On September 11th the University of Wisconsin-Madison Student Organization Fair was held at the Kohl Center, and I had the opportunity to work at one of the organization booths. Over the course of the fair, which was three hours, thousands of people passed me, and after a while I started noticing a prominent trend that made me very optimistic for Wisconsin’s future. There is a conservative wave sweeping this state that will turn the liberal agenda of fiscal irresponsibility on its face and lead to a new era of prosperity, both for the middle class and especially for recently graduated college students now entering the workforce.
I saw many individuals passing my booth wearing “I voted for change” stickers with the iconic Obama “O” in the middle, which I giddily found ironic considering Obama has been an aggressive, war-mongering corporate stooge and has included numerous individuals from George W. Bush’s administration in his own.
That said, the number of individuals passing with “I stand with Walker” signs or “Scott Walker: Believe in Wisconsin” far surpassed the number of Obama supporters. For those of you that are new to this campus, over the last year liberal students, teachers, doctors and other community members flooded our Capitol banging drums, giving out fake sick notes, chaining themselves to bike racks and comparing our duly elected governor to homicidal dictator Adolf Hitler.
This was their attempt to recall Walker for his “controversial” budget bill, which balanced Wisconsin’s budget deficit without raising taxes and without laying off any public employees. The bill also caused a drop in property tax rates for the first time in recent history. Meanwhile they blissfully ignored Walker’s deficit-causing fiscal monster of a predecessor, Jim Doyle, who in 2009 attempted to destroy working class Wisconsinites by ramming through some billion dollars of tax increases overnight. Even after these increases, Doyle still left Wisconsin with a large deficit.
The story goes that Scott Walker went through the recall process and received an even larger percent of the vote than he did when he was elected, and I think this fact and the fact that so many conservative individuals were present at the student organization fair yesterday are telling. I believe that as a student body, more and more individuals are ready to reject the deficit spending fantasy that is being spoon-fed to us by prevalent economists and liberal politicians alike, and instead embrace the same reality that each of us face on a day to day basis; we must pay for what we consume, and we are obligated to do so not only from a legal standpoint, but also from a moral one.
I have not been shy in the past to bash what I consider to be the large problems with the Republican party, for example its tendency to embrace theocratic social doctrines that make it entirely authoritarian in nature. In addition, too often the party is insincere when it states that it wants to restore fiscal responsibility to the people. What ends up happening is Republican representatives are elected, and, like George W. Bush, they lose control of the budget and do not attempt to restore spending to reasonable levels. Scott Walker has distinguished himself from these individuals by taking a strong and unrelenting stand to take on our budgetary crisis. And I think what I saw at the student organization fair shows that Wisconsin students are ready to stand up for a politician who actually stands up for these values. I hope this tidal wave of red sweeps over this state and across the nation, and I hope that more individuals with steel backbones step up to the plate and defend financial logos.
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