Gazette Columnist: 1st CD of WI Requires Presidential Intervention

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After reading Stan Milam's column from last Saturday's Janesville Gazette titled "Could Obama have helped Janesville, too?" I couldn't quite figure out immediately what was missing from the story. Something just wasn't right.

The story (not published on the Web) was primarily about the Bucyrus deal and how the company apparently got lucky because Milam figured it raised President Obama's discomfort level while he was visiting nearby Racine just enough to make a phone call and reverse the Ex-Im Bank's controversial decision. Milam then wonders...

JG Excerpt:
Why did Obama not intervene when the Chrysler collapse resulted in the closing of the Kenosha engine plant? Why did he not intervene to help Janesville by providing a future for this community's assembly plant when he reorganized General Motors?

Then it dawned on me. The common denominator adversely effecting nearly everything Milam wrote about but completely absent from his article was ...yep, you guessed it ...Rep. Paul Ryan! Ryan was noticeably absent from Milam's article about the local economy and potential job losses in Kenosha, Janesville, Racine and south Milwaukee's Bucyrus simply because the congressman is noticeably absent on anything to do with his district's problems.

Just last month, a plethora of groups from the Janesville area comprised of business, labor, health care, education and builder's groups could have and should have delivered a list of eight earmarks totaling $40 million for economic recovery to Ryan while he was hosting one of his ideologically skewed talking sessions at Craig High School in Janesville. But they must have figured, why bother the prestigious congressman with such local frivolity and nonsense when he's got a book to write? Ryan left empty handed from Craig High School.

About one week later, the group turned their wish list over to the White House counsel of community recovery, Dr. Ed Montgomery. So, not only was Ryan absent from his duty to accept and represent his constituent economic recovery needs in Congress, he was also absent from his community's session with Montgomery. Ryan's got other priorities.

When the sitting President of the United States (regardless of party affiliation)visits a community, wouldn't you think the area's district representative would be there to greet him? Sure, this was Obama's show but it was also about the local economy and jobs in the 1st Congressional District of Wisconsin. Most importantly this was the district's show, and Paul Ryan wasn't there. We're used to it.

Milam closed his article with this...

JG Excerpt:
Wisconsin residents delivered for Obama when he asked for our support as a candidate in 2008. With the possible exception of Ex-Im and Bucyrus, has he reciprocated?

Six times, folks in the 1st CD of Wisconsin have delivered for Paul Ryan, and I challenge anyone, anyone to show me what our district got for it. Besides reciprocating absolutely nothing, we have a cynical and disillusioned constituency infuriated just enough to channel their frustration against the first person who shows any genuine interest and reciprocation for our plight - the President of the United States.

So who could blame Milam for thinking, with a touch of crass political infirmity, that our area's economic condition requires presidential intervention. I don't blame him at all.