More commuter rail nonsense

Tourists and businesspeople who rent cars are among the most popular victims of irresponsible cash grabs by local officials. More often than not, a quarter of what you're paying for your rental car is nothing but a smorgasbord of fees implemented by local government officials who want to do stuff but don't have the balls to ask their own constituents for the money.

Now, Southeast Wisconsin wants to bleed another $12 a rental from those who are in town for business or pleasure. The purpose of the cash grab? Regional Transit Authority members know they can't get the money for commuter rail from anyone else, so they're targeting people who have no say in the matter.

If Southeast Wisconsin was going to build an extensive, rail-based system of public transit in the region, I'd have no problem with increasing the rental car tax. In that instance, you're providing the consumer with a competitive option. Instead of getting a rental car at the airport, for instance, I could take the train downtown, or to Miller Park, or to the Zoo.

But they're not doing that. They're trying to build commuter rail, almost solely for the purpose of giving residents another way to get to work. That's a perfectly laudable goal. But if the target of the expansion is residential commuters who live in the area, then it should be their tax dollars that fund the project. If the purpose is to spur development, use impact fees or a tax on businesses.

Let's face it. Milwaukee's public transit system sucks, and as long as it sucks, everyone else in the region is stuck. If I'm a tourist flying into Milwaukee or if I'm in the area on business for a few days, renting a car at the airport is really the only option I have in terms of transportation (other than taking a cab).

If it's going to bother doing anything, Southeast Wisconsin should develop a comprehensive, integrated system of public transit with the purpose of improving transit options for everyone in the region. This patchwork, piecemeal garbage is just nonsense, and is partly why public transit is so backwards there already.

In a metropolitan area that large, public transit is doomed to underachieve as long as buses are the backbone of the system. And if leaders can't find a way to do comprehensive rail, please, just stop bothering everyone. Accept the fact that people need a car to get around in the Milwaukee area, and work to target transit services to those for whom that reality poses a major difficulty, like the poor and elderly.

Even their own estimates, which should be rosy, aren't fantastic. They've penciled in 1.72 million riders annually on a system that runs weekdays only. That's about 6,700 passengers a day. Let's say they're all commuters. That means everyone who takes one train in the morning takes another train in the afternoon. So in reality, cut the number of riders in half, and then add a little to compensate for the overestimation. Still, we're talking about what, 4,000 riders a day? $200M to build and $10.2M annually to operate a system that gets a couple thousand cars off the road?

The consultants say the rail line would help generate 71,000 jobs, 23,000 housing units and 12.3 million square feet of stores and offices. But are we really talking about new jobs and new construction, or are we just rearranging the deck chairs? A business with 100 employees that relocates by five miles to be in a new office building by a rail station is neither creating jobs nor office space. A person who moves into a new housing unit by a station is likely leaving an old housing unit behind.

And all of these people still need cars, because somebody's not running the trains on weekends. Brilliant.

Goin' Green: Assembly GOP agenda to be made of 100% recycled material

As many of you know, the Assembly GOP leadership is planning to roll out its 2007-08 agenda later this morning. The plan, entitled "Assembly GOP: Careening into the Minority" will resemble a farcical, Spaceballs-like adventure into the ideological backwash of sessions past.

In other words, don't expect to see any new ideas. They're flat out of those. Just expect to see a lot of recycling and spin.

What's in the document? Well, let me see if I can't take an educated stab at it based on what they've done in the last two sessions:

Health Care: The GOP will find three entirely new ways (one in Klingon) to say the only three words it knows when it comes to reform: Health Savings Accounts. We'll also get talk of making insurance premiums tax deductible. Mind you, that does nothing whatsoever to control the growth of health care costs. Government's just not taking its cut anymore.

Taxes: The GOP knows it probably should lower taxes. But it doesn't have the unity to actually propose anything concrete. So we're probably going to get some empty paeans about how Assembly leadership is going to pursue every possible means to lower taxes at the state level. What will that translate to? Well, they're going to end up signing off on an increase in the cigarette tax this summer, and they're going to piss and moan about property tax freezes some more. Besides, how can you talk about substantive tax cuts when you have senators like Ted Kanavas looking to commit the state to tens of millions of additional dollars in tax giveaways to his rich friends the angel investors and venture capitalists? Like always, they're too busy giving money away to WMC to actually take a serious swipe at tax rates.

Education: They'll talk about that proposal to require 70% school funding to be spent in classrooms. Can they define that? Not at all. Soon, school districts will be buying gold-plated book covers and bling-covered whiteboards. Or they could, you know, pay teachers more so maybe we could recruit better candidates into the teaching profession. They'll probably dust something else off too.

Other stuff: Gotta have at least one bone thrown to the pro-lifers. Conscience clause, maybe? Frankenstein veto is up tomorrow so they'll talk about that. Funny how that was never an issue when Thompson or McCallum was in office. Expect Photo ID to make a glorious return to fail for like the seventh time, and Robin Vos to release a proposal to make it easier for mute swans to vote.

Some or all of the following phrases will be used:

"Our number one priority is jobs, jobs, jobs."
"Working families"
"Brain drain"
"The first rule of holes: when you're in one, stop digging."
"It's not that we spend too little. It's that we tax too much."

Ethics reform losing its kumbaya feel, now 50% more fun to follow.

If you haven't seen the Leg Council memo on the substitute amendment to Assembly Bill 1, Mark Gundrum and Friends actually managed to make parts of this bill WORSE than they already are. In fact, in at least one instance, legislators have gone from getting special treatment in the first draft to extra special treatment in the rewrite.

Now, instead of the venue automatically being the county of residence, the accused is basically allowed to select whatever venue he believes will be most favorable.

Sayeth Don Dyke,

(The substitute amendment) permits a defendant who is a resident of the state and who is prosecuted in connection with a violation of an election law, campaign finance law, lobbying law, or ethics law to move to change the place of trial to the county where the offense was committed. The court is required to grant the motion if the court determines that the county where the offense was committed is different than the county where the defendant resides.

Yeah, that's right. Gundrum and the gang would now like the accused to be able to choose their venue. They'd let defendants in public corruption cases decide where their trial is to be held - in their home county or the scene of the alleged crime. Golly, Republicans complain all the time that the legal system is too concerned with the rights of defendants, but now all of a sudden when talking about their colleagues, defendants apparently can't have enough rights.

On Monday, Gundrum said "This has nothing to do with being an officeholder; it has to do with these particular violations," Gundrum said. "It's an offense against the people who elected you."

Gundrum is right on the first count, although a court will likely find interesting the fact that the crimes for which venue shopping is allowed are committed almost exclusively by those who hold elective office. So while a special class may not be created by letter, it will likely be created in fact. And now if the poor leggie thinks the home team might be too hard on him, he can tuck tail and run for Dane County.

In other words, the change to the Assembly bill has the practical effect of completely undercutting all of the rhetoric Assembly leaders have spouted about the home court provision making life more difficult for legislators because their constituents will make for tougher jurors.

And the nonseverability clause? It's the same garbage as the crap Assembly Republicans pulled during the 2002 budget adjustment when negotiating campaign finance reform.

Republican leadership doesn't want reform. It wants a bumper sticker. It wants a bill that gets thrown out in court, and if not, affords legislators more rights than you or I or any other private citizen could possibly hope to obtain. They're being dragged to the table by the Democrats, by the Governor, and by a public that slapped the taste out of their mouths in November. So as part of the negotiation, Republicans insist on an all-or-nothing nonseverability clause, then work to include at least one poison pill that, more likely than not, will be ruled unconstitutional.

The goo-goos are turning on it, which means the editorial boards will turn on it. And once that happens, the Democrats will start pointing fingers and staking out their ground. Let the partisanship begin!

But Republicans should remember one thing: fair or not, this is a Democratic issue. If this falls apart and turns into a partisan battle, the public will blame Republicans for not getting it done and/or trying to weaken the bill, no matter who is really at fault. And Republican leaders need to be careful that this doesn't turn into TABOR, in which the process was handled so badly that not even Republicans who voted for some version of it could take credibly take ownership of the concept because their leaders handled the bill so poorly.

Vos turns back on conservatives, urges asylum for illegal immigrants

Maybe if Mexicans looked more like this, conservatives would fight harder to keep them around.

Rep. Robin Vos (R - Match.com) has come out swinging in a battle with the DNR over illegal immigrants. Vos believes the DNR is being overly aggressive in its pursuit of illegal immigrants and wants the state to consider affording them asylum in the areas of Waterford, Rochester, and Wind Lake.

Said Vos, "There is a lot of difference of opinion when it comes to mute swans, which in some areas have become a municipal logo. We need to find out why we are wasting our resources getting rid of these beautiful creatures."

Oh yeah, I suppose I didn't mention that we were talking about mute swans, did I. Everything's still true, though. Mute swans are illegal immigrants. They're a non-native species that competes a little too well with Wisconsin's native species for habitat. They're extremely territorial. And they reproduce much faster than our native species too.

According to the article, "experts say mute swans are aggressive birds that over the years have driven out native species." What's funny is that many SE conservatives will basically make all the same arguments about illegal Mexican immigrants, or "chattering chihuahuas" as some more enlightened members of the community affectionately refer to them. At least, I'm pretty sure it's an affectionate nickname.

And with that said, quick, someone start working to incorporate those Mexicans into municipal logos! We've finally figured out why Republicans want to get rid of them!

Mexicans come here illegally. They consume our resources, take our jobs, and live off the government - so the story goes. They compete aggressively for habitat, and their reproductive rates are higher than those of the white families they are driving off into suburban enclaves. Mexicans, like the mute swans, are taking over.

But the rich white people in gated communities with man-made lakes think that mute swans are soooooo cute, so Vos will carry their water at the Capitol. And in return, maybe he'll get a few sweet campaign checks or a lead on where to find some good thunderstorms or erotica.

So while conservatives like Vos are working to send the gardeners and housekeepers of SE Wisconsin back to where they came from, he works tirelessly to defend the rights of rich people's "pet" swans to take over the State of Wisconsin from their staging grounds in Racine County.

Gotta love the consistency.

NFL Notes

Three quick thoughts:

1. Nothing says love like birthing your child early so that your husband can go to the Bears/Saints game.

2. Someone please tell Michael Vick that when you've got a ten year contract worth $137 million, you can afford to surrender your pot prior to going through airport screening and buy more after you land. Also, this same someone needs to tell him that when you're making $13.7 million a year, you can probably afford to fly something other than AirTran out of MIA. Leave the rest of us to fight over AirTran's cheap business class upgrades.

3. Day of the dogs. Saints over the Bears. Patriots over the Colts.

Update: Please see #3. Now I know how Owen felt on election night.

State government pimps you out like a dime-store whore

It's hard to argue against the assertion that the state's no-call list has likely been among the most popular legislative creations of this generation. So with that in mind, the Wisconsin State Journal, on today's front page, has gift-wrapped the companion idea for any smart legislator to seize.

After last week's Department of Revenue debacle involving the release of over 171,000 Social Security numbers, reporter Mark Pitsch implies the obvious question: why is the State of Wisconsin in the business of selling your personal information in the first place?

Certainly one can understand why insurance companies are interested in obtaining driving records from the Department of Transportation. I would go so far as to assert that most individuals would probably find that to be a legitimate use of collected information.

But selling names and addresses of DNR permit holders to Bass Pro Shops so that outdoor enthusiasts can be bombarded with more crap in their mailbox? I think that's in a different realm.

How can you draw the line? Easy. Solicitation. Make it illegal for those who obtain personal information from the state to use that information for the purpose of soliciting.

That means Geico could, for example, use your personal information to investigate a claim or for rate-setting purposes, but not to mail you information about how to switch your auto insurance. Politicians can obtain voter lists to tell them who is voting and where, but not to develop targeted mailing or drop lists which allow them to dump specific types of propaganda in voters' mailboxes.

The alternative would be to require government to expressly allow individuals an opportunity to opt-out of receiving solicitations whenever a government agency collects personal information. However, that arrangement would come at significant cost to taxpayers, as many agencies would be stuck modifying countless pre-existing computer databases to include a new field.

Constitutional issues? Not really. We wouldn't be making the actual act of commercial or ideological solicitation illegal. We'd just be making it illegal for individuals to use information obtained from the government for the purpose of coordinating that activity. If they so desperately need that information, let them get it elsewhere.

Government has no business being in the business of selling your name and address to those who would bombard you with commercial or ideological solicitations. Such activity on the part of government serves no legitimate public purpose, and I have little doubt that most politicians and lobbyists would personally agree with that statement...

... except they're some of the prime beneficiaries of the government whoring you out. After all, who do you think is buying all those voter lists from the Elections Board?

The idea is just sitting there for the taking. Guess we'll see if any legislators value your privacy over their ability to develop killer mailing lists and walk lists.

This is why you can't trust legislators to clean up their own mess.

If you haven't read Dane County District Attorney Brian Blanchard's testimony on the much ballyhooed ethics reform bill yet, you should take a moment to do that. Whatever you think about the way Blanchard & Company proceeded with the caucus investigation, it's clear that he understands the major problems with the current draft of this bill.

Upon reading the bill draft and the LRB summary, the problem is self-evident, and it's nothing that anyone wouldn't have suspected. Legislators can't be trusted to overhaul a system that is primarily responsible for investigating legislators. And Blanchard latches like a pit bull onto the biggest problem with the current bill: the fact that legislators want to create conditions under which their alleged wrongdoings are treated differently than those of any private citizen. They want for public corruption cases to be tried in the accused's county of residence, as opposed to the county in which the crime is committed. That's the rule the rest of us have to play by.

Here's part of the LRB summary that deals with the establishment of venue in a public corruption case. It's laughably stupid.

The bill provides, however, that if the Government Accountability Board refers any matter to the district attorney for the county in which the alleged violator resides for prosecution and the district attorney informs the board that he or she declines to prosecute any civil or criminal violation related to any matter referred to the district attorney by the board, or the district attorney fails to commence a civil or criminal prosecution related to any such matter within 60 days of the date of referral, the board may then refer the matter to the district attorney for a prosecutorial unit that is contiguous to the prosecutorial unit of the district attorney to whom the matter was originally referred. If there is more than one such prosecutorial unit, the chairperson of the board determines the prosecutorial unit of the district attorney to whom the matter is to be referred by the public drawing of lots at a meeting of the board. The district attorney for the contiguous prosecutorial unit may then commence a civil or criminal prosecution related to any of the alleged violations referred to him or her by the board. The bill provides, in addition, that if the district attorney to whom a matter is rereferred by the board informs the board that he or she declines to prosecute any civil or criminal violation related to any matter referred to the district attorney by the board, or if that district attorney fails to commence any civil or criminal prosecution related to any such matter within 60 days of the date of the referral, the board may then refer the matter to the attorney general, who may then commence a civil or criminal prosecution related to any of the alleged violations referred to him or her by the board. However, the venue for the trial is not altered by the substitution of the prosecutor.

So here's what we've got in just these few words:

If a home county DA declines prosecution, we've got a provision that allows for the board to assign the case to another DA in an adjacent county. And if there's more than one adjacent county (as is the case with 71 of our 72 counties), the Government Accountability Board must play a colossal and public game of Rochambeau to decide who gets it. Surely, this is an improvement over the current system.

Nothing would make me feel better about my government than watching two old white guys on a government board throw rock, paper, scissors in a best of seven duel to see who gets next on a public corruption case. And legislators are telling you this bill will RESTORE your faith in the system?

Then later in that section, we've got another clause that says that a matter can ultimately be referred to the Attorney General for prosecution, but the home county rule still applies. That, of course, means the Attorney General or his designees will do most of their evidentiary work in Dane County, but then will have to schlep all of their exhibits and witnesses off to whatever Godforsaken corner of the state the accused legislator happens to reside in. If Gary Sherman ever gets in trouble, I wonder what it would cost to indefinitely move and house a whole legal team and witnesses in Bayfield County? What if it's high season and all the motels are booked?

Legislators apparently believe that matters of public corruption shouldn't be treated like all other crimes, in which the jurisdiction of the case is determined by the location of the alleged act. They would much rather all these cases be shunted as far away from the scene of the crime as possible.

Let's take another three seconds to grasp how fundamentally absurd that is. Blanchard uses a hypothetical example in his testimony, but let's deal with the real thing. Consider the caucus scandal itself. Had the provisions of this bill been in place at that time, the investigative process would've been absolute chaos. You'd have the Milwaukee County DA (Brian Burke), the Waukesha County DA (Scott Jensen and Mickey Foti), the Dane County DA (Chuck Chvala and Sherry Schultz), and the Racine County DA (Bonnie Ladwig), all sitting around a table in Madison fighting over the same witnesses, the same exhibits, and the same resources. Because that is an admirable model of efficiency in the judicial system that should be replicated and exported everywhere.

Once again, legislators in their arrogance fail to understand what it is that their constituents actually want them to do: stop giving themselves special treatment. What's wrong with the laws and procedures the rest of us are subject to? Why do legislators need some special arrangement?

If you gave Steven Avery a chance right now, I bet he would love to rewrite the rules of evidence before his trial. And that's the whole problem with ethics reform. The very people breaking the laws are the ones we're supposed to trust with the task of rewriting them.

Guys like Mike Huebsch and Mark Gundrum spent all their time last session trying to torpedo any meaningful reform, and now I'm supposed to believe that they're the architects of a grand new system? If ever there would've been a time to let some independent task force devise a new system that we could shove down politicians' throats, this would've been it.

But this is hardly a partisan rant here. Republicans and Democrats both seem completely clueless when it comes to understanding the fallout of the caucus scandal. Heck, lots of them still deny knowing where all those prepaid campaign managers and volunteers came from - the ones that, you know, got them elected.

Instead, we just get more garbage that proves how tone-deaf legislators are when it comes to hearing the symphony of dissent building outside their windows. Here's hoping a whole lot of public criticism might be able to shame these guys into doing the right thing for once.

But I'm not holding my breath waiting.

(If you'd like a defense of why legislators deserve special treatment, you can get it straight from "Majority Leader" Huebsch here. Apparently the Speaker is having problems getting his stationery order filled. Or maybe his staff misspelled it on the order, just like on the email distributions they send out.)

With answers like this, he should've been working for Steve Kagen

The Spice Boys did a little digging in a Wednesday story about John Gard giving his campaign manager, Brandon Rosner, a cozy little parachute shuffling papers in the Speaker's lame duck office for the two months following the election.

What's funnier, though, is hearing Rosner pull a Dr. Millionaire, failing to recall pretty much ANYTHING about his two months in the Gard office.

Rosner can't remember why his timesheets were irregular. He can't remember whether he got a raise from his time as Gard's campaign manager. I hope his wife/girlfriend/mom leaves a note on the bedroom door reminding him to put his underwear on, or the guy would probably leave the house commando every day.

Gee Brandon, it was just last month. Why the amnesia? Or are you and Congressman Kagen running the defense out of the same playbook?

"Slurs and Double Standards"? What irony.

Which is worse:

"Our excuse, uh, in Oneida was, well we are on Injun time. They don’t tell time by the clock. Our excuse here is I’m a doctor and we’re never on time."

or

"I stood in Wal Mart yesterday and listen to a bunch of chattering chihuahuas speaking Mexican until I sick of listening to it and finally said, 'You’re in America. Speak English or go back to wherever you came from' and walked away.

Either adopt our culture or language or get the f*** out of the U.S."


What's ironic is that the individual who said the latter lectured us, in a post entitled "Slurs and Double Standards," about how the media wasn't doing its job by handing it to the guy who said the former for his use of a poorly-chosen and terribly outdated phrase. It's also curious that this same individual was also rallying to Mark Belling's defense during the Great Wetback Scandal of 2004.

Wingnuts complain that the media doesn't hold liberal politicians accountable. But meanwhile, who is supposed to hold the wingnuts accountable? Or are some of them allowed to just be racists and sexists and homophobes without any sort of real accountability?

There's no great shock in the fact that other conservative bloggers will of course remain mute about the whole thing. Partisans are terrible about self-policing. Just like you don't see any Democrats out there flogging Barbara Boxer for her idiotic statements regarding single women and empathy last week, no conservatives will really have the nerve to call out this blatant and flagrant example of racism in their midst.

I'm not sure if conservatives realize that it's remarks like this, made in a public forum by self-identified conservatives, that make all of them look like ignorant, racist fools. It's a shame really, because most of them aren't.

It's pretty clear, though, that some of them are. And the fact that other conservatives tolerate it only serves to disenfranchise people who are inclined to support Republicans on fiscal issues but are uncomfortable with all the gay-hating, fetus-postering, and Mexican-bashing that goes on in the fringe. Sure, moonbats hate on the president and whatnot, but mostly they're hating him for his actions. Certain conservatives, however, just like to hate some people for who they are.

Can we really blame Mexicans for trying to come here, whether legally or illegally? They're just doing what's logical. Most of them have a far better chance at economic security and success here than they do in Mexico.

Republicans, on the other hand, had control of the White House and Congress for the better part of six years and accomplished absolutely nothing of substance regarding border security. Zero. Zilch. Nada.

So the next time a Republican sees a "chattering chihuahua" speaking "Mexican" at a local retail establishment, maybe he or she should step back for a second and think about the people he or she voted for and how they couldn't be bothered for even a moment to forge a solution to the problem that he or she is perceiving in that moment.

What AT&T breakup?

With the "new" AT&T beginning the rebranding of its wireless provider Cingular this week, Stephen Colbert chimes in with perhaps the funniest take on AT&T's official return as America's telecom behemoth.

I've got a budget cut for you right here...

State Ethics Board: Commissioner of Railroads Pays $500 Penalty

The best part of the release is where the complainant suggests that Uncle Rodney abused the "status and prestige of his office."

Because when I think "status and prestige" I surely think of the Commissioner of Railroads, a position that outlived its usefulness about two generations ago. A Capitol custodian has more prestige. At least they've got pass cards to the Capitol. Kreunen's only good for crappy laminated maps that you can give to your constituents.

If ever there was a time for Governor Doyle and the Legislature to do a little housecleaning, I think it's now. Just abolish the office or give it to Gene Hahn or something.

Update: Read the report of the Ethics Board here. In summary...

- Uncle Rodney allegedly tries to board a train without a ticket by threatening to exert "executive privilege," whatever the hell that is.

- Uncle Rodney then allegedly tells the president of Wisconsin & Southern Railroad to "stop being a f***head" and pokes him in the chest after being told that he can't ride in the front of the choo-choo. Maybe it's because he still hasn't bought a ticket? At least one other person claims to have overheard Uncle Rodney drop the F-bomb.

- Uncle Rodney admits to calling the president a "flaky nuthead."

- OCR's legal counsel says that engine rides are usually arranged well in advance and that riding in an engine to inspect a rail crossing is of little value, anyway.

Men and women holding appointed positions in state government have little business representing the state in such a terrible and bellicose manner. Governor Doyle, this guy is begging to be fired. You didn't even appoint him. You're just letting him hang around, and for what? This kind of press?

It's time to dump Uncle Rodney.

Great Moments in Modern Conservative Thought: Forex Edition

Head this way for an absolutely scintillating debate on whether or not a pizza chain in Texas should be allowed to accept pesos.

For those in the debate who don't seem to get out of the country much (or ever), they may be unaware that using U.S. dollars in neighboring countries isn't so hard. Many retailers in major Canadian cities are perfectly happy to accept U.S. dollars from tourists who may not have exchanged their money. Same goes in some parts of Mexico. Additionally, foreign travelers who have been issued a Visa Electron card by their banks are also able to use those cards throughout the U.S., just like a Visa card. The only difference is that the account being drawn upon is an account in a foreign currency, like Euros. The bank takes care of the currency exchange automatically.

In other words, those damn foreigners are electronically spending their funny money at hundreds of thousands of retailers across America already.

A business in Texas that decides to accept pesos is just making what it believes to be a good business decision - just like retail stores in Toronto or the Canadian side of Niagara Falls that take our "foreign" money. It's a private company making a decision that is in its best interest.

If the pizza company wanted to barter or accept wampum for its services, would there be an objection? Last I checked, a private company is pretty much allowed to accept whatever the hell it wants in exchange for its goods or services, except maybe drugs or hookers.

Who cares if the consumer or the merchant is handling the currency exchange? It makes no difference, unless you're just looking for an excuse to hate on Mexicans.

A nice word about Bush? Maybe.

I'm not big on linking to other posts - frankly, I know most of you have read what I'm going to link to anyway - but even though we come from different parts of the political spectrum, I think Owen happens to be right on the mark in his post regarding the President's intentions in Iraq.

Right now, Iraq is like a big bottle of champagne. We grabbed the bottle, shook it up, and popped the cork. Now, we've spent nearly half a decade with our thumb over the top of it, trying to figure out how in the hell to put the bottle down without it spraying its contents all over the damn room.

I don't always agree with the President's policies or his strategies. I think it's fair for people to criticize his decision-making or his course of action. But the degree to which some on the left wish to use that as a vehicle for personal vilification is tough to swallow.

Most elected officials govern with good intentions. Of course, some of them are easy to pick on, but most of them are trying as best they can. Whether the best they can offer is what we deserve, we can take that up later. Democrats, Republicans, independents, whatever. They're trying. They're not all sitting in a back room trying to screw you over. Mostly, they're trying to screw each other over. There's lots of screwing that goes on in politics, literal and figurative, and very little of it has to do with socking it to the voters.

Democrats had an opportunity to unelect Bush in 2004 and offered up a candidate almost as bad as Michael Dukakis. Like Dukakis, Kerry should've won. He ran a terrible campaign and lost. Democrats need to live with that. Whether the 2004 election was an endorsement of Bush or a repudiation of Kerry is irrelevant. The outcome is the same either way.

I'm not sure that Bush has been our best statesman. He sure as hell isn't as smart or as savvy as Bill Clinton. But a guy with a few Ivy League diplomas is probably doing okay upstairs. And the American people will do a fine job of making their own judgments of President Bush without a bunch of hemp-wearing fruitcakes jumping up and down accusing Bush of war crimes.

I've never been President. Maybe someday, when they let luchadors run for office, I will take out nomination papers. Of course, if you read my blog, I will probably not get the endorsement of the farmers, veterans, conservatives, liberals, Republicans, Democrats, legislators who use their offices as playpens, and countless other groups. It could be an uphill battle. But I'm guessing that being President is little harder than being the Wisconsin State Treasurer, where the only job requirement appears to be successfully balancing your till at the Boston Store for a few Christmases. We all disagree with the President sometimes, but maybe it wouldn't hurt as a nation to try to give the guy the benefit of the doubt, at least on a personal level.

People who make bad decisions aren't necessarily bad people. They're just human. Just like us.

The Humor of Ethics Reform

- The insincerity with which Republican leaders are fawning over this bill is incredulous. Considering this is basically the same bill that Mark Gundrum spent every waking hour trying to kill behind closed doors last spring, am I expected to believe that he and other Republicans really want to do this? Or were they just so clueless that it took an eight-seat ass whipping in November to realize that maybe, just maybe, it looks bad to be obstructionists when their old leadership cabal of Jensen/Foti/Ladwig could star in a musical at the Fireside entitled "Felons and Misdemeanors"?

- To those not in tune with the funny little notations on the bill drafts, the number after the slash in the upper right hand corner indicates the revision number of the bill. So in other words, this means we're on draft number ten. I haven't seen anything like this since the dueling TABORs debacle of 2003. Is this going to be it, or should we just expect legislative committees to be holding hearings next week on lists of ideas jotted down on napkins from Quizno's?

- Does anyone doubt that when this bill passes (and some version of it will), these guys are going to be leading candidates to become the investigators for the Government Accountability Board? I think their selection has been a foregone conclusion ever since the Ethics Board put out a press release on December 28th entitled "Ethics Board unlocks mystery of missing campaign plans."


- Also, has anyone ever noticed that Velma looks sort of like Chris Sinicki? In fact, has anyone ever seen the two of them in different places at the same time?

- And on a brief but unrelated note, is anyone really sad that Debi Towns is gone? Yeah, I didn't think so. I'd guess Kim Hixson's gotten a few pats on the back from Republicans in the building who were simply happy to see Towns thrown to the curb.

Scott Walker dusts off Mark Green's losing agenda, claims it as his own

Scott Walker is the John Edwards of Wisconsin - the guy that will never stop running for office. In accordance with his desire to be your next (insert public office here), Walker has introduced an Agenda for Wisconsin that supposedly contains "bold steps and proposals." I don't really see anything other the boilerplate stuff here, but that won't stop the Walker sycophants from drooling all over it and proclaiming it to be a new vision for Republicanism.

Let's actually take a look at what Walker put out:

Scott Walker wants to lower our tax burden. Okay, that's a good idea, one Republicans have completely sold out lately in order to hand out tax breaks to their buddies. This is exciting. I'm sure Walker is about to propose a broad-based tax cut, something with actual political appeal.

Hmmm. Pensions. Businesses. Estate tax. Venture capital. Angel investors. Nope. Nothing in here for your average Wisconsinite, unless you're buying a wind farm or some solar panels for the roof.

For those following along at home, we've got tax freeze, giveaway to the elderly, giveaway to employers, giveaway to rich kids, giveaway for renewable energy, giveaway to rich people, and giveaway to rich people, in that order.

This is why Republicans are struggling at the ballot box. Instead of sticking to broad-based tax cuts - you know, things the average voter understands - they've become addicted to these boutique tax credits and exemptions. Most of them are targeted at businesses or the wealthy. And voters have figured that out. The property tax, meanwhile, is so 2003. Republicans fought that battle already and got out maneuvered by Governor Doyle.

Tax credits are spending programs, just like welfare. Government takes your money and gives it to people who deserve it more than you do. And Republicans are addicted to spending, just like Democrats. Walker's bullet points are just more proof of that.

Next Walker talks about spending less on government. But he doesn't talk about spending less now, he talks mostly about spending less later. How that helps to accomplish Walker's first bullet point, balancing the structural deficit, is completely unclear, unless we are prepared to wait until 2027, when maybe Walker's plan will have successfully starved government of enough money to fix the problem. No big surprise that all Walker can really come up with here is mandate relief and more ways to screw public employees. Too bad the state doesn't have a parks department for Walker to crap on.

Walker's ideas for health care are nothing but the standard GOP claptrap: HSA's, HSA's, and oh, Health Opportunity Accounts - which are nothing but HSA's by another name. There's also a paean to price transparency and more drivel about medical malpractice. As I've said before here, I have no problem with HSA's per se. But it does next to nothing to improve access to health care, as it requires an individual/family to actually have money left to save at the end of the month. So in reality, HSA's end up serving as little more than tax shelters for people who've already maxed out their other shelters.

Meanwhile, Wisconsin's still stuck with a system where the easiest way for the working poor to get health care is to have a kid. You wanna tell me that's a good idea?

Walker wants to further ease the "burden" of regulations and lawsuits. I use quotation marks because once again Republicans want me to assume as true the very condition they need to prove: that Wisconsin's permitting process is still unreasonable or onerous. Personally, I am convinced that the GOP will not be happy with the DNR until getting a complex, detailed permit is like getting glasses at LensCrafters. We'll have a bunch of DNR staffers scurrying around in white lab coats frantically trying to rubber stamp every request that people bring in, all in under an hour.

Oh look, we've also got John Gard's old plan to split the DNR in here. And stuff to prevent nuisance lawsuits against family farms. Because that effects maybe four people a year but sounds good on paper. And you know what I hate? The phrase "nuisance lawsuits." All lawsuits are a nuisance to somebody, usually the person being sued.

Next, Walker offers up his own take on that terrible indentured servitude concept that so many other bloggers have already taken to task. Walker's is pared down. He wants to freeze tuition for four years for anyone who stays in Wisconsin to work for four years after graduation. Total value of this freeze: pretty much nothing. Do the math - a four-year freeze on tuition is worth maybe $5,000 if you go to UW-Madison. For four years of indentured servitude? Nobody's going to stay in Wisconsin for an extra $100 a month. Nice try, Scott. As I've detailed in a previous post, the problem isn't Wisconsin's tax climate. Young people leave Wisconsin in droves because Wisconsin is just not a cool place for people under 30 to live. Walker should spend less time trying to pose as the state's Republican figurehead and more time trying to figure out how to make Milwaukee County more like Seattle or Denver and less like Halo 2.

Okay, some obligatory stuff about school choice. Most parts of Wisconsin have good schools already and few people outside southeast Wisconsin give a flip about this issue. Requiring 70% of tax funding to be used on education is so vague that anyone from Steve Nass to Stan Johnson could support it depending on the definitions used.

Ooooh, consolidation. Somebody needs to tell Scott Walker that out here in the rest of Wisconsin, speaking of consolidation is a surefire way to get unelected. I'm not saying it's a bad idea, but in rural districts it's not sellable. And that's where all the consolidation would be occurring - in a land far, far away from where Scott Walker lives.

Oh yeah, and more dedicated revenue for roads. Gasp.

Just like you don't get to pick your own nickname, Walker doesn't get to issue two pages of recycled ideas and proclaim himself the savior of the Republican Party in Wisconsin. And for the trivia buffs, Walker's two page proposal is still two pages more than what is necessary to photocopy his college diploma.