Reader Mail!

A few days ago, I received the following request from "anonymous":

RS - how about making an RSS feed available?

Anon, I would like to honor this request. However, I have little expertise with computers and I am unaware of any site that would allow me to track the number of people who are reading a feed of my blog. Maybe you could refer me to one?

Besides that, in reviewing my stat counter, there are a few people in the State Capitol who apparently load my page 8, 10, even 15 times a day just waiting for an update. I am not sure that's the most prudent use of taxpayer dollars, but that's never been something those under the dome have specialized in. Any place that employs people who will drive in to work on a day when no legislative business is scheduled just to say hi to their staff for five minutes and take their $88 per diem knows nothing of frugality.

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I received a tip from a source this weekend that a prominent, award-winning publication in southeast Wisconsin is set to do a story that will light up a member of legislative leadership like a holiday... er, Christmas tree. Keep your eyes open and pray that this becomes reality. If it does, I'll be sure to include a link to it here on the Playground.

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A Playground constituent from a neighboring state offered the following:

I really hope that all is well in your world and that the lack of posts is not an indication of turmoil in your world. Your blog is inspirational and often the highlight of my day. Please post for us soon. Thank you for all you do.

- A fan

Thank you, fan. I'm glad you enjoy my work. Judging by my stat counter, legions of legislative staff are enjoying my work as well, much to the chagrin of their bosses. But secretly I suspect many of their bosses are reading too. And all is indeed well in my world. All of this blogger witchhunting in the Capitol has tripled my daily readership. To legislators, I give you a hat tip. Thanks guys! Without you, I have nothing to write about.

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Finally, some feedback about my posts on John Gard's December appearance on Milwaukee talk radio. I've been meaning to share this one for awhile.

thanks for a reasonable analysis of yesterday's talk radio happenings...

Brandon Rosner
PO Box 277
Green Bay WI 54305
brandon@gardforcongress.com
920-437-4273 - Office
920-694-0938 - FAX
414-213-4146 - Cell

Thanks, Brandon. It's good to know that the Gard campaign is on board with the Playground. For your sake, we'll all hope that Steve Kagen doesn't buy the Democratic primary up there in the 8th. Surely that endorsement he got from Jay Johnson a few weeks back is worth at least 34 votes. And while we're on the topic, do any of my readers know what Jay Johnson is up to these days? I'm sure we're all curious to know!

Why govern when you can just complain all the time?

Steve Nass (R-Whitewater), free speech advocate for everyone except legislative bloggers and Ward Churchill, is well-known in many circles for being the guy that complains constantly about the majority's actions but never bothers to offer any solutions. This is again evident in Friday's release from the Nass office, in which he discusses about Wisconsin's structural deficit.

At Nass' request, the Legislative Fiscal Bureau recently released a report projecting Wisconsin's structural deficit for the 2007-09 budget at $1.27 billion. That's over $400 million higher than what was projected by LFB in a memo released seven months ago. A good thing? Probably not. Does Nass deserve credit for calling this to our attention? Certainly.

This, however, is where the praise will stop.

According to his release, Nass suggests that "the continuing structural deficit and increasing pork-barrel spending in many state programs has directly prevented passage of real tax cuts and serious reforms to how government spends your money."

I suppose one would infer from Nass' chest-thumping that his solution to this budget problem is to cut spending. But it's hard to tell, because as usual, Nass doesn't explain which $1.27 billion he'd like to cut in the 2007-09 budget.

In honor of figurative language queen Judy Robson and Super Bowl week, I would now like to use a football metaphor.

I'm sure many of you have a friend like Steve Nass. He never wants to host the Super Bowl party, but he's always happy to show up at yours. He steals a seat in your favorite recliner when you get up to refill the chips. He grumbles about how your wings aren't very good, yet he always seems to have a few on his plate. He carps about your selection of beer but asks you to get him another at halftime. By the 4th quarter, he's nesting the whole bowl of chips beneath his left arm like a football, grousing about how the game has mostly been a letdown and that the commercials weren't very good and that he was expecting better. When the game finishes, he excuses himself to your restroom, throws up in your bathtub, and then shows himself to the door.

Steve Nass will never host the Super Bowl party because that means being responsible for making decisions. Sour cream or barbeque? Hot dogs or brats? Ranch or french onion dip? These are big decisions, ones that Nass can't handle. He is far more comfortable sitting back, shirking responsibility, and criticizing everyone else's decisions.

Nass has moaned loudly about the budget for years. He avoids being part of the solution because if he ever voted for a budget, he might actually have to defend it. In his current diatribe, Nass doesn't bother to identify a single state program that should be cut, let alone the combination of cuts necessary to get to $1.27 billion. In being deliberately vague, Nass manages to pander to fiscal conservatives who blindly follow his empty arguments while avoiding the wrath of people and groups who may disagree with any specific recommendations for elimination. In other words, Nass wants it both ways.

Even if the Legislature found $1.27 billion in cuts, I'm confident that Nass would still vote against the proposal, because it "didn't go far enough" or "there weren't enough cuts made" or "it's all done with Enron-style accounting tricks." If things are worse than expected, he'd brag that they would have been better if only people listened to him. If they're better than expected, he'd brag that they could've been even more superlative if only people listened to him. See his method? Complain loudly and always vote no.

Steve Nass is a dog that only knows one trick, and that's only if you count crapping in the middle of the Republican living room as a trick. I, for one, am surprised that John Gard and Mike Huebsch have not tied this dog in a sack and thrown him in the river yet. Both deserve credit for their remarkable patience, since most weeks Nass is a bigger headache for leadership than anything the Democrats are doing.

Surely if there is one Republican who must be delighted at the possibility of the Assembly Democrats coming back from the dead, it's Steve Nass. He whines, he complains, and he's short on real solutions. Minority status is tailor-made for guys like him.

Here's mud in your eye... and your eye... and your eye, too.

This will be the first and last mention of Georgia Thompson on this blog until the prosecution begins to lay out its evidence for the public to consider. Any talk before then is just a waste of breath, really. And the last people who should be lecturing anyone about ethics are Mark Green and Scott Walker.

Georgia Thompson is a civil servant, not an appointee of the Doyle administration. Those who try to paint Thompson as a Doyle ally are missing the point that she was hired while Scott McCallum was governor. She is not, as Mark Green would have you believe, "an official of Governor Doyle's administration." Doyle had nothing to do with her hiring and Thompson, having passed her review process, has job protection that precludes her from being disciplined prior to the outcome of this case. She can be transferred into another job, and that's about it. And Mark Green, as a former legislator, damn well knows that. This is about as disingenuous as Green calling himself a fiscal conservative after voting for that Medicare prescription drug giveaway.

Scott Walker's release, on the other hand, shows only that the man is incapable of understanding what the indictment actually says. Walker would like to infer that Thompson was pressured into using political considerations in the course of her work, something not indicated anywhere in the actual indictment. Of course, Scott's a college dropout. Should we really expect him to successfully process the contents of a legal document? Probably not.

There are lots of ass-kissers in politics, in state government, and in the world generally who do just that - ass-kiss - in order to get ahead. They're shameless. The Capitol, for instance, has its fair share, and everyone knows who they are. They are the soulless, partisan hacks who will blindly carry water for legislative leaders 24/7 and have long since forgotten how to have their own opinions. Every day they check their soul at the door, grab their clipboard, and parade themselves around the building like people should care about them.

Perhaps Thompson was that way. Perhaps she acted thinking she was doing the administration a favor, that somehow her actions would endear her to her supervisor, a political appointee. Who knows? If Thompson is guilty of what she has been accused of but acted of her own accord, then this reflects on Doyle no more than a custodian at DHFS being disciplined for stealing office supplies.

What is highly relevant in a political context is whether Thompson committed a crime as a result of pressure applied by the Doyle administration or its political appointees within the agency to take a certain course of action favorable to a campaign contributor. We don't know much about that yet, but we probably will if this thing goes to trial. Until we know more, we're probably better off finding something more meaningful and relevant to address.

What's really sanctimonious and full of BS, however, is the Republican criticism of Doyle over the Thompson matter. If we're going to play the guilt by association game, Mark Green's campaign manager was the recipient of a basketful of Jack Abramoff freebies. Green also has yet to return $30K from a fund controlled by also-indicted Rep. Tom DeLay. Scott Walker's old pal and fundraiser Nick Hurtgen is on his way to jail for extortion. Doyle, meanwhile, has a bit of a snafu over at DOA with a state employee he claims to have never met. If that in fact is the case, Doyle is by far the least of the three sinners. Besides, didn't that "last, best offer" by Adelman Travel save the state $30K?

If anything, the Thompson matter shows that everyone running for governor may end up ethically compromised.

It's not just local government that needs the encouragement

In Sunday's Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Reid Epstein wrote about efforts by a state legislator to preempt local ordinances that would punish government officials and workers from disclosing certain information to the public. That, of course, is exactly what many in government would greatly prefer - more secrecy around their affairs and dealings.

Thankfully, Rep. Steve Nass (R - Whitewater) plans to introduce legislation that would prevent local governments from adopting anti-leaking ordinances.

"It's about intimidation of local officials and government workers," Nass said in the article. "Local officials generally want to have a free flow of information. Unfortunately, there are those who get elected to those bodies who want to stymie that."

Hmmm... elected officials trying to stymie the free flow of information to the public? Incredulous. I, for one, have no firsthand knowledge of anything of the sort ever happening in state government - except for what is written here. And here. And here. And here. And here. And here. And here. And here. And here. And here. But you can pretty much discount that last one, I swear. I mean, Charlie Sykes? I heard his audience is pretty small.

Maybe Nass should consider expanding his bill beyond local governments to also include state officials and workers as well. Based on their recent actions behind closed doors, I think some of Nass' colleagues might need the encouragement just as much as the cities of La Crosse and Brookfield. Of course, I'm certain that Nass already grants his own staff the same protections he would look to extend to local government workers. I'm sure he would also aggressively defend the rights of other legislative employees to share thoughts and opinions on a blog, in letters to the editor, or in other formats.

Kudos to Nass for working to move government actions further into the light of day - or just keeping them there to begin with. But Nass should look around first and make sure he's not throwing stones from a glass house. There's nothing the public likes less than hypocrisy from elected officials.

Cedarburg: Home of covered bridges and dunking stools

To nobody's surprise, the Cedarburg School Board voted unanimously on Tuesday night to fire Robert Zellner, an 11-year teacher at the high school there.

His crime? Looking at a little porn when nobody's around.

Did Zellner, the chair of the Science Department, sign a policy stating he wouldn't do stuff like this? Sure. Was his conduct stupid? Yeah. Does it cancel out eleven years of what was, by most accounts, extremely competent teaching?

I suppose we all draw our own conclusions on that one. In my opinion, the board is nuts. And sanctimonious. It makes me glad that my kids don't go to school in Cedarburg.

It'd be one thing if Zellner was exposing students to pornography. Nobody is accusing him of that. So instead of taking a reasonable approach - you know, the principal pulls Zellner aside after school and tells him that what he's doing is potentially dangerous - the school board opts to go nuclear.

In doing so, those who voted to oust Zellner may be outing themselves as the last six people on earth who have used a computer and NOT looked at porn at least once.

School district attorney James Korom noted that on November 6 (a Sunday, mind you), Zellner accessed five pornographic websites for a whopping total of one minute and seven seconds. Then, as to continue feigning indignation, he stopped the hearing for 20 seconds to give people an idea of how long Zellner, on average, looked at each website. Korom said that 20 seconds "is a long time when you've got a screen of pornography in front of you."

To which I ask: where the hell is Korom looking at all of his porn? Obviously he must, or he would be completely unqualified to tell anyone how much time is too much time to stare at a naked woman.

So the Cedarburg School Board brings a sacrifice to the altar of Puritanism, and what does it get them, really? From what I've read on various websites and bulletin boards and heard on the radio, parents seem unhappy with the school board's decision. Students seem unhappy with the school board's decision. The board loses credibility and casts itself as inflexible and out of touch, a hat it wore just two years ago. As you'll recall, this is the same district that fired a popular teacher for making his basketball players sign on to a stricter code of conduct than the one enforced by the school district. That brazen act of idiocy led to the recall of two board members. One can only wonder what will happen this time.

Board members may be winning the witch hunts, but in a broader sense, they're losing the war badly. As much as they think they're on the right path, it's a path that ultimately leads to diminished respect in the community and creates an atmosphere of fear in the workplace. What teachers (or anyone, really) want to work in an environment where their supervisors are constantly nosing around and where the slightest little thing could cost them their jobs? If I taught in Cedarburg, I'd be looking for the first ship out of the harbor.

Sadly, just as with the school choice caps, the real losers here are the students. Republicans joke sometimes about the teachers union not really caring about students. And maybe it doesn't, but incidents like this don't make me trust school boards any more than the union.

Perhaps the homeschoolers are on to something after all.

Ray Nagin, Cole Sear: We See Dead People

New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin should be getting some media play out of his MLK speech yesterday, in which Nagin discussed all the conversations he's having with people in another realm.

"Surely God is mad at America. He sent us hurricane after hurricane after hurricane, and it's destroyed and put stress on this country," said Nagin. "Surely he doesn't approve of us being in Iraq under false pretenses. But surely he is upset at black America also. We're not taking care of ourselves."

Well, I'm a Christian too, so I thought I would ask God about Nagin's claims.




Recess Supervisor: Hello, God?

God: Why, hello Supervisor. Good to hear from you again. Give me one second, I need to put Pat Robertson on hold.

RS: Um, okay.

(two minutes later)

God: Sorry for the delay, my child. That Robertson character was trying to put words in my mouth again. Do people down there really take that guy seriously?

RS: Um, I think some people do. I can't figure it out either.

God: Anyway, to business. What brings you to me today?

RS: Well, I was sort of wondering about what Ray Nagin said yesterday, that you're mad at America. That's why you're sending all of those hurricanes.

God: Some of those are just acts of nature, Supervisor. It's like spinning a top. I start it but I don't control it.

RS: I see.

God: Katrina, though, I had pretty good aim on that one.

RS: You were trying to hit New Orleans?

God: Yes, my child.

RS: But, but why God?

God: Simple, really. Aaron Neville.

RS: Wait. Aaron Neville? All that for Aaron Neville?

God: It doesn't have to make sense to you. It just has to make sense to me.

RS: Would you mind filling me in?

God: I have always been a fan of my child Aaron. His sweet voice fills the air around here. Well, at least it did until he did those awful duets with Linda Ronstadt.

RS: Oh, you mean "All My Life" and "Don't Know Much"?

God: Yes. Horrible. Absolutely horrible. Had to be punished.

RS: But God, those songs were released like fifteen years ago.

God: I'm a busy, busy man. Let that one slip through the cracks a little bit.

RS: Oh. So this was all about Aaron Neville.

God: Yes, my child. Anything further?

RS: Yeah, who do you like this weekend?

God: Pick the dogs. Take the Panthers and the Steelers and the points. At least one of them will win outright.

RS: Thanks God. Take care.

God: You too. Give my best to those politician types down there. Mostly I only hear my name in vain from them, but that Reynolds guy is pretty faithful. Reminds me of Robertson, though. He's gotta stop hanging out with that Ovadal guy...

RS: Okay. Bye, God.

God: Farewell, my child.


Nagin also described an imaginary conversation he had with Martin Luther King, Jr.

"I said, 'What is it going to take for us to move on and live your dream and make it a reality?' He said, 'I don't think that we need to pay attention any more as much about other folks and racists on the other side.' He said, 'The thing we need to focus on as a community - black folks I'm talking about - is ourselves.'"

Nagin said he also asked: "Why is black-on-black crime such an issue? Why do our young men hate each other so much that they look their brother in the face and they will take a gun and kill him in cold blood?"

The reply, Nagin said, was: "We as a people need to fix ourselves first."

And some Democrats wonder why we don't trust this guy with rebuilding New Orleans? He sees dead people. Then he tells everyone he sees dead people. And what, he doesn't expect that this will further compromise his already fractured credibility?

Thoughts on school choice caps

I don't always agree with the guys over at Boots & Sabers, but Owen hits the nail on the head with his post this morning on efforts to lift the choice caps in Milwaukee.

So sayeth Owen:

Instead of just lifting the cap to help educate more kids, Governor Doyle is trying to extract a price from the Republicans first by attaching all sorts of unrelated conditions to his signature. I mean, really… what does more money for SAGE have to do with lifting the cap on School Choice? Doyle won't lift the cap without his conditions because then he would have "lost." He needs to "win" to keep the support of WEAC. In reality, the only people losing here are the kids.

Owen is right on. When it comes to education issues, Doyle is just a WEAC toady who falls hook, line, and sinker for the argument that all we need to improve our schools is more money. It's really shameful. It's not like Doyle's stupid. I'll even give him some more credit. Doyle's worked really hard over the past three years to split the difference in a lot of areas, especially regarding economic development.

That's why it's even more troubling to see how steeped in partisan games Doyle's become on this issue. It's like he's forgotten how to do the right thing for students who stand to be removed from their schools if choice caps aren't increased or abolished altogether.

Anyone who heard Rep. Jason Fields (D - Milwaukee) speak on Charlie Sykes this morning knows that there are people on the Democratic side of the fence that "get it." Fields speaks eloquently and passionately on the issue. He knows that school choice helps African American students in his community to bridge the achievement gap and lead more successful lives.

The "us vs. them" mentality that WEAC beats us over the head with is nothing more than an attempt to horde resources for its own members. It has nothing to do with educating students and everything to do with protecting a union that is singlehandedly driving public schools into the tank here in America.

We should be careful about sending all those manufacturing jobs overseas. By the time the rest of the world laps us academically, those jobs might be the only ones Americans are qualified to do in a global economy. And for that we can thank a union that does everything within its power to keep incompetent teachers from being fired and tries its hardest to keep parents from obtaining any objective, quantitative understanding of how well their kids are really doing in school.

Here's hoping public pressure to lift the caps can put Doyle in the same box he got put in over gas tax indexing. It'd be an awful shame if Doyle throws the choice kids under the WEAC bus just to keep the campaign dollars flowing.

Tough times for Nurse Judy

One who criticizes should also offer praise where it's warranted. It is in that spirit that I offer gold stars to Sen. Cathy Stepp and Sen. Sheila Harsdorf (and their staffs) for once again illustrating the clueless of my new favorite target, Senate Minority Leader Nurse Judy.

Nurse Judy has lately taken to parroting the outrage of the MSM towards the Senate's occasional practice of using paper ballots to vote. Frankly, here on the Playground, we could care less that the Senate uses paper ballots. For those that grumble about government doing its work in secret, let me remind you of two important points:

1. A record of the vote is made available within a reasonable timeframe of votes being received by the office of the committee chair, and

2. Public participation isn't allowed in an executive session anyway. It's not like you're missing out on your chance to repeat what the six people before you have already said and make arguments the legislators and their staffs have already heard a million times. You still get your public hearing to do that.

But back to Nurse Judy. She apparently forgot that she used to chair a committee back when the Senate was in the hands of King Charles. Sens. Stepp and Harsdorf didn't, and took a moment yesterday to remind Nurse Judy of the 24 times she used paper ballots in the 1999-2000 session as Chair of the Senate Committee on Health and Aging.

It's funny that when Nurse Judy had the power to "increase the transparency and accountability of the legislative process" in her own committee (her words, not mine), she couldn't be bothered to. But now that she leads the minority, we're all supposed to believe that she's found religion.

She has. It's called political convenience. Unfortunately for her, Sens. Stepp and Harsdorf called her bluff a reminded her of a time when she paper balloted like it was 1999.

Perhaps Nurse Judy should get back to worrying about her own political prospects, considering that even if 2006 ends up a Democratic year, she's not going to reclaim any of the three seats (Brown, Stepp, SpaceCadet Leibham) the Republicans took from the Dems in '02. Hell, at this rate, she might not even be able to knock off Reynolds. Pathetic.

Reading between the lines

Yesterday, the Wisconsin Farm Bureau put out a press release calling for use value assessment to be left as it is. You can read the release here, but for your benefit, I thought I would translate some of the political spin into easy to understand language that any property owner can understand:

The use value assessment of farmland law should not be tampered with because it is accomplishing exactly what it intended to do: insure that farmers never have to pay property taxes on their land, and ease the loss of farmland, according to Wisconsin Farm Bureau Federation president, Bill Bruins, who recently spoke at the Wisconsin Working Lands Initiative task force meeting.

Bruins addressed the Working Lands Initiative task force because the group had been discussing the policy that has cost Wisconsin's homeowners and businesses approximately $1.8 billion since its implementation in 1995. Specifically the task force suggested requiring conservation compliance in order to be eligible for use value assessment, a clear violation of the state’s uniformity clause.

“The Farm Bureau opposes any alteration of use value that could jeopardize the future of our enormous business subsidy. Use value assessment is the most important thing the state of Wisconsin has done in the last 50 years to make Wisconsin agriculture one of the largest welfare recipients in the state,” said Bruins.

“Use value not only stopped property taxes from being unfairly shifted to farmland, but it helped residential property taxes to skyrocket,” said Bruins.

Bruins said prior to the use value assessment law, farmland was unfairly being taxed at the value of farmland sold for development, and a change was necessary since federal law precludes farmers from actually paying face value for anything.

Since use value assessment was implemented, the rate of land converted from ag use to non-ag use slowed considerably. In 1993, 90,971 acres of land was converted to a more economically desirable use; by 2004 this loss was down to 44,403 acres, according to the Wisconsin Agricultural Statistics Service.

“If farmers were being assessed at market value, assessments in many parts of the state would be $3,000 to $5,000 per acre resulting in corresponding property taxes of $60 to $100 per acre. Use value has resulted in higher taxes for homeowners and less land being lost because of inequitable tax pressures,” according to Bill Bruins.

Someone must've gotten an A from Princeton in "Stating the Obvious"

Rep. Nelson: Assembly Veterans Affairs Committee to Hear Veterans’ Bill

Earth to conservatives: college graduates don't care about state income tax rates.

So I've been reading some blog posts commenting on the report by the Wisconsin Taxpayers Alliance discussing the migration of people into and out of Wisconsin. It's interesting - from what I've read, some conservatives seem hell bent on turning this into a fiscal argument. They believe that young people are leaving Wisconsin because of the high tax rate.

I'd beg to differ, and would like to offer a different hypothesis. Having gone to college in Wisconsin sometime after the Reagan administration and having watched the exodus of my friends out of this state, it's something I've known personally for years.

Young, college educated people are leaving Wisconsin because living here is boring and there's nothing to do.

Yup, that simple.

With no offense to the residents of Merrill or Prairie du Chien, there are really only two places that the plurality of graduates from Wisconsin's top schools (UW-Madison, Marquette, Lawrence) would consider living: Milwaukee or Madison. Let's look at both.

Those of my friends in Madison often joke how once you hit your mid-20's, suddenly you can't find anyone your age within miles. The nightlife downtown is completely dominated by obnoxious college students. There are few sophisticated alternatives to hang out without encroachment by boozy fraternity brothers and their sorostitute girlfriends. For better or worse, the university defines the downtown culture of Madison. That's great if you're a student there. It's awful if you're not. Cool bars and nightclubs? No. Major cultural institutions? Nope. Professional sports? Nada. Affordable property? Not downtown.

Milwaukee, while showing signs of improvement, is still more or less in a post-industrial coma. The city has largely gone to hell over the last 50 years as everyone with money that could leave pretty much did, hightailing it for the suburbs, or further out to Waukesha and Ozaukee counties. Milwaukee royally screwed up a huge opportunity with Miller Park by failing to locate the park downtown where it could actually spin off additional commercial investment. Instead, it's pleasantly situated in the middle of an industrial wasteland, a glittering jewel amidst surroundings only slightly more charming than Three Mile Island. And of course, there's that whole problem being in the shadow of the hog butcher for the world.

Most all of my friends from college picked out where they wanted to live and then started looking for jobs. Wisconsin wasn't even an option, and it had nothing to do with job availability. It had to do with quality of life. If you really want to live in the Midwest, why live in Milwaukee when you can live in Chicago? Why live in Madison when you can live in the Twin Cities? Wisconsin's biggest problem is the two enormous draws for young, intelligent, creative talent that lie just beyond its reach.

Those people graduating from Wisconsin colleges this year? They don't care that Wisconsin is a great place to hunt or fish. They know Wisconsin Dells is the Niagara Falls of the Midwest, nothing more than a tourist trap. They know Green Bay has a football team. So does San Diego. San Diego also has a temperate climate, great beaches, and is an hour from Tijuana. If you were single and had no commitments, where would you rather live?

I can also assure you that as college graduates are looking for a new place to call home, they aren't crunching numbers from the Federation of Tax Administrators website trying to figure out where their state tax burden will be the lowest. That might be a major consideration for elderly people on fixed incomes, but no 23-year-old grad from UW-Madison gives a flip about tax rates. Nobody's saying "Screw Seattle, I'm heading to Cheyenne, Wyoming, so I can avoid paying state income tax!"

Wisconsin politicians have it backwards. They spend all their time trying to figure out how to draw jobs to the state, when instead they should be focused on drawing workers to the state. Time and again, studies show that the overwhelming majority of companies don't locate where the tax breaks are - unless you're giving away the farm. Companies locate where their labor is. Believe me, there's a fence around our fair state, and the grass is definitely greener on the other side.

Every legislator - hell, every person concerned with economic development, period - should be made to read The Rise of the Creative Class by Richard Florida. You don't have to agree with all of it. Some of it should be challenged. But Florida's biggest point? It's dead on, and it's in block letters on his website:

When a place gets boring, even the rich people leave.

Bringing new jobs to Wisconsin doesn't make it less boring. Lowering taxes doesn't make it less boring. Resuscitating its urban centers makes it less boring. Investing in theater, music, and the arts makes it less boring - even if it means spending public money. Sustaining higher education in a way that it can really be a cultural resource makes it less boring. Taxpayers will get their investment back and then some with the kinds of workers they'll draw - and the kinds of companies that will follow.

You want to see where all the young people are going? Click on this link and look at the orange and red areas. Note how Wisconsin is woefully lacking.

Family isn't enough to keep people close to home anymore. I can live in San Francisco - a trendy, desirable location for many upwardly mobile graduates - and fly home to Madison in seven hours for $300. I can live in Boston and get to Milwaukee in two-and-a-half hours for $200. For most young people, that's a small, small price to pay to live somewhere cool.

Wisconsin doesn't suffer from brain drain because of high taxes. It suffers from brain drain because Wisconsin is dreadfully dull, and the people who are smart enough to leave do just that. They leave.

Daily Affirmation with Judy Robson

I thought I'd take an evening to troll some of the Dem releases and see what I could find. And what I found is this total gem from Senate Minority Leader Judy Robson.

Now, legislators all have different styles and different methods of dealing with the press. One of the things staff usually learns early is to stick to content and avoid the fluffy stuff. Why? Because nobody wants to read an 11th-grade English essay from their legislator. Apparently Judy skipped that day in leggie training.

Here are Robson's first two paragraphs:

Like spring and Mondays, the New Year holds the promise of new beginnings. It is a fresh start, an opportunity for self-evaluation, and a good time to for goal-setting.

In January, people resolve to eat healthier, exercise more, save more, volunteer more, clean out the basement, paint the ceilings, spread more joy in the world.

Judy, I hope your first New Year's Resolution is to fire Stuart Smalley as your friggin' press secretary. What the hell is this crap? Are you a legislator? A therapist? Laurel Walker? I haven't read this much BS since I was proofing my college application essays.

But there are more resolutions that Judy should be making:

For example, one legislator’s solution to reducing health care costs is to create a tax deduction for fitness club memberships. This is like using liposuction to prevent the bubonic plague.

I, Judy Robson, resolve in 2006 to stop using horrible, awkward analogies in my press releases.

The Legislature could pass a bill immediately that would declare our intent to bring down health care costs for everyone. Senate Bill 416/Assembly Bill 834, known as the Action Plan for Affordable Health Care, is a resolution of sorts.

I, Judy Robson, resolve in 2006 to come up with meaningful commitments to solve Wisconsin's pressing issues. Asking legislators to pass a resolution on health care is like asking them to pinky swear that they'll solve the problem.

There are also (Republican) bills on deck that would create a privately-owned high-speed tollway to run parallel to Interstate 94; ban helicopter rides at State Fair Park; make it illegal to shoot at power lines; and prohibit textbooks from using the term "before the common era."

I, Judy Robson, resolve in 2006 that I will always check out Marlin Schneider's compendium of legislative offerings on Folio before ever criticizing the majority party for getting sidetracked by meaningless issues. The handling of Asian carp? Labeling requirements for CDs and DVDs? Outlawing mail-in rebates? Prohibiting the implantation of microchips? Lightweight stop signs for crossing guards?

As 2006 begins, I resolve to continue to address the most pressing issues facing Wisconsin: affordable health care, family-supporting jobs, and affordable property taxes. I will continue to prod my colleagues in the Legislature to talk about what real people are talking about. It is a new year, a new beginning, and a new opportunity to meet the challenges before us.

I, Judy Robson, resolve in 2006 to write better press releases that contain actual plans for action and not empty, meaningless promises.

Based on this, I think Sen. Robson should be hiring a new press secretary. Send your resumes to Sen.Robson@legis.state.wi.us. Tell her the Supervisor sent you.

Berceau to Wal-Mart: I Hate Capitalism

Jenna over at Right off the Shore seized an opening created by me going out for dinner and has done a perfectly fine job of crucifying Terese Berceau for an inane release this afternoon blaming Wal-Mart for the loss of 240 jobs at the Rubbermaid plant in Dane County. Go read her post. You can regularly find Jenna in the Playground Blogroll over there. ------->

Berceau notes that Wal-Mart stopped carrying Rubbermaid products a few years ago after Rubbermaid insisted on dramatic price increases for its products. Granted, Rubbermaid experienced a considerable increase in the cost of an input. That's a tough position for a company to be in.

However, if Wal-Mart's whole schtick is to provide products of reasonable quality at the lowest prices possible, can anyone really blame it for replacing Rubbermaid's stuff with a competitor's brand? Perhaps Berceau would rather Wal-Mart introduce its new alter-ego to Rollback, the Roll-up frowney face. It will be red, with squinty eyes and an evil smile and it will use its pitchfork to flip the prices upward.

To her credit, Berceau has really improved as a legislator since she was first elected. It's too bad that every now and then she revisits Planet Looney and brings back something like this, something so far out in left field that I fully expect to see it on the front page of the Cap Times tomorrow.

And I thought it was because he was 77 and morbidly obese

But it's all straightened out now. Apparently old age or poor health has nothing to do with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's grave condition. According to the Associated Press, Evangelunatic Pat Robertson, in his continued efforts to give Christians everywhere a bad name, claims that Sharon's condition is due to his effort to surrender certain Israeli-occupied lands to the Palestinians.

My question when this nutcase speaks out is always the same: why aren't other evangelical leaders standing up and calling this idiot out? I don't really believe that it's gay marriage or hardline pro-life issues that make the Christian Right appear threatening to a lot of Americans. I think even people who disagree with evangelical conservatives on those issues can understand where they're coming from. But every time Robertson says something loony, there's this deafening silence from other Christian leaders.

It's the Pat Robertsons and Ralph Ovadals of the world that make it so easy for the left to demonize Christian involvement in politics. But what does a guy like Robertson care? As long as he's got his TV show and can work his David Koresh-like magic to get viewers to support his lifestyle... er, give money to glorify the Lord... he just laughs all the way to the bank.

UPDATE: Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is also hoping for the demise of Sharon. Nothing quite unites Christian and Muslim extremists like the death of a prominent Jew.

Let Me See You 1, 2 Stepp

It's usually not my style to respond to the comments left on my posts. I certainly enjoy the feedback and find it entertaining and useful. It's just not how I roll.

Someone, however, pointed out a biographical omission in my last post regarding Sen. Cathy Stepp and I thought it only fair to post that separately. I didn't want it to get buried unseen in the comments section.

"Stepp, the Nanny fails to mention, served on the DNR Board. College degree or not, I'm guessing Stepp picked up a thing or three about natural resources from her experience there."

First off, I'm not a nanny. I'm a supervisor. Nannys are the people that take care of a politician's kids. Often times those politicians (or political appointees) forget to pay taxes on the nanny and that gets them into trouble. I'm sure I can see Bernard Kerik, Zoe Baird, Lani Guinier, and Kimba Wood all nodding their heads right now.

Secondly, I indeed failed in my post to acknowledge Stepp's abbreviated tenure on the Natural Resources Board. So let's talk about that now, shall we?

Cathy Stepp was nominated to the Natural Resources Board by Tommy Thompson near the end of his run as Governor. Stepp was never confirmed by the Legislature, and resigned her position on the Board shortly after her election to the Senate in 2002. Perhaps she went unconfirmed because she was a Republican, because of a lack of expertise, or both. Maybe someone would like to speak to Chuck Chvala about that and let me know.

In fairness to Stepp, the former probably precluded any consideration of the latter. And really, that's not fair. All gubernatorial nominees deserve a hearing and a vote, regardless of party their political affiliation.

Why was Stepp nominated? Well, if I were a betting person, I'd wager that her close affiliation to the Wisconsin Builders Association, one of Tommy Thompson's favorite cash cows, didn't hurt her.

Her website biography doesn't make any mention of her participation in any wildlife, conservation, or hunting groups. It does, however, show that she was deeply involved with the Wisconsin Builders Association, spending a number of years on its Board of Directors.

According to the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign website, the Builders PAC gave Tommy Thompson $37,950 in the four-year cycle leading up to his 1998 re-election campaign. That's the most of any PAC during that election cycle. The construction industry as a whole led the way in $100+ contributions, netting nearly $700,000 for Thompson. As we all know, donations from PACs and business owners are made solely out of benevolence and charity, and nothing is ever expected in return.

Was Stepp's appointment a favor to the Builders for filling the dump truck with cash and backing it up to Tommy's campaign HQ? I certainly don't know one way or the other. I will leave it to my readers to draw their own conclusions. If anyone wants to talk about the matter with the Senator, I think I read somewhere that she's been holding office hours on her doorstep Friday evenings.

A Stepp In The Wrong Direction

Yesterday, the Senate Dog and Pony Show on DNR Bashing rolled the circus wagons all the way up to Arbor Vitae for its first hearing. Yes, your taxpayer dollars are paying for all those miles to drive up to the middle of nowhere for a hearing when we have perfectly good facilities available in Madison. Problem is, people in southern Wisconsin don't hate the DNR as passionately as the black-helicopter, U.N. fearing, confederate flag-waving crowd up in the sticks.

Dick Wheeler posted a timely account of the hearing. One exchange was particularly interesting.

According to Wheeler...

Committee member Sen. Cathy Stepp told the hearing there are abuses in the system. She said the DNR, in some cases, has "a general disdain for the legislature. Sometimes they don't want to be accountable to the legislature. They don't want to take their direction from us."

In her 3 1/2 years with us, it appears as though Sen. Stepp has both mastered the arrogance of a legislator along with a complete misunderstanding of separation of powers.

For those of you playing along at home, please take out your flow chart of state government. The reason the DNR doesn't take direction from the Legislature is because it is not a part of the legislative branch.

The DNR, like all the other state agencies, is part of the executive branch of government. It reports to a secretary (nominated by the Governor, confirmed by the Legislature) and to the Natural Resources Board (nominated by the Governor, confirmed by the Legislature). The Legislature can also temporarily suspend rules proposed by the DNR. But that's about the extent of the Legislature's direct interaction with the DNR.

This, of course, does not stop legislators from constantly trying to tell the DNR what to do, something DNR employees are undoubtedly grateful for. Surely, the hundreds of pages of statutory language and rules are not adequate guidance. They need a natural resources expert like Cathy Stepp to guide them. She probably took many classes on land and resource management in colle... oh wait, her Blue Book bio makes no mention of a college degree, or even attending college for that matter. Perhaps her time on the Wisconsin Builders Association Board of Directors afforded her the balanced perspective necessary for effective stewarding of our state's resources? Otherwise, her website says she's a member of the Racine Assembly Church of God. God stewards the earth, after all. Maybe she's got His plan for how the DNR should conduct its business. And she graduated from Oak Creek High School. "Oak" and "creek" are both nature words...

With the upcoming election, either Bill McReynolds or John Lehman will be an improvement over his predecessor, who was a huge improvement over her predecessor. Just goes to show how low the 21st Senate District set the bar after they threw George Petak out of office.

Scott Walker Hitches Wagon To 2001 Assembly Republican Agenda

Ringing in the new year with a whiff of desperation, Scott Walker has decided to tell us all what he's going to do in the first 100 days of his gubernatorial career. Mind you, if one judges by the polls and by fundraising totals, this is almost akin to Dennis Kucinich laying the groundwork for creating the Department of Peace back in 2004.

Walker's plan is groundbreaking in the very fact that it breaks almost no new ground. A casual observer might, in fact, think that Walker simply took the Republican legislative agenda from the last two sessions and copied it onto his letterhead.

There are, however, three points in his plan that will earn him a black eye with moderates, the people who will hold all the power in this particular election:

1. In reforming elections, Walker needs to be clear in drawing distinctions between making it harder to commit voter fraud and simply making voting less convenient. Early voting - casting an absentee ballot at the clerk's office - has been enormously popular. Many people know who they're going to vote for weeks in advance and prefer to vote early to spare themselves the hassle of wasting hours standing in line on election day. Walker would be foolish to go after that practice since it identically mirrors the process that occurs on election day, except for the fact that your ballot is sealed in an envelope when you're done with it. Walker would be smart to split the difference. If you want to vote early for the sake of convenience, go to your clerk's office and vote. Return mail ballots to the previous standard.

2. Repealing same-day voter registration is equally foolish and will not play well with moderates, to whom this will just look like an attempt to make it harder for people to participate in the democratic process. Fair or not, there's still a widely held belief that Republicans love low-turnout elections because it increases their likelihood of success. Doyle will spin Walker's proposal right into that argument and will succeed in doing so - "Scott Walker doesn't want to make it harder for felons to vote. He wants to make it harder for everyone to vote."

3. Walker's property tax freeze proposal requires any referendum to exceed the spending cap to coincide with a regularly held election. That's fine, but Walker needs to include a provision that would allow that requirement to be circumvented in the case of an emergency. Perhaps that decision could be made by a two-thirds (or three-quarters) vote of a legislative body. The point is that without an exception, Walker opens himself up to criticism that he will cripple the ability of government to respond to emergencies involving public safety or public health. Again, in his attempts to be an ideologue, Walker leaves himself wide open to criticism on the sort of "what if?" scenario that makes soccer moms cringe.

If Walker thinks he's going to win the September primary by veering to the right, he's going to be sorely disappointed. The biggest difference between Walker and Mark Green isn't content. It's mannerism. You listen to Mark Green and he seems like a genuine, likeable guy. You listen to Scott Walker and you get the feeling that he's either a climber or someone who's being handled too much by his advisers. And as we all know from our experiences with guys like Tommy Thompson, Herb Kohl, and Russ Feingold, it's often likeability that wins elections in Wisconsin.