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March 05, 2008

Wednesday Update

Wisconsin Club for Growth  March 5, 2008 Volume 2, Number 10 The Wednesday Update  In This Issue 1. Making Health-     care Sick 2. Dirty Politics 3. Unions Vs.      Taxpapyers  4. Pork Make a Donation today! Keeping Free Marketers Current on the Issues   Thanks for your support of Wisconsin Club for Growth! We hope you enjoy the newsletter. Our goal is to be brief, informative and bit provocative. We welcome your feedback. Please feel free to contact us anytime by emailing staff@wicfg.com , or come visit us on the worldwide web. Wisconsin Club for Growth Website  Back to top Making Health Care Sick When it comes to fixing health care, the State Senate Democrats' cure is always worse than the disease. Last week, the Senate attempted to make health care more accessible by... making every health plan in the state more expensive by passing a bill to require every health plan in Wisconsin to cover autism services for children.  This type of coverage, as is the case for most procedures, is currently optional for health plans.  Parents needing autism services for their children either need to find a plan that covers these services or pay out of pocket. Certainly, making sure children with autism receive good care is a noble cause.  However, there are many medical conditions affecting children and adults that deserve insurance coverage.  The problem is that any time government steps in and mandates coverage, health care becomes more expensive for everyone in the state.  As a result, fewer people can afford coverage, which leads to higher uninsured rates.  And this directly contradicts the stated goal of any politician claiming to make health care more accessible. For some time, the State Senate has been laboring under the ridiculous notion that health care is going to get cheaper if they make it more expensive.  Once the Senate found out the state would be running a $652 million deficit in this biennium, they immediately began pushing a new $400 million tax on hospitals in the state, which, naturally, would be passed on to consumers.  And lest anyone forget, the Senate dropped a $15.2 billion tax increase into the state budget last year to pay for health care.  Their plan, dubbed "Healthy Wisconsin," did nothing to control health care costs, and could have cost thousands of workers their jobs as businesses fled the state.  So when you hear the State Senate Democrats talking about making health care more accessible, grab your wallet on hold on tight. Back to top Dirty Poltics State Senate Democrats seem bent on destroying businesses in the state in order to "save the environment."  Last year, State Senator Mark Miller introduced a bill that would require a reduction in greenhouse gases in Wisconsin to 1990 levels by the year 2012. When confronted with more realistic energy efficient solutions, Democrats have balked.  Earlier this session, Republicans introduced a bill that would repeal a 1983 ban on nuclear power plants.  Wisconsin already relies on nuclear power a great deal, and nuclear power is believed to be a much cleaner source of energy than coal. Yet Senate Majority Leader Russ Decker has objected to even giving that bill a hearing in the Senate, saying he doesn't see "a groundswell" for nuclear energy.  In fact, the Legislature has a process for gauging public support for certain legislation - it is called a public hearing.  Clearly, Decker doesn't want to hear what people have to say about cleaner energy sources that conflict with his big government regulatory agenda.  Instead, he's intent on regulating businesses out of existence to pacify his extremist environmental supporters. Back to top Milwaukee Unions Vs. Taxpayers  The mind-numbingly boring race for Milwaukee County Executive marched on this week, as incumbent Scott Walker and challenger Lena Taylor participated in several debates.  Taylor repeatedly expressed her desire to raise taxes on county residents and to extend the Miller Park sales tax to pay for local transit and housing programs.  Laughably Taylor says she'll look for inefficiencies in county government to pay for programs at the same time she criticizes Walker's proposals to utilize seasonal workers in county parks.  Taylor is heavily supported by the public employee unions who despise any plan to reduce the number of full time county workers. Taylor was among the 18 State Senators who voted to increase taxes in Wisconsin by over $18 billion last year, and Taylor refused to support a school choice funding plan that would have saved Milwaukee taxpayers more than $30 million.  The plan was opposed by the WEAC, the state teacher's union. Scott Walker, a former Republican state lawmaker, was swept into office in 2002 and easily re-elected in this heavily Democratic county because he stood up to wasteful spending proposals and thwarted the county board's efforts to increase taxes.  The former County Executive resigned and several board members were thrown out of office when they were caught swindling taxpayers to pad the pensions of county employees.  Milwaukee County will never recover financially from the pension grab that helped elect Scott Walker.  Now it appears that Lena Taylor wants to make matters even worse by increasing taxes and spending to satisfy her union supporters. Back to top Pork Last week, Governor Doyle announced a $4 million grant to the City of Superior for renovation projects in the Superior Harbor.  The announcement came at the same time city of Superior officials were in Madison for the "Superior Days" lobbying event.  In addressing the Superior delegation, Doyle said, "When you come to Superior Days you should always get something, and this is a big one." Thus, a new marker has been laid down by the Doyle administration: The amount of pork you are entitled to receive is directly proportional to the distance you travel to kiss his ring.  Then again, if the standard is "any time you come to Madison you should always get something," someone might want to tell the Virtual School parents, who Doyle has recently kicked dirt on.  They may need to drive a little further to earn the right for their kids to receive a good education.  And preferably bring more teacher union cash with them. Ironically Doyle is sending $4 million worth of fresh pork up north even as his administration prepares a budget repair bill to plug the $652 million hole he dug last year.   Back to top