Reform The Budget - Not The Pen

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As a resident, or the kind of cashless lobbyist most state officials ignore, the taxpaying citizen, I applaud Sen. Fred Risser’s opposition to Veto Pen Reform at this time. Past Republican-led state legislatures have been creating Frankenstein budgets for years, forcing the governors hand requiring extensive surgery just to make it float. Sen. Risser is stopping ill-timed reform to weaken the veto power governors have held since 1935. Over 70 years have passed since and the one legislator serving Wisconsin for over 50 years, Risser, is finally accused of partisanship from none other than a partisan newspaper. My question is - what took so long?

The new state legislature must find within themselves the ability to communicate a balanced and equitable budget, not just to the governor, but to voters in their districts as well. They need to start telling their constituents what cuts and other sacrifices they must make to help curb state spending or increase taxes in their name – not the governors. When they can develop at least two consecutive budgets that have the ability to stand on their own, then perhaps the senate should resurrect some veto power reform.

The Governor will no longer need the surgical tools to save the monster, if the legislature no longer sends him a patient.

If Governor Doyle did NOT have this veto power, public schools would have had to get by with $400 million LESS over the past two years. Since this is the same budget Republicans/Conservatives have pointed to as Exhibit A for evidence of the governor's excessive veto power, one can only assume they want to destroy public education in Wisconsin.

The fair and balanced partisan Wisconsin State Journal came out of the closet with their political activism and for the past 35 days began using their ink as a bully pulpit to attack Risser’s position on the veto pen. The paper also publishes a cartoon of Frankenstein with a running tally of days on his forehead and now has a “secret” Plan B if it goes on for much longer.

JG Excerpt:
Delay On Veto Draws Newspaper’s Wrath
Milfred said the editorials would continue until Risser acted. But he said the newspaper also has a secret "Plan B" if Risser holds out too long.

I have to admit, there's nothing like the Fourth Estate just coming out and being honest about their intentions, that they have other things on their "agenda" other than reporting the news.
Veto Reform is hardly a household issue in Wisconsin and the WSJ would like to change that. But there are much larger and important issues under the sun, and I urge Sen. Risser to consider those first - like impeaching George W. Bush and Dick Cheney.

Frankenstein Budgets Require Sharp Pen

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Following an appeal by Sen. Scott Fitzgerald (R)-Juneau, the Janesville Gazette ran an open letter editorial to Majority Leader Judy Robson, asking the democratic leader to support a proposal that would restrict the Governors veto power. It would have been suggestion worth taking if the timing was right, but why should Robson take the advice from anyone who starts out their request by demeaning the senator right at the beginning.

JG Excerpt:
Dear Sen. Judy Robson:
As new majority leader of the state Senate, we urge you to do one thing. And that is well, lead.

As you probably know, Gov. Doyle has had to use the power of his veto pen to basically balance the budget. The Republicans claim that Doyle’s veto was the first to increase spending, without offering any details as to how his action actually did that. Unless of course you consider the schools as wasteful spending, past Republican legislatures need some explaining to do when they carved out $675 million in 2003 from the transportation fund to help fund the schools. But that doesn’t count.

In his defense, Gov. Doyle should enlist the help from none other than Rep. Paul Ryan to speak on his behalf about the advantages of a powerful executive veto pen. If you may recall, Ryan is the author of a bill that would give the President line-item veto power never before wielded by any other president. Ryan insists that the President must have the ability to carve up massive appropriations bills submitted by Congress in order to balance the budget.

Or perhaps we should demand a federal referendum on Ryan's proposal as well and let the voters decide. Meanwhile, state Republicans want to take away partial-veto powers that every Wisconsin Governor enjoyed since 1930. Either way you slice it, if you balance the budget, Republicans want to take away that power, and if you haven't balanced the budget, they want to give you more power. What would make Republicans happy?

I can’t answer that, but as a concerned citizen I urge Sen. Judy Robson to shelve this reform for another time. Past Republican-led state legislatures have been creating Frankenstein budgets for years, forcing the Governors hand requiring extensive surgery just to make it float.

The new state legislature must find within themselves the ability to communicate a balanced and equitable budget, not just to the governor, but to voters in their districts as well. They need to start telling their constituents what cuts and other sacrifices they must make to help curb state spending. When they can develop at least two consecutive budgets that have the ability to stand on their own, then perhaps the senate should resurrect some veto power reform.

The Governor will no longer need the surgical tools to save the monster, if you no longer send him a patient.

Filling Potholes With An Education

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In their support to deny Gov. Doyle the necessary tools to balance a budget, the Gazette editors take a page right out of the WMC playbook.

JG Editorial Excerpt:
Doyle says the tax can't be passed on to consumers. We don't believe that, and we fear the measure could squeeze out small retailers and even lead to regional gas shortages.

JG Editorial Excerpt:
Sen. Sheila Harsdorf says Doyle used the veto in the last budget to stitch together-like Frankenstein's monster-20 words out of 752 unrelated words, transferring $427 million out of the transportation fund to pad other spending.

By "other spending" they mean education, and by "padding" for instance, they mean the Janesville school budget shortfall of $2 million would have been $5 million without the padding. So, in truth, without that veto power, the schools would have gotten $427 million dollars less.

JG Editorial Excerpt:
No legislator ever voted for this transfer. The veto created a budget hole that Doyle is filling with his gas tax.

Yep, given the choice, Republicans would much prefer to have those potholes filled than give a kid an education. And having a tax on Big Oil profits to repair potholes in the road makes no sense at all.

Thank goodness we don't have to worry about the Gazette having an agenda.

Read more opinion here on the "Frankenstein Budgets"

Ryan's Hometown On Path To Poverty

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The front-page story in Sunday's Janesville Gazette reported on the growing poverty facing Janesville's school children. Titled, Pupils feel pinch of poverty, the newspaper failed to touch on any of the possible causes for the decline and also left out scads of pertinent information. One item they left out is the number of homeless school children - over 350. Instead they wrote about the personal struggles of several Janesville students trying to keep their head above water, which isn't difficult to relate to considering this is Rep. Paul Ryan's hometown. To the newspaper's credit, they at least didn't try to hide one important number. The fact that nearly half of Janesville's school district kids live in poverty. You read that right. 47.3% of children in the Janesville school district are living in low-income homes. Of note is a percentage chart the newspaper produced that shows poverty among school children has been on a relentless upward trajectory since 2000, interestingly the beginning of Rep. Paul Ryan's occupation of our district seat in Congress.

It's no secret that Paul Ryan's hometown and congressional district has some of the worst joblessness, foreclosures, declining average wages, property values and poverty in the state of Wisconsin. That this is the same congressman that writes fictional budgets of Dickensian inspired prosperity and roadmaps of a tough love utopia is of tremendous consequence. We are living his dream.

Just consider that since the time when Ryan was appointed to the House Ways and Means and eventually the House Budget Committee, he promised the folks at home he would be bringing home even less. He meant it.

Beginning in 2005, Ryan's district has seen an annual precipitous drop in average tax return dollars through federal grants and contracts totaling $3.72 billion dollars through 2008. During the same period, other Wisconsin districts did not experience the same cut-off of federal aid. Ryan, for whatever ideological reason and there are plenty, went on a personal fiscal crusade against his district that resulted in a draining effect on many of district's more economically fragile communities. Ryan is so far out there in Bizarro world that this could be his own Frankenstein experiment to prove that the working poor and unemployed need less money in their pockets in order to liberate themselves from poverty. The theory is once rock bottom is struck, the only way forward is up. At 50% poverty, Janesville is only halfway there.

Of additional note during the summer of 2010, Obama's counsel on automotive communities, Edward Montgomery, paid a visit to Janesville to find out what kind of help the locals want or expect from the federal government. The main gripe coming from Ryan's district constituents (Ryan did not attend the meeting) revolved around the obvious lack of, and access to - capital. No surprise there.

Yet, while Ryan was cutting off his own district from a return on their tax dollars, he went on a spending spree. Just consider that he voted for the Iraq War ($1.2+ trillion through 2012), the GOP's Medicare Part D boondoggle ($200B+ 2004 through 2008) ($725B+ 2009 through 2018), and the recent tax cut ransom package ($858B). Throw in TARP (originally pegged at 700B) and the first round of the Bush tax cuts ($2.3 trillion over 10 years). All in all, just those few pieces of legislation resulted in adding $5.98 TRILLION outside of the annual budgets to the national debt. This doesn’t include the first stimulus or other major incidentals. Ryan voted for all of it and played a significant role in adding almost the same amount to the nation’s debt that it previously took over 200 years to accumulate. So while Ryan was shortchanging his own district constituents, he was loading up the military machine, Big Pharma and of course, the rich.

But Ryan's reign of terror is not over. There is much work to be done. While his district continues to bleed, he now wants to change the role of government in a new effort to prevent his wealthy base and corporate masters from sharing some of the responsibility in the burden of debt he charged up. It's tax cuts for everyone!! Along with defunding and dismantling Medicare, Medicaid and eventually Social Security, Ryan wants to remove what he views as the last three "hammocks" of the working poor and middle class. As if that isn't bad enough.

It's now 2011 and when half of the kids in his hometown are living in poverty, I'd think Ryan's record should start meaning something to people. But for some reason, I think people just don't care.

Related: Paul Ryan Is Not Who You Think

Gazette Endorsements Explain Why America Headed Downhill

Another Manufacturer Fleeing Ryan's District

Republicans Assemble New Frankenstein Budget

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The Sunday edition of the Janesville Gazette ran an article on page three of the local section titled “GOP pushing for fewer taxes.” Unfortunately as with most politicians playing the tax cut card, the Republicans appear on the verge of sending the Governor another disjointed and mismatched budget replete with shortfalls and broken promises. A budget monster so hideous, one legislator termed it as “mindless.”

JG Excerpt:
The Republican tax cut proposal offered in the budget committee "borders on mindless," said Sen. Bob Jauch, D-Poplar.

Why the Republicans continue to send the Governor a “flatlining” corpse they call a balanced budget is strictly political.

JG Excerpt:
Republicans on the budget-writing Joint Finance Committee gave a preview of what could come, floating motions to cut the income tax and reject Gov. Jim Doyle's proposals to raise a variety of taxes, including those on cigarettes.

Of more concern to me is the idea that Republicans want to cut the state income tax which in effect would bring them another step closer to their ultimate goal. One of my theories about our state of affairs regarding the tax structure in Wisconsin and many other states involves the Republican agenda pushed through by their bumper sticker slogans of Compassioniate Conservatism and the Contract With America. The end result I believe is directly related to raising point-of-use taxes, property taxes and sales taxes – all local taxes irrespective of a taxpayers income or ability to pay.

At the federal level, the tax cuts can never be big enough according to republicans while at the local level the republicans are willing to cut services and programs completely in the blind OR let the democrats be the ones to RAISE the taxes. Republicans think this is a win-win for them and to be honest they are winning at this game. Most of Doyle’s increases are non-income based and a reasonable reaction to the Republican platform. He wants to balance the budget and keep Wisconsin healthy.

The end result of the republican plan will bring about lower federal income taxes and possibly lower state income taxes at the expense of much higher non-income based taxes. This is a big win for the super-rich and those who can afford, everybody else including the middle-class will lose. Schools will suffer, potholes will proliferate, poverty will rise, health will worsen and the gap between rich and poor will widen. This won't happen overnight. It will be a slow death but by the time we realize what happened it will be too late.

Another interesting highlight of the state budget is this little bit about the property tax cap.

JG Budget Highlights:
- The cap on local property tax increases doubles from 2 percent to 4 percent, or the percentage of growth in new construction in a community, whichever is greater.

One of the things pushed by the Republicans has been the property tax freeze which is nothing more than a political ploy to stay on the tax cut track when all else fails. But what is doubly interesting here is that someone gave “growth” the proper perspective it finally deserved. Growth has been kicked around by developers as an “expanding tax base” tool designed to lower the tax burden on a community, when in reality the opposite is true. If new construction growth is at 8% in any given community, the cap will rise by 8% which on paper anyways, should allow locals to “pay-as-they-grow” instead of trying to service a larger community with an inadequate “pre-growth” budget.