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June 9, 2010
Volume 4, Number 23
In This Issue:
1) K.O. KRM?
2) The Advocate
3) Uh Oh, Canada
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K.O. KRM?
 Taxpayers worried about being on the hook for three rail projects in southeast Wisconsin may have a ray of hope. One project, the proposed Kenosha-Racine-Milwaukee (KRM) commuter line, is spiraling downward.
Last week Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett backed away from the plan, so now, conspicuously and embarrassingly, it lacks the support of the Milwaukee mayor, the Milwaukee County Board Chairman, the Milwaukee County Executive and the Racine County Executive. Talk about celebrating diversity.
But fundamentally more important is whether KRM has the support of the general public that would pony up, presumably through a special sales tax, to pay for it. And the good news is that question will be answered.
The Racine County Board has already voted to place an advisory referendum on the November ballot and the Kenosha County Board is likely to follow suit next month. Prospects for a Kenosha referendum are strong because KRM supporters say they won’t oppose putting the measure on the ballot.
Kenosha Supervisor Erin Decker, a KRM opponent elected to the board this spring, crafted referendum language mirroring the Racine question, asking whether “any new tax to support transit or rail services, such as a sales tax or local vehicle registration fee, be permitted in any part of Kenosha County.”
That would seem to cover it. And Decker would presumably be confident of the answer, having told the Kenosha News during her campaign for the board, she said “not a single one of the people I talked to was in favor of [KRM].”
Of course the Southeastern Regional Transit Authority favors it: They recently submitted an application for federal help without a funding mechanism to hold up their own end of the deal. It’s hoped the feds won’t take this desperate maneuver seriously, and that the voters will administer a knockout punch this fall.
The Advocate
 In a sick sort of way, you have to credit legislative Democrats for keeping their eyes on the ball. Some of them laughed at a proposal introduced in January, to hit up utility ratepayers for a $300,000 annual subsidy to keep the Citizens Utility Board (CUB) afloat. But when the roll was called, 75 of the 76 Democrats in the two houses lined up to pick your pocket on behalf of the environmental group that masquerades as a consumer watchdog.
The Public Service Commission (PSC) has long administered a fund for “intervener compensation,” theoretically to make sure enlightening –and presumably contrary—viewpoints are represented in regulatory proceedings. The PSC assesses regulated utilities to pay for this, and of course utilities recover those costs, along with costs they incur presenting their own views. So hapless consumers are forced to fund both sides of the debate.
Now CUB adds insult to injury by getting a subsidy all its own, not to cover the cost of presenting expert testimony as is customary with intervener funding, but “for the purpose of offsetting the general expenses of the corporation, including salary, benefit, rent, and utility expenses.”
With the exception of one rural Democrat in the Assembly, this naked crony payoff advanced on a straight party-line vote. Governor Doyle signed it into law on May 18th.
CUB is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Public Service Commission. Don’t expect them to stick their necks out when the PSC signs off on rate increases so your electric company can meet the extortion demands of left wing environmental groups.
Uh Oh, Canada
 Thank heaven for good neighbors. Our friends in Canada are talking seriously about the unsustainable costs and unconscionable choices forced by their government-controlled, health care system. It couldn’t have come at a more timely moment to inform U.S. voters and give them a chance to lock House and Senate candidates into a commitment to repeal ObamaCare.
The Heritage Foundation reported a new study showed subsidies to workers who lose employer-sponsored health coverage would cost $1.4 trillion instead of the advertised $450 billion. It’s a cinch that will happen, Heritage says, because employers who drop coverage and pay the fine for doing so will actually save money.
Anybody who thinks the Obama administration hasn’t done the same arithmetic is playing checkers, not the Obama version of political chess. The whole point of the exercise is to pull more people into the government coverage pool so they will be afraid not to go along with whatever the government wants.
Meanwhile, Canadian provinces are enacting new health care taxes to cover shortfalls, instituting treatment on a fee-for-service basis, experimenting with private-pay for certain optional but decidedly life-enhancing procedures, and talking about all manner of strategies to control the “soaring costs.”
"We can't continually see health spending growing above and beyond the growth rate in the economy because, at some point, it means crowding out of all the other government services,” said a senior economist at a Toronto bank.
Take the pledge to only vote for candidates who support repealing Obamacare!
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