Category Archives: Commentary

Scott Walker’s community pillaging continues

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Gov. Scott Walker yesterday confirmed what was already widely suspected — he is going to propose a billion dollar cut in aid to schools and local governments.Walker says communities can make up the cuts with the flexibility he is giving them by crushing unions and collective bargaining rights.

Walker is delusional. His budget repair bill probably will pass eventually and then there will be job actions, and then what? Will local governments actually fire all of their public health workers if they walk off their jobs? Their garbage collectors? Their teachers?

It’s immensely clear that communities all across the state will be worse places to live.

As a city of Milwaukee lobbyist said during a meeting last week, this bill was just not well thought out.

And will police and firefighters, who got theirs, stand with other public workers if they have to make the choice?

And, finally, betcha Walker takes care of the road builders like he took care of the cops and firefighters who supported him. Keep an eye on the transportation budget and what Walker proposes in new, wasteful highway building.

Alberta Darling: ignorant or lying?

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Catching up, post snow-and-shovel-fest, on the newspaper. PolitiFact yesterday rated False State Sen. Alberta Darling’s statement that “The governor is proposing that we have collective bargaining deal only with wages which is how it is, for the most part, in the private sector.”

Darling, obviously, is referring to Gov. Scott Walker’s proposal to strip most collective bargaining rights away from most public employees.

Darling (R-River Hills) is a major supporter of the proposal. She also is co-chair of the Joint Finance Committee. She also got it totally wrong when she said that private sector unions mostly do wage-only bargaining.

The possible reasons Darling made such a boneheaded statement are pretty dreadful:

  • She believes it, meaning one of the most powerful legislators in the state is too ignorant to be in that position.
  • She doesn’t believe it, meaning one of the most powerful legislators in the state is a liar and too dishonest to be in that position.

Either way, she is using a falsehood to justify stripping away rights from public employee unions that are common in private sector unions.

And, either way, she does not deserve to hold the job she has.

Those parking meters are failures

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The city’s new parking meters continue to suck.

I had to park at the library the other day. This meant a half a block hike to the parking kiosk. The street was covered with snow and there were big mounds on the edge of the sidewalk, making access to the walk difficult.

OK, for the many, many people who are frail or hurting but don’t qualify for or have a handicapped tag for their car, what are their options for getting to that kiosk? Just plow through the snow and slush on the street!

The good news: it was completely overcast, so I could actually read the kiosk screen. There are some days the screen is almost impossible to read because of glare from the sun. That’s OK, though, because the Department of Public Works likes the kiosks that are extremely difficult for some people to use during half the year and can’t be read by anyone on certain days. And as long as DPW is happy, we should all be happy.

The kiosk buttons were very, very difficult to push, presumably due to the weather. The kiosks don’t work very well in the winter, which is much of the Wisconsin year. I pushed in my parking spot number, and the kiosk told me it was wrong. I pushed it in again, and the kiosk told me again it was wrong. I slogged back to my car to double-check my number. It was exactly the one I had struggled to punch in.

I went back to the kiosk and entered the number again. The kiosk told me it was wrong.

The damned thing wasn’t working.

But DPW is happy — the kiosks that don’t work in the cold, can’t be read in the sun and are difficult for some to get to in the snow are inconvenient and nonfunctional only for the customers who use them, not for the agency that earns revenue from them.

And we know who counts.

But I can’t help wondering if installing kiosks that are basically inaccessible to so many people for so much of the year doesn’t violate some law or another.

No surprise, but oh, my

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The Joint Finance Commitee adopted Gov. Scott Walker’s draconian proposals for slashing public employee compensation, putting $45 million in transit aid at risk at the same time.

So now public workers will have a harder time making those car payments, and Walker is making sure they won’t be able to catch a bus to work. either.

Well, that’s one way to cut the workforce.

Walker: Costing Wisconsin even more

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Gov. Scott Walker’s efforts to strip workers of their collective bargaining rights could cost the state $70 million in federal transit aid.

Did Walker know that before he proposed his punitive measure? If he did, just how much damage to Wisconsin is he willing to do to advance his anti-family corporate agenda? If he didn’t, why the hell didn’t he?

Mindless if he did, mindless if he didn’t.