Governor Walker of Wisconsin and four of his supporters won recall elections rather handily last week. I found it interesting that Yahoo News called his 53 percent to 46 percent margin of victory a narrow victory!  In fact, this victory could even be considered a landslide, because the victory was by a larger margin than Walker’s win in his original election in 2010. It is clearly a mandate by the people of Wisconsin.
What did Walker do that enabled him, his Lt. Governor and three Republican senators to clearly win this recall election?
Right after Walker was elected, he turned down $810 million in federal funds to build a high speed rail system. Those in the know are aware that these federal funds will contribute the majority of funds for its construction, while the state pays the balance and all operating expenses for all the years that the system operates. This is a huge state financial burden. In addition, he asked the legislature to reduce business taxes in order to attract businesses back to Wisconsin. This reduced the unemployment rate and developed more revenue for that state.
Last of all, Walker managed to get laws passed that require government union members to pay 12 percent of their health care costs and a 5 percent contribution toward their retirement benefits. Before that change, those folks paid nothing toward these benefits. In addition, the law stopped the withholding of union dues from workers’ paychecks.
These changes in the NEA and SEIU labor contracts alone, turned the state from a $1.2 trillion deficit budget to a projected $4.4 billion budget surplus by December of 2012.
Proverbs 28:2 states, “When a country is rebellious, it has many rulers, but a ruler with discernment and knowledge maintains order.” Proverbs 29:2 says, “When the righteous thrive, the people rejoice; when the wicked rule, the people groan.” (NIV)
America is in a spiritual war and most of us don’t realize it. It has become acceptable to bear false witness against our neighbor when he disagrees with us. It has become acceptable to use organizations and even government to take what belongs to others, because some feel they have a right to it, or they just want it. We can now covet what our neighbor has and we can even misquote the Bible to justify our position.
What Gov. Walker, and the majority of the Wisconsin legislature, have accomplished is to slow down this coveting process a little. Many Americans now hope and pray that other ethical government leaders will follow Gov. Walker’s lead,
As CitizenLink reported, “‘It isn’t just the vindication of a particular political party,’ explained Brooke Rollins, president and CEO of the Texas Public Policy Foundation. ‘It’s a victory for the America established by our Founders, where opportunity flourished, the individual was paramount, and our government truly served the people. This battle in Wisconsin is won — but the fight goes on ... in every other state of our great nation.’” Hopefully, this election will be the beginning of this process.
“Enlightened by a benign [Christian] religion, professed, indeed, and practiced in various forms, yet all of them inculcating honesty, truth, temperance, gratitude, and the love of man; acknowledging and adoring an overruling Providence, which by all its dispensations proves that it delights in the happiness of man here and his greater happiness hereafter. With all these blessings, what more is necessary to make us a happy and prosperous people? Still one thing more … a wise and frugal Government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned.” Thomas Jefferson, Inaugural Address, March 4, 1801.

Frank F. Clark is the author of the column “Frankly Speaking.” Contact him through the Great Bend Tribune, email@gbtribune.com.