What is going on in Wisconsin with Scott Walker and the budget repair bill will be coming to a state near you. This video really summarizes what’s going on very well:

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Yes, you heard me. Instead of busting the unions, there is a way to balance your budget without alienating the very people who work for you. When Toni Preckwinkle took office, she had a $487 million dollar deficit. Yep, I think that’s more than Wisconsin’s as a state. We also have the highest sales tax in the country. Not county — in the entire United States. However, this is how Toni Preckwinkle is fixing this without ruining Cook County Illinois and without making the unions obsolete. This took place in a 19 hour meeting where they worked with the unions — not against them.

1. Thousands of county workers (about 23,000) will take 10 unpaid days off this year. As a result, 550 fewer layoffs. (About 750 layoffs are still expected). 5 of those will be unpaid selected by the workers themselves. The others would be on county “shutdown days”.

2. The commissioners will ALSO take 10 unpaid days off. This is called sharing the pain. This amounts to a 3.8% pay cut.

3. Preckwinkle herself is taking a 10% pay cut.

4. Spending cuts.

5. Department consolidations.

6. Collection of unpaid taxes.

7. Some fee increases.

8. The tapping of some surplus funds.

I keep hearing from people that busting the unions is the only way to balance the budget. Well, Toni Preckwinkle has shown you differently. This is how you get it done! (And let me add that she also dropped the sales tax a quarter of a percent so that’s even less money coming into Cook County). Oh yeah, she’s only been in office a little over 100 days!

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Madison is one of those kids who can hear a song once and sing it back to you.  It happened to use again last night.  We were at Michael’s and she heard a Christmas song that I’m pretty sure she’s not heard before.  The rest of our shopping trip, she continued to sing the song and the correct words to the song.  She may never be the best forensic accountant, but she sure can remember music.

That being said, Madison has been dying to learn how to play piano.  To be honest, I’m not sure why.  She had been asking for months, but we recently decided to sign her up.  We can’t afford a piano right now (even the best forensic accounting services isn’t going to find money for that in our budget), so I picked her up a really nice keyboard.  She’s already had 2 lessons, and this week she is suppose to learn Mary Had a Little Lamb.  She’s super excited.  :)  Its a tad painful for me to watch her lessons and her struggle, but it is pretty amazing to see her “get” it.  What she struggled with last Wednesday, she is playing perfectly today.  Ahhh, to be young again.

I’m hoping this is something she will continue with.  I think she’s got a “sixth” sense with music, and I hope she will love to play.

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I got home last night around midnight, so I am dragging some major butt today. My goal is to get some posts us this weekend about the Sony Mommy Blogger Event, but I am not sure that is going to happen. I have to apologize that I haven’t been able to answer any comments or anything. They had us jam packed for a couple of days and now I have to play catch up with my kids, do some budgeting and planning with the bills, and catch up on laundry. Tomorrow, we have a birthday party to go to, so that kills getting anything done.  Bill has been playing with  cameras all morning.  I got a couple of good pictures of the kids.  I am hoping to get those up shortly too.  I just feel like I have a ton of stuff to do and no time to do it in.

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Bill and I went to Home Depot today to price up a lot of the stuff we need for the basement. I swear that shopping with men is a futile endeavor. I almost told Bill he better start looking at life insurance rates. He kept getting frustrated at me, because I was looking at things that weren’t on the list. He also was getting seriously frustrated me when I was asking questions about why we needed certain things.  Then when he couldn’t find something he refused to ask for help.  I could have just strangled him.  All in all, we did get prices for everything we think we need.  We are trying to make a budget, so we know what this remodel will cost, and we won’t run out of money.

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