Governor Patsy Walker: Pro-Choice, so long as you choose to give him your money. (Publicus Proventus)

Governor Scott "Patsy" Walker defended his union-busting bill by saying that it

give[s] those workers the right to choose whether or not they want to be in a union, and the right to choose whether or not they want up to $1,000 out of their paycheck, to come out of their paycheck and instead of going back into their own pockets where they can pay for health care and pension and other contributions, make the same sorts of contributions that middle class taxpayers do all across the state.

(Source.) So can we expect Walker to introduce a bill -- and the Senate to pass in less than two hours -- relieving realtors of the obligation of paying $550 a year to the Wisconsin Realtors Association (WRA)?

The WRA, as noted in this week's Isthmus, is not a mandatory association for realtors, except that really, it is: the WRA controls the MLS, or "Multiple Listing Service," which the Isthmus describes as "a critical industry tool." So if realtors don't pony up, they can't get access to the one thing they need to do their job. And

The WRA, though, supported Walker, giving him $43,000 or so last year; the Isthmus story notes that the money came not directly from the WRA but from its PAC, and dutifully quotes WRA officials as noting that contributions to the PAC are voluntary. But the Isthmus story didn't note that the WRA was Walker's number one contributor overall going back to 1993, or that the RPAC (as the WRA's PAC is called) is listed on the WRA website, or that the WRA Board of Directors is also the body that decided to endorse Gov. Patsy-- making the RPAC's independence from WRA somewhat questionable.

On the issue of whether the donations are voluntary and what they're used for, RPAC says funds are distributed on a "nonpartisan" basis across the state. I couldn't find much proof of that on the state level, where RPAC gave $43,000 or so to Governor Patsy and endorsed him, but I wasn't able to find any record of contributions to Kloppenburg (the RPAC endorsed Prosser) or Tom Barrett. Nationally, a report from the last election cycle showed the national arm of RPAC supported 20 Republican candidates to 16 Democrats (and Joe Lieberman), suggesting that the organization leans right.

As for the so-called "voluntary dues," I don't know that they seem voluntary to members: when the scheme first started, WRA set it up so that members would be issued a statement that would include a "voluntary" dues payment they had to make towards the RPAC -- which would then be forwarded by WRA to the RPAC. It's not clear how clearly that "voluntary" basis was explained or how many people felt coerced into making the payment, but the system was questionable enough that the RPAC felt it necessary to get preapproval from the Elections Board. I don't know if that still goes on, but I found no record it had been changed.

So can we expect the GOP -- which would like you to die in the street if you disagree with it, and which wants to provide health care to rapists but not crippled children -- to introduce a bill to free realtors from making any contributions to WRA but still giving access to the MLS? Wouldn't such a bill encourage healthy competition, and maybe get some realtors from other states to move here?

I'm not holding my breath.

God forbid somebody HECKLE Governor Patsy! (Publicus Proventus)

Why was Wisconsin Governor Patsy so intent on keeping people out of the Capitol yesterday, and going forward? Radio host/sycophant Mark Belling read the party line on his show yesterday, when he pointed out that someone had looked in Governor Patsy's window... reportedly... and that it was entirely possible that during Governor Patsy's budget address someone would heckle him.

That viewpoint was furthered by Governor Patsy's state employee worker, Steven Means -- who obviously is overpaid and lazy and no good at his job, because he's a state employee (consider who you're working for Attorney Means, and what your boss says about you in public, when you decide what cases to press) -- took to a Dane County Courtroom to ask protestors (who wanted the Governor to abide by a court order enforcing Wisconsin's Open Meeting laws). Means asked protestors about what he termed "hostile language" aimed at Governor Patsy, and apparently argued that the Capitol has to be closed because it's noisy when people protest.

Which maybe makes it hard for Governor Patsy to hear what's being said on ethics-violating campaign contributor calls placed directly to his office, I guess.

I will predict this, though: remember when Democrats got death threats over health care reform, and a few Republicans lied and said "Hey, we did, too," and remember when, in the aftermath of the Giffords shooting in Arizona, some Republicans including GOP Hypocrite Paul Ryan made up death threats on them, too?

We are going to see Governor Patsy make up a death threat; he's going to claim he got a death threat. I'd bet anything.

An actual, nonsarcastic, long-term structural solution to Wisconsin's hypothetical budget woes (Publicus Proventus)

How much do Republicans like rich people? Almost as much as they like hypocrisy and not investigating the facts, judging by few recent examples.

Example number one, of course, is Gov. Patsy's willingness to take a phone call (and potentially a free trip to California) from a rich campaign contributor -- all the prank called had to do was pretend to be the man who bankrolled the counterprotests in Wisconsin and he got through to the Governor, who, if he wasn't raising campaign money on state time using state resources, was a hair away from doing just that. (On a side note, it's interesting to see that it's not just racism motivating the Tea Parties; it's also rich people. Rich white people, that is.)

Example number two of the love the GOP has for rich people -- combined with not checking the facts -- is Mike Nichols' hypocritical, biased page 2 piece in the comically-tiny Wisconsin State Journal on February 23. Nichols cites numbers without explanation -- a typical Republican tactic -- and repeatedly asks young people protesting at the Capitol "Who's gonna pay?", using the word gonna to indicate a commonality with reg'lar folks that doesn't exist.

Mike, a better question to ask is why didn't you pay? You've been supporting and voting for people for years that wrote checks without checking the balance first; can you find a time that you refused a government benefit because it wasn't funded? Did your kids go to school? Did you drive on the newly-plowed roads? Did you drink the municipal water supply that the GOP wants to now stop requiring be clean? You did those things without ever asking whether they were paid for, and now you say, hypocritically and without any examination of the facts, Who's gonna pay?

And Nichols' answer? Government employees, who already are paid less than the median in Wisconsin. That is, Nichols adopts Gov. Patsy's, and the Republicans', answer: The poor are gonna pay. Because they love the rich, whether or not they are the rich.

Example number three that the GOP belongs to the rich comes in the form of a Daily Beast/Newsweek poll that shows that Donald Trump -- Donald Trump-- would get anywhere from 8% to 41% of the vote from Republicans in a primary or general election; Trump's numbers on the poll show him taking votes exclusively from Republican candidates. So Republicans would rather nominate, and vote for, an unqualified rich white man than almost anyone else. (Still wondering how Ron Johnson got elected, Wisconsin? I'm not; I'm wondering where he went, him and Herb Kohl.)

Finally, here's a policy reason that proves that the GOP loves rich people and wants the poor and middle class to support their policies giving away the state: The GOP could fix the so-called budget crisis with a structural change in Wisconsin's government that wouldn't affect collective bargaining at all, and wouldn't hurt poor people or the middle class, and would be relatively simple to impose -- plus would put more money into the hands of local government.

Sounds good, right? It is, and it's simple-- but it's not considered at all, so far as I can tell, by the Gov. Patsy brain trust, maybe because no rich white guy has yet suggested it, and won't.

The solution: Amend the "Uniformity Clause" in the Wisconsin Constitution. That clause exists to protect the public from preferential treatment being given to wealthy landowners, which means it seems to be a good idea right now, when Gov. Patsy would almost certainly exempt rich white people's property from taxation, but it prohibits property from being taxed at different... progressive... rates.

Right now, states and the federal government tax income, and do so progressively. Taxing income is counterproductive: Income is useful money, money not sitting around in land or bank accounts, and a tax on income produces a disincentive to produce income. Taxing property -- the method used to fund schools, among other local projects -- would reduce that disincentive and put a tax on passive investments such as real estate.

But property taxes are regressive: they're applied a the same rate to all property in the state, by Constitutional rule. If the Uniformity Clause were amended to allow property to be taxed progressively with higher rates applied to more valuable property, the legislature (or local governments) could impose a higher tax rate on more valuable property.

In Wisconsin, the median value of owner-occupied homes was $112,000 at the last census. That means that 1/2 of all houses in Wisconsin are worth more than $112,000. If the Uniformity Clause were amended to allow a 0.5% increase in property taxes on homes worth 2 times the median value -- or homes worth more than $224,000 -- that would raise a lot of money, and would raise it mostly at the local level and from people who can afford to do it...

... and it would provide those people with a tax deduction at the federal level, allowing, in effect, Wisconsin residents to refuse to send tax money to Washington and keep it here at home. What's not good about that?

I'd support that plan -- and something more radical, an extra 2% surcharge imposed on homes worth more than $500,000, which would raise even more money. What schools we could get, roads we could build, sick people we could take care of, if we did that...

What things we could do, if we had state leaders who were actually interested in governing rather than punishing the poor and middle class to make rich white people happy.


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In the interest of fairness, I'll agree this seems over the top. (Publicus Proventus)

Is is just me, or does the cover of this week's Capital Times insert in the local paper...


Appear to be hanging Governor Patsy?

That's actually a flag behind him in the picture, but as I walked by that box this morning, I thought "Is that a noose?" I wonder if it was accidental, and I doubt it was. Look at how his neck is crooked.

Wisconsin IS NOT in financial trouble, no matter how many lies Scott Fitzgerald and Patsy Walker tell. (Publicus Proventus.)

While Tea Partiers fantasize about Governor Patsy Walker running for president someday -- he has the only quality they look for in a president [being white] -- the rest of us have to put up with increasing lies combined with the fact that "fiscal conservatives" who are anything but are now starting to fill up the (supposed) gaps in budgets by taxing the poor while giving money to the rich.

The latest liar on the financial front, at least from Wisconsin, isn't Governor Patsy's empty threat to lay off 1,500 workers -- he won't do that -- it's Senate Liar Scott Fitzgerald, who, when he's not trying to turn his family into the Northwoods version of the Daleys, is simply making up facts. On the "Northwoods Patriot" blog, he writes (or is quoted as saying):

This problem is NOW. If we twiddle our thumbs and do nothing, our state will, plain and simple, run out of money in the Medical Assistance program, the Public Defender’s office, and the Corrections Department. The state owes $200 million to the Injured Patients and Compensation Fund, and almost $60 million to Minnesota in reciprocity payments. Even if you don’t count that $200 million debt, and you ignore the $65 million positive balance the state is legally required to carry, we’re still more than $136 million short this year alone.

That ignores the LFB's projection of a surplus this year, and assumes, as I've written, that Wisconsin will pay all those bills by June 30, which I haven't heard it plans or is legally required to do. But we know that Republicans will simply lie and ignore the facts when it suits them.

And Fitzgerald doesn't stop at simply lying; he also misrepresents what will happen if he's not allowed to follow through on his corporate bosses' instructions to break the middle class: he says that the SPD and other offices will "run out of money," but that happens pretty much yearly, as the state never fully funds that office.

Fitzgerald The Liar also ignores the fact that Wisconsin's pension fund is above 99% funded and is considered one of the safest in the nation -- so Wisconsin can meet all of its state employee pension obligations even after the recession and without additional appropriations.

But this is just the beginning, as I've said and others have said. Still not discussed much are the fact that Fitzgerald the Liar, with his GOP buddies working for megacorporations, is going to transfer more power to Governor Patsy, let him make 35 more patronage appointments, and take $900 million away from public schools... and next they'll probably follow the lead of ultraconservative states that are hiking sales taxes, a regressive move that punishes the middle class and poor by taking money out of their pockets.

The budget "crisis" isn't a crisis, and the State could raise revenue through a variety of innovative means, including amending the state Constitution, progressive taxation of luxury goods, and public-private investment. I'll start detailing those ideas as I go along, because I can't just sit and complain.

Scott Walker is a LIAR. (Publicus Proventus)

Like so many members of the GOP, he's a hypocritical, compulsive liar.

All anyone has heard from Governor Patsy's lying, big-business-bribed mouth is how Wisconsin is in a fiscal crisis that has to be addressed with dramatic means, while the truth is anything but. I don't know how much corporations are paying Governor Patsy to lie repeatedly, but it's got to be a lot, because the lies are big.

Wisconsin is running a surplus. I know this involves stuff beyond the fifth grade level, so try to pay attention or ask someone to help you, Tea Partiers, but the Legislative Fiscal Bureau says Wisconsin will have $121.4 million extra in funds when the fiscal year ends June 30.

So we won't be broke, not this year. The LFB also notes that Wisconsin does have to large liabilities looming-- repaying $200 million to the medical malpractice fund by Wisconsin Supreme Court order, and paying $58.7 million to Minnesota in tax money we owe under the reciprocity deal. IF we were to repay those all in the next 4 months, there would be a deficit.

IF.

Those are two older debts, though -- and the budget "crisis" that they didn't create was worsened by Governor Patsy's $60 million in subsidies to rich people that he already passed at the directive of the corporations that run his administration -- $60 million more in debt, already, and he's only been in office a little over a month.

In other words, there's no budget crisis now, and if there's one in the future, it's one that owes about 20% of the total debt to Governor Patsy's first 30 days in office.

Oh, and for the record: Baby-killing, lying Republicans controlled the Assembly that voted to use the $200 million from the malpractice fund back in 2007.


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