WI GOP provides free food, travel & pocket $ for themselves, not the poor

The Wisconsin winter is tightening its grip.

Yet Wisconsin Republicans have already legislated large-scale cuts in food aid for low-income residents.

And have enforced for years a rock-bottom minimum wage of $7.25 an hour.

While also having refused additional Federal Medicaid nursing funding to cover more low-income seniors.


Plus, more recently blocked the release of assistance to the homeless.

So let this one relevant 2016 news story about certain other food and housing programs forever define the hard edge, self-dealing, and brutal disdain for the poor, powerless and unlucky in Wisconsin.

Vos expands state legislator pay perk

MADISON - Assembly Speaker Robin Vos last week quietly expanded a taxpayer-funded perk for state legislators in a move that could increase an Assembly lawmaker's annual pay by more than $1,000, USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin has learned.

The decades-old perk, known as per diems, allows legislators to claim daily allowances on top of their $51,000 salaries for each day they work in Madison on state business. Assembly members may claim up to $69 for single-day trips or up to $138 for overnight business....

Daily allowances were created as a form of reimbursement for meals and lodging. But legislators can legally pocket the cash as income without spending a dime on travel expenses. No receipts of expenses are kept by clerical staff and oversight is scant.