Wisconsin Budget “Fix” Coming Soon

This doesn’t look good. 

MADISON, Wis. (AP)—Gov. Jim Doyle refused to discuss the state’s budget Friday as lawmakers appeared to be closing in on a deal to solve a $527 million shortfall.

Leaders of both the Senate and Assembly notified lawmakers to keep their schedules clear to be in session Tuesday through Thursday of next week. No details were released by anyone involved in the negotiations about whether there actually was a deal yet.

Democratic Senate Majority Leader Russ Decker’s spokeswoman Carrie Lynch said talks were progressing “very well” and senators would not be told to prepare for session for no reason.

Negotiations among leaders of both houses intensified Thursday and into Friday as they tried to reach a consensus on a proposal that Doyle would sign.

What whispers I’ve heard are that this is not going to be pretty.  Expect a bunch of budget tricks, tax hikes, and a show of spending restraint - but just a show.  The fact that Huebsch is quiet and Decker’s folks are out there saying that they are close to a deal telegraphs a significant cave-in by Huebsch. 

We’ll see, I guess.  It sure would be nice if they would share their plans sometime before the day of the vote to allow people a chance to read it. 

Barrett to Challenge Kind

I’m left to wonder…

Kevin Barrett, the 9/11 skeptic whose questioning of the official story of the 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon drew fire from politicians when he held a one-semester appointment as an associate lecturer at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, is about to push back at the politicians.

Barrett plans to announce soon that he will run as a Libertarian candidate against U.S. Rep. Ron Kind, the La Crosse Democrat who has represented western Wisconsin’s 3rd District since 1996.

“I’m planning a ‘truth-in-politics’ campaign that will milk that oxymoron for all it’s worth: Call everything exactly the way I see it and let the chips fall where they may. It will be an interesting contrast to the standard campaigns with their timidity, hypocrisy and mendacity,” says Barrett, a convert to Islam who has argued for a number of years that the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon “had nothing to do with Islam” and that “the war on terror is as phony as the latest Osama bin Laden tape.”

How would he differentiate himself from Kind? 

Personal Protection

Heh.

On the weekend after Zimmermann’s death, Maternowski’s father drove over from Milwaukee and brought his daughter three items for personal protection inside her apartment: a black Louisville Slugger baseball bat, a 2 1/2 -foot metal pipe and a can of industrial-strength wasp killer.

You know what would work better?  A gun.  A good gun coupled with a lot of range time and training is far more effective than a bat and a can of bug spray.  For those of you who think that a gun would be “uncivilized” or something, please explain to me how bludgeoning an attacker with a bat is more civilized. 

Body Snatchers Muscle Found Guilty

Good.  The jury got it right.

A Milwaukee County jury has convicted Donald Cooper of suffocating a man to death with a plastic bag and burying his body under concrete and of torturing a different man with hot chicken grease.

Cooper, 42, whom witnesses called the muscle in a criminal organization known as the Body Snatchers, was convicted of 1st degree intentional homicide, kidnapping, aggravated battery and cocaine dealing.

He faces life in prison when he is sentenced by Circuit Court Judge Jeffrey Wagner on July 14, a week after Michael Lock, the purported head of the Body Snatchers, is set to go on trial.

Political Hire Costs Taxpayers Hundreds of Thousands of Dollars

Here’s an example of the danger of hiring the unqualified but politically connected.

Politics improperly influenced the decision to hire a top state lawyer after former Gov. Tony Earl helped a friend’s nephew get the job, a hearing examiner has concluded.

The tainted hiring cost taxpayers $346,000 in recent legal settlements paid to two qualified internal candidates passed over for the job as the state’s top unemployment insurance lawyer, according to documents obtained by The Associated Press under the state open records law.

The Department of Workforce Development eventually hired Daniel LaRocque, a lawyer with no experience in unemployment insurance or state government but close ties to Democratic politics.

In the process, DWD officials broke numerous hiring policies and state laws, Wisconsin Employment Relations Commission hearing examiner Lauri Millot concluded in a proposed decision last year.

State Workers Traveling the World

This is ridiculous.

In the weeks after Governor Doyle’s administration ordered state employees to curb unnecessary travel, those same workers charged the state more than $900,000 for hundreds of trips around the world.

Records obtained by The Associated Press show that Wisconsin state employees visited at least 30 states and the District of Columbia and eight foreign countries in more than 300 trips taken just the first three months of the year.

The amount spent on travel and the number of places visited actually is much greater than the reports show since the University of Wisconsin System submitted an incomplete report.

The system accounted for nearly 90 percent of the out-of-state travel last fiscal year.

Spend your welfare wisely

My column for the West Bend Daily News is online.  It’s called, ”Spend your welfare wisely.”

Enjoy.

Doyle Clings to Failed Ethanol Policy

Doyle doesn’t want to give up the ethanol mandate.

Wisconsin’s agriculture secretary is lashing out at a GOP proposal to halt the mandatory expansion of corn-based ethanol.

Two dozen U.S. senators, including White House nominee John McCain, want the Environmental Pollution Agency to restructure its rules requiring more ethanol from corn by 2022.

[...]

Rod Nilsestuen, secretary of the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Affairs, calls the GOP plan the wrong medicine.

Without the recent increase in renewable fuels, he said gas prices would be even higher today.

This is flat out wrong.

But groups like the International Food Policy Research Institute and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations are pointing to ethanol production for biofuel as responsible for between 10 and 30 percent of the rise in food costs, The New York Times has reported.

Doyle has based a good chunk of his economic policy on biofuels - especially ethanol.  He’s not going to back down off of it no matter what the facts actually are. 

Falk Apologizes to Zimmermann’s Family

This was the right thing to do.  Good for Falk. 

Dane County Executive Kathleen Falk has written letters of apology to be sent to the family of murder victim Brittany Zimmermann and her fiance, in response to a disclosure last week that a call to the 911 center was made from her phone around the time she was killed, but was not returned as is normal protocol.

Falk aide Joshua Wescott said Monday that the family and Zimmermann’s fiance, Jordan Gonnering, should receive the letters of apology shortly.

This is a bit worrisome. 

Disciplinary action will not be taken against anyone until an internal investigation into the matter by the 911 center is completed, Wescott said.

How much investigation is needed?  Find out who was responsible and fire them.  Now. 

Sass Puts Political Toadies on State Payroll

Well, Wisconsin, hire an unqualified political hack and this is what you get. 

When the longtime director of the state’s $2 billion college savings program retired last year, the list of potential replacements included an asset manager, a tax lawyer and an estate planner — even the program’s veteran deputy director.

Instead, the job went to Megan Perkins, 32, a key political aide to Treasurer Dawn Marie Sass, a Democrat.

Perkins had previously served as projects coordinator for First Lady Jessica Doyle and as a Wisconsin field organizer for John Kerry’s presidential campaign in 2004.

[...]

In March 2007, two part-time employees in the unclaimed property division lost their jobs after Sass created a full-time job to help her in building the profile of that division.

One, Rick Berg said in an interview he lost his part-time job and wasn’t hired for the new full-time job, for which he was interviewed, because he holds conservative political views and has worked several jobs under Republican governors.

“It was clear the decision had nothing to do with performance and everything to do with politics,” Berg said.

Lease said the job needed a person who could update the unclaimed property program and raise its profile among the public.

The woman who was named to the full-time job, Stephanie Wilson, 23, had previously worked for Doyle’s constituent services arm. Wilson has since replaced Perkins as Sass’s political aide.

Boater Photo ID

This will surely discriminate against the old, poor, and minorities.

All Wisconsin boaters may be required to carry photo identification as federal officials consider tighter security of the nation’s more than 17 million small vessels.

[...]

If identification is required, it’s unclear who would enforce that and what would happen to a boater who doesn’t have an ID.

In addition, the Coast Guard wants access to all states’ boat registration databases. Wisconsin - currently sixth nationwide in its number of boats - has agreed.

Wheel Tax Proposed for Milwaukee County

Of course.  A “temporary” tax to give them time to figure out how to jack up other taxes. 

A $10-a-car countywide vehicle registration fee could be one of the best options for keeping the financially troubled Milwaukee County Transit System intact, the Public Policy Forum says in a report to be released Monday.

But the vehicle fee, also known as a “wheel tax,” would be only a short-term measure to hold the bus system together until state and local officials can agree on a longer-term solution, such as a local sales tax, local gas tax or major increase in state funding, the nonpartisan research organization says.

It still befuddles me why some people think it’s OK to increase taxes on people who don’t use the service but unacceptable to ask those who use it to pay more. 

Decision Coming on I94 Expansion

Yes.  Do it.  DO IT.

Expanding I-94 from six lanes to eight is an essential part of helping the Racine and Kenosha area grow and will provide needed jobs now, state Reps. Cory Mason and Robert Turner, both Racine Democrats, said Friday.

Mason and Turner were joined at a news conference by the International Union of Operating Engineers and others who support the $1.9 billion project from the Mitchell Interchange in Milwaukee County south to the Illinois border.

Naturally, the trainies and environmental folks are against it.

“It’s a false choice,” Mason said of contentions that the expansion money could be used for a rail link or other options. “That’s not actually the option that’s before us.”

WEAC Fights for Teacher Who Had Porn on His School Computer

WEAC is venue shopping.

It’s perhaps the most unusual twist yet in what has become a genuine legal saga over how much pornography Zellner might have viewed on his Cedarburg High School computer and whether he should have been fired.

The latest development is a request by Zellner’s lawyer for the Supreme Court to send Zellner’s termination case back to the state Court of Appeals, despite the fact that it was the appeals court that fast-tracked the case to the Supreme Court.

“I’m mystified; I’ve never seen such a thing in 30-some years of practicing,” said Steven Rynecki, a Milwaukee lawyer who represents the Cedarburg School District. “It seems presumptuous to tell the Supreme Court what they should take.”

[...]

The appeals court decision coincided with a Supreme Court election in which Justice Louis Butler Jr. - who was heavily supported by the state’s largest teachers union - was defeated by Circuit Court Judge Michael Gableman, an outcome observers say could tip the balance of power on the high court.

Jonen is employed by the union, the Wisconsin Education Association Council.

On April 11, 10 days after the election, Jonen asked the Supreme Court not to take the Zellner case.

And, of course, this is only getting more expensive for the taxpayers.

Zellner also has a federal civil rights lawsuit pending.

That suit, filed April 16 by another attorney, asks for $9 million from the Cedarburg School District, saying Zellner was retaliated against for speaking out as a union leader and was improperly fired.

WEAC loves to prance around and cluck their tongues when people complain about how hard it is to fire a public school teacher.  They say that it’s easy - all they ask is for due process.  But when a teacher is fired because he had porn on his school computer, they force the taxpayers to spend tens of thousands of dollars to litigate it.  Once again, their actions speak louder than words. 

One more side note, this is the excuse that this teacher gave in his federal case:

Zellner said in the federal suit that he did an image search of the word blonde on his school computer to see whether the School District had installed software to block pornography.

Um.  No.  If your do an image search for “blonde,” you may get some explicit images.  You do not, however, get 1,500 images in a single search.  That takes some more effort.  Also, I’d be interested in seeing if all of the images on his work computer were only blonds - and were only thumbnails.  Obviously, he is relying on the hope that the federal judge will be completely ignorant of computers and the internet. 

Remittances Continue to Increase

That’s a lot of money. 

U.S. Census estimates for 2006 put the Latino population in Wisconsin at about 261,000, with about 21,000 in Dane County. Local United Way estimates suggest the county numbers may run much higher, perhaps 45,000 or more. It’s not known how many in that group are here illegally.

The average adult Latino immigrant in Wisconsin sends home about $2,700 a year, according to 2006 figures collected by the Inter-American Development Bank.

Families on the other end can be hugely dependent on that money to meet basic needs like food, shelter, clothing and medicine.

According to a recent IBD report, remittances “are essential to lifting millions of families out of poverty, particularly in Mexico, Central America, Bolivia, Ecuador, Haiti and the Dominican Republic.”

Indeed, the transfers account for a significant part of the gross domestic product of several countries in the region, including 43 percent in Guyana, 35 percent in Haiti, 25 percent in Honduras, and 18 percent in Jamaica and El Salvador.

Mexico is the largest overall recipient of remittances, topping $23 billion in 2006, followed by Brazil and Columbia, at $7 billion and $4 billion respectively, according to the IDB. Remittances to Mexico, however, account for just 3 percent of its GDP because of its much larger economy.