bargaining, i have asked people to go on my web side, sherrod brown.com/ohio and sign up about against what they are trying to do when they overreached in ohio taking away bargaining rights and going after women s rights it is the same thing they are doing nationally and it has got to stop. all right. senator sherrod brown, taking the fight to them today. i appreciate you being here. good to be with you. all right, now let s bring in ezra klein, msnbc contributor and reporter for the washington post. ezra, let s comment on that medicade attack. cutting 144 million people off of medicaid that is draconian. are you as convinced as senator brown the democrats will fight just as hard on that one or maybe not? i am convinced that many democrats will fight quite hard on medicaid. medicaid is he very close to the heart of democrats. it is a great society program. it protects truly the most vulnerable people in america. one group that senator brown didn t bring up were disabled. th
anyway, the wisconsin public unions are now diminished and there is mayhem in madison. [shouting] [chanting. [let us in. solidarity forever for the union makes us strong. bill: talking points believes sequence like those will not help the union cause. idaho the legislature there took away bargaining rights from the teacher s union. all over the united states union power is under fire. no american shoulding celebrating. this american workers need protections. there is no question about that but as we have said some unions have struck corrupt bargains with politicians enhanced worker benefits states cannot possibly pay it goes like this. we will give you big money, politicians if you vote for what the unions want.
he wants to strip our rights and then dictate exactly what the terms and conditions of employment are. that s not our rich history here in wisconsin. that s not wisconsin values. let me ask you, as well. are you willing to go to the table before the governor takes off the table the issue of taking away the collective bargaining rights? is that a non-starter, i guess, in your opinion? taking ae ining away bargains is a non-starter. we have reached out since november 3rd, his people have refused to return a single call. they have never even acknowledged the unions except to give us notices of termination of contract extensions. they don t want to come to the table and bargain. the bargaining s inconvenient to them. and in terms of specifics, you know, we don t bargain in the news media. this governor has gone to the news media and says what kind of concessions he wants. those need to be done at the bargaining table. and i believe we can bring to the table proposals that would be acce
good morning to you all on this friday, february the 18th, welcome to this american morning, i m t.j. holmes. and i m kiran chetry. a lot going on in wisconsin again today. thousands of demonstrators expected to jam the state capitol once again this morning. teachers are walking out of classrooms. and democratic senators are actually running or have already made the run to the border. all to protest a new budget plan that cuts the rights to collectively bargain. the governor says he s making tough choices to balance a budget. here s the latest, madison schools closed again today. that would be three straight days without classes, 14 state senate democrats skipped town. they crossed the border into illinois and are hold up in a best western hotel. they are avoiding the law and stalling a budget vote. more protests are expected today. and many teachers say they will
at the state capital. it was jam-packed with protesters and likely to see more today as well. state workers many of them teachers and they are furious over governor scott walker s plans to cut their benefits and collective bargaining rights. they claim his budget repair bill is likely a union buster. walker says wisconsin s budget is broken and some tough choices have to be made. well, a lot of schools are close again today. teachers say they are not budging until they get some answers that they can live with. cnn actually talked with the head of the teachers union a a little while oog agriculture. taking away bargaining rights is a nonstarter. wef reached out time and time again since november the 3rd, the day after the election, his people have refused to return a single call. they have never even acknowledged the unions except to give us notices of termination of contract extensions. they don t want to come to the table and bargain. well, 14 democrats from wisconsin senate actua