Cascade Policy Institute Founder and Senior Policy Analyst, Steve Buckstein, issued the following statement on the failure to recall Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker (R).
“By rejecting the recall attempt on their governor today, Wisconsin voters have confirmed the road they are on with respect to government budgeting and public sector union reform. A road that has balanced the state budget without new taxes. A road that has reduced property taxes for the first time in 15 years. A road that has kept school teachers on the job rather paying too many teachers’ union administrators through forced union dues.
Governor Scott Walker tackled the tough budget problems in his state. He reformed state collective bargaining laws and withstood the wrath of the public employee unions.
By ending state collection of dues from union members’ paychecks, he showed the world that a majority of those members don’t want to pay for their union’s political activities; and now they don’t have to.
Last year, Oregon Governor John Kitzhaber told the Portland City Club, “This state will not go down the road that Wisconsin has chosen.” But now that everyone sees not only the good outcomes that lie down that road, but also that politicians who take it can keep their jobs, it’s time for Oregonians to call on our elected officials to embark on that same road.
Oregonians should also take the next logical step, enacting a Right to Work Law so that no man or woman in this state is forced to join or to pay dues to any third party in order to gain or keep a job. Not only is this the moral thing to do, but based on recent research it can create some 50,000 new Oregon jobs over the next five years without any cost to the taxpayers.
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