Editor:

Two Democratic Party office holders in this state recently proposed their budgets. Milwaukee County Executive Chris Abele and City of Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett both asked public employees to contribute more to their benefits. The irony here is that they would not have been able to do this without the governor’s reforms, which included ending collective bargaining privileges for public workers. Supposedly, ending these privileges was a major factor in this past summer’s recall efforts against GOP state senators, but I never saw one campaign commercial mentioning this. Taxpayers have been abused by these privileges granted for far too long.

One of the abuses is WEA Trust, the teachers own healthcare provider, charging up to three times more than other healthcare providers to school districts. Districts around the state have been estimating savings in the millions of dollars. As a result, massive teacher layoffs have been prevented, larger class sizes predicted has not happened, except where union contracts were extended before the new law was put in place.

Granted, a few in this state are upset that they had to chip in more towards their benefits, but in most cases, it is still less than we in the private sector have been paying for years. Then there are those folks that claim Governor Walker never campaigned on any of this. To those few, I say you didn’t pay close enough attention. As Milwaukee County Executive, he butted heads with union leaders. They were never willing to compromise, thwarting Walker at every turn.

So what is the bottom line? Starting Nov. 15, Democrats with myriad left-wing groups and unions will collect signatures for a recall election of Governor Walker. They’ll claim all sorts of reasons for this, but make no mistake…it’s about power. They still can’t believe they lost last November, when the majority in Wisconsin chose a new direction. A $3.6 billion budget deficit has been eliminated, the new budget balanced with a projected surplus, school districts saving boatloads of cash, all of this…without raising taxes.

Governor Walker should be recognized for the boldness of his leadership, a willingness to make the tough decisions and not kick the can down the road. He deserves our praise, ACT 10 is working. To see how, check out reforms.wi.gov, as well as itsworkingwisconsin.com.

Lastly, a recall of the governor is expected to cost upwards of $10 million of taxpayer dollars.

Keith Best, Waukesha