State Going Backwards Incriminates Lobbyists

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How bizarre. A lobbyist claiming the state is going backwards is like a bank robber yelling "stop - thief!!" It just doesn't add up.

Beloit Daily News Excerpt:
Wisconsin is flunking its economics test, according to Bill McCoshen, senior vice president of Capitol Consultants Inc. “Forward may be the state motto, but it’s going backward,” McCoshen said.

Just consider a few of the more recent high profile pieces of legislation that made their way through the Wisconsin state legislature and every one of them had been dirtied by the hands of the anti-competitive profits-over-policy lobbyists. From Wisconsin's drunk driving laws, to the payday loan industry, to the windmill siting statutes, to AT&T's video competition act, to corporate tax cuts or the implied creation of tax credit jobs. Every one of them was steered by lobbyists. And it doesn't matter whether Wisconsin's Senate or Assembly is led by Democrats or Republicans, the only common thread of influence setting the tone and direction of any impending legislation was from the armies of lobbyists shifting the gears. That is undeniable. The moment a legislator stood fast against the moneyed interests was the moment the legislator was deemed either a partisan, a tax and spend ideologue or against job creation. It never fails. So when I heard Tommy Thompson's lobbyist pal Bill McCoshen say that Wisconsin is going backward, he should know.

On the national front, the change I believed in had nothing to do with the health care reform bill, our military war complex or our national deficits as much as it had everything to do with the way things are done in State Houses and Washington D.C. So far absolutely nothing has changed. We are not only locked into reverse gear but lobbyists like Bill McCoshen with the help of the Citizens United ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court are seeking ways to put it into overdrive.

Yet when scandals arise almost like clockwork from the culture of corruption that has enveloped nearly every level of government, we tend to turn a blind eye towards the very source of the corrosive influence.

It's like blaming the water when a lake becomes polluted.

For more information on the lobbyist industry in Wisconsin, check out the top link bar at the Wheeler Report.