[Updated from 4:29 p.m. Monday] Media searching for clues to Walker's policies and personality might want to consider these early warning signs:
* Walker's inclusion in his budget of surprise, structural cuts to the UW System, surprise recasting of the policy role of the Wisconsin Natural Resources Board to advisory status, surprise 13-year suspension of the Department of Natural Resources Stewardship land acquisition land program and other secretive moves should look no further than the collective-bargaining wipeout "bomb" he said he dropped four years ago on public employees.
* Walker's disregard of the environment that has enabled laissez-faire green-lighting by his "chamber-of-commerce" DNR of a cross-state Enbridge pipeline to carry more tar sand oil than the Keystone XL, his promotion of de-regulated iron and frac sand mining, and his deep science and staff cuts to the DNR budget were presaged in his support for a permit-free wetland filling near Lambeau Field in his administration's first days for a developer-donor to his 2010 gubernatorial campaign.
* Walker's obsession with Ronald Reagan that got him a heap of bad press last week - - and which is now being cleaned up by the Reagan Foundation - - was front-and-center when Walker likened himself to Reagan during the taped, prank phone call with a blogger pretending to be the uber-righty donor David Koch.
* Walker's recent politically-driven flip-flops on immigration, more stringent abortion restrictions and support now for 'right-to-work' legislation are no different than turning down/not turning down Obama stimulus funding for Milwaukee County in 2009.
* Walker's cold-hearted and legally-dead-on-arrival budgetary insistence on drug-testing food stamp and Medicaid recipients, reducing by 20% the number of months a Wisconsinite may receive such assistance, and turning down added Medicaid funds under Obamacare were not surprising given his inclusion in his first budget four years ago of two tax increases on lower-income Wisconsinites, followed by his denials in the face of the facts that he put those tax increases into his budget.
* Walker's inclusion in his budget of surprise, structural cuts to the UW System, surprise recasting of the policy role of the Wisconsin Natural Resources Board to advisory status, surprise 13-year suspension of the Department of Natural Resources Stewardship land acquisition land program and other secretive moves should look no further than the collective-bargaining wipeout "bomb" he said he dropped four years ago on public employees.
* Walker's disregard of the environment that has enabled laissez-faire green-lighting by his "chamber-of-commerce" DNR of a cross-state Enbridge pipeline to carry more tar sand oil than the Keystone XL, his promotion of de-regulated iron and frac sand mining, and his deep science and staff cuts to the DNR budget were presaged in his support for a permit-free wetland filling near Lambeau Field in his administration's first days for a developer-donor to his 2010 gubernatorial campaign.
* Walker's obsession with Ronald Reagan that got him a heap of bad press last week - - and which is now being cleaned up by the Reagan Foundation - - was front-and-center when Walker likened himself to Reagan during the taped, prank phone call with a blogger pretending to be the uber-righty donor David Koch.
* Walker's recent politically-driven flip-flops on immigration, more stringent abortion restrictions and support now for 'right-to-work' legislation are no different than turning down/not turning down Obama stimulus funding for Milwaukee County in 2009.
* Walker's cold-hearted and legally-dead-on-arrival budgetary insistence on drug-testing food stamp and Medicaid recipients, reducing by 20% the number of months a Wisconsinite may receive such assistance, and turning down added Medicaid funds under Obamacare were not surprising given his inclusion in his first budget four years ago of two tax increases on lower-income Wisconsinites, followed by his denials in the face of the facts that he put those tax increases into his budget.
Anyone who is surprised by any of this hasn't been paying attention.
ReplyDeleteAnd I assume people living in Milwaukee County said the same thing when he became governor and the first round of bombs hit.