The Chris Moeller Archives

Koch suckers

Well, I'll be a monkey's uncle. There's a bill in the Wisconsin Senate, we all know by now, that would strip state employees of their right to bargain collectively for wages and benefits, but there's a lesser-known bill (Senate #11) that, if passed, would allow the governor to sell any state-owned heating, cooling, or power plant to a private business, "without solicitation of bids, for any amount that the department determines to be in the best interest of the state." "No approval or certification of the public service commission is necessary," and he can unilaterally lay off workers prior to the sell-off.

Koch Industries and its subsidiaries, which we told you earlier in the week was one of the Wisconsin governor's largest campaign donors last year, and also a donor to about a dozen other Wisconsin Republicans, are a leading refining and chemicals company that already have a utility monopoly across several states, have an oil pipeline that stretches across Wisconsin, and have coal plants in four Wisconsin cities: Green Bay, Manitowoc, Ashland, and Sheboygan.

A monkey's uncle am I. This bill would allow Governor Scott Walker to sell a state utility monopoly to his sugar daddies, cutting out entirely Wisconsin's citizens and its review and protection board in the approval process-- and for pennies on the dollar!

While America is debating the value of public labor unions.

Author Thomas Frank was on the Ed Schultz Show on MSNBC Wednesday night. He released an incredibly clairvoyant book two years ago called "The Wrecking Crew," and has proven himself a useful authority. He suggests that, back in the 1800s, a private company was able to buy off entire state governments-- and often did. In Kansas-- Frank's home state as well as the home state of the Koch brothers-- that business was a railroad. Informed citizens in these states reformed by creating what we now think of as the civil service, a true public bureaucracy that protects us up to and including, in this case, publicly-owned utilities, and public utility boards to regulate them and provide oversight. Worker protections, spurred by unions, were a key element of these reforms.

These two bills before the Wisconsin Senate (and who knows what else) are precisely what the Koch brothers were getting when they purchased Scott Walker.

posted by CM @ 11:57 AM