Progressive Thinking

Wells in Kewaunee County are unsafe for drinking, the cost of electricity is up, citizens across the state are increasingly concerned about the lack of funding for our public schools, and after 34 years in Madison not a peep from our senator.

WITTENBERG, WI - Robert Cowles is chair of the Natural Resources and Energy committee in the state senate.  He is the senior Republican in the senate.  You would think his 34 years in Madison would make him easily recognizable in the rest of the state.  But he seems to have gone missing.

A recent audit by the state Legislative Audit Bureau found our DNR failed to follow their policies on enforcement of water regulations more than 94% of the time in the last ten years.  Among other problems this has led to 1/3 of the wells in Kewaunee County found to be unsafe for drinking.  The state ignored the problem for so long that residents of the county pushed for EPA involvement.  This summer the EPA and our DNR issued suggestions for new regulations on manure spreading in the county.  Those suggestions were sent by the governor to a major dairy lobby which sent back their own regulations.  Those were then accepted by the DNR.  No action from our missing senator. Poisoned wells are apparently not a priority.   Maybe it is not his fault, he has only been chair of the Natural Resources committee for a few years.

But he has been on the Energy committee since 2009.  For the past two months state media has been talking about potential problems with the cost of electricity in Wisconsin.  It seems for the past 15 years the growth in the electrical rates in Wisconsin has been the highest in the region.  Some Wisconsin companies are charged 25% more for their power than regional averages.  Wisconsin now has the highest electrical rates in the Midwest.  There is the potential here for major companies to pull all or part of their business out of the state.  This would devastate our economy.  Again, nothing from our missing senator.

Citizens across the state are increasingly concerned about the lack of funding for our public schools.  People are beginning to question the reason for vouchers in the first place when studies show no improvement in test scores in voucher schools compared to public schools.  The loss of public tax dollars to voucher schools in the state is becoming more and more of a problem for local school districts.  District after district is being forced to go to referendum to keep their local schools open.  Not a peep from our senator.  Is that maybe because he has supported spending public tax dollars on private schools every step of the way?

Is he missing or just hiding?  With the election less than a month away maybe he feels he has nothing to lose by hiding.  Strange that someone with 34 years in state government would feel vulnerable, would not feel comfortable standing on their record, would be afraid to stand up for the people of Wisconsin.

I feel very comfortable with my record.  I am a Vietnam veteran, earned a Master’s degree in education, taught in Shawano county schools for 31 years, and have spent the last 10 years working in health care. Maybe we should quit looking for what is missing and simply find a new state senator.

Blaming ObamaCare is a political gambit, not health policy. A robust public option and controlling prescription drug costs essential.

STATEWIDE - The 2017 health insurance premium rates released by the Walker Administration present an incomplete picture.

While the release of rates by the Office of the Commissioner of Insurance is a step forward from last year, when Wisconsin was the only state not to release premium prices in advance, the agency’s press release is silent on the causes of health insurance inflation. This silence has muddled this critical public policy question and left the door open to misleading explanations that won’t help us make health care more affordable.

Rising health insurance premiums are not being driven by the Affordable Care Act (ACA), but by the reemergence of health insurance industry discrimination and price gouging by pharmaceutical corporations and medical service providers.

First, prices for medical services and prescription drugs are the main drivers of health insurance inflation. According to the Consumers Union Health Care Value Hub, academic research has clearly established that the largest factor in health insurance prices is the rising cost of medical services and prescription drugs. Although it is not even mentioned in the Insurance Commissioner’s press release, many of the rate filings by the health insurance companies themselves blame the increases on skyrocketing drug costs charged by pharmaceutical corporations and the rising costs of all medical services. Some Wisconsin insurers report annual cost increases of over 12% from pharmaceutical corporations and increases of over 8% from other medical providers.

The problem of rising medical prices is especially acute here. A recent report based on national  insurance claims data found that Wisconsin has the 2nd highest medical prices in the nation! Despite this research bombshell, policymakers in Madison have taken no significant action on health care costs, and have ignored all the proposals made by the minority party in the Legislature. It is also critical to understand that the ACA did not cause prescription drug and medical service costs to rise, so repealing the law will not do anything to lower these prices.

Second, the big national health insurance companies are using new means to discriminate against people with health conditions. Although outright denial of coverage is now outlawed by the ACA, the titans of the industry are pulling out of ACA marketplaces because they have found a way to insure healthier people through other “off-exchange” lines of insurance. People buying insurance on the ACA marketplaces are those who were left out by the old discriminatory health insurance system. This includes people with health conditions who were denied coverage, those without coverage at work like early retirees, independent contractors, farmers, the working poor, young people just starting their careers, and many others. The abandonment of the new ACA marketplace by big insurance is a pre-existing condition discrimination by another name.

Third, political sabotage at the state and national level is blocking efforts to build on the Affordable Care Act and take the next steps to make health care affordable. The Insurance Commissioner has used his authority to deliberately rig the health insurance system and raise rates. The Governor and the State Legislature have not taken up any of the cost reform legislation proposed by the Democrats, including a strong rate review bill and a bill to bring down prescription drug prices. Similarly, in Congress the conservative majority has blocked all improvements or fixes to the ACA; they prefer to sabotage the law and force its repeal. Congress has taken up no major legislation to address skyrocketing prescription drug and medical costs.

“The conservative politicians and special interests who are wringing their hands about rising health insurance prices have no intention of working to make quality health coverage more affordable. For them rising premiums are an opportunity to exploit, not a problem to fix. Their ultimate goal is to go back to the bad old days when overt health insurance discrimination was legal and to force 20 million Americans off their health coverage,” said Robert Kraig, Executive Director of Citizen Action of Wisconsin. “The best way forward is to build on the health care reform law. The ACA was never intended to solve every problem in the healthcare system. It was a critical step that we needed to take to outlaw overt discrimination, ban unethical insurance practices like annual and lifetime limits, provide tax credits to make insurance more affordable, and guarantee that everyone has somewhere to go to buy health insurance no matter what.”

“The next big steps in health reform are a robust public option to hold medical providers and insurance corporations accountable, and forceful action to rein in price gouging by prescription drug corporations,” Kraig concluded.

At a Town Hall in rural Northwestern Wisconsin, people are concerned about the amount of their state tax dollars being siphoned away from their local public schools to cover the cost of private school students elsewhere. They value their schools and feel the heavy burden of less state aid through higher property taxes.

PEPIN, WI - “I am paying for private schools with my taxes?” the women from Pepin asked following my presentation at a recent Town Hall meeting. “Yes, you are,” I told her.

Residents were surprised at the sharp increase in the state spending on private schools – nearly a doubling in seven years. At the same time, Pepin School District lost nearly half of its state support. With less state money, property taxes made up a larger share of school support.

Wisconsin has funded private schools in Milwaukee by taking money from local public schools for a long time.

With passage of the last state budget, private and independent charter schools in southeast Wisconsin cost state tax coffers $645 million.

As I explained at the Town Hall Meeting, this is only the beginning of putting a price tag on private school spending buried in the state budget. Much of the cost of private school students bore by public schools is not transparent.

For example, public schools must pay to transport private school students. One Pepin resident asked why her neighbor was paid by the state to take her child to a private school. The cost, bore by the Pepin School District, was less expensive than sending a school bus to transport the child.

Public schools districts pick up other private school costs. The cost of special education services come out of the local public school budgets for some private school students.

Over the past few years, payments for private schools directly from local public school districts rose as the statewide “voucher” or private school subsidies grew.

The most recent state budget removed limits on how many students from a school district can go to a private school at the expense of the public school district – and local taxpayers.

Consequently, some districts – like Eau Claire – experienced a quadrupling of students leaving public school and going to private school on the taxpayer’s dime.

State law sets the amount of money coming from a public school district at about $7,800 for high school students and about $7,200 for elementary students. Some public school districts may receive much less aid per public student from the state. For example, the Eau Claire school district received about $5,100 per student in state aid but paid out about $7,800 per private high school student leaving local property taxpayers to pick up the difference between those amounts.

Wisconsin property taxpayers already pick up 41 cents of every school dollar spent compared to Minnesota property taxpayers’ 25 cents of every school dollar. These numbers are from a recent United States Census Bureau report using data from the 2014 school year.

Costs of private school subsidies will continue to grow even if more students do not opt for a private school education at the public’s expense. Buried in details of the most recent state budget is an automatic increase in the amount sent to private schools for each student regardless of whether or not the public school receives any increase in state support.

One of the Pepin Town Hall attendees reminded me that I made no mention of the tax credit for private school tuition also passed in a recent budget. The nonpartisan Legislative Fiscal Bureau pegs the cost of this credit at $11.5 million in tax year 2014.

Recent news from Madison described another new scheme for private schools – a type of tax-free private school savings account. Rep. Dale Kooyenga (R-Brookfield) described the proposal as an account that could be used to pay for private school tuition and other costs. Parents either could use a debit card to access the money or by reimbursed for their expenses.

Wisconsin does not need any more plans to siphon public school money away from local schools. In a recent press release, statewide education leader and Eau Claire schoolteacher, Ron Martin said it best “Education savings accounts literally take money out of our neighborhood public schools and hands it over to subsidize private tuition, with zero accountability.”

Scott Walker dodges the bullet again, thank John Doe prosecutors, next steps in campaign finance reform, and much more...

MADISON - Boy, the week started off badly!

The U.S. Supreme Court decision on Monday not to take the John Doe II appeal was a blow to clean government in Wisconsin:

Disastrous duck by U.S. Supreme Court! Walker off scot-free?

One final word on this matter: The courageous defenders of clean government, who stood up for transparency and accountability and were vilified for it, are owed a debt of gratitude for their valiant efforts:

John Doe prosecutors deserve our thanks

Now that the sting of the loss is beginning to wear off, I look at the road ahead for clean and transparent government:

Next steps in the fight for campaign finance reform in Wisconsin

Meanwhile, our research director, Mike Buelow, keeps cranking out interesting stories about which dark money groups are throwing money around right now:

Outside groups spending tops $1.7M in legislative races

One of those groups is American Federation for Children—you know, Scott Jensen’s school voucher front—and we’ve anointed them with our highly coveted “Influence Peddler of the Month” award:

Influence peddler of the month - American Federation for Children

So we’re not slowing down a bit. I was asked on one radio show this week if I’m discouraged. No, I don’t get discouraged because I know the vast majority of the people, in Wisconsin and in this country, are on the side of clean, open, and transparent government. And the special interests would love it if we got discouraged!

So it’s just another day, another fight.

Thanks for being a part of this great struggle for real democracy.

While making decisions that negatively impact the very infrastructure important to growing Wisconsin’s economy, the governor and legislative leaders use statistics that do not reflect anything more than the state’s historical relationship to national statistics.

MADISON - “Wisconsin lowered taxes and reduced regulation and that increased jobs in the state, right?” A journalist from a national newspaper asked about the state of our economy for a story he was writing.

“The assumption you are making is that the only thing holding back growth is taxes paid by business,” I told the reporter. “And regulation,” he added.

I explained to the reporter that economic growth depended on many factors. Business needs a skilled workforce. Companies need a functioning infrastructure, including broadband, an efficient transportation system, good schools, a university system on the edge of tomorrow, safe streets, and vibrant communities where people want to live, work, start a business and raise a family.

Cutting taxes has set Wisconsin back on all these essential ingredients.

For two years, we heard about many job openings in the state but no skilled workers to fill them. At a recent Eau Claire Chamber of Commerce meeting, business leaders talked about the lack of skilled workers holding back their companies’ expansion. There is a strong connection between historic budget cuts to schools, technical colleges and the University of Wisconsin system and the lack of skilled workers.

Our transportation system suffers as the Governor refuses to raise fees to cover deteriorating roads and bridges. Instead, he talks about stopping transportation projects already in progress and borrowing more money with a transportation budget already paying one of every four dollars on debt.

While Minnesota debated making a hundred million dollar investment in rural broadband, our state leaders put just a little over 3 million in the current budget – not enough to cover my home county, one of the smallest in the state.

The Governor’s approach to cutting taxes has not worked to create jobs. Wisconsin lagged the national economy in recovering from the 2008-09 recession. Our state took six years to gain back all the jobs lost in the Great Recession – a whole year after the nation recovered and two years after Minnesota recovered.

The numbers indicate that Wisconsin’s economy has done little on its own and can only boast of being the beneficiary of spillover effects from the national economic recovery.

In recent months, Governor Walker took credit for things that were historically true of Wisconsin. For example, the state unemployment rate is lower than the national unemployment rate. Wisconsin’s unemployment rate has been lower than the national average in 28 of the last 36 years.

The Governor bragged about our labor participation rate. However, Wisconsin’s labor participation rate was higher than the national average for at least 30 years, possibly more.

Taking credit for Wisconsin being better than the nation in those two measures is like taking credit for the sun coming up in the morning. These numbers are little more than a reflection of the historical differences between Wisconsin and the nation.

Likewise, the increase in manufacturing jobs, which supposedly justifies the half a billion in tax credits over the next biennium, is little more than a reflection of the national increase in manufacturing jobs.

The most discouraging measure of our lagging economy is the recent Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation report, which for the second year in a row, ranks Wisconsin last in the nation in start-up business activity.

New businesses are the source of over 25% of new jobs in Wisconsin according to a report released earlier this year by the Center for Community and Economic Development at UW-Madison. In its report, the Center provides insight on how to create a vibrant economy; “developing generally attractive communities where people want to live may be the key to business location.”

The state needs to invest in good schools, safe streets, clean parks and the arts. We need partnerships between business and the public sector. We can encourage those who would take risks, experiment and cooperate with new business ventures. We must focus on growing many businesses at home instead of spending hundreds of millions to lure a few companies from other states.

Our economy is complicated, dynamic, interrelated and requires a balanced comprehensive approach. Taking credit for the sun coming up does not move us forward.