Progressive Thinking

Republicans betray Wisconsinites by passing a $73 billion 2015-17 State Budget that fails to invest in our traditional, shared values. The only winners are the special interests.

MADISON - The Republican-controlled Wisconsin Senate passed the $73 billion 2015-17 State Budget bill just before midnight Tuesday, sending it to the Assembly after voting to repeal a prevailing wage law for local government projects.

The fight over the prevailing wage law, which sets a minimum salary for construction workers on public projects, had helped delay the budget for more than five weeks as Republicans tried to broker an agreement that could win passage in both houses.

The Senate also unanimously voted to repeal a gutting of the state open records law, changes added in a surprise 999 amendment by the GOP-controlled Joint Finance Committee last week. In the face of a swift and fierce bipartisan backlash over the move that would have exempted nearly all records created by state and local government officials, Gov. Scott Walker and legislative leaders backed off and the Senate voted 33-0 to remove the changes.

Removing those provisions was the only Democratic victory Tuesday.

Republicans hold a 19-14 majority in the Senate and rejected all other Democratic proposals, including reversing a $250 million budget cut to the University of Wisconsin and increasing funding for public K-12 schools, during more than eight hours of debate.

The Assembly, where Republicans have a 63-36 majority, was scheduled to vote on the budget Wednesday night, a move that would send it to Gov. Scott Walker before he is to launch his presidential campaign Monday.

Assembly Democratic legislators met the media today to discuss the day’s Assembly calendar, most notably the state budget bill. It is unlikely they will have any more success than their Senate counterparts.

According to State Senator Kathleen Vinehout (D-Alma), “Budgets are all about choices. Unfortunately, the budget passed by the Senate majority party represents political choices, not the choices of Wisconsin families.”

“People from across the state asked the Legislature to invest in public education, in the U.W. System, in roads and bridges, and in family supporting jobs. They asked legislators to protect the health programs and services for our vulnerable citizens,” said Vinehout.

Senator Jon Erpenbach (D-Madison) pinned much of the blame on the Republican's allegiance to Walker's presidential ambitions.

“This budget spent over $10 billion dollars more than the 2009-2011 budget. The problem with this budget was never a lack of cash. From day one, the problem has been that this budget is all about presidential politics and not about the priorities of the people of this state,” Erpenbach said. “The decisions made today will have an effect on Wisconsin and I am afraid it will not be a good one."

Senator Chris Larson (D-Milwaukee) agreed, saying Senate Republicans forced through a special interest budget that surrenders to the demands of the most extreme Tea Party factions while making it harder for our neighbors in Wisconsin’s middle class.

“Governor Walker has made it clear he places his own ambitions over ensuring financial security and prosperity for his own Wisconsin neighbors," said Larson.

“Tonight, Tea Party legislators again returned to their failed slash and burn policies that are bankrupting opportunity in our state and decimating our middle class," he continued.  "It’s like watching a bad rerun: the glamor is gone, the plot is predictable, the dialog is dated, and you’re just left with bad actors stuck in the past. It’s no wonder they tried to keep the public in the dark with their 999 secrecy motion."

This is the third budget since 2011. During that time Wisconsin has fallen to 35th for job creation and 50th for new businesses. Wisconsin has seen the biggest decline of its middle class of all 50 states.

By all accounts the GOP agenda of tax breaks for the rich and cuts to the services that help grow and sustain a strong middle class has failed.

The impact of this budget will be felt for years to come in the form of an economy that continues to lag our nation and places more pressure on already struggling families. The only winners are the special interests.

Senator Dave Hansen (D-Green Bay) concludes “This budget continues a pattern of giving yet millions more in tax breaks for the wealthy at the expense of our public schools and universities as well as our roads and highways."

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Senate Staffers Linda Kleinschmidt and Jay Wadd contributed to the article.

Damaging changes proposed to the WRS Board structure under the cover of darkness, with no debate or public input, which could open the door for political manipulation and corruption.

MADISON - 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 may hurt many rural residents in northern Wisconsin. Another changes the composition of the Joint Survey Committee On Retirement Systems (JSCRS).

This committee is responsible for reviewing any changes to the Wisconsin Retirement System (WRS). It has been composed of Senate and Assembly legislators of both parties plus representatives of the public, the Attorney General, The Department of Employee Trust Funds, and the Insurance Commissioners office. Under the proposed changes, the committee would become entirely appointed legislators (five Assembly and five Senate).

As with many of the proposals in this budget, this one is a “solution looking for a problem.” The current committee structure has been working. WRS is rated as one of the best public retirement programs in the nation. Why are changes being proposed?

The JSCRS is a powerful committee that is legally required to review any proposed changes to the WRS so that all the long term "effects" are known. This means "effects" on taxpayers, on retirees, on workers, of government agencies, on retention of high quality workers, etc. Recently, the legislature has been avoiding this law and making changes to the WRS without detailed study.

This proposal opens the door for political manipulation and corruption. The ruling party would have complete control over reviewing and recommending changes to the WRS. It reduces broad public oversight of a $100 billion public trust fund.

Governor Scott Walker and many Republican leaders support the goal of the right wing American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) and Wall Street to privatize public pension funds. Under privatization, Wall Street could make billions in fees and control the investments to divert retiree fund monies into their buddies' businesses. Governments could decrease their share of funding of public pension systems and retirees would get smaller pensions.

Is this an overreaction? Maybe. Will the state legislature vote yes on this budget proposal? We don't know. But has your paper, radio or TV station been covering this attempt to change WRS? Probably not.

It is very "Walker like" for the Governor to make an outrageous proposal like the recent attack on open government, walk it back in the face of outrage, then "end run" other damaging changes to public policy with no debate or public input, while the media is busy congratulating itself on their "victory".

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.

MADISON - Wisconsin Democrats have a bad case of Scott Walker on the brain.

The governor is in the news constantly, especially now that he is unofficially but obviously running for president. His opponents do a great deal to help keep him in the news, ridiculing his every move and parsing his every word and filling the blogosphere and twitterverse with a daily recital of his transgressions and shortcomings and overall unfitness for office. Whether any of it is true or false is beside the point. It all does Walker a considerable service.

In his book Don’t Think of an Elephant! and other writings, noted linguist George Lakoff examines how the human brain works, politically speaking. In our minds, words and images fit within what he calls moral “frames” and what us non-linguists would probably call core values. One of Lakoff’s key teachings is that when faced with facts that conflict with a moral frame, many if not most people will ignore the facts and hold tight to the frame. Lakoff also has observed that negating a frame paradoxically evokes the frame. For example, when Nixon told the country “I am not a crook,” the negation conjured the frame. The president unwittingly made people think of crooks when they thought of him.

There’s an old saying, “Speak of the devil and he appears.” When Walker’s enemies talk endlessly about what a bum the governor is, they keep the governor top of mind. Negating Walker evokes Walker . . . and relegates his critics and their ideas to the political equivalent of a dusty attic.

Democrats would be better off giving the governor the Lord Voldemort treatment. Do not speak his name. Resist the temptation to vent about You-Know-Who’s latest slip of the tongue or divide-and-conquer maneuver. Think twice when He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named does one more thing prompting the urge to hurl insults. Counter the impulse to spew more venom with a conscious effort to concentrate on hopes and dreams and big plans for making Wisconsin a better place.

It has been well established that Wisconsin Democrats cannot beat Walker by hating Walker. Hating him has helped him immeasurably, made him stronger. Wisconsin has been reminded daily what the Democrats are against. What they are for is more of a mystery to state voters. It will remain a mystery until the choice is made to stop obsessing – and mourning – over what is being torn down and start drawing up blueprints for what will be built up.

If Democrats could just channel their inner Harry Potter, they would see that’s the power the Dark Lord knows not.

MADISON - In their provocative book The Fourth Turning, authors William Strauss and Neil Howe suggest there is a predictable rhythm to social conditions and change, with alternating periods of progress, decay and renewal.

According to Strauss and Howe, each generation has distinct characteristics and archetypes that contribute to the perpetual change and occasional upheaval societies experience. Over the course of what they describe as a “natural century,” or roughly the length of a normal human life, there are four identifiable phases or “turnings.”

A first turning is marked by a high, that euphoric buzz that accompanies a recent overhaul of the social order. Faith in institutions is high, and society is confident of where it is headed collectively. These heady times are followed by an awakening, when institutions begin to be questioned and attacked in the name of personal autonomy. Just when society is reaching a high tide of public progress, people tire of communal discipline and long for more individual satisfaction and enjoyment.

Awakenings invariably produce an unraveling. Public institutions become weak and distrusted. Individualism flourishes. More than one observer has noticed that the early part of the 21st Century has amounted to a “great unraveling.” After unraveling comes crisis. Fourth turnings are phoenix moments, when societies are reborn – as if arising from the ashes – and national identity is redefined. Institutions are torn down and rebuilt from the ground up in response to a perceived threat to the nation’s very survival. Civic life revives, and a sense of community purpose reemerges.

America’s last fourth turning began with the stock market crash of 1929 and climaxed with World War II, followed by a prolonged post-war high, closely tracing the telltale pattern Strauss and Howe identified. Highs follow crises when society senses it must coalesce and rebuild. Unravelings come on the heels of awakenings, when the social impulse is to fragment and enjoy.

As the title of their book implies, the U.S. is now entering a fourth turning. Our country has gone through this before . . . three times to be exact. The first was at the time of the nation’s founding and culminated with the American Revolution. The second was the nation’s reckoning with the scourge of slavery and the resulting Civil War. The third was the Great Depression and World War II. The impending crisis grows out of the chaos of economic globalization, the concentration of wealth and power in fewer and fewer hands, and global climate change.

Public institutions are in tatters, having fallen victim to the loss of civic consciousness that came with the great unraveling. The major political parties are canaries in the coal mine.

The Republican Party was established by radicals who sought to overthrow morally bankrupt institutions and remake the social order. It now works to ward off social change and protect the privileges of the high and mighty. The GOP once was the party of Abe Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt and Dwight Eisenhower and devoted itself to creating opportunity for all. It now is dedicated to serving the rich.

The Democratic Party has spent an enormous amount of energy trying to make amends for being on the wrong side of history with respect to slavery, and even emerged as a force for considerable good under the leadership of FDR at a time of national and global crisis. But since then the Democrats have experienced their own great unraveling, to the point where it is known to most Americans simply as the party of more government and higher taxes. At a time when society has grown wary if not resentful of public authority and when once-stout public institutions are being torn to pieces, being the party of government is not solid ground to stand on. Today’s Democrats are easy prey for opponents wishing to caricature them as a party that takes from people who work and gives to people who don’t.

Meanwhile, economic and environmental challenges and demand for social change are reaching a boiling point.

Another phoenix moment fast approaches.