February 18, 2011 02:56 AM UTC

At Least It's Not Your Besieged State Capitol

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• by: Colorado Pols

We just noted how Democrats in the Wisconsin state senate have fled the state, throwing a temporary spike in plans by that state’s Republican governor to end collective bargaining by Wisconsin employees. But as our friends at the Washington Post report, there’s an additional dimension to the story worth talking about:

For the past four days, thousands of public employees and their supporters have gathered in and around the Wisconsin state capitol to protest Republican Gov. Scott Walker’s budget cuts.

Walker, who has only been governor for the past six weeks, is pushing a proposal that would eliminate collective bargaining rights for public workers and make them pay half the costs of their pensions and at least 12.6 percent of their health care coverage. The changes amount to about a seven percent salary cut.

Democrats insist the move is a political power play and that Walker created the budget gap with his own tax cuts.

Republicans counter that voters asked for change when they kicked out Democrats in November. For months, they have been holding up public employees as prime examples of government waste…

So, instead of new Gov. Scott Walker, picture Gov. Tom Tancredo, and a gold-domed Capitol.

How much different would it be?