Since taking office in January, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) has stripped public workers of their collective bargaining rights, proposed wage cuts to local government employees, and insisted that his “state is broke” and that its public workers are overpaid. But Walker applies a different standard to himself.

Today, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reveals that Walker is using state funds to pay more than $81,500 a year to the 26-year-old son of a major campaign donor with no college degree and two drunken-driving convictions.

Despite having almost no management experience, UW Madison college dropout Brian Deschane now oversees state environmental and regulatory issues and manages dozens of Commerce Department employees. After only two months on the job, Deschane has already received a 26 percent pay raise and a promotion.

Deschane’s father, Jerry Deschane was a major financial backer of the Governor’s campaign:

Jerry Deschane, executive vice president and longtime lobbyist for the Madison-based Wisconsin Builders Association…bet big on Walker during last year’s governor’s race.

The group’s political action committee gave $29,000 to Walker and his running mate, Lt. Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch, last year, making it one of the top five PAC donors to the governor’s successful campaign. Even more impressive, members of the trade group funneled more than $92,000 through its conduit to Walker’s campaign over the past two years.

Total donations: $121,652.

Deschanes’ father admitted that during the gubenatorial campaign he may have put in “good words” for his son with Walker campaign manager (and current chief of staff) Keith Gilkes. A state official has confirmed that Gilkes “recommended Deschane for an interview at the agency.” Michael McCabe, the executive director of the Wisconsin democracy Campaign, said the appointment had “all the markings of political patronage.”

In the coming months, we may be seeing more cases of Brian Deschanes. The anti-union law Walker signed last month also included provisions that would convert more than thirty-seven civil service positions into political appointees chosen by the Governor.

– Kevin Donohoe

Republican governors in several states, as well as Republican lawmakers at the federal level, have sought to bust and restrict unions while setting barriers for those workers who want to unionize ever higher, in what amounts to a direct assault on the middle-class. In addition to securing important labor protections, when unions are strong, the middle-class is strong. As new research from David Madland, Nick Bunker, and Karla Walter shows, every percentage point increase in unionization builds middle-class incomes for both union members and non-union members:

Each percentage point increase in union membership puts about $153 more per year into the pockets of the middle class — meaning that if unionization rates increased by 10 percentage points (about the level they were in 1980) — then the typical middle class household would earn $1,532 more this year. This figure indicates how much better off all members of the middle class would be — not just those who are union members — if unions regained some strength. And these gains would continue year after year.

To put these results in context, our analysis indicates that increasing union membership is as important to rebuilding the middle class as boosting college graduation rates, results that while shocking to some, are consistent with previous research.

Wages for the working class have been essentially stagnant for wages, while income inequality in the U.S. is the worst its been since the 1920s. At the moment, the top one percent of households make almost 25 percent of the nation’s income, while making about ten percent in the 1970s. Last year alone, CEO pay grew by 27 percent, while worker pay grew by just two percent.

Increasing unionization can help reverse some of these trends, and can also help boost the overall economy. After all, “from 1947 to 1973, the period when unions were strongest and nearly one-third of workers were organized, U.S. economic output nearly tripled in size, growing at an average of 3.8 percent annually“; since 2001, economic output has been just 2.2 percent annually.

When the Obama administration first moved to rescue General Motors and Chrysler — in the process saving tens of thousands of jobs — Republicans went on the offensive, claiming that saving two of Detroit’s automakers from vanishing was “the road to socialism” and a “war on capitalism.” Now that the companies are profitable again — posting another strong month in March — the GOP hasn’t been advertising its previous denunciations.

In fact, RealClearPolitics’ Erin McPike noted that, as of March 9, 2012 GOP presidential contender Mitt Romney’s Free and Strong America PAC website featured all of the op-eds that Romney authored since 2008, with one notable exception: “Not on his site is a Nov. 18, 2008, piece in the New York Times entitled, ‘Let Detroit Go Bankrupt,’ in which he argued against the auto bailout.” (Romney has since posted the op-ed.) In that piece, Romney railed against the auto rescue, saying that it “guaranteed” the “demise” of the American auto industry:

If General Motors, Ford and Chrysler get the bailout that their chief executives asked for yesterday, you can kiss the American automotive industry goodbye. It won’t go overnight, but its demise will be virtually guaranteed.

But Romney is far from the only potential 2012 nominee that had harsh words for the auto rescue. Here’s a rundown of some of the other 2012 frontrunners and their thoughts on the administration’s auto rescue:

Former Gov. Tim Pawlenty (MN): You now have politicians chiding the auto industry over size of cars, what they should do, their business decisions, dealership decisions. That is not the proper province for the United States Congress…This is not the United States of America that we know and love and remember. This looks like some sort of a republic from the — South America circa 1970s.

Gov. Haley Barbour (MS): If we watch the Obama administration fire the CEO of General Motors and replace the board of directors of a private corporation, it shows how far-left their views is about government’s role in the economy…This is not so much an economic agenda as an ideological agenda.

Gov. Mitch Daniels (IN): The only thing we know for certain is the way they’ve been doing business does not work and throwing taxpayer dollars after it won’t make it work.

Former Speaker Newt Gingrich: “Government intervention to boost companies like General Motors Corp. has ‘already failed.’ “Bureaucrats managing companies does not work, politicians dominating the economy does not work.”

Former Gov. Mike Huckabee (AR): As tragic as it would have been (to let GM fail), the greater tragedy is setting up an entitlement mentality where nobody has the risk of failure except the people who pay.

The GOP, in large numbers, derided the auto rescue as an inevitable failure. The administration should be trumpeting that, in fact, the opposite occurred.

The major papers are abuzz today with details of House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan’s (R-WI), including his plan to voucherize Medicare and drastically cut Medicaid by turning it into a block grant program. Ryan estimates that the GOP budget will reduce government spending by more than $4 trillion over the next decade.

During an appearance on Fox News Sunday yesterday, Ryan also said that the budget will include some sort of tax reform:

Well, the president’s commission, which I was a member of, first and foremost said to have economic growth in America, you need to lower tax rates for corporations and individuals and broaden the tax base. We will be recommending those kinds of things.

Ryan didn’t reveal the details during the interview, but the Wall Street Journal reported today that the plan will reduce both the top marginal income tax rate and the corporate income tax rate by 10 points:

Conservative activists who are familiar with the Ryan plan said they expect it to call for a fundamental overhaul of the tax system, with a 25% top rate for both individuals and corporations, compared to the current 35% top rate. It is expected to raise about the same amount of money as the current system, however. Lawmakers already are considering ways to accomplish that by reducing or eliminating some deductions and other tax breaks.

The details of this will, of course, become much clearer tomorrow, but it’s worth remembering that Ryan’s “Roadmap for America’s Future” includes a reworking of the tax system that dramatically cuts taxes for the rich, raises taxes on 90 percent of the population, and still manages to cost the government trillions of dollars in revenue.

For the House Republican budget to raise the same amount of revenue while lopping ten points off of the top income tax rate means that the tax burden is necessarily going to be shifted down the income scale. Ryan yesterday also refused to endorse cutting taxpayer subsidies to oil and gas companies, calling into question the GOP’s commitment to actually pairing a cut in the corporate tax rate with the elimination of loopholes and giveaways in order to raise the same amount of revenue through the corporate tax code.