Krugman: The worldview of the liberal

Paul Krugman, liberal economist and opinionator for the NYT, wrote of the events in Wisconsin:

For what’s happening in Wisconsin isn’t about the state budget, despite Mr. Walker’s pretense that he’s just trying to be fiscally responsible. It is, instead, about power. What Mr. Walker and his backers are trying to do is to make Wisconsin — and eventually, America — less of a functioning democracy and more of a third-world-style oligarchy. And that’s why anyone who believes that we need some counterweight to the political power of big money should be on the demonstrators’ side.

But Timothy Carney of the Washington Examiner sees reality more clearly than Krugman:

But the unions are big money. Five of the top ten contributors to congressional and presidential campaigns since 1989 are labor unions according to the Center for Responsive Politics. In the last election, 10 of the top 20 PACs were union PACs.

More importantly, it's not as if Big Labor is balancing out the rest of "big money." Does Krugman know that all of the top ten industries contributing to the 2010 elections gave more money to Democrats than to Republicans? That's right: Lawyers, Health Professionals, Securities & Investment, Real Estate, Insurance, Lobbyists, Pharma, Government Unions, Entertainment, and Electric Utilities all favored Democrats in 2010.

And, Mr. Krugman, regardless of how you spin it, this is about the budget. The people of Wisconsin voted Republicans into the majority in order to stop the binge spending of the Democrats. Like alcoholics, the Democrats still are in denial that their spending will end up in disaster.

This is about union power, not the will of the people. And when Democrats flee to another state to avoid a vote, they are saying to the people of Wisconsin: Screw You.