Rainy Days and Crappy State Budgets Always Get Me Down

The absurdity of what passes for a state budget in Wisconsin is really getting to me. I don't think I'll ever be able to eat another bite of kringle again, as the pastry now symbolizes the fat toxins in this horrendous budget.

In his speech about why he was voting against it, State Sen. Dale Schultz (R-Richland Center) said this about the budget: "Maybe the kringle or the cream puff should be designated the state pastry. But it doesn't belong in the state budget." Neither did all the other non-fiscal stuff Schultz's fellow Republicans included.

From Rebecca Kemble, in the Progressive Magazine:

Joint Finance Committee co-chair state representative John Nygren said he was proud of his colleagues on the committee and of the budget process he and co-chair state senator Alberta Darling oversaw. Under their direction the Republican-stacked committee added nearly 100 non-fiscal policy items, many of which were introduced in the middle of the night on the last day of the body’s deliberations. ...

The seeds of big money and special interest influence planted in the 2010 elections are now bearing fruit. Last year Scott Fitzgerald said, "If you think this budget was scary, wait until the next one!" The "next one" just passed, and it has made the struggle of public school defenders, health care advocates, environmental conservationists and anyone who still believes in the concept of public goods and public investment to maintain a basic level of public services exceedingly more difficult. [Emphasis added!]

How long will it be before the citizens of Wisconsin realize what having twice elected the "goggle-eyed homunculus hired by Koch Industries to manage their midwest subsidiary formerly known as the state of Wisconsin" hath wrought? That they and their neighbors are becoming increasingly impoverished? That their public schools no longer have the resources needed to provide their children with a good education and that the private voucher schools that siphon funds away from public schools do even worse? That our natural resources are being decimated and state properties are being sold out from under us? That we're paying more for fewer Wisconsinites to be covered by medical insurance?

Charles Uphoff, who fasted this week to express his deep concern about what this budget would do to education in the state, spotted one of its most bitter ironies:

Many legislators fail to see the irony in a budget that tells a family of four earning $24,000 that they are too wealthy to qualify for medical assistance through Badger Care while a family of four earning $77,000 can get pubic assistance with the cost of sending their children to a private religious voucher school.

It's just as Assembly Minority Leader Peter Barca exclaimed, "Mr. Speaker, you and your colleagues are putting extremism before logic."

If it weren't for my singing activist community, I think I would go completely 'round the twist. My deepest gratitude to my friend Ryan Wherley and all the rest for relentlessly singing truth to power. Notice the verse Ryan added: "We shall have a voice, we shall have a voice, we shall have a voice someday...."



Today, we mourn—and sing. Tomorrow we get busy (and keep singing). The goggle-eyed homunculus is not invincible, and neither are his minions in the legislature.

Nobody Important ... Just a Protester

Special guest post by Ryan Wherley
After my job interview Thursday, I decided to walk over to the Capitol to catch the tail-end of the JFC hearing and see how many layers of shit they were spreading across the state. I had an actual suit and tie on so I figured it would be a good opportunity to hob knob with my sleazy, school "choice" lobbyist brethren. The hearing was just clearing out as I reached the 4th floor and saw Republican Senator Luther Olsen approaching.

Photo courtesy of Lisa Wells

Olsen has been an outspoken opponent of Scott Walker's budgetary plan to expand unaccountable, public school-defunding, private school vouchers throughout the state. Currently, the legislature and school "choice" lobbyists are attempting to hammer out an absurd compromise that would expand the voucher program to EVERY school district in the state in exchange for a woefully insufficient increase in public school funding.

The final result of this critically important issue remains yet-to-be decided in the JFC. So as Olsen passed by, I said, “Stand firm on school vouchers, Senator Olsen." He turned and must've asked who said that, because one of his staffers muttered something and then clearly said, "It's nobody important...just a protester." They all turned away and kept walking.

This is the disdain with which the entire bunch of Republican lap dogs and their staffers view the general public. I am NOT a fucking “protester." Do I protest the brazenly jaw dropping injustices that are being thrust upon our state on a daily basis? Absolutely, and I couldn't live with myself if I didn't. I am a citizen of Wisconsin, just like Sen. Olsen and the woman who made the condescendingly dismissive remark, and an extremely concerned one at that. I wasn't protesting anything at the time. In fact, I was giving him encouragement for his first contentious stance in the last 3 years that I can agree with, which just so happens to relate to something I care deeply about: public education.

Photo courtesy of Susan Cohen

However, I am a citizen who cares enough and has the time allowing me to actually show up to actively observe and participate in the process. Also, I'm a citizen who is stereotyped easily enough to be labeled an opponent of the ALEC agenda being rammed through our state by politicians like Olsen. Thus, I should be ignored and anything I say should be discounted as without merit, regardless of the message.

These are public officials elected to serve all the people of our state and act in the public good. His staffer is also a public servant paid with public tax dollars to which I contribute. Yet even when the only thing I have ever said to this man was encouraging him not to waver on standing up for the people of the state instead of the corporate privatizers for once, I am too insignificant for them to respond.

The reality is no surprise at this point but this exchange was indicative of the tenor of daily life in Fitzwalkerstan. In their eyes, I'm not a citizen, merely an unimportant “protester" because I am one of the many who continue to bear witness first-hand to the rise of fascism under Scott Walker's rule. That is their view of anyone who disagrees with the desecration of Wisconsin, even on the miraculous occasion when we agree on an issue. All the suits in the world won't change that.