FDR was right

There are many — most likely a thundering majority — in Vermont who believe that what happened recently in Wisconsin is unthinkable in the Green Mountain State.

But Gov. Scott Walker did not just “survive” his recall election in Wisconsin; he walloped his union-led opponents so convincingly (by seven percentage points) that anyone who can count knows that this could not have been accomplished without the support of several thousand Democrats in an historically Progressive state.

So it is proper to count those Wisconsin Democrats as being among the anti-union votes that led to Walker’s victory. Why this election should be heeded in Vermont and other states is a culmination of the warning by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, a Democrat, that unionized public workers is a bad idea whose results were predictable.

FDR noted that public employes in unions would have the ability to blackmail their elected bosses in government by either granting or withholding support to them in elections.

The formula is simple: Union dues create the campaign funds which go to Democrats running for election in order to defeat the opposition. The payback is the granting of early retirements with pensions that are far more beneficial than those received by workers in the private sector; thus a continuation of political and union power with the taxpayers footing the bill.

Before the protests arise that I am anti-union, I want it known that as a former union officer I walked a picket line 14 different times in a span of 26 years; One of those strikes lasted 48 days and another 24.

What’s different is that my opponents were a profit-making, private company, while in Wisconsin the rivals of the unions were captive and innocent taxpayers, who decided that enough is enough.

John Hilferty

Moretown