Heroin in Wisconsin

We have recently passed a bunch of laws to curtail heroin use in Wisconsin.  How noble.  Unfortunately they will do nothing to curtail the use and abuse of heroin.  Creating a database of everyone with a prescription for synthetic opium will not stop abuse.  Neither will the requirement to show an id.  The numbers are pretty clear that it is both easier and cheaper to get real heroin.  About all that this law will do is be a major inconvenience for law abiding citizens attempting to get their legal prescriptions.  I will give some credit to allowing a greater use of Narcan which will reduce overdose deaths.  A real solution would involve doing stuff and spending money on things that Republicans just can't even comprehend.  Like maybe we should figure out why the use of this drug is on the rise.  Everyone knows that heroin is bad for you, why are more and more people turning to it?  Maybe we could invest in treatment rather than incarceration and creating databases.  Once again a terribly misguided policy and waste of taxpayer money.

WI Wisconsin Senate

The Republican candidates for WI Senate had a debate the other day. The most shocking thing to come out of the debate was said by Mark Neumann. He stated that all tax breaks should go away. This from who used to be the most reasonable of the candidates, but also a guy who made millions because of the tax breaks. You see Mark owns a company that installs residential solar systems. These systems would not sell as well as they do if it weren't for the fact that the owners can write off up to 40% of the cost. As you know I'm against tax breaks for corporations because corporations should not be getting a subsidized workforce, these taxcuts are different because they go directly to a individual. They allow for homes to be improved and lessen a need for new power plants having to be built.

Fitzgerald is running on his conservative values and leadership. That would be the leadership that cuts off debate and rushes votes when there is barely a quorum thus allowing easy passage.

Finally you have Eric Hovde, who is running an ad touting how much borrowing is being done. It is important to remember that Hovde worked and made millions in an industry that held this government hostage saying that they needed bailing out in order to head off financial ruin of the country. This bailout and the Iraq war really blew up the budget. The debt doesn't look that bad when you take the $6-9 trillion given to the banks and the $3 trillion spend in Iraq and take them out of the $15 trillion debt that we have. Also, he has no plan for how to solve his identified problem other than to not borrow anymore. This does nothing to solve the debt crisis and he should know this.

Gogebic Mining ... quits WI

Unbelievable, Gogebic Mining couldn't get a rewrite of the mine permitting process so they quit the State. Really, there are so many issues here.

1. Nearly everyone concedes that had Gogebic Mining filed for a permit in January 2011 they would have been granted a permit by now.
2. The claim is that the mine is worth $1.5 billion. Does anyone really believe that if a company could make $1.5 billion that they would walk away from a deal because they don't like the process?
3. The Fitzgeralds say they are through trying to compromise on the bill. The truth here is that when a compromise was in the works one brother dissolved the committee and the other brother said that he wouldn't bring the compromise to the floor.

No this whole thing is all a bunch of theater. I would however like to be at the meeting where the President of Gogebic explains how he left Wisconsin and $1.5 billion behind.

Overheard

I overheard in response to Chancellor Martin's announcement (who I thought was an excellent chancellor) the following. Maybe we should get someone without a degree like the Governor and many of his cabinet people because they understand the real world. To which someone responded "I seem to remember when you were all upset that people without degrees in our organization were being paid more than you". My response was that it is a little different when you are talking about people that you agree with in terms of qualifications. I do agree that a degree is not the end all be all but I do think that if you are in a high level position in government that you can benefit from having a broader education about the state, the country, and the world and how they interact and operate. And, maybe a little economics about how companies expand when they need to meet demand, they don't expand because they have money laying around.

Personally I'm hopeful that we hire a chancellor with only a BS so that I can apply.

Wisconsin Supreme Court Ruling

A very interesting if not unexpected ruling was handed down late yesterday. What the court essentially said was due to separation of powers we have no jurisdiction over the legislature when questions of their rules come up. Historically the courts have said that they have the ability to review all laws, but not in Wisconsin anymore. Basically what the court said is that the legislature was being accused of violating their own rules and that it was up to the legislature to enforce their rules. This is so cool, I can't wait until we get a legislature comprised of people who the 4 don't agree with and try to do the same thing. Does anyone seriously believe that this court will hand down the same ruling? I doubt it the 4 in the majority have shown that they are nothing but party loyalists. Remember when Justice Crooks was considered the conservative on the court, he wrote a separate dissent on this case.

As a post script the unions have filed Federal cases, I guess they just want to see what a 5-4 US Supreme Court decision looks like.

Concealed Carry

Wisconsin has begun debate on concealed carry again. But, unlike last time we now allow (or at least have ruled) extensive open carry. There are 2 competing bills. One would require a license the other would require nothing. As we all know there are 3 clauses in the 2nd Amendment and as far as I can tell the issue of licenses can't possibly be inferred from it. So, the correct bill is the one that allows concealed carry with no restrictions. One sheriff has gone on record as saying that we need licenses so that we now who is carrying. Doesn't that defeat one of the arguments that the NRA (who supports licenses, go figure) uses to fight gun control? The NRA believes that the Government can't know who has guns in case we start a revolution but yet they support allowing Government to know who is carrying a gun. I don't understand the sheriffs wanting to now who is carrying when these same sheriffs were all for open carry. If you are going to allow open carry without documentation why be restrictive on concealed carry? Of course, this gets us to the point of why do you need to concealed carry when you can open carry with no restrictions?

Special report in the Wisconsin State Journal

Once again the State Journal is showing how the editorial page and the news page are separate. Much like they did with their series on rural health care (which made a really strong case for National Health Care) they are doing with a series on public employees. In Sunday's article they ran a graphic that showed exactly what the unions have said all along. First that there are more employees with college degrees and advanced degrees than in the private sector. Furthermore, these pubic employees with degrees earn less than their private sector equivalents. The only group of public employees earning more are the employees without college degrees. Maybe the news writers can write about how much economic impact an effective 8% pay cut for 300,000 people is going to have on the State.

Financial Managers here they come....

In reporting by Forbes (Ed Garvey has blogged as well) Scott Walker is drafting legislation patterned after Michigan that would allow the Governor to appoint someone to oversee the running of a city, village, or town that fails a financial stress test. This will actually work better in Wisconsin than Michigan because the budget cuts State aid to schools and municipalities and further prohibits them from raising taxes to off set the loss. So, most should become financially unstable pretty quickly. Talk about a big Government, anti-democratic measure. The plus side to this system is that we will only have to deal with one government body.

DNR hire unqualified?

Okay, I believe that in order to work for the DNR in charge of regulation you should have a college degree. In response to my ramblings about Brian Deschane's lack of a degree I was told that a college degree was not the end all be all but being qualified was and Brian is just not qualified. If that is the standard that statement is just not true. What the Governor and the Secretary (also without degrees) want from that position is someone who will change the regulatory nature of the department. In that case he is perfect for the job. In the last 2 years he has worked for the Wisconsin Builders Association, working to change the burdensome rules and regulations covering construction in the State. These are regulations such as set backs, runoff protection, and filling in of wetlands and shorelines. This is the small government conservatism, why should government tell a private individual what they can do with their property? So what if it affects others, Wisconsin is open for business and someone without a college degree is qualified to undue burdensome regulation.

Wisconsin Supreme Court Race

Wisconsin Club for Growth (who are they?) has entered the fray.  They are running an ad portraying Joanne Kloppenberg as anti business because in her job as an assistant attorney general for the State of Wisconsin she prosecuted cases where businesses and farmers were the defendants and she was successful.  That makes me think that the state had a good case.  So, one is left to ponder what exactly Club for Growth is looking for, my guess is that they are looking for an activist who would overturn pesky laws regulating air, water, and soil pollution.  That we need to deregulate things like worker safety.  They are looking for a judge that will allow them to accomplish what they have been unable to accomplish legislatively.  And to think that Justice Prosser has been running away from the idea that he is in the hip pocket of the Governor.  Club for growth has basically said that justice Prosser will be that reliable vote for the Governor and business as the court goes about the business of overturning all laws that may affect business.  Open for Business indeed.  I want to open a factory and discharge my water into a class one trout stream, with justice Prosser's help I may be able to make that a reality.

It Was Never About the Money

The fallout from Thursday's vote was that the Democrats returned.  Remember when we had to get the whole bill done right away.  It was so important that there be quorum.  The next scheduled Senate session is April 7.  Tell me again Governor what we were trying to get done.  I guess that it was really all about breaking the unions.

The Bastards

That was my reaction to what the Republican Majority did in Wisconsin tonight.  I don't care what you feel about the collective bargaining provisions or the other anti-union provisions everyone should be mad about the process.  These Republicans have been running roughshod over the Democratic Process.  First it was not giving the Democrats the correct time for an assembly hearing.  Then it was adjourning an assembly session but going back in session as soon as the Democrats left so that they could have an immediate vote on the budget repair bill.  Now they have stooped to a new low.  Sending the bill to conference committee to be divided up so that the Senate could vote on it.  The whole thing to 10 minutes and passed 18-1.  Only one person thought that what they were doing was shameful.  As a consequence the Capitol was re-occupied.  I made my first trip there and it was awesome, people are really angry about the process.  We understand that the votes are there to do whatever he wants, but we want a debate, we want to be able to add amendments, and we are opposed to balancing the budget on the people who can least afford it.  Shame on the Senators, shame on the Governor, and shame on the members of the conference committee.

Shared Sacrifice

OK, I have finally reached the breaking point on state of Wisconsin employee salary and benefits.  I was reading Saturday's Wisconsin State Journal where it was reported that average salaries are projected to increase 3.8%.  An intrepid reporter could look back over the last 20 years and look at the average increase in private sector wages versus the increase in State employee salaries.  But, you know what it would show that with the exception of the last 2 years (we got 0% the private sector took big hits) the private sector wage increases have far outstripped the public sector wage increases.  Sure, you can make it look a little better by looking at benefits but the reality is that in the stuff that you can spend State workers have been losing ground for years.  What doesn't seem to be getting much press is the fact that we have already taken an effective 3% cut with the furloughs and that all powerful union that the public is afraid of couldn't stop it or get employees unemployment or make the government follow the labor law.  We are considered salaried except in weeks where we take a furlough day, labor law does not allow for your employment classification to change within a pay period.  Now we are willing to do our part again and take an effective 8% pay cut.  Don't get me wrong I'm thankful to have a job.  I work for the State because in my field there are not many jobs in this State.

The war on State workers is somewhat misguided.  There is very truly a belief that the budget can be balanced on the backs of the workers.  No it can't!  We could volunteer our time for a year and the budget wouldn't come into balance.  The solution is to decide what we need in this State and quit giving away the store to the real haves.  Then we need to figure out how to fund that, it might mean increases in taxes for the real haves but we keep hearing about shared sacrifice.  Right now the sacrifices are being felt by the State workers, the Governor has proposed taking more from the working poor but he has given more tax breaks for the "job creators" (a group of people who over the last 10 years have seen substantial tax reductions without creating anything except personal wealth).

Do Your Jobs

The Republicans Want the Senate Democrats to come back to Madison so they can represent the people who elected them.  As I have followed the legislative session they are doing as good of job sitting out as they would if they were there.  The Republicans don't allow debate or amendments and they vote as a block.  They must have a problem winning 19-0 instead of 19-14.

Walker Texas Ranger

I find it amusing that so many state workers, especially those who are Republicans, are all panicky about what Walker Texas Ranger is going to do.  I think that he was pretty clear during the campaign.  They are concerned about a lack of a contract.  I think that they are DOA.  Look they need to be approved in a special session.  Look it is the holiday season and our representatives are busy.  Look the Republican leadership has said that they are too busy basking in the glow of victory to be bothered with such things.  If they can't get a quorum the contracts die.  This is not without precedent.  So, expect the Republican to not show up.  If by some act of God they do show up they will debate until the end of the session about how much the employees should be contributing towards pension and health insurance and whether those increased payments should be retroactive to 2009.

Government backed loans, loans, and grants

Ron Johnson wants us to understand that the help his business got was a loan. He also wants us to understand that this was not the Government picking winners and losers. Well, I for one don't understand the difference. Pacur was given a low interest government backed loan from a bank. This is different from a business loan from a bank in that if they defaulted the bank would be able to get some of the money from the government. A grant is a direct bailout, the government picking winners and losers. The way Mr. Johnson tells it anyone could have gotten this kind of deal. Except that isn't true. Only companies that are already established or led by the connected (Mr. Johnson was connected through his father in law) can get these deals. Give me $2 million dollars and I'll open a business.

So, we can say that he got government help but yet he has no problem criticizing Sen. Feingold for voting to give GM loans and grants to stay in business. This vote preserved a large American company that employed 10s of thousands of Americans. You can argue that these Americans were overpaid. He doesn't go there though. He just believes that we should have let them go.

There you have it the differences between funding sources and how Ron Johnson is playing with the facts. And I'll take a low interest loan to open a business.

P.S. Maybe Ron Johnson would be willing to release the salary structure at his company. Does he pay the so called living wage?