Wednesday, May 30, 2012
The Damage Scott Walker Has Done to Wisconsin
The case for recalling the governor is clear
Gov. Scott Walker and his allies in the conservative movement and at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel claim that this recall is only about one issue: Walker's attack on the collective bargaining rights of public employees.
But Walker's attack on the unionized middle class was just the catalyst for the recall movement, not the sole reason for it.
Since then, Walker and his allies in the state Legislature have given Wisconsin voters a wide range of reasons to recall him and four Republican senators. Here are a few of the ways in which many people feel Walker has damaged Wisconsin.
Walker has the worst job-creation record in the country: Walker's strategy of giving to the rich and squeezing everyone else isn't working. Walker has the worst job-creation record in the country. According to verified, official data, the state has lost 33,000 jobs in the past year. And the perks Walker showered on corporations and the wealthy, including $2.3 billion in tax breaks over the next decade, are not trickling down to the average Wisconsin resident.
For example, Republicans slipped a last-minute tax break for manufacturers into the state budget, which Walker signed. The tax break will cost the state $360 million in revenue over the next four years alone, according to the Legislative Fiscal Bureau, and keep growing. Even worse? The tax break isn't tied to any sort of accountability measures. The corporations just get a big windfall without having to produce even one new job.
Walker tries to fool the public about his terrible job-creation record: Walker was voted into office in 2010 because he promised to create 250,000 new private-sector jobs in his first term. The results are in for his first year in office and they show that Walker's Wisconsin is headed in the opposite direction. So what did Walker do? He rushed out unverified data showing that the state actually added jobs in 2011. Of course, he didn't provide any details about which industries added jobs or where these alleged jobs are located. Walker's data won't be verified by the federal government until June 28, three weeks after his recall election.
Equal pay law repealed because money isn't important to women: One of the most insulting acts Walker and his medieval-times-thinking Republicans did was to repeal the state's Equal Pay Law, because, as state Sen. Glenn Grothman (R-West Bend) so helpfully put it, “Money is more important for men.” Thanks to Walker and Grothman, women who are suffering from wage abuse in the workplace now have fewer avenues to get justice.
The loss of $810 million in federal investment weakens Milwaukee's economy: Walker made huge headlines when he rejected $810 million in federal money for high-speed rail and upgrades to the Hiawatha Amtrak line between Milwaukee and Chicago—a political move meant to repay his road-building donors for years of support.
Walker's rejection damaged train manufacturer Talgo's Milwaukee operations and will cause the company to leave the city. Sadly, Talgo is located in one of the city's hard-hit neighborhoods—an area that Walker now claims he wants to build up with loans and tax credits.
Walker's shortsighted rejection came back to haunt him when he had to go begging to the same federal officials he insulted because he still wanted the Hiawatha money. Not surprisingly, Walker's pleas were spurned. The state is now on the hook for more than $200 million for the local line's upgrades.
Walker is lying about his budget surplus: The Walker administration sent a letter to the federal government verifying that the state would have a budget deficit in 2013, when Walker's first biennial budget expires. Why? Walker had to claim a deficit so that he could go ahead with his plans to kick people off of BadgerCare.
But, as if by magic, in the midst of the recall campaign, Walker's appointed administration secretary found that the state now has a budget surplus. Part of that surplus is due to pushing off payments, but Walker is hoping that nobody reads the fine print.
So will the budget “surplus” allow Walker to restore funding to BadgerCare? He can't have it both ways.
Walker makes unemployed workers wait: Walker is failing at creating jobs and he's failing the unemployed. He and the state Legislature are now requiring newly unemployed workers to wait a week before receiving their first check. In this way, the state will save $41 million—but at the expense of those who have just lost their jobs and need support the most.
Walker pushed a mining bill written by a mining company: Since Walker lacked positive job numbers, he went all in on a mining bill that would have exempted iron mining companies from environmental regulations. Wonder how that happened? That's a good question, since the bill didn't have any legislators' names attached to it when it was introduced. Finally, in this week's New York Times, Republican Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald of Juneau let it slip that the bill was written by the mining company itself. Even worse, legislators trampled all over the international treaty rights of the area's American-Indian tribe. Fortunately, Sen. Dale Schultz (R-Richland Center) stood up to the radicals in his party and refused to support the bill, killing its chances in the state Senate.
Walker jeopardizes the health care of more than a million Wisconsinites: The state's popular and cost-effective BadgerCare program was established by Republican Gov. Tommy Thompson and expanded through the years. Now, BadgerCare and Medicaid programs cover 1.2 million Wisconsinites—about a fifth of the population—who are grateful for access to affordable health care.
But Walker and the Republicans are trying to decimate BadgerCare so that more people will be forced to buy unaffordable insurance policies on the open market or simply go without insurance and push the costs onto everyone else.
Their first step was to underfund Medicaid programs by about $600 million. The next step was to grant Walker's uber-conservative Secretary of Health Services Dennis Smith unprecedented power to make cuts to these programs without public input.
Thankfully, the Obama administration has not allowed Walker and Smith to get what they want, which is to force 65,000 individuals (including 29,000 children) off of BadgerCare. Instead, Walker's plan will “only” force 17,000 adults off of the program because it would be unaffordable.
The next step? Walker and Smith want to go even further and jack up the cost of the program while cutting services. Their plans would affect an estimated 300,000 low-income people.
Walker couldn't care less about public schools: Walker made historic cuts to public education. In total, Walker cut $834 million from K-12 public schools, then capped property taxes so local districts will find it nearly impossible to raise more funds. The Milwaukee Public Schools lost $166 million in funding over two years, compared to prior law.
As a result of Walker's attack on public schools, more than 3,400 education workers have lost their jobs statewide, including 1,900 teachers. The kids feeling the brunt of Walker's cuts are the ones from low-income families, the very kids who rely on quality public schools to give them a chance to enter the middle class as adults. In addition, classroom sizes are increasing at the same time teachers' aides are getting pink slips, schools are dropping arts and science courses, and potential teachers simply don't want to go into the field because there is no job security and they are being demonized by the Republican Party and its supporters.
It surprised no one that Walker couldn't find money for public schools but was able to find $40 million from the state and MPS to expand the experimental voucher school program and allow middle-class families to use a taxpayer-funded voucher to send their kids to a private school. Walker also exempted voucher schools from making their test scores public, so taxpayers have no idea if these voucher schools are actually educating our children.
Walker gutted technical college funding: Although Walker has paid lip service to the need to train the next generation of Wisconsin's skilled workers, he cut 30% of the state funding for the Wisconsin Technical College System, about $36 million per year. He also implemented a property tax cap, preventing our tech schools from raising more revenue. As a result, students and their families will have to pay more in the coming years for their tuition.
Walker slashed university funding: Walker couldn't be bothered to finish his undergraduate degree at Marquette University, so it's no surprise that he has no respect for Wisconsin's vital university system. First he attempted to spin off UW-Madison from the rest of the system, which would have allowed the school to jack up tuition to make up for the lack of state investment.
Fortunately for UW-Madison students, that didn't happen.
Unfortunately, Walker and his Republican allies cut $250 million from the University of Wisconsin System without adding more state aid for students. That has forced four-year campuses to raise tuition 5.5%. When Walker realized he had to cut more programs to balance his budget, he cut an additional $46 million from the UW, threatening the future of Wisconsin's highly regarded state universities and the thousands of businesses that rely on UW alumni to join the workforce.
The concealed carry law goes too far: While it was no surprise that Walker and the Republicans would pass a concealed carry law when they came into power, the law that they did pass is terribly lenient and fails to provide any meaningful penalties for those who carry a concealed weapon without a permit.
Then, when Republican Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen attempted to implement a four-hour training requirement for permit holders, Walker and the National Rifle Association (NRA) intervened and got the Republicans to delete the length of time for training courses. Even weirder? Republican legislative leader Bill Kramer of Waukesha carries a concealed weapon when he's on the Assembly floor.
Walker lets polluters off the hook and risks the public's health: To make Wisconsin more business-friendly, Walker is now allowing polluters to call the shots at the Department of Natural Resources (DNR). In a highly disturbing case, Herr Environmental was found to have spread high levels of human waste on fields, threatening the wells in the area. But Walker's political appointees at the DNR—and state Rep. Joel Kleefisch of Oconomowoc, whose wife, Lt. Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch, is facing a recall on June 5—intervened on Herr's behalf. As a result, the politicos at the top overruled the DNR's experts and the company only faces a slap on the wrist, instead of prosecution.
But Walker's attack on the unionized middle class was just the catalyst for the recall movement, not the sole reason for it.
Since then, Walker and his allies in the state Legislature have given Wisconsin voters a wide range of reasons to recall him and four Republican senators. Here are a few of the ways in which many people feel Walker has damaged Wisconsin.
Walker has the worst job-creation record in the country: Walker's strategy of giving to the rich and squeezing everyone else isn't working. Walker has the worst job-creation record in the country. According to verified, official data, the state has lost 33,000 jobs in the past year. And the perks Walker showered on corporations and the wealthy, including $2.3 billion in tax breaks over the next decade, are not trickling down to the average Wisconsin resident.
For example, Republicans slipped a last-minute tax break for manufacturers into the state budget, which Walker signed. The tax break will cost the state $360 million in revenue over the next four years alone, according to the Legislative Fiscal Bureau, and keep growing. Even worse? The tax break isn't tied to any sort of accountability measures. The corporations just get a big windfall without having to produce even one new job.
Walker tries to fool the public about his terrible job-creation record: Walker was voted into office in 2010 because he promised to create 250,000 new private-sector jobs in his first term. The results are in for his first year in office and they show that Walker's Wisconsin is headed in the opposite direction. So what did Walker do? He rushed out unverified data showing that the state actually added jobs in 2011. Of course, he didn't provide any details about which industries added jobs or where these alleged jobs are located. Walker's data won't be verified by the federal government until June 28, three weeks after his recall election.
Equal pay law repealed because money isn't important to women: One of the most insulting acts Walker and his medieval-times-thinking Republicans did was to repeal the state's Equal Pay Law, because, as state Sen. Glenn Grothman (R-West Bend) so helpfully put it, “Money is more important for men.” Thanks to Walker and Grothman, women who are suffering from wage abuse in the workplace now have fewer avenues to get justice.
The loss of $810 million in federal investment weakens Milwaukee's economy: Walker made huge headlines when he rejected $810 million in federal money for high-speed rail and upgrades to the Hiawatha Amtrak line between Milwaukee and Chicago—a political move meant to repay his road-building donors for years of support.
Walker's rejection damaged train manufacturer Talgo's Milwaukee operations and will cause the company to leave the city. Sadly, Talgo is located in one of the city's hard-hit neighborhoods—an area that Walker now claims he wants to build up with loans and tax credits.
Walker's shortsighted rejection came back to haunt him when he had to go begging to the same federal officials he insulted because he still wanted the Hiawatha money. Not surprisingly, Walker's pleas were spurned. The state is now on the hook for more than $200 million for the local line's upgrades.
Walker is lying about his budget surplus: The Walker administration sent a letter to the federal government verifying that the state would have a budget deficit in 2013, when Walker's first biennial budget expires. Why? Walker had to claim a deficit so that he could go ahead with his plans to kick people off of BadgerCare.
But, as if by magic, in the midst of the recall campaign, Walker's appointed administration secretary found that the state now has a budget surplus. Part of that surplus is due to pushing off payments, but Walker is hoping that nobody reads the fine print.
So will the budget “surplus” allow Walker to restore funding to BadgerCare? He can't have it both ways.
Walker makes unemployed workers wait: Walker is failing at creating jobs and he's failing the unemployed. He and the state Legislature are now requiring newly unemployed workers to wait a week before receiving their first check. In this way, the state will save $41 million—but at the expense of those who have just lost their jobs and need support the most.
Walker pushed a mining bill written by a mining company: Since Walker lacked positive job numbers, he went all in on a mining bill that would have exempted iron mining companies from environmental regulations. Wonder how that happened? That's a good question, since the bill didn't have any legislators' names attached to it when it was introduced. Finally, in this week's New York Times, Republican Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald of Juneau let it slip that the bill was written by the mining company itself. Even worse, legislators trampled all over the international treaty rights of the area's American-Indian tribe. Fortunately, Sen. Dale Schultz (R-Richland Center) stood up to the radicals in his party and refused to support the bill, killing its chances in the state Senate.
Walker jeopardizes the health care of more than a million Wisconsinites: The state's popular and cost-effective BadgerCare program was established by Republican Gov. Tommy Thompson and expanded through the years. Now, BadgerCare and Medicaid programs cover 1.2 million Wisconsinites—about a fifth of the population—who are grateful for access to affordable health care.
But Walker and the Republicans are trying to decimate BadgerCare so that more people will be forced to buy unaffordable insurance policies on the open market or simply go without insurance and push the costs onto everyone else.
Their first step was to underfund Medicaid programs by about $600 million. The next step was to grant Walker's uber-conservative Secretary of Health Services Dennis Smith unprecedented power to make cuts to these programs without public input.
Thankfully, the Obama administration has not allowed Walker and Smith to get what they want, which is to force 65,000 individuals (including 29,000 children) off of BadgerCare. Instead, Walker's plan will “only” force 17,000 adults off of the program because it would be unaffordable.
The next step? Walker and Smith want to go even further and jack up the cost of the program while cutting services. Their plans would affect an estimated 300,000 low-income people.
Walker couldn't care less about public schools: Walker made historic cuts to public education. In total, Walker cut $834 million from K-12 public schools, then capped property taxes so local districts will find it nearly impossible to raise more funds. The Milwaukee Public Schools lost $166 million in funding over two years, compared to prior law.
As a result of Walker's attack on public schools, more than 3,400 education workers have lost their jobs statewide, including 1,900 teachers. The kids feeling the brunt of Walker's cuts are the ones from low-income families, the very kids who rely on quality public schools to give them a chance to enter the middle class as adults. In addition, classroom sizes are increasing at the same time teachers' aides are getting pink slips, schools are dropping arts and science courses, and potential teachers simply don't want to go into the field because there is no job security and they are being demonized by the Republican Party and its supporters.
It surprised no one that Walker couldn't find money for public schools but was able to find $40 million from the state and MPS to expand the experimental voucher school program and allow middle-class families to use a taxpayer-funded voucher to send their kids to a private school. Walker also exempted voucher schools from making their test scores public, so taxpayers have no idea if these voucher schools are actually educating our children.
Walker gutted technical college funding: Although Walker has paid lip service to the need to train the next generation of Wisconsin's skilled workers, he cut 30% of the state funding for the Wisconsin Technical College System, about $36 million per year. He also implemented a property tax cap, preventing our tech schools from raising more revenue. As a result, students and their families will have to pay more in the coming years for their tuition.
Walker slashed university funding: Walker couldn't be bothered to finish his undergraduate degree at Marquette University, so it's no surprise that he has no respect for Wisconsin's vital university system. First he attempted to spin off UW-Madison from the rest of the system, which would have allowed the school to jack up tuition to make up for the lack of state investment.
Fortunately for UW-Madison students, that didn't happen.
Unfortunately, Walker and his Republican allies cut $250 million from the University of Wisconsin System without adding more state aid for students. That has forced four-year campuses to raise tuition 5.5%. When Walker realized he had to cut more programs to balance his budget, he cut an additional $46 million from the UW, threatening the future of Wisconsin's highly regarded state universities and the thousands of businesses that rely on UW alumni to join the workforce.
The concealed carry law goes too far: While it was no surprise that Walker and the Republicans would pass a concealed carry law when they came into power, the law that they did pass is terribly lenient and fails to provide any meaningful penalties for those who carry a concealed weapon without a permit.
Then, when Republican Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen attempted to implement a four-hour training requirement for permit holders, Walker and the National Rifle Association (NRA) intervened and got the Republicans to delete the length of time for training courses. Even weirder? Republican legislative leader Bill Kramer of Waukesha carries a concealed weapon when he's on the Assembly floor.
Walker lets polluters off the hook and risks the public's health: To make Wisconsin more business-friendly, Walker is now allowing polluters to call the shots at the Department of Natural Resources (DNR). In a highly disturbing case, Herr Environmental was found to have spread high levels of human waste on fields, threatening the wells in the area. But Walker's political appointees at the DNR—and state Rep. Joel Kleefisch of Oconomowoc, whose wife, Lt. Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch, is facing a recall on June 5—intervened on Herr's behalf. As a result, the politicos at the top overruled the DNR's experts and the company only faces a slap on the wrist, instead of prosecution.
^This a hundred times over.
The gubernatorial recall has always been about who is in charge in Wisconsin — government employees or taxpayers. The state should be run for the benefit of the 85 percent of workers who do not work for government whose taxes pay for those who do. Any crazy Vote for Tom Barrett, and the state will once again be run by the public employee unions. Note to Lisa and her Tiny spec in Milwaukee with the cluster clucks in Madison time to spit out the kool-aid and wake up because Tommy the turd dumper has already been pronounced as the three time loser from the rest of Wisconsin. I will send you a copy of the new History book.
Not necessarily a Walker supporter? Har! There's nothing in this article which isn't factual. Of course, the facts are presented with the liberal spin one expects of the SE, which has never denied its advocacy journalism. But at least Lisa Kaiser is making her point by discussing things that actually happened, as opposed to stringing phrases together to make it superficially appear as if she knows what she is talking about.
Darrell, you seem to have only the most tenuous grasp on argumentation. Learn, think, then speak.
Written like a trust fund philosophy grad.
1) It's plain and obvious, when a business is run correctly, it ALWAYS makes money (profit). It ALWAYS gets more value from its workers than what it pays them, it ALWAYS gets more money from the customer than what the customer receives in return. A good business ALWAYS moves money from the lower ranks to the higher ranks, the owners pockets. But, a business does not CREATE money, it just MOVES it. After enough time has passed, it is ALL moved to the top, and the wheels of the economy stops. How do you keep it going?
For "business" to keep going, it needs new money coming in from the BOTTOM (not the top). Where does that money come from? In the old days, the people at the bottom who worked the land, dug the mines, picked and hunted natures bounty used their toil to create the items of wealth. You could trade your grain, fish, meat, produce, any items of craft that you had an excess of for some item that you needed. No "cash money" was needed, each negotiator worked to keep the trade "even-steven". Capitalism was owning the means of production, not "owning all the stuff". This kind of wealth was being created, it was being provided by nature and the labor of the working class. It was not created by no bank! Accumulation of "wealth" was limited, unused items spoiled, rotted, rusted, eventually lost its value.
But, when a doctor got paid by another chicken that he did not need, he now had the burden of finding someone he could trade that chicken to for something he did need. "Legal Tender" was created as a way to relieve him of that burden. One big problem, this now meant wealth was converted to something that did not wear out, money could now be accumulated to an extreme! Money could also be "rented out", otherwise called a loan, and interest charged on that loan. The gains of this interest was not backed by any items of material wealth, just made things worse. -- As taught in our Econ 101 classes, the "fractional reserve" banking system CREATES money by loaning out like 80% of their deposits. The first deposit was true, hard cash, backed by material wealth like gold. The money lent out was now used to buy goods, pay for workers. This cash register money and payroll money was now deposited in the bank, who treated it like hard cash again, they could not see that it was "fake" loan money. The bank lends 80% out again, the cycle repeats. It is this LOAN activity that CREATES money... but it is not creating WEALTH. This money is simply the stuff that greases the wheels of modern business... business that demands to keep 30% in it's owners accounts as it passes through their hands.
Capitalism and free enterprise is not the problem, it is "Legal Tender" and Banking! Both of which allow extreme accumulations of numerical money, and that equates to power, the ability to control the players and their friends and family.
2) It now should be plain and obvious that something is needed to bring money back down, to let it work it's way back up again through private enterprise. When business practices cause "hard-feelings", we the people created rules and courts of law to REGULATE how business, it was not just for prosecuting common thieves and murderers. These regulatory organizations don;t run for free, so people willingly agreed to a form of "taxes", "tribute", or "fees" to keep this law and order going.
All that is ancient history, the rise of civilization. Works well when all participants can clearly see the wide-ranging impact on living life, can see where things are fair, and unfair. But we are now so large that we can no longer see beyond our own borders, cannot see over the hill to the next "tribe", cannot see how the mining barons were treating their workers. We are not related by blood, are not drinking buddies, so what do we care? -- the birth of racism, and all the other "-isms" of lack of understanding, lack of knowledge, lack of tolerance, lack of contact and observation.
3) Public vs Private. We already know that a business MUST make money, MUST turn a significant profit. Whether private profit or public surplus, both make sure that the money that filters up is not going back down to where it is needed. If the true purpose of our labor is to deliver a service, produce a product, do we need to have these accumulated profits and surpluses to do that? Isn't the real goal to "have more stuff", and to "have more leisure time"? The working class and middle class do not need more money moving to the top 1%, we want more "time and stuff", not making more CEO's and shareholders rich. We need to keep this money circulating on Main Street.
A well-run public government agency can be made to deliver the services needed without including the need to make "30% profit", just got to manage it right, control it right. Turning it over to private CEO's and boards of directors only means it must be done in a way that drives more money into the owners bank accounts, building their power base. The top 1% maintains their power over us by leaving us feeling "a little short", by leaving enough of us under-served or going without, which only makes the apparent value of this limited stuff seem higher, allowing us to agree to the higher prices they are charging. Take away this requirement of 30% profit for the top 1%, and more can be served.
Is the economy really broken? Did we have some big epidemic? Did we have a crop failure or huge natural disaster? No - It's just the access to credit, the consumer credit that fueled the profit-demanding system. We need more NINJA loans, (No Income, No Jobs or Assets), with which the American people can keep buying stuff despite losing jobs, as long as it takes to move that last job out of the country... then the banks are going to demand payback... with no jobs to pay back with! Who wins? Even the banks lose, but the business owning top 1% who made all that profit are the ONLY winners.
A vote for Walker is a vote to allow the top 1% to continue their grand plan!
I would like to post your comment on facebook... So many people do not understand Capitalism and what is happening with the US economy
Post it anywhere it will get seen by the right people, those who can vote for something that moves us in a new kind of "Forward", in the direction that maximizes the number of American beneficiaries (not maximizes concentrated profit for a few).
Post it on Facebook, post it on Twitter, post it on the Journal-Sentinel, Chicago Tribune, the New York Times... Just make sure to credit me for it, WaukeshaGuy on the Shepherd Express.