Rubicon: A river in Wisconsin

Franchir le Rubicon? Bien sûr il n'est pas question ce matin de Jules César marchant vers Rome, mais plutôt du bras de fer entre le gouverneur Walker du Wisconsin et les syndicats de la fonction publique. Ces dernier seraient choyés lorsqu'on compare leur situation à celles des autres travailleurs qui représentent 85% de la population de cet état. Les démocrates, et l'administration Obama, tentent de limiter les dégâts pour les syndiqués et de préserver des "gains historiques". On rappelle même les luttes épiques et historiques pour reconnaître les droits des travailleurs. Les gains obtenus pendant la révolution industrielle ou la crise des années'30 peuvent-ils, ou doivent-ils, êtres maintenus dans le contexte de 2011? Charles Krauthammer avance une réponse dans le Washington post de ce matin: non.

The magnificent turmoil now gripping statehouses in Wisconsin, Ohio, Indiana and soon others marks an epic political moment. The nation faces a fiscal crisis of historic proportions and, remarkably, our muddled, gridlocked, allegedly broken politics have yielded singular clarity.

At the federal level, President Obama's budget makes clear that Democrats are determined to do nothing about the debt crisis, while House Republicans have announced that beyond their proposed cuts in discretionary spending, their April budget will actually propose real entitlement reform. Simultaneously, in Wisconsin and other states, Republican governors are taking on unsustainable, fiscally ruinous pension and health-care obligations, while Democrats are full-throated in support of the public-employee unions crying, "Hell, no."

Wisconsin is the epicenter. It began with economic issues. When Gov. Scott Walker proposed that state workers contribute more to their pension and health-care benefits, he started a revolution. Teachers called in sick. Schools closed. Demonstrators massed at the capitol. Democratic senators fled the state to paralyze the Legislature.

Unfortunately for them, that telegenic faux-Cairo scene drew national attention to the dispute - and to the sweetheart deals the public-sector unions had negotiated for themselves for years. They were contributing a fifth of a penny on a dollar of wages to their pensions and one-fourth what private-sector workers pay for health insurance.

The unions quickly understood that the more than 85 percent of Wisconsin not part of this privileged special-interest group would not take kindly to "public servants" resisting adjustments that still leave them paying less for benefits than private-sector workers. They immediately capitulated and claimed they were only protesting the other part of the bill, the part about collective-bargaining rights.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/02/24/AR2011022406520.html