Family & Community
Citizen Input Provides Important Details of Conservation Budget Cuts
Citizen Input Provides Important Details of Conservation Budget Cuts
By State Senator Kathleen Vinehout
"Why is it I keep hearing more about what’s in the governor’s budget?” the woman asked me. “Don’t you see it all at once and then decide what to do?”It can be difficult for legislators to know the full effect of cuts without the critical input of citizens.For example, news of cuts to the Department of Natural Resources (DNR) made its way to western Wisconsin. Constituents communicated back to me the effect of these cuts. Through emails, phone calls ...
Why We Need Labor Unions in Our Community
By John Spiegelhoff and Dale Moerke
What exactly is a Labor Union and why should I care about them? If you would ask a random person on the street you would get probably some interesting answers.
Here is one textbook definition of a Labor Union: An association, combination, or organization of employees who band together to secure favorable wages, improved working conditions, and better work hours.
But a Labor Union is much more than a textbook definition. Union members are your family members and your neighbors. They live in the same community as you. Union ...
HELP SAVE IRIS, Wisconsin’s Long-term Care System
HELP SAVE IRIS, Wisconsin’s Long-term Care System
By Virginia Kirsch
I.R.I.S. is the acronym for INCLUDE, RESPECT, I and SELF-DIRECT. It is operated by the Wisconsin Department of Health Services DHSIRIS@wisconsin.gov .
It is a Medicaid Home and Community-Based Service for self-directed long-term support.
INCLUDE refers to the people served by this program who are elderly, or adults with physical and/or intellectual disabilities with long-term needs.
RESPECT means that the participants choose their living setting, their relationships and their participat...
CAN YOU IMAGINE CLOSING ALL NEIGHBORHOOD PUBLIC SCHOOLS?
CAN YOU IMAGINE CLOSING ALL NEIGHBORHOOD PUBLIC SCHOOLS?
By Joyce Luedke
Can you imagine closing all neighborhood public schools in a city and replacing them with 40 different privately managed charter schools, a Recovery School District, funded by taxpayers?
Can you imagine no centralized oversight of these 40 different entities to guarantee that the needs of all students are met?
Can you imagine firing 7,000 school personnel and replacing 4500 teachers with unlicensed personnel holding alternative certificates who have no training in child development, ...
Protect Our Outdoor Heritage
Looking at the budget debates going on in Wisconsin and nationally it is hard to understand the conservative positions. Their destructive, short- sighted, and counter-productive agendas are simply “penny wise and pound foolish.” Why are they obsessed with cutting successful programs that cost pennies in comparison to the social and economic benefits?
I am a member of the North Country Trail Association (NCTA). This non-profit organizes volunteers to build and maintain the North Country National Scenic Trail which runs across Northern Wisconsin. The work we do as ...
A Business Owes Nothing in Taxes & Gets a State Check?
A Business Owes Nothing in Taxes & Gets a State Check?
"Why doesn’t the press cover what’s happening with refundable tax credits?” I asked the journalist. We were chatting about what I found in the state budget. “Because the press doesn’t understand them,” she told me.“Doesn’t understand them?” I thought. “There has to be an easy way to describe what’s happening...”Imagine if you had no state tax taken out of your paycheck. You filed your tax return but you owed nothing. Now imagine the state sent you a refund check. Wow!
This is like ...
WORKERS’ MEMORIAL DAY – APRIL 28TH
Unless you are a labor historian, you probably wouldn’t know who Mary “Mother” Jones was. But her legacy in the labor movement is immense.
Mary Mother Jones was born Mary Harris in 1837 in Cork, Ireland. She moved to Toronto, Canada at ten years old due to the potato famine in Ireland. In her early adulthood she moved to the United States, married and had four children. In 1867 yellow fever struck her entire family leaving her a widow. She moved to Chicago where her small dressmaking shop eventually burned in the 1871 Chicago fire.
In her later years, Mary ...
Worker Exploitation Laws
A group of people decide to go out to eat. Everyone in the group knows that they will receive a bill when they finish eating. Two people in the group decide that the others will need to pay their dinner bill despite partaking in the benefits of the meal.
After reading this hypothetical situation did you perhaps say to yourself “I would never think about doing something like that!”
This hypothetical situation is similar to what people commonly and unfortunately call “Right to Work” laws. “Right to Work” is a name or slogan that can be accurately described ...
Blue Jean Nation
American democracy is caught on the horns of a dilemma. Most Americans are feeling fed up with the Republicans and let down by the Democrats — with good reason — as both major parties are failing the country. Yet a third party isn't the answer. Like it or not, America has a two-party system.
Ours was not set up as a parliamentary democracy, where competing factions can join forces and form coalition governments. We don't have fusion voting, or instant runoff voting, or proportional representation, or any of the mechanisms that would allow third parties or independ...
RE-PURPOSING GOVERNMENT
REPURPOSING GOVERNMENT
This commentary is a distillation of Mike McCabe’s keynote speech at the Wisconsin Grassroots Network festival in Mazomanie on March 28. It was first published as an opinion column by the online news site Wistopia on April 3. It is reprinted from the Blue Jean Nation website at: http://www.bluejeannation.com/commentary04-13-2015/
It’s easy to be consumed by what or who we are against rather than what we are for. But if we are going to get Wisconsin and our nation out of the rut we are in politically, we cannot afford to dwell on what ...
