With six straight months of job losses on his permanent record, and management of the state like a failing business, look for Scott Walker to take a few minutes out of his re-election posture during his State of the State speech Wednesday to push the special-interest driven iron ore mining bill awaiting an Assembly vote Thursday.
He'll tie it into support for companion plans to deregulate Wisconsin's wetlands, allowing for fewer hearings, less public input and faster fills of what the State Constitution defines in the Public Trust Doctrine as public property.
The scheduling of the mining bill's consideration in the Assembly and the State of the State speech the same week is not a coincidence. That's how a ruling party uses its power and incumbencies to play the game - - and in the case of these right-wing Republican radicals, how policy payoff is managed.
The timing of the vote and the speech will allow Walker to shift the focus away from the embarrassing job losses in our "open for business" [Sic] state to the creation of jobs that might be had at the Ashland mine someday - - despite inevitable legal and environmental delays in what is shaping up as a classic battle by the 99% against the ruling 1%.
Walker will not talk about the Assembly bill's many legal and environmental flaws, the damage it will do to an entire watershed and the Bad River Band's wild-rice cultivation and cultural integrity.
He'll also tout as a personal victory his role in luring a small airplane plant to choose Superior over a site in Maine - - but will not dwell on the need for more than $100 million in state subsidies that originate nearly entirely with the evil Obama/Big Federal administration, or the highly-speculative, boom-and-bust nature of the small-plane, corporate-flying SUV business.
$112 million total, according to this estimate.
Dude, Cirrus is a Chinese company. How long will those jobs stay in America?
ReplyDelete112 million is a joke in light of the fact Scurvy Scott rejected 1 billion plus from the Feds for health care reform, a high speed train, KRM commuter rail, high speed rural broadband, not to mention 1 billion plus for privately funded wind farms.
ReplyDeleteHe is a hypocrite of the highest order. Furthermore light planes burn a lot of fossil fuels, and are something the rich tend to like to make use of. So he is tending to his natural constituency. In Walker world, the hell with everyone else.
The small aircraft business is in fact very iffy. My nephew earned a degree in aerospace engineering from Purdue and went to work for a company called Eclipse that was to make small jets. They kept getting delayed, ultimately started building and selling planes, but the company went bust quickly and was sold to a Russian company. My nephew lost his job. Eclipse was bankrolled by people like Bill Gates -- very high-end financiers. Why is the state of Wisconsin gambling some $50 million on something like this? If it is such a great company, then why in the world do they need government handouts to establish production? Is this how we do business now? Are we Wisconsin taxpayers now venture capitalists? We have to bribe people to set up in business here? I wonder how much King Scottie got paid in campaign donations to do this.
ReplyDeleteNice post Annonymous 2 and Joshua!
ReplyDelete