Walker's chaos budget
Megalomania unbound: Scott Walker's proposed 2015-'17 budget is a score-settling (as I said earlier) ultra-Tea Party scorched-earth blueprint for statewide chaos - - a document drafted principally for his gratuitous, unbalanced power-grabbing-self-aggrandizement at the public's expense, as it proposes:
* Ending for more than a decade any state contribution to a long-standing, bi-partisan public recreation/land acquisition program.
* Eliminating 66 science positions and DNR authority to oversee river protections where sand mining is rampant.
* Hamstringing Wisconsin public radio and television by ending state contributions to their budgets.
* Ending state highway beautification. (Enjoy the billboards).
* Wiping out the historic Wisconsin citizen policy oversight board above the Department of Natural Resources, further consolidating Walker's personal administrative through his appointed Secretary and senior staff powers to minimize environmental inspection and enforcement actions that protect public health and resources so that our land and water can be more easily handed over to developers and despoilers.
* Stripping an unprecedented $300 million from the UW system while freezing tuition, thus guaranteeing layoffs, reduced options for students and driving faculty, research and local business from the schools and their communities.
* Starving more millions from already-strapped public schools statewide which took a billion-dollar hit in his first budget by directing unlimited transfers of per-pupil funds to private and parochial schools.
* Borrowing another $1.3 billion to add or widen more highways - - while continuing to starve transit - - to reward the powerful road-building lobby, though driving is declining as baby boomers age and millennials eschew car ownership for other options.
All this chaos and favoritism to save Wisconsin homeowners about $10 on their annual property tax bills, or twenty cents a week.
This isn't just dropping a bomb, as Walker said in action-figure praise of his Act 10 attack on collective bargaining.
It's carpet-bombing the state and anyone not in line with his chamber-of-commerce and Tea Party agenda.
Walker '16?
Madness.
* Ending for more than a decade any state contribution to a long-standing, bi-partisan public recreation/land acquisition program.
* Eliminating 66 science positions and DNR authority to oversee river protections where sand mining is rampant.
* Hamstringing Wisconsin public radio and television by ending state contributions to their budgets.
* Ending state highway beautification. (Enjoy the billboards).
* Wiping out the historic Wisconsin citizen policy oversight board above the Department of Natural Resources, further consolidating Walker's personal administrative through his appointed Secretary and senior staff powers to minimize environmental inspection and enforcement actions that protect public health and resources so that our land and water can be more easily handed over to developers and despoilers.
* Stripping an unprecedented $300 million from the UW system while freezing tuition, thus guaranteeing layoffs, reduced options for students and driving faculty, research and local business from the schools and their communities.
* Starving more millions from already-strapped public schools statewide which took a billion-dollar hit in his first budget by directing unlimited transfers of per-pupil funds to private and parochial schools.
* Borrowing another $1.3 billion to add or widen more highways - - while continuing to starve transit - - to reward the powerful road-building lobby, though driving is declining as baby boomers age and millennials eschew car ownership for other options.
All this chaos and favoritism to save Wisconsin homeowners about $10 on their annual property tax bills, or twenty cents a week.
This isn't just dropping a bomb, as Walker said in action-figure praise of his Act 10 attack on collective bargaining.
It's carpet-bombing the state and anyone not in line with his chamber-of-commerce and Tea Party agenda.
Walker '16?
Madness.
8 comments:
whow. this is soooooo obvious--walker is pleasing his Republican legislators!! And why is this in the budget when the operating costs come from the colleges themselves!
This will end up worse than his WEDC!!
Scott Walker's budget cuts for-profit college oversight board
http://host.madison.com/wsj/news/local/education/university/scott-walker-s-budget-cuts-for-profit-college-oversight-board/article_3b97dc7e-
If anyone thinks this is ok they need a reality check! We'll lower your property taxes and mean while screw you royaly.
I hope the GOP finishes of the middle class here. Nothing would please me more than seeing all the fascist morons in this state suffer.
The consolidation of power and lack of oversight is something that should freak out anyone, but especially "small government" conservatives. And it puts the lie to Walker 'a rhetoric about delegating power to the states, because this guy delegates power to no one.
Property taxes may go down....because home values will tank due to defunded schools and diminishing quality of life
I heard on WPR that the average property tax cut will be $5 per year. Did I hear that correctly? Because most communities are having to go to referendum to run their schools and the increase to local property taxes will exceed $5. Is he really asking Wisconsinites to give up their schools for a cup of coffee?
This man's ego is completely out of control. He thinks he is bigger and more important than this state. How else to explain his zero respect Wisconsin and its traditions? Mindlessly cutting the budget of one of the best university systems in the world? Tipping the scales in education toward charter schools at the expense of one of the best public school systems in the country? Wanting to make the Natural Resources Board advisory only despite its more than a century of independence? Ditto the State Agriculture Board. And by the way, let’s take state funding away from Wisconsin Public Radio.
All that said, we might as well get used to the fact he is a shoo-in for the GOP presidential nomination. His "big and bold" tale and his punitive approach to governing are exactly what the many ignoramus voters in this country want to hear. It will matter not at all when the national press exposes him for the empty-headed bozo he really is. We had better hope that Hillary Clinton runs and that she is on her game.
There's Jake again saying the sky is going to fall. Ha Jake that did't work in 2011 and it isn 't going to work now.
Maybe the reality doesn't get through to mediocrities like Right Side, but out here in the few parts of the state where people WANT to move to, we've declined in the last 4 1/2 years. And in pretty much any measure you can find - be it where the UW System ranks nationwide, to rankings for healthiness and the amount of people on health insurance, to job growth- WE HAVE FALLEN.
Now Right Side may not care, because Right Side is a limited person with disposable job skills and little ability to see past his property tax bill. But for those of us that didn't peak in high school, that took advantage of the great offerings of the UW System, and who value decency, innovation and quality of life, this is horrifying and embarrassing.
But I'll make a deal. Since Right Side lives in Washington County, the reddest county in Wisconsin, why don't you guys take the majority of these cuts. You don't need that UW 2-year school, right? You don't need all that shared revenue, naw. You don't need state help to fund small-town public schools, do you? I'm sure all your $120,000 and under homes will produce all sorts of tax base.
Or maybe these proposals aren't a vengeful power grab by petty, small-picture children, and instead is just one big drafting error. Yeah, that's the ticket.
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