Gov. Walker hardly divisive, misguided

For the most part, I find your “Our View” editorials thoughtful and informative, which is one of the reasons I subscribe to the Herald. However, I was a bit taken aback by your statement that “Walker’s approach toward labor in Wisconsin has been misguided, extreme and divisive.”

A person who was elected on what he said he was going to do and then did it is misguided, extreme, and divisive? Rather it seems that he did what the people of Wisconsin elected him to do. And better yet, what he has done has worked to the benefit of all the people of Wisconsin. He has balanced the budget without layoffs, created an environment that is producing jobs and a budget surplus, has freed school districts from union imposed constraints that allows them to reduce costs and balance their budgets and reduced property taxes.

In the distant past unions were a positive force in private business and industry in balancing out the legitimate grievances of labor and management. This recall should never have taken place — costing taxpayers millions of dollars. Its sole purpose is to preserve and extend the monopoly that public unions hold over modern state government through collective bargaining that is bankrupting state and local governments.

Even Franklin Roosevelt once recognized the danger of collective bargaining for public workers saying that collective bargaining “cannot be transplanted into the public service.”

I and thousands of others do not share your pessimistic prophecy of an “ugly division” resulting from the recall. We should draw inspiration from the likes of Gov. Walker, a new kind of politician who has the courage to do what is right for all of the people of his state. That’s the real positive message for the politicians of Illinois.

Guy Prisco

Sugar Grove