A 'ho-hum' state should give its architects the heave-ho

Cap Times Editor Emeritus Dave Zweifel nails what the GOP has done to Wisconsin:

So now we live in what I call a ho-hum state. Our big businesses get most of what they want — more loopholes, lax regulation, income tax credits. As a result, we've fallen from the days we were once called a "shining star" among state governments to just another member of the pack.

I've used the term "backwater" to describe where we're at, and why - - here and here, for example - - 

Walker, WI GOP backwater boosters ahead of curve

and more recently, here:

Vos & Fitzgerald like their backwater state

This one-party governing-by-cruelty-and-obstruction will keep Wisconsin in the grip of petty hacks and business bellhops smugly content to keep the state stuck in a backwater while the country moves ahead.

Call it the elitism of the mediocre, a win for the dullest, lowest common denominator.

Electric vehicles are on their way in big numbers: the GOP can't think of anything to do about that except adding extra fees on electric and hybrid cars and resisting broad expansion of charging stations. 

Vos and Republicans bear heavy responsibility for blocking regional transit authorities and killing passenger rail in southern Wisconsin big populations centers. These legislators, willing captives of the road-builders and fossil-fuel interests, don't have to care about transit: the Legislature covers their mileage to and from the Capitol in per-diem payments established by leadership, and pays for their driving around their districts, too.

And as a party, Republicans have been between disinterested in and hostile to solar and wind power, again sending a message to younger workers, families and entrepreneurs that this is the wrong place to put down stakes.

Only a backwater state will say 'yes' to assault weapons and 'no' to transit and green energy, but that's the way Vos and Fitzgerald like it because they've figured out a way to keep their hands on the controls.

Back to Zweifel, as the clear conclusion to his column - -  

Wisconsin did succeed in getting rid of Scott Walker — at least for now. But a new governor with a Legislature that continues to thumb its nose while the rest of the country passes by can't do it alone. - - 

- - is that a turnaround lies with voters come election time. 

Zweifel says Vos and his GOP allies have made Wisconsin a "ho-hum state." The answer is to give them the 'heave-ho.'