In an era of huge deficits and massive tax and fee increases...Dems still can't stop being Dems...but keep voting for them:
Here’s the full list of earmarks Assembly Democrats voted to plug into the state budget late Wednesday, with their sponsors:
* $700,000 for a biotech incubator, by Rep. John Steinbrink (D-Pleasant Prairie).
* $500,000 for 4-year-old kindergarten in Madison, by Rep. Kelda Helen Roys (D-Madison).
* $500,000 for road improvements in Sheboygan County, by Rep. Terry Van Akkeren (D-Sheboygan).
* Up to $400,000 for improvements on Highway B in Douglas County, by Rep. Nick Milroy (D-Superior).
* $300,000 for environmental cleanup efforts in Adams County, by Rep. Marlin Schneider (D-Wisconsin Rapids).
* $175,000 for improvements to Old Highway 18 in Stockton, by Rep. Louis Molepske Jr. (D-Stevens Point).
* $108,000 for the Plum Creek Fire Department, by Rep. Chris Danou (D-Trempealeau).
* $60,000 for Pepin schools, by Rep. Chris Danou (D-Trempealeau).
* $60,000 for Plum City schools, by Rep. Chris Danou (D-Trempealeau).
* $60,000 for Cochrane-Fountain City schools, by Rep. Chris Danou (D-Trempealeau).
* $50,000 for Barron County restorative justice program, by Rep. Mary Hubler (D-Rice Lake).
In other action, Assembly Democrats dropped a plan by the Joint Finance Committee to spend $28 million on a University of Wisconsin-Madison building for nursing. Rep. Spencer Black (D-Madison) sponsored removing that plan from the budget.
Also, Democrats approved studies recommended by Rep. Andy Jorgensen (D-Fort Atkinson) on creating a high-speed rail stop in Waterloo and finding ways to improve Lake Koshkonong.
Assembly Democrats also agreed to keep open the State Patrol headquarters in Spooner, as requested by Hubler. The trooper station in Tomah would also remain open but be merged with a Department of Natural Resources ranger station, as proposed by Rep. Mark Radcliffe (D-Black River Falls).
They also approved a plan by Molepske to allow UW-Stevens Point to create an undergraduate nursing program.
Assembly Democrats are expected to formally include all those measures when they meet Thursday to take up the budget. The debate and vote likely could stretch into Friday.
Thursday, June 11, 2009
What ya gonna do, when Democrats run wild with your money
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11 comments:
Wow! Biotech incubator, schools, road improvements, more road improvements, toxic cleanup, more road improvements, fire department, more schools, more schools, more schools, justice, high speed rail, state trooper station, ranger station, nursing program?
People working, people building, people learning, people helping other people? What a waste!
Why then doesn't all business stop what they're doing and donate all their money to the state so they can create more wealth? These programs seem worthy of everybody's 100% contribution.
Thanks for the absurd comment, Terry. No, there is a place for private business and a place for public spending. Infrastructure is in the public sector. Or do you want to go to the mall and buy a road? Do you want to fly to Disney World without FAA regulations and air traffic controllers?
I don’t know Jim; I’m guessing you have no actual experience when it comes to gov’t spending. Remember the old jingle – “anything you can do, I can do better, I can do anything better than you.” Of course you don’t.
Government does nothing better than the private sector. The few things they do competently are because they’ve had a monopoly, restricting private sector competition.
Building roads, teaching school children, training firefighters, building railways, cleaning up waste, and most especially biotech incubators.
Why is it that gov’t does nothing better without first creating a monopoly or skewing the playing ground? Because gov’t cares first and foremost about perpetuation instead of efficiency.
The fact that you don’t now this makes you a tool.
No Jim, there is no place for government spending, unless it’s for a constitutionally mandated item. Sure we can have gov’t regulators, to insure a certain level of efficiency, if that’s what they actually do.
Blamin', what a cynical curmudgeon you must be. I have seen "Annie Get Your Gun." Have you?
I have lots of experience with government spending. I use an amazing interstate highway system every day. I get water and sewer service. I got police cruising my neighborhood. I got jet planes flying over my house that don't run into each other. I got stop lights, street lights, city landscaping. I've got parks. I have a community college and a high school that educate my children.
I've got food that is clean and disease free. I have medications that are reasonably safe. I've got air that's a lot cleaner than it was 30 years ago. I've got mail coming 6 days a week for 44 cents a piece. I got a passport in 4 weeks from the US State Department.
I think you need to move somewhere where you won't be interfered with by government, grow your own food and sit around and be happy in your self reliance. Good luck.
I had to be absurd after reading your absurd comment Jim. First you have to create wealth, like adding value to raw materials and selling the end result for a profit. Then the Government can come along and mandate that you pay them a percentage so they can spend it on some of the things you wrote about. The problem is the Government gets too big, taxes too much and regulates the private sector to the point of having to find new real estate in order to survive. Wisconsin, like Michigan, is at that point.
But instead Wisconsin spent itself into a 5.7 Billion deficit after taxing it citizens higher than 41 other states, then decides to tax even more so it can continue to overspend. And lets not even go into the graft and waste.
So we're at the point where we need to do one of two things. Cut spending or watch the wealth that remains continue to leave the state. State Democrats have chosen the latter. Even when there's solid proof that lower taxes contribute to higher tax revenue.
"Even when there's solid proof that lower taxes contribute to higher tax revenue." Really? What proof? Cite it.
I think you need to move somewhere else. Our country is long past the point of only paying for defensive wars and nothing else.
I'll post a link but I won't wait around for you to tell me the source is not reliable, credible, accurate or whatever your bias chooses.
Here's one.
http://www.freedomworks.org/publications/tax-cut-revenue-rewards.
"We have now had three major experiments with tax rate reduction in the last half-century, and each time both economic growth and tax revenues have surged"
Note the use of the word surged.
My personal observation is higher taxed, and regulated, states show little growth. Lower taxed states, with less regulation, have been booming over the past 1/2 century. So much that the whole populations have migrated from the NE to the SW United States. Yes there are other factors, I don't think in absolutes like you write. I realize there are gray areas. The Bush tax cuts worked. His spending policies didn't.
I'm a few years from retirement. Since I can afford Wisconsin's absurdly high taxes I plan to stick around and watch the state democrats continue to drive away wealth. I don't like traffic jambs like the ones in lower taxed growing areas of the US.
5.7 Billion in the red and they still want to spend and regulate more. This is no way to run anything, from a household to a major corporation responsibly. But most liberals lack responsibility.
Jim, you completely (and purposefully?) missed the point of my post. That is - gov’t is inefficient in most everything it does.
When the GAO admits gov’t blows one-third of all monies it receives due to waste, fraud, mismanagement, and malfeasance, there’s a damn problem. Then gov’t takes the remaining two-thirds and spends it inefficiently, there’s a damn problem.
Any aware, alert, thinking person should have a problem with being forced to give money to such an entity without some reform, oversight, and most especially, accountability.
Jim,
Yes, these things sound and "feel" good to spend money on...if we had any money...that is the point...
we are spending ourselves into a disaster..
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