Progressive Thinking

Sen. Kathleen Vinehout writes about the annual Art Fair in Stockholm Wisconsin, reflecting on how the art mirrors the natural environment as well as the political environment in our state.

STOCKHOLM, WI - “If you came to Stockholm today, you came up or over a river,” musician Julie Patchouli told the folks gathered at the 42nd Annual Art Fair. The musical group, known by Julie’s last name, began a rousing river song as part of the celebration of art in the village of Stockholm, Wisconsin.

Stockholm is a picturesque Mississippi River town of 66 individuals (not counting the dogs and cats) that swells by many hundreds on art fair day. Most of the art fair is in the scenic village park on the riverbank of Lake Pepin – the widest spot in the Mississippi.

Over 100-juried Midwest artists brought their pottery, paintings, photography, jewelry, glass, leather, metal, wood, and hand painted silk clothing.

Mary Peterson of rural Stockholm brought her hand-woven alpaca ornaments and wearables. She also brought one of her partners in this artistic venture – the alpaca “Mabel”.

I was struck by how much the art fair – the art, artists, and attendees, mirrored the environment. For example, the hues, tints, shades, and tones of nature were reflected in the art.

I saw the greens and greys of a misty August morning in pottery, the vivid pinks and lavender blue of the tall, blooming Delphinium’s stalks in photography, the rich gold and red of autumn leaves in acrylic paints.

Artists’ renditions of Wisconsin’s natural beauty leapt to life: the rushing streams along deep green woods, the crashing waves of Lake Superior, the huge, fluffy cumulus clouds over a rolling landscape, and the multi-colored rocks washed over by a stream.

Much of the art that reflected our environment was three-dimensional: glistening water droplets in earrings, the graceful swirls of wood grains accentuated by the carvers’ hand in wooden bowls, and all sorts of clay lumps turned to art suited for daily activities of eating and entertaining.

Around every corner I found a new interpretation of the essence of our great state.

What is more Wisconsin than cows and fishing? I found artistic versions of cows in paintings, pottery, and even leather. But nothing matched the popularity of fish! I found fish everywhere: in photography, paintings, woodcarvings, jewelry, metal sculpture, and even T-shirts.

Renditions of Wisconsin’s beauty were not limited to objects of art. The group Patchouli entertained the art fair goers with “Folk Meets Flamenco” music including the song “Amarantha” (named after the grain, I suppose) from their CD “Dragonfly”. The music made me feel like dragonflies were darting around me.

This also might have been because art fair-goers were decorated with millions of mayflies. These rather large, harmless insects looked like Mother Nature’s works of art. In its flying form, the insect has two sets of delicate lacewings tinted grey, olive, or blue, large eyes, short, bristle-like antennas, and two or three long sweeping tails.

Once mayflies enter their winged state, they cannot feed. Sometimes their existence in winged form lasts only a few hours; which means the mass emergence of the mayflies – which nature timed perfectly to coincide with the art fair – reminded us of how our time on this planet is short-lived.

People came with family and friends to enjoy the festivities. Throughout the day, people I met shared ideas and concerns. Topics ranged from local affairs – especially sand mines and railroads – to state and national politics. I heard concern about cuts to the UW and spending on the Bucks Arena. Folks worried about the meager $1,400 per student the Pepin School District will receive in state aid. Pepin is among the 55% of public schools that will receive less state aid under the new state budget. Citizens raised concerns about privatization of health programs like FamilyCare and IRIS.

One woman, Marge Lorayne of rural Maiden Rock, told me of her fight with the telephone company to keep her home phone. “I have to go up to the top of the bluff to get cell coverage,” she told me. I spoke with her about policy in the budget related to landlines and my new bill to protect rural residents.

I found art also reflected our environment of frustration with recent governmental action. Perhaps none better than Paul Meddaugh’s comic photography of Wisconsin’s Capitol encircled by an enormous, puffy, white ghost. The photo’s title: “Who you gonna call?”

Sen. Kathleen Vinehout writes about the governor’s vetoes which eliminated provisions of legislative oversight. The power of the people resides in their elected officials. When the oversight provisions are eliminated, the power of the people is weakened.

WAUKESHA, WI - “I object to the infringement on gubernatorial power and duties,” wrote Governor Walker in his veto message. By his budget vetoes he made it clear he did not want legislative oversight.

The governor removed at least 15 portions of state law passed by the legislature that provided legislative authority or provided oversight of the executive branch.

Remember your 4th grade civics class lessons about the delicate balance of powers between the three branches of government – the governor (and executive agencies,), the legislature, and the judiciary. The power of the people lies in the power of their elected officials. The peoples’ representatives are their most direct line of power. When legislative power is undermined, so is the power of the people.

The governor began the budget process by taking away powers given to the people and the legislature. For example, the citizen board members of the Departments of Natural Resources and Agriculture lost all their policy-making powers in the governor’s budget. The legislature lost its oversight of state building projects in the governor’s changes to the Building Commission. The people lost budget restrictions in the governor’s gutting of the cost-benefit analysis requirements. These powers were all restored in action by the legislature.

However, through his vetoes, the governor again limited the power of the people through their legislature. For example, the legislature held onto funds the governor put in the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation (WEDC) budget. The very troubled jobs agency was to submit policy changes to the legislature. Presumably, those funds could be released funds if the budget writing committee members were satisfied progress was made. The governor took the funds set aside by the budget committee through his veto pen.

The budget writing committee made changes in the requirements for agencies writing budgets – requiring more information be sent to the legislature on budget options. Lawmakers also set executive restrictions on short-term debt. The use of this type of debt (known as ‘commercial paper’) has long been unrestricted by lawmakers and invisible to the public.

The governor vetoed both of these common sense budget oversight provisions.

The most challenging aspect of the budget for lawmakers has been getting our arms around health spending. Medicaid is the largest budget program and spending is growing faster than any other part of the budget.

A few years ago, a Legislative Audit Bureau report found that poor state accounting in the Medicaid program made it difficult for legislators to gain needed management information about spending and program administration.

Lawmakers on the Joint Finance Committee (JFC) made changes to require reporting and oversight of such gubernatorial initiatives as drug testing of health program recipients, and funds collected from ambulatory surgery centers. Lawmakers required the Department of Health Services (DHS) report on details of a federal waiver to change BadgerCare both before the waiver was sought and after the waiver was approved. The DHS was to also report on the fiscal impact of BadgerCare changes. Budget provisions required DHS officials to consult with advocacy organizations regarding mental health changes and report these changes to the legislature.

The governor vetoed this oversight set by the legislature.

The Governor made major changes to Family Care and IRIS programs for the disabled, frail elderly and developmentally disabled. The JFC modified these changes including creating five regional areas of service delivery and an open enrollment period that coincided with the open enrollment for Medicare. The governor vetoed these changes.

To eliminate oversight by the public, the governor and the legislative majority worked together to severely restrict Wisconsin’s open records law. Intense public pressure caused the full legislature to restore the open records laws that gives citizens critical transparency into the activities of the legislature in the lawmaking process.

The governor already has wide leeway for executive action. Taken together, his vetoes continue a pattern of closing off legislative oversight and, with that, public accountability. With the total budget growing to nearly $73 billion, oversight has never been more vital to a functioning democracy.

Wisconsin (or the rest of the country) does not need an imperial executive that does not want to answer to anyone.

The Joint Finance Committee ended its work on the state budget last week by slipping in some policy changes in it's last minute Motion, #999. One of them affects landline phone service, which many rural residents depend upon for all purposes including emergencies. They don’t have the option of a cell phone because of lack of coverage in many rural areas of the state.

MADISON - I didn’t expect to look up telephone laws reading the state budget.

Snuck in the end of the Joint Finance Committee’s work is a law change that could affect the safety of rural residents. It had me asking, “What if you picked up the phone to call 911 and heard no dial tone?”

Rural residents rely on small legal protections to keep a dial tone on their landline phones. Thousands of rural residents live in an area where cell phones do not work and cable services do not exist.

We rely on landlines for business, neighborliness, family communication, and emergencies and safety.

In 2011 a “modernization” of the laws governing telephones removed state law protecting consumers. Part of this legal language was known as the “provider of last resort”. That “provider” would be your local rural phone company.

Some phone companies are cooperatives heavily invested in serving rural residents - even providing high-speed Internet in some areas. But other rural providers are big city companies looking to invest in urban, not rural areas.

Recently the state’s budget writing committee finished its work. The final committee budget motion contained over 60 items amending state laws. Most of these items were policy unrelated to the spending of state dollars. In “capitol speak” we call these “non-fiscal provisions”.

One overlooked provision removed a date from state law – that is it. But the date, tying state law to consumer protections in federal law on January 1, 2010, protected rural telephone consumers from big telephone companies pulling the plug on their landline.

In another provision, the job of cleaning up those old telephone poles is left to land owners and local government (I find this incredibly irresponsible).

AT&T has made it clear they intend to eliminate all copper lines in the U.S. in the next decade. Call me pessimistic, but I do not see cable or cell coverage coming to the hills of western Wisconsin or the north woods any time soon.

So how are you going to call 911? Did anyone ask those 12 budget committee legislators – many represent rural folks – before they voted “aye”?

Much recent budget action would not endear legislators to their constituents if the people knew details about policy for which the 12 voted.

Here’s a sampling of the recent budget action. Take away powers of a locally elected (Milwaukee) county board to oversee contracts. Get rid of the (Madison) sanitary district county board appointees. Change the tax code to give more breaks to big business; Tax every dime of wage earners but remove mention of ‘living wage’ in Wisconsin law. Rewrite the minimum wage law. Make it harder to get employees represented by a union.

Added are new regulations of “pharmacy benefit managers” (those companies who tell you which generic drug you can have). Allow out-of-state “risk retention groups” to sell insurance. Increase the ways payday loan companies can dupe unsuspecting consumers. Provide details of how to resolve unpaid health insurance claims for chiropractors. Changes in septic and well pump installer electrician licensing and sprinkler codes adopted by cities. Some of these ideas might have merit – but they all deserve an open and transparent public hearing.

Fortunately, egregious changes to the state’s open record laws – sheltering the work of lawmakers from the public’s eye – became public. Under significant public pressure, the governor and legislative leaders agreed to remove any changes related to open records laws.

What about the remaining policy in the budget? All too often bills that fail to pass through the normal legislative process end up in the budget.

This is especially true with education policy that did not clear the Education Committee: special education “vouchers” for private schools; expanding who can “authorize” privately run charter school paid for with tax dollars; changes to the rules on “school report cards” for private schools paid for with public money and allow private schools to choose among several alternatives to the statewide student test.

Not all states struggle with policy hidden in the state budget.

Colorado, Oklahoma and Illinois are a few states I found that limit non-fiscal policy in the state budget. The latter uses a very simple Constitutional statement: Appropriation bills shall be limited to the subject of appropriations.

Sen. Kathleen Vinehout writes about the state’s transportation budget which has stalled deliberations on the state budget. Here are some options to break the impasse on the transportation portion of the budget by addressing the four major components: raising revenue, lowering spending, cutting debt and improving efficiency.

MADISON - “If it was up to you,” the Chamber of Commerce moderator asked area legislators, “How would you solve the transportation problem?”

Budget talks are stalled. Legislators can’t seem to find a way through the labyrinth of interests stalking the Capitol halls. One main sticking point is how to balance the transportation budget.

Governor Walker left lawmakers with $1.3 billion in new debt to pay for roads over the next two years. Among many decisions the governor made was to increase spending in the Major Highway Development Program by $100 million or over 13%. He borrowed $109 million to pay for this spending.

One decision the governor did not make was to take any of the two-dozen suggestions of his Secretary of Transportation to make possible changes in revenue – new taxes or fees.

Of course, borrowing $1.3 billion to pay for spending means someone in the future would have to increase taxes and fees. This is true because, by the end of the budget nearly a quarter of the spending on transportation is on debt service –an unsustainable amount.

So how to fix the transportation budget? The answer is to raise revenue, lower spending, cut debt and improve efficiencies in the dollars we spend.

Easy to say – hard to do.

To raising revenue: the simplest and easiest to administer is to increase the per-gallon gas tax. I suggest by a nickel.

Talking through options with our nonpartisan Legislative Fiscal Bureau (LFB) analysts, I was reminded of lawmakers’ changes in 2006 that eliminated indexing (or matching to inflation) of the gas tax. If this law were still in place, the tax would be 6.5 cents more and better kept up with rising costs.

The LFB analysts also reminded me average fuel economy has improved giving consumers a 2.7-cent “bonus” (my words, not theirs) as improving gas mileage gets us farther on a gallon of gas. To quote LFB analyst Al Runde:

Paying less in fuel taxes for the same miles driven means that while the state’s roads receive the same impact [wear], fuel tax revenues associated with those miles driven has fallen, making it more difficult for the state to maintain and construct its roads.”

To changes in spending: I suggest we cut the really big road projects in Southeast Wisconsin by about $100 million, not buy the 13% increase the governor wants in the “majors”. Instead, cut both it and the Highway Rehab program by $50 million each. Get rid of the TEA program (an economic development program that has no evidence of success) as well as a new pilot program to eliminate competitive bidding (not a good idea!).

I would limit the Freight Rail Program to its current balance. My constituents simply cannot justify borrowing $43 million to buy new state-owned railroad with all the other deep cuts in this budget.

These changes and others could cut borrowing in half and allow for significant spending increases in local and state road repair, transit, and other alternative transportation options. In my alternative transportation budget, I also add investments in rail-crossing improvements and rail emergency preparedness – two important constituent concerns. In addition, I return money the governor ‘raided’ from the general fund to pay for road repairs.

Finally, answering the thorny question of how to get a better “bang for our buck” in road spending. The conservative Reason Foundation studied state transportation spending for over two decades. A study released last fall provides clues to Wisconsin’s road spending.

I compared numbers between Minnesota and Wisconsin –two states with similar weather and miles of state-owned roads. Over three years, Minnesota’s total spending on transportation per state-controlled mile grew less than 3%. During the same period (2009-2012) Wisconsin’s spending per state-controlled mile grew 37%.

By 2012, Wisconsin spent $226,901 per state-controlled mile to Minnesota’s $132,230.

I don’t know why spending is so different but I think Wisconsin taxpayers ought to find out why. That’s why I am renewing my call for a comprehensive audit of Transportation.

Solving the Transportation budget will be difficult. Delaying projects will take their toll on residents and business. However, making our grandchildren pay for our inability to say “no” is not a responsible choice.

Sen. Kathleen Vinehout writes about the need to create a state-based health insurance marketplace in face of the potential devastating impact of the Supreme Court ruling in the King v. Burwell case. She calls on her colleagues to take action to protect over 180,000 Wisconsin citizens who currently receive federal subsidies.

MADISON - “Wisconsin has relied heavily on the exchange to expand health insurance coverage,” wrote President Eric Borgerding of the Wisconsin Hospital Association (WHA). In a recent letter to Legislators, he warned a looming Supreme Court decision “could strike down premium assistance.”

Many Wisconsinites are waiting to hear if they will still be able to afford their health insurance bill.

The U.S. Supreme Court will soon rule on the legality of health insurance subsidies for those living in states that did not create a state-based health insurance marketplace.

The WHA estimates over 180,000 Wisconsinites receive tax credit assistance from the federal government for health insurance purchased through healthcare.gov, the federal marketplace. That is roughly like the population of Green Bay and Racine losing an average of almost $3,800 a year.

In western Wisconsin, more folks receive assistance than the statewide average (89%). In just the nine counties that are totally or partially in our Senate District, 13,712 or 98% of people receiving health care through the federal exchange also receive federal tax credits. The number potentially affected by loss of assistance is more than the entire population of Buffalo County. Potential dollars lost to families in our 9-county area is $4.3 million and statewide the potential loss is $57 million.

Wisconsin can avert this crisis by creating a state-based marketplace.

The Legislature should take up Senate Bill 107 to create a Badger Health Benefit Authority. I introduced the bill earlier this year (for the fourth time!) and warned my colleagues of the potential disaster if the Supreme Court strikes down premium assistance going to hardworking Wisconsinites.

My bill creates both a Small Business Health Options Program and an individual marketplace for people buying insurance on their own. The proposal builds on unique aspects of Wisconsin health care including the work by health plans and providers to improve price transparency, control costs and maintain exceptional quality of care.

Because political winds blow both ways through Wisconsin, the marketplace should be independent of state government. This is why my bill calls for an autonomous authority to govern the exchange and a nonpartisan board to oversee operations.

To avert possibilities of corruption and assure public confidence, the marketplace must be transparent – follow state open meetings and records laws – and follow provisions related to accountability, conflict of interest, ethics and disclosure of financial interests. No person employed by a health plan, provider of health care or who sells insurance should be on the board governing the marketplace.

If the Supreme Court rules to invalidate insurance premium assistance for 180,000 Wisconsinites, the insurance market in Wisconsin could be thrown into chaos. Without assistance of an average payment of $316 dollars a month (lowering insurance costs on average to $125), many people will be forced to drop insurance.

When healthy people drop insurance and only sick people keep it, insurance companies end up raising rates. Hospitals and doctors face more people without insurance – also adding to the cost of health care for everyone else. Pharmacies, medical equipment companies and others who serve patients will likely experience a drop in business.

A recent New York Times article quoted Larry Levitt of Kaiser Family Foundation, “A reasonable assumption is that (spending on) healthcare by people who lost their existing subsidies will drop by at least half.” Nationwide the NYT reported this spending would be about $7.5 billion.

Arkansas, Delaware and Pennsylvania recently received permission from federal authorities to create their own state-based exchange. Officials in these states are preparing. So why not Wisconsin?

There is only one answer: Health insurance has become a partisan issue.

Recent action by the Obama administration granting approval to three states gives us a path forward. We could use the healthcare.gov website as the front of our marketplace and SB 107 to create a governance structure that takes advantage of Wisconsin ingenuity.

To the Governor and Republican Legislators I say, ‘People’s health is at stake. Take my bill, make it better, and get the job done!’