WILL WISCONSIN CHILDREN RECEIVE AN EQUAL EDUCATION?
Progress with the state budget is at a standoff in the Capitol. Behind closed doors, leaders are talking details and trying to find votes.
Openly, legislative leaders point to a lack of agreement on public education. They say no progress can happen until they round up necessary votes for the education portion of the budget. Privately, some GOP lawmakers are also angling to spend money on a big change to business personal property taxes. However, changes to taxes could take away money promised to schools.
Education is the largest part of the general fund budget (the ...
Wisconsin in the News
The current wrecking crew in Madison offers a potpourri of bad policy, goofiness, and recipes for future problems. The only good news out of Madison is that the Governor and Legislature are no longer always unified. There is division among the faithful. Here is a short list of issues in the news.
Clean Water
On June 1, Walker signed a bill that weakens regulation of high capacity wells. Senate Bill 76 eliminates DNR review of existing permits for high capacity wells when they are repaired, replaced, or sold in a real estate transaction. High capacity wells pump ...
WHEN MACHINES REPLACE WORKERS
(Denele Campbell blogs from Arkansas. You can read more at www.denelecampbell.com)
On March 11, 1811, hand loom weavers (the Luddites) swarmed the streets of Arnold, Nottingham in the dark of night. They broke into textile factories equipped with the latest technologies, smashed pieces of factory equipment and burned the mills. Over the next five years, the movement spread throughout England. Industrialists invested in safe rooms inside their factories to protect themselves from attack.
The movement died in its tracks when the government stepped in with mass trials, ...
WHAT CHOICES WOULD YOU MAKE?
In the next few weeks, state lawmakers are voting on how Wisconsin spends money over the next two years. The choices legislators make will affect our communities and our lives.
Lawmakers are working off a spending plan submitted by the Governor earlier this year. Changes have already been made to his proposal.
For example, the budget writing committee removed much of the new money for the University of Wisconsin System. Big spending cuts in the last budget forced, among other things, a reorganization of UW-Extension, which may leave local communities without their ...
Spend Less, Have More
“You load sixteen tons, what do you get?
Another day older and deeper in debt.
Saint Peter don't you call me 'cause I can't go
I owe my soul to the company store.”
(Traditional folk song)
There are two ways to get ahead financially. One is to have more income. The other is to spend less money. Since most of us have limited ability to generate more income, it would make good personal financial sense to spend less. But shop-til-you-drop consumerism is ingrained in our modern American culture. Too many of us owe our souls to the company store, or the credit card ...
PENSIONS ARE THE BEST BET FOR WISCONSIN MENTAL HEALTH WORKERS
This month is Mental Health Month and I wanted to take some time to thank my fellow mental health workers throughout Wisconsin for their service. I feel truly honored and fortunate to work closely with a dedicated group of public employees across many disciplines, including nursing, social work, psychiatry, psychology, and occupational therapy.
Currently, I am a psychiatrist at the Mendota Mental Health Institute (MMHI) in Madison and at the Waupun Correctional Institution (WCI) in Waupun. At both locations, I work as part of a team to treat mentally ill patients, and ...
ANOTHER LOOK AT 2016 ELECTION
While we await developments on a number of critical fronts — Will the Republicans running our state ever agree on transportation funding?
Will the US Senate stumble as it tries to formulate a healthcare bill that can pass both the Senate and the House? Will the Supreme Court issue a stay in Gill v Whitford? Will James Comey's testimony on Thursday offer the bombshell the national press is hoping for?
You might want to have a look at an analysis of How And Where Trump Won Wisconsin in 2016. Malia Jones at the UW Applied Population Laboratory has run the numbers and ...
WHAT MOTIVATED 2016 VOTERS?
Professor Katherine Cramer Walsh, author of The Politics of Resentment: Rural Consciousness in Wisconsin and the Rise of Scott Walker (March, 2016), finds the split between rural and urban voters' choices to be rooted in what she calls "group consciousness." In an article published years before her book, she concludes that rural voters, at least in Wisconsin, perceive themselves to be deprived and attribute "rural deprivation to the decision making of (urban) political elites, who disregard and disrespect rural residents and rural lifestyles."
But there appear to be ...
Eating Our Seed Corn
“Science has always been at the heart of America’s progress. Science cleaned up our air and water, conquered polio and invented jet airplanes. Science gave us the Internet, puts food on our tables and helps us avoid pandemics. Science and technology are widely considered by economists to be responsible for at least half of American economic growth since World War II. Defunding science is the intellectual equivalent of eating our seed corn.” Denis Hayes, LA Times editorial.
Knowledge based, rational public policies are good for everyone. It is good for the ...
AUDIT: WEDC Cannot Be Certain of Any Jobs Created or Retained
Our state spends a great deal of money on economic development. The Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation (WEDC) is responsible for overseeing much of the taxpayer money that goes to job creation.
A recently released audit by the nonpartisan Legislative Audit Bureau (LAB) found that “WEDC cannot be certain about the number of jobs actually created or retained as a result of any awards that ended.”
By law, WEDC is required to report jobs created or retained. The agency meets the requirement through reports posted on its website. However, auditors found these ...
