Yes, I support Scott Walker in the Recall

I am going to cover an issue which comes up much more often than I like this election cycle. As many know, I have to circulate nomination papers during late April and May to get on the ballot for US Senate.

In the hostile political environment the unions have brought us, it is more difficult to be a candidate, regardless of party. I have heard many tell me they are DONE with politics. The question of the year is, "Are you against Walker or with him?"

I must say having a recall during a nomination paper circulation period is not at all fun. I can still make decent numbers, but I know I have lost many potential signatures due to the toxic environment the recall has created. I am not making things up here, I have run for office in the last two general elections and aside from the hard core Dems and Reps, I get many to sign my nomination forms, no questions asked. This year the name Walker has come up many times. In fact, in my other races the names of other politicians seldom came up, unless there were inquiries about others that the eligible voter may have signed for already. Considering that I am from Kenosha and have canvassed the exact same areas I did in 2008 and 2010, I am pretty sure my perceptions of the current political climate are correct.

Since, I do not wish provide false signals, I will offer here my position on the Governor Walker recall. Simply, I fully support Governor Walker in the recall. Please, do not consider this as a complete endorsement of Governor Walker. I cannot do that for I am a libertarian and he is not. However, I STRONGLY disapprove of any recall of an office holder that has not committed a crime, refused to do his job or has moved out of state. The proper place to decide on the merits of Scott Walker's performance would be in the 2014 general election. So, I support Scott Walker for he has done nothing to demand a recall.

So, I do not agree with the reasoning behind the recall and thus support Governor Walker to continue his term in office. I do agree with the work he has done on balancing the budget, though. Really, my principle platform is that I wish to help balance the budget at the federal level, so it is not that extreme that support such actions at the state level.

So far the only thing Walker has done is balance the budget. Oh, the humanity! The real bitter feelings from what I can tell are that Walker is anti-union or a union buster. However, there is nothing that he has done which shows that. All he did was change the rules on how the state and local governments can deal with benefits a union receives. Though that is surely unpleasant to union workers, it does not remove their rights to free speech, assembly and collective bargaining on wages. As horrible as the changes seem, those government workers still have a better deal than the majority of those footing the bill as taxpayers.

I could say that Governor Walker did go back on a promise to balance the budget with GAAP, however by holding off on that he prevented laying off many government workers. The mess he was trying to clean up from past was pretty big and he made the choice to not create more pain than was necessary. So, though he made changes the unions didn't like, he saved their jobs. The only places where job losses occurred were where the unions refused to come back to the table to figure out a way to prevent that. I hate to say it, but unions and their demands are major budget busters. They need to learn that they do not have the right to extort payments from the taxpayers.

There you have it, I do support Scott Walker in the recall. It is not a love affair. I have problems with him, but a recall is not a valid way to deal with that. In 2014, the Libertarian Party will have a candidate to challenge Walker and they will have my support.