Not that we expect the clowns and criminals who run state government in neighboring Illinois to care, but we do hope, for a moment at least, they cast their collective gaze north of the border to Wisconsin.
Something is happening there that Illinois’ governor and most of its legislators no doubt will hardly be able to grasp. Ditto for legislators in California, New York and other fiscally dysfunctional states.
Wisconsin recently has been holding down spending and taxes, and the state has gone from a budget deficit of more than $3 billion to a projected budget surplus.
Imagine! Setting spending priorities and stopping further raids on the pocketbooks of businesses and individuals has achieved what more spending and higher taxes could not.
The Wisconsin-based MacIver Institute has the story, based on the Wisconsin Department of Administration’s latest budget projections.
While at CPAC last week for The Heartland Institute, I met a lot of old friends, made some new ones, and heard some great speeches (the best I’ve heard from Rick Santorum; Sarah Palin was on fire; and Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin was excellent.) Speaking of Scott Walker, the Occupy Wall Street crowd and their union allies targeted him for a special protest.
First, let me say this: The Occupy Wall Street protests were a big dud. Yes, a few got into the hotel — and there was even a scuffle in the hallway. But every time they shouted their tired slogans, they were quickly drowned out by a combination of ridicule and chants of “USA! USA! USA!” by the CPAC attendees.
But as Walker entered the Wardman Park Marriott in DC, the Occupy folks were outside (in a rather small force) to express their displeasure at his reforms, which have probably saved the state from bankruptcy. So I moseyed on down with my iPhone in my pocket and took a couple of videos. A highlight of the juvenile street theater was the parading of a “golden toilet” down the sidewalk.
I’d say more, but the video speaks for itself.
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Not long after my blog post ‘Vote’ Early and Often for the Walker Recall Election went up last week, this hate-tweet came in:
Corporate front group/rightwing slime @HeartlandInst have questions about us, but choose not to pick up phone & ask. #hacks #cowards
“Rightwing slime?” Wow, that’s a new one in the ad hominem attack language the Left uses against Heartland. We take it as a compliment because we obviously hit a nerve. And it also reflects that at least some Lefties have guilty consciences about taking advantage of defects in Wisconsin recall election law in an amoral and reprehensible way.
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The stage is set for vote fraud on a massive scale in Wisconsin in connection with petitions calling for the 2012 recall election of Republican Gov. Scott Walker due to two truly shocking loopholes in Wisconsin election law.
Petitions are now being circulated to recall Walker. Groups circulating them have 60 days to gather 540,208 signatures from “qualified electors.”
But the so-called Wisconsin election “watchdog” agency, the Government Accountability Board (GAB), has no legal obligation to verify there are no duplicate signatures on the petitions nor is the GAB obliged to check whether all persons signing the petitions are “qualified electors.”
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From Ann Althouse comes word the Wisconsin Teaching Assistants’ Association (TAA) voted last week against seeking state certification as a union for the purpose of collective bargaining.
TAA is the first public employee union known to have held a union certification vote and the first one known to have voted against certification.
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I’ve been carrying on conversations with family members in Wisconsin (yes, I’m a born-and-raised cheesehead) concerning Gov. Scott Walker’s budget reform measures. Most of my family agrees with what he did, but many are pretty dismayed by how he did it. And to a person, they remain unconvinced that the austerity measures, if you want to call them that, will have any positive effect on the state’s economy that they will notice. New jobs and tax cuts would be nice but nobody is holding their breath.
During one such conversation, I mentioned recent employment growth in Wisconsin — 9,500 new jobs in June alone. The figure is controversial – the feds count jobs differently than the state does — but that wasn’t the point during our conversation. The point at that time was, “these are not good-paying jobs.” Well, how to respond to that?
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In 2011, until yesterday, Wisconsinites who favor limited government and responsible taxation and spending had to suffer in silence, as their voices were obliterated by union and leftist protestors.
But when Wisconsin’s silenced majority finally got its chance to speak out by voting in Tuesday’s recall elections, it positively roared.
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The Washignton Examiner has a superb set of articles ug, discussing how the collective bargaining limits Gov. Walker implemented over wild union objection in Wisconsin are saving local budgets already, two days after the provisions went into effect.
The first, by investigative reporter Byron York, details how these curbs allowed one school district near Appleton (somewhat near my own hometown) to turn a $400,000 deficit into a $1.5 million surplus.
In the past, Kaukauna’s agreement with the teachers union required the school district to purchase health insurance coverage from something called WEA Trust — a company created by the Wisconsin teachers union. “It was in the collective bargaining agreement that we could only negotiate with them,” says Arnoldussen. “Well, you know what happens when you can only negotiate with one vendor.” This year, WEA Trust told Kaukauna that it would face a significant increase in premiums.
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Scott Walker’s budget repair bill got a major boost yesterday when JoAnne Kloppenburg, a liberal attorney from Madison, conceded the state supreme court race to her conservative opponent, incumbent judge David Prosser.
If Kloppenburg had won the recount, the repair bill’s vitality would be in grave doubt. And if she had announced today her legal challenges to Prosser’s win would continue in the courts throughout this summer, the repair bill would be in limbo for a long time. Her announcement today that her challenges are at an end thus was welcome news to Walker supporters.
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