The Obama administration weighed in Thursday on the chaos in Madison, Wis.
White House press secretary Jay Carney said that Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker’s decision to force a bill on public employee union bargaining rights through the state Senate on Wednesday night was a clear sign that his top priority was not budget-cutting.
“The actions taken last night, which divorced the issue of the state’s budget problems from the issue of the rights of public sector employees, pretty clearly showed that the actions were not following the principle that we need to all come together and work together and not denigrate or vilify public sector employees, but bring them into the process,” Carney said.
He later reinforced that idea in a tweet, writing, “POTUS says we must come together & set aside partisanship to fix our budgets. Actions last night in Wisconsin violate those principles.”
Carney reiterated the president’s stance that everyone, including public-sector employees, needs to make sacrifices to cut spending, but that budget shortfalls should not be used to “denigrate or vilify public employees.”
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