Not only does Scott Walker of Wisconsin want to bust the public workers' unions, he wants to sell off state facilities to private investors on a no bid basis and for any amount he deems appropriate. Needless to say they will be give aways to cronies and campaign contributors including Koch Industries. He took a phone call recently from a David Koch impersonator. David Koch is a billionaire and big campaign contributor who is in the power and oil business. What a good way to reward him! Here is the language from Walker's Budget Bill:
16.896 Sale or contractual operation of state−owned heating, cooling, and power plants. (1) Notwithstanding ss. 13.48 (14) (am) and 16.705 (1), the department may sell any state−owned heating, cooling, and power plant or may contract with a private entity for the operation of any such plant, with or without solicitation of bids, for any amount that the department determines to be in the best interest of the state. Notwithstanding ss. 196.49 and 196.80, no approval or certification of the public service commission is necessary for a public utility to purchase, or contract for the operation of, such a plant, and any such purchase is considered to be in the public interest and to comply with the criteria for certification of a project under s. 196.49 (3) (b).
Notice that Walker is proposing to privatize the state's power plants by selling them to anyone he pleases for any amount he chooses. This is precisely how crony capitalism works. Public facilties are sold off to cronies for practically nothing thereby enriching campaign contributors and other financial backers. This is how it was done in Iraq, Brazil, Chile, Argentina, Russia and other countries influenced by US policies. Now Republican Governors are proposing to do it here. Naomi Klein, author of The Shock Doctrine, explains how countries (and now states) are privatized practically overnight by ramming through legislation. Certainly, in the case of Wisconsin, Governor Walker's aim was to ram through legislation with no discussion which a) busted public service unions, b) defunded the public education system to the tune of $900 million and c) privatized the state's power plants among other things. If it weren't for the fact that 14 Democratic Senators took flight to prevent the establishment of a quorum, the bill would have gone through and Wisconsonites would have awakened to find themselves living in a vastly different state than they thought they lived in.
Here is the video:
It wasn't too long ago that California privatized its power system to Enron. Remember the Enron - one of whose confiscated emails purported to "screw California Grandmas"? The privatization of California's power plants caused energy prices to increase 800% and caused rolling blackouts as Enron traders took plants offline during peak periods in order to increase the wholesale price of electricity. That wasn't that long ago - just about 10 years. What happened to California could well happen now to Wisconsin if Scott Walker's Budget Bill gets passed.
Scott Walker's Budget Bill is nothing more than the Shock Doctrine writ large and applied to Wisconsin to be followed by the same procedure in other states with Republican Governors. First they will ram the legislation through busting unions, privatizing public facilities, converting civil service positions to political appointees, eliminating environmental controls. All these things and more are done by Scott Walker's bill. The only thing is that Scott Walker did not figure that any of this would come to the light of day until it was too late. If it weren't for the 14 Democratic Senators leaving, none of this would have received any publicity at all. That was the plan. Instead, regardless of the outcome, the American people are starting to wise up. Scott Walker created his own budget crisis by giving huge tax breaks to corporations and then trying to take this money out of the hides of union workers, the school system and by selling off public assets. This would have resulted in the Enronization of the state of Wisconsin. Fortunately, Enron was put out of business thanks to an investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission. However, even though Enron bit the dust, this doesn't mean that Republicans today aren't pursuing their quest to privatize everything, bust unions and gut regulatory agencies such as the SEC. Unions are the largest contributors to the Democratic Party. Union busting will do much to eliminate the Democratic Party as a serious contender in American politics.