WI GOP legislators say 'No' to lead water pipe funding

What...help people in Wisconsin's bigger cities?  GOP 'leaders' @ #NEVER on health care won't get the lead out.

Of course the GOP-led WI legislature would kill proposed funding to help municipalities replace lead-encrusted water pipes. There are too many probable Democratic voters where the lead pipes are concentrated to make the investment politically-prudent.

Lead laterals are found in aging homes throughout the state, with the largest concentration in Milwaukee. Racine, Kenosha, Manitowoc and Marathon counties also have sizable numbers of lead lines, an EPA study found.

Besides, playing the urban/rural/resetnmeng game, not mention Task Force Lotto, is more fun that actually doing something to stem lead-based childhood brain damage.

Too cynical, you say? How else to interpret this GOP no-funding boilerplate:

Rep. John Nygren (R-Marinette), a powerful member of the Legislature’s Joint Finance Committee, speaking alongside Assembly Speaker Robin Vos (R-Burlington), said on Wednesday, April 10, “My understanding is that the proposal, a vast majority of it, is going to Milwaukee. We had targeted our response to the lead issue as a local opportunity for communities to get involved and provide assistance at the local level, rather than people from Marinette funding lead replacements in Milwaukee. I’m not sure that that’s necessarily fair from a taxpayer standpoint.”

Data actually show the opposite. Milwaukee is subsidizing Marinette. 

Oh, and by the way, the GOP-controlled Joint Finance Committee also gummed up a bi-partisan plan to help the homeless, just because they could. 

In a move that stunned the state's top homeless advocates, Republicans on the Legislature's budget-writing committee on Tuesday voted against an anti-homelessness plan crafted primarily by fellow Republicans and embraced by Democratic Gov. Tony Evers.