a federal taxpayer which obviously we are reminded of this week asking me to bail out another state isnt something i am particularly interested in as a taxpayer to me i think each of us in each of the fifty states have to in many cases the tough decisions to ensure that we not only balance our current budgets but we make long term decisions and if we look to other people at the federal level or other entities to do that i think that puts us in a very precarious  thing if i might digress for just one second from your question the gentleman from massachusetts and i apologize i think his nameplate is turned asked me a question about process and one thing is just important to put in the record we didnt start the debate the way that characterized in december after the elections but before i was sworn into office the public sector unions in the state rushed to the lame duck session in the legislature and to the governor and tried to pass through contracts that would have locked us in to a more dire financial situation with costs that i believe we couldnt account for with a three dollars sixty cents billion deficit on the horizon so that was the initial act now we were successful in appealing even to some of the democrats in the legislature to stop that from happening and giving us a chance to do that but when people ask why didnt we begin by negotiating it was really the tone was set early on by the process that was taken after the election but before we were sworn in and and thank you for your very thoughtful questions welcome governor i thank you for your testimony and for being with us here today governor walker many unions and some elected officials including some republican governors have criticized your actions as extreme referring to them as some sort of fringe effort to  rights and dismantle unions how do you respond to these criticisms do you feel your actions were extreme or out of the mainstream in any way governor walker no because i believe fundamentally if what we have heard said over and over again was a fundamental right you all in congress would be acting on it right now you do not have collective bargaining other than postal service workers for the vast majority of public employees who work for the federal government for wages and for benefits if is a fundamental right why arent you debating it right here now it is not it is a government entitlement collective bargaining is important for the private sector for the examples we have heard about the impact it has had on families and legacies private sector unions are my partner in economic development i work with them and i hope to stack of editorials here from major papers across the country and i would like to go through some of the headlines we have the chicago sun times and its editorial says cut pensions but dont bust unions we have the philadelphia enquirer and it says a bridge too far the los angeles times says wrong in wisconsin and the boston globe its headline says by overreaching wisconsin governor hinders reforms in all states i even have some editorials from your own even when unions have made concessions republican officials have kept up the attack the republicans claim to be acting on behalf of taxpayers and this is not believable the la times says your claim that public employee unions must be crushed in order to balance the states budget is deeply disingenuous and the milwaukee wisconsin journal centennial writes that unions have conceded on benefits but parts of walkers budget repair bill unfairly targets collective bargaining for public employees even the green bay press gazette a newspaper that i believe endorsed you when you ran for governor says your approach  s the debate as an anti union campaign and not a tough but fair shared sacrifice so what is your reaction to these statements by respected papers across our country governor walker sure thank you for your question i would point out two things one just a factual error that a couple of those papers alluded to and i mentioned before the unions did not reach settlements may i finish because my time is expiring i believe the point that they made in these editorials is the same point that many of us on this panel have been trying to make today and we are trying to make the point that it is one thing to ask for shared sacrifice for financial reasons but it is very unfair and you appear to be trying to strip american workers ideologically and politically motivated governor walker per your original question i would say many of those same voices said the same thing about mitch daniels in two thousand and five after his time  in office after people saw the benefits of the collective bargaining reforms he put in place where government got more efficient more effective more accountable and where ultimately public employees who were doing a great job got rewarded the people in his state re elected him with fifty eight percent of the