Respectfully submitted by Lawrence E. Rafferty (rafflaw) Weekend Contributor
A few weeks ago, I wrote about the massive cuts to education and programs for the poor by the new Governor of Illinois, Bruce Rauner. In that article, I mentioned that Gov. Rauner seemed to be parroting the budget methods of Governor Brownback in Kansas and Gov. Walker in Wisconsin, both of whose state economies have been floundering under their respective austerity programs.
Well, it seems that in Wisconsin, Gov. Scott Walker has gone even farther in his attempts to balance the budget on the backs of the middle class by proposing massive cuts to the Department of Natural Resources, while attempting to wrest control of various agencies from the public domain and capturing them in the Executive branch of government.
“The DNR is full of scientists who grew up hunting, fishing, boating, or otherwise recreating in Wisconsin and then found a way to turn this into a living. It just so happens that the work they do benefits those of us who love the state’s great outdoors. Perhaps some other lucky state will get the benefits of their knowledge? We can hope so. We won’t know for some time what these cuts mean to the small businesses that are kept alive by people being able to hunt, fish, or recreate in the areas where projects took place. Estimates put the direct cuts to DNR positions at 66. Their knowledge and the research lost, however, are irreplaceable. ” Crooks and Liars
Gov. Walker is cutting 66 different positions and programs at the Wisconsin DNR in an attempt to balance his budgets without having to raise the taxes on the wealthy and on corporations that he cut when taking office. You can find a partial listing of these program and position cuts here. While the cuts are devastating, Mr. Walker did not stop there.
” Of course, these cuts don’t even BEGIN to make up for the giant budget hole Walker’s dug for himself. And also of course, he wasn’t finished yet. The bigger prize was wresting control from the good people who, in a non-partisan manner, have tried to preserve the environment for future generations by stripping the citizen-governed Natural Resources Board of its authority. It’s now a powerless “advisory panel”, something Tommy Thompson tried to do but was stopped because back then the Republicans were not yet a wholly owned subsidiary of energy companies and other major donors. A few even seemed to understand that you couldn’t continue proud hunting, fishing and other outdoor hobbies without things to hunt or fish!” Crooks and Liars
Cut taxes on the wealthy and corporations and prevent the University of Wisconsin system from raising tuition to make up the shortfall from the cuts, all while increasing money to voucher and charter school programs. I wonder who benefits the most from that plan?
If Walker’s economic vision had been successful in adding jobs and cutting deficits, his austerity program might be something worth crowing about. However, his programs seem intent on cutting any and all programs he needs to, just to make sure he can keep cutting taxes on the wealthy and on corporations.
However, the result of the Walker “austerity for everyone else” program is Wisconsin is near the bottom in job creation.
If these austerity programs had an equal impact on all citizens, they might be more acceptable to the vast majority of citizens who are negatively impacted by them. Shouldn’t the wealthy and corporations be required to pay more when ordinary citizens pay with the loss of their jobs and loss of benefits due to the various cuts by Gov. Walker? Wouldn’t that be equitable?
In light of how poorly Wisconsin’s economy has been doing under Gov. Walker, I can’t understand why our Governor here in Illinois, Bruce Rauner, would want to emulate those programs?
By the way, how is Wisconsin’s economy doing when compared to its neighbor, Minnesota?
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Thanks Elaine! This article of yours surely came in handy.
http://jonathanturley.org/2013/10/06/looking-at-the-causes-of-the-public-pension-problem-in-america/
Excellent article by Elaine M. “Looking at the Public Pension Problems in America”.
“David Cay Johnston, a Pulitzer Prize winning investigative journalist and book author who is a specialist in economics and tax issues, wrote about the issue of public employee contributions to their pension funds in the state of Wisconsin in March of 2011:
“When it comes to improving public understanding of tax policy, nothing has been more troubling than the deeply flawed coverage of the Wisconsin state employees’ fight over collective bargaining.”
“Out of every dollar that funds Wisconsin’s pension and health insurance plans for state workers, 100 cents comes from the state workers.””
Inga – what Elaine says about the pension fund is right, but incomplete. The taxpayers insure the fund and if the employee outlives the money they put in, the taxpayers pick up the rest. If the market drops, the taxpayers are on the hook.
You can smell the flop sweat by haters on this very thread. And Steve Fleisher, that is the Wi. DNR that thumbed their nose @ the public. I think JT may have done a post on that.
Don de Drain, Walker seems to have the ability both Reagan and Bubba had, that being using his haters as a catapult, and also as you said, being underestimated by his opponents. Hate can make even smart people, quite stupid. And the crap I read by people attacking Walker is mostly quite stupid, and some of it flat ass lies.
Nick Spinnelli
I agree with your Assessment about hate making smart people stupid.
“Strokes Macro Economic who “penned” a paper on economics 101.”
Come on guys, is this supposed to prove the efficicacy of how it is better to tax people to death to get public servants their desired results?
Last year, everything came apart.
Few economists saw our current crisis coming, but this predictive failure was the least of the field’s problems. More important was the profession’s blindness to the very possibility of catastrophic failures in a market economy. During the golden years, financial economists came to believe that markets were inherently stable — indeed, that stocks and other assets were always priced just right. There was nothing in the prevailing models suggesting the possibility of the kind of collapse that happened last year. Meanwhile, macroeconomists were divided in their views. But the main division was between those who insisted that free-market economies never go astray and those who believed that economies may stray now and then but that any major deviations from the path of prosperity could and would be corrected by the all-powerful Fed. Neither side was prepared to cope with an economy that went off the rails despite the Fed’s best efforts.
And in the wake of the crisis, the fault lines in the economics profession have yawned wider than ever. Lucas says the Obama administration’s stimulus plans are “schlock economics,” and his Chicago colleague John Cochrane says they’re based on discredited “fairy tales.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/06/magazine/06Economic-t.html?pagewanted=all&_r=1&
Where are the PC Police when you need them? Gov. Rick Scott won’t let FLA employees use the term “global warming” when talking on the job.
http://www.miamiherald.com/news/state/florida/article12983720.html .
I’m not a fan of Gov. Walker’s politics, but I do think that his political opponents have consistently underestimated him. I can’t claim to have studied his actions as governor in any detail, so I will refrain from any detailed comments. My first impression of him a few years ago, however, was that, left to his own devices, he could be every bit as thuggish as Hugo Chavez, even though they hang/hung with different crowds. Walker’s later offhand comments during the faux telephone call from “Mr. Koch” certainly did not disabuse me of that notion, when Walker said that they had thought about planting some “troublemakers” amongst the protesters. But that was just my impression.
There ARE problems that need to be fixed in government. The LA Times today focused on the funding deficit that CA school districts face to pay for future health benefits for retirees.There are similar funding deficits for public pensions throughout the country. These problems require attention now, but people keep kicking the can down the road. Eventually the can will explode in everyone’s faces.
My perception is that a sizable percentage of so-called fiscal conservatives aren’t interested in an intelligent solution to these types of problems and have no desire to work together with their political opponents to craft solutions that “make things better.” They just want to cut taxes and stop government regulations so they and their friends can keep more of their money. They are indifferent to what happens to everyone else in society. And they are happy to have “big government” to the extent the government is helping them make and keep more money.
Not all “fiscal conservatives” are in that camp, however. Some of them are intellectually honest and think that their approach is best for society as a whole. Just as there are people who truly believe that society should be “colorblind” and thus who oppose policies designed to assist people in groups who were (and continue to be) discriminated against because of their race, etc. . The racists of the world hide behind the skirts of “colorblindness.” And those who don’t give a damn about much of anything other than their own profits and power hide behind the skirts of intellectually honest fiscal conservatism.
There is also a sizable contingent of people on the other side of the political spectrum who refuse to acknowledge that an intelligent solution to problems will involve them making concessions to solve “problems” with government, such as unfunded public pensions, etc.
Government is not evil, and corporations are not evil. Both are made up of people and are no better or worse than the people who work for them. Human nature being what it is, it is prudent that effective checks on the powers of government be in place, just as we need effective checks to prevent too great a concentration of power in the “free market,” which is fixated on short term profit and not on long term effects on society. (Think asbestos insulation and smoking tobacco. Perhaps fracking, although we don’t have sufficient information yet.)
Scott Walker will continue his streak of political victories all the way to the White House while he continues to build his throne of skulls.
https://7373-presscdn-0-43-pagely.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/B8Se7dXCMAA4YcY.png
Steve,
Democracy is revered and reviled; it’s all a matter of perspective. Fortunately for the leftists, there are conservative groups that still demand accountability from both major political parties. We are not going to survive believing a particular party is the answer. We need to look past the R and the D and find the individual with the humility necessary to actually honor the oath of office.
““I think he tries to present himself as this steadfast conservative, but I am not sure the record will match that. He had to get elected in a left-leaning county and then in a centrist state,” added another rival. “And now he is running for the Republican nomination. I think you can easily a line where this guy looks like the kind of person who will say anything to get elected.””
“Walker’s fellow Republicans noted that other states pushed through similar reforms without the drama that Walker brought upon Wisconsin, and that even with the gutting of the power of the public sector unions, the state has lagged behind the rest of the nation economically.”
“Walker has already come under criticism for recently shifting his position on abortion and immigration. Next up is likely to be his record as governor of Wisconsin. Walker’s constant mentioning of his battles with the unions is already drawing eye-rolls among his rivals, particularly when he suggested that the battle prepared him to take on the Islamic State.”
All excerpts from the article I linked to @ 8:32PM.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/03/05/how-the-other-candidates-plan-to-kill-scott-walker-s-candidacy.html
“How the other candidates plan to kill Scott Walker’s candidacy.”
“This is a guy who has literally been in elective office his entire adult life,” said a strategist for one rival campaign. “He has made his living off the government sector, the taxpayer. He has never really, to my knowledge, had any kind of serious existence outside of the public sector.”
Politicians typically don’t have much of a moral center – they respond to what they perceive the public wants.
Seems that there is a significant percentage of the Wisconsin electorate that wants to cut the bureaucracy and cut public spending.
There is also a liberal group that never saw a public expenditure that they didn’t like.
What we have here is creative tension.
Isn’t this DNR the same agency that sent shooters onto private land and killed that deer Giggles?
There was quite a bit of outrage at the time. Worse, the agency essentially gave the outraged public the finger.
If public agencies want public support in their time of travail, they need to be responsive to public sentiment.
It won’t be Democrats that destroy him. It’ll be his own party, wait and watch.
Talk about graft and corruption.
http://m.thenation.com/blog/181353-secret-700000-donation-has-scott-walker-scrambling-address-appearance-corruption
Secret $700,000 donation has Scott Walker scrambling to address appearance of corruption.
http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/02/scott-walker-campaign-problem-115563_Page2.html#.VPzm9IY8KrU
Scott Walker’s Whitwater?
Exactly Paul, grab some popcorn and watch them try to do in a national race what they couldn’t accomplish in Wisconsin. They will bring about a Walker rise to power by bringing him name recognition nationally that he won’t have to pay for. He won’t need the ‘theoretical’ Koch money because he’ll have free publicity from the Democrat establishment (including the media). This is awesome!
Why does everyone want to raise taxes to give to the government? Surely the graft in bureaucracy’s can be monitored by audits of their numbered accounts. That is what we used to do and probably what Mr. Walker did.
We need the Scott Tissue photo of Walker posted on this article.
Panic? Hardly. Walker will be ripped to shreds by his Republican opponents during debate. Rand Paul and Ted Cruz will make short work of him.
Nick,
Walker has many people worried his popularity in a traditionally liberal state will have reach throughout the country. What they don’t realize is that people supportive of Walker are not the dupes Gruber candidly identified. Simply tossing out Koch or Faux News won’t have any effect as these folks actually have and use critical-thinking skills. It sure is fun observing the panic-attack building though, wouldn’t you agree?
Olly – there has been some notice on some of the blogs, etc. that a full-court press is being done on Walker to get him out of the race.
JaneL, Great comment. Dirty secret is many hard working govt. employees are overjoyed @ not having to pay union dues to fat cats. They saw the fat cats sell them out during the 2011 debacle. Most of the protests were outside agitators, the professional protestors like you see in Ferguson.
Olly, I have folks fact checking everything I say. They have struck out so far. But, Walker got 207k more votes in the 2012 recall election than he did in 2010. So, my 250k was wrong, it was 207k.