NEW YORK (MarketWatch) — Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker said Sunday that the ongoing occupation of the state’s Capitol by pro-union protesters hasn’t weakened his determination to end collective bargaining rights for most public workers in his state.

“We’re broke. It’s about time someone stood up and told the truth in our state and said, ‘Here’s our problem, here’s the solution and let’s do this,’ ” the Republican governor said in an interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

“ ‘In about a week we went from the total joy of a Super Bowl win to having everyone at each other’s throats.’ ” — Bob Esler, retired teacher

But one Wisconsin resident who watched Walker on the broadcast found the governor’s stance at odds with his stated desire to cut red ink and instead views Walker’s actions as part of a national strategy to destroy one of the major sources of financial support for Democrats.

“Clearly it isn’t about the money, it never was. It’s about destroying public unions, the prime money raisers for Democrats. Soon there will be no money to fight the corporate ads that are flooding the state,” said Bob Esler, who retired several years ago after 33 years of teaching economics to high school students in Sheboygan, where he lives.

“We are getting pounded by ads by the Koch group,” Esler said of the billionaire brothers who have longed backed conservative causes and groups such as Americans for Prosperity.

During one 30-minute local newscast from Green Bay, Wis., on Saturday, three ads financed by the Koch brothers aired, Esler said.

Unions take Wisconsin fight to D.C.

Walker defended his actions on national television Sunday after a crowd estimated to number between 70,000 to 100,000 gathered Saturday to show support for Wisconsin’s public employees.

GOP-backed legislation that has stalled in the Wisconsin Senate would assist in closing an estimated $3.6 billion deficit in the 2011-13 budget, and ridding local governments of having to contend with collective bargaining would give them more freedom to make deeper budget cuts in the future, Walker argued.

But Esler, who with a master’s degree never made more than $51,000 a year, suggested the governor instead consider looking at the state’s richest 1% to balance the budget.

Ninety-nine percent of the state’s residents would not be impacted and “gap solved,” said Esler, pointing to research by University of Wisconsin at Madison professor Marc Levin, who found the deficit could be resolved by imposing a temporary 1.5% surcharge for two years on the 1% of Wisconsinites whose annual incomes exceed $260,000.

Levin’s detailed his findings in a commentary published Saturday in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

State Democrats oppose the bill, saying it would leave almost all public workers without the right to collectively bargain on benefits and working conditions. Wisconsin’s biggest public workers’ unions have already agreed to Walker’s demands that their members take on more of the cost of pension and health-care benefits.

Majority Republicans in the Wisconsin Assembly abruptly halted debate and passed Walker’s proposal before midnight Friday morning. But 14 Democratic members of the state Senate remained out of state, a move that left that body one vote short of a quorum.

“In about a week we went from the total joy of the Super Bowl win to having everyone at each other’s throats,” said Esler.