Words Will Never Hurt Them
How many different ways does Scott Walker need to tell us that he and his legislative allies are taking power, consolidating and exercising it - - and will turn a deaf ear to the critics.
Why?
Because they can - - especially this group - - because they have a hard-edged, sharply-partisan and ideological blueprint they have never hidden.
For example, Walker campaigned against the Madison-Milwaukee train. Even had a website dedicated to killing it.
When the Journal Sentinel endorsed Walker for Governor in October, the paper said it found his opposition to the high-speed train "short-sighted."
Did he care?
Of course not.
Walker killed the train before he took office, and didn't give a hoot that the Wisconsin State Journal said in its endorsement editorial that his opposition to the train was "disturbing," then subsequently gave him the slightest, lightest tap on the wrist when it editorially said he'd done the cancellation "unwisely."
The Journal Sentinel now cautions Republicans in the Legislature against "overreaching" as the GOP denies funding to Democrats in the redistricting process to gerrymander themselves into easier election wins.
The Republicans and Walker will pay about as much attention to that argument as they did to pleas for reason about the train.
Same for the Journal Sentinel telling Walker he'd proposed a "power grab" of the authority to approve all state agency-issued rules.
The paper is right: it is a power grab, to which Walker would say, 'this what it's all about. I won.'
Powerful business interests expect Walker to take charge of rule-making and minimize it. They frame it, according to this State Journal story, as "streamlining."
Republicans who put private, special interests above the public good have been ranting against rule-making since Noah; now they have the votes to coordinate and centralize that power in the Governor's office.
Walker is also putting de-regulators into top agencies, like the DNR, to institutionalize weakened rule-making.
Let's begin with wetlands: who needs all that wet dirt crying out for filling, paving and subdividing?
And it will be the same story, over and over again, whether the issues are weakening unions (Right-to-work legislation, forced concessions or expanded School Choice), wiping out voter ID or same-day voting, defunding Badger and SeniorCare, reinstituting the death penalty, or legalizing concealed firearms carry, open carry or, if possible, 24/7 mandatory open-and-concealed-carry in church, day cares and nursing homes - - as Power of the Right, for the Right and by The Right shall be consolidated and exercised.
Impervious to criticism and second thoughts, Walker and Co. are doing precisely what they said they would do - - and as one of their louder mouthpieces said in Milwaukee on talk radio the day after the election:
"They can do whatever they want."
7 comments:
The train scheme was a totally misdirected spending of money, time and effort; a make work project that would never produce enough revenue to keep it maintained. Passenger rail has simply not been able to satisfy the needs of people whose personal lives and schedules do not match that of a railroad timetable. Perhaps it is the people who are at fault and a centralized social planning committee should set up a re-education camp in order to indoctrinate people to their own best interests. Individual lives and careers, controlled by the State could then be more easily, and efficiently matched to the train schedule.
Ever since Plato’s Republic, really smart people have come up with really good ideas that never work when applied to real peoples real lives.
The Natural Resource laws that we have ensure a clean and healthy environment. There are problems that arise when personal interpretations of those laws and administrative rules are formed to over-reach the intention of the law. I have listened to DNR people talk about how they should be able to regulate the color of paint that people are allowed to use on lake shore buildings. I do not think that this fits with the legislative intent of protecting navigable water ways.
I know of no environmental laws that Scott Walker or Cathy Stepp have targeted for elimination. They do want a streamlined permit process and a better attitude from State agencies toward the public. I’m all for that.
I know of no environmental laws that Scott Walker or Cathy Stepp have targeted for elimination.
Two thoughts: (1) It's only Jan. 7; give them time. (2) Not enforcing a law is as good as repealing it. I think we'll see quite a bit of that.
Righto, Xoff: Asking the legislature to remove protection from wetlands parcels of two acres or less is certainly a signal of special-interest deregulation to come.
http://thepoliticalenvironment.blogspot.com/2011/01/walkers-management-plan-new-players.html
@Anonymous - Perhaps you have spent time in a Tea Party re-education camp. I have not been so brainwashed.
Highways are not paid by user fees. Highway are now getting a 51% subsidy. This does not include the private forced subsidy (because no alternatives are provided) of owning, maintaing, fueling, and insuring a car. see: http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2011/01/the-ever-rising-cost-of-americas-highways/68949/
The passenger train system in this country was privately owned. Public subsidy of highways (Inspired by Eisenhower's admiration for the Nazi built autoban) and the crushing of technological alternatives to motor vehicles through NCL. and Greyhound helped to kill the railroads. See: http://academic.regis.edu/jroth/TAKEN%20FOR%20A%20RIDE.htm
Intercity rail, interurbans, and trolleys - created an effective and efficient privately owned transportation system. In the 1920s and early 1930s, my great cousin Rose would often after work catch the hourly interurban to Milwaukee for a live vaudeville show, or a night out with friends. She was far more mobile back then, then after cars became the only mode.
Rail transportation uses less land, less energy per passenger, and less labor per passenger than cars. Look at the whole picture. The proportion of family income spent on transportation has steadily increased as alternatives have decreased.
Only the most ideologically biased economic analysis, done by the Kochs' paid Cato fellows can make the highway equation for new lanes, cheaper than rail, when properly amortized and the full lifetime costs considered.
Are we to gamble our economic future on uninvented cheap electric or hydrogen cars? Can we lie to ourselves and totally disregard climate change theory backed by 90% of the scientific community? Can we claim, having 5% of the world's oil reserves that we can satisfy a hunger for 25% of the world's demand with more drilling? Should we ignore the rising price and demand for oil cased by millions of Chinese and Indians driving cars? Do we want to spend our nation's treasure and youth on controlling the world's oil or lithium supplies militarily?
The 'conservative' and 'Tea Party' stance on energy and transportation policy is delusional at best, and in fact, down right dangerous to the national interest. It's a pile of propaganda and lies written to keep us addicted to oil.
You have been brainwashed with data funded by the Kochs. http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/08/30/100830fa_fact_mayer
Those other people in China, Brazil, Russia, France, Great Britain, Germany, Korea, ... heck, even California -- They get it! In the case of rail it is not national exceptionalism that makes us different then our competition, it is national naiveté. The snake oil salesman is selling you oil.
(Anonymity is the refuge for propagandistic trolls)
@Anonymous - Perhaps you have spent time in a Tea Party re-education camp. I have not been so brainwashed.
Highways are not paid by user fees. Highway are now getting a 51% subsidy. This does not include the private forced subsidy (because no alternatives are provided) of owning, maintaing, fueling, and insuring a car. see: http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2011/01/the-ever-rising-cost-of-americas-highways/68949/
The passenger train system in this country was privately owned. Public subsidy of highways (Inspired by Eisenhower's admiration for the Nazi built autoban) and the crushing of technological alternatives to motor vehicles through NCL. and Greyhound helped to kill the railroads. See: http://academic.regis.edu/jroth/TAKEN%20FOR%20A%20RIDE.htm
Intercity rail, interurbans, and trolleys - created an effective and efficient privately owned transportation system.
Rail transportation uses less land, less energy per passenger, and less labor per passenger than cars. Look at the whole picture. The proportion of family income spent on transportation has steadily increased as alternatives have decreased.
Only the most ideologically biased economic analysis, done by the Kochs' paid Cato fellows can make the highway equation for new lanes, cheaper than rail, when properly amortized and the full lifetime costs considered.
Are we are to gamble our economic future on uninvented cheap electric or hydrogen cars? Can we lie to ourselves and totally disregard climate change theory backed by 90% of the scientific community? Can we claim, having 5% of the world's oil reserves that we can satisfy a hunger for 25% of the world's demand with more drilling? Should we ignore the rising price and demand for oil cased by millions of Chinese and Indians driving cars? Do we want to spend our nation's treasure and youth on controlling the world's oil or lithium supplies militarily?
The 'conservative' and 'Tea Party' stance on energy and transportation policy is delusional at best, and in fact, down right dangerous to the national interest. It's a pile of propaganda and lies written to keep us addicted to oil.
You have been brainwashed with data funded by the Kochs. http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/08/30/100830fa_fact_mayer
Those other people in China, Brazil, Russia, France, Great Britain, Germany, Korea, ... heck, even California -- They get it! In the case of rail it is not national exceptionalism that makes us different then our competition, it is national naiveté. The snake oil salesman is selling you oil.
(Anonymity is the refuge for propagandistic trolls)
Anonymous: "Passenger rail has simply not been able to satisfy the needs of people whose personal lives and schedules do not match that of a railroad timetable."
This is an example of just saying something that has no basis in fact. All over the world (except the US) trains are efficient, fast and cheaper than alternatives.
US is different because 50 years ago President Eisenhower set up the Interstate, a multi-trillion dollar subsidy for cars. Meanwhile trains were run by private companies and could not compete against the federal government's money and borrowing. Railroads had to pay their own way and ticket sales declined in the face of the federal bargain for driving.
Ironically, today, it is the libertarian mind that has twisted their free market philosophy to plump for more highway funds while demanding that rail pay its own way.
In Wisconsin the split is near half: cars reimburse half the government subsidy. Householders pay the other half whether they drive or not; and on top of those property taxes for roads, they pay road fees inserted into the cost of products trucked to their neighborhood.
Bill Sell
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