In This Issue:
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1. Traveling Man
2. Anarchy in Dairyland
3. Spare the Veto
4. Climate Change Hooey
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Traveling Man
Wisconsin Club for Growth has previously detailed the extravagant travel habits of Governor Doyle and his top advisers, along with the Governor’s propensity to flee the country on trade missions whenever the going gets tough.
Not only were these “trade missions” a complete waste of time, it also appears that Doyle's accounting of his expenses has been wildly deficient.
According to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:
Gov. Jim Doyle and his staff failed to properly account for 145 travel expenses over two years, including a $5,200 business-class flight to Ireland and a $654-a-night stay in a London hotel.
Nearly three-fourths of the time in 2007 and 2008, Doyle and his staff didn't supply receipts as required under state travel policy. By comparison, Lt. Gov. Barbara Lawton and her staff didn't provide receipts one-third of the time during the same period.
Travel records also showed Doyle spent more than $1,500 on two chauffeured vehicles in Canada.
At the same time our jet set Governor was sampling beer in Ireland and test riding trains in Spain, he was lamenting the state’s dire fiscal condition and whining about all the tough choices and deep cuts in state spending he’s made.
Yet where his own comfort and convenience were concerned, Governor Doyle spared no expense:
Among expenses that weren't properly documented was a business-class ticket to Ireland for Doyle in April 2008 that cost $5,226 round trip. An accompanying coach-class ticket for Goodwin cost $830. They made the trip to Ireland and England to meet with the head of SABMiller about the merger of Miller Brewing and Coors and to discuss policy issues with government officials.
There was no mention of the Miller Coors meeting as rationale for the trip last year. Only now that the Governor’s expenses have been called into question is his legal counsel using the meeting to justify the added expense:
"We can't afford to have the governor sick," Miller Fienen said. "We have to make sure that the governor arrives able to do his job, able to participate fully and we have to protect the Governor's health."
Doyle and his aides continue to illustrate a total disregard for hardworking families who are about to pay another $3 billion in taxes to support the Governor’s spending habits.
So when you hear Governor Doyle say we all need to sacrifice in order to balance the state budget, he’s saying “we” but he means “you.”
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Anarchy in Dairyland
Sometimes the irony is just too rich.
The Wisconsin Government Accountability Board (GAB), an incompetent state agency charged with administering state elections, is sporting a new logo that’s almost identical to the symbol for “Anarchy.” The GAB paid a Madison graphic artist $4,900 for the design which is a bargain compared to the $250,000 the Wisconsin Department of Tourism paid for the slogan they ripped off from Bacardi Rum.
This is the same GAB that spent $2 million to develop a failed online campaign finance reporting system, and $22 million on a voter registration file riddled with errors and non-existent voters.
The roll out of the new logo came at the same time the GAB fined a liberal activist group, Keep Our North Strong PAC, just $500 for running independent ads against a GOP candidate prior to filing the required paperwork. The affidavit, which was to be notarized and received by the GAB prior to airing the ads, was not filed until days after Republicans contacted the GAB to request a copy.
The PAC used $76,000 which was transferred from State Senator Roger Breske’s campaign to help Democrat Jim Holperin in the race to fill Breske’s vacant seat. Holperin won the election by less than 2000 votes.
The $500 fine is an insult, and less money than it would have cost the PAC to hire an attorney to do the job right in the first place. Given this slap on the wrist, one wonders if the new anarchy symbol is a harbinger of things to come.
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Choking on Food Assistance
Seizing an opportunity to make a political rival look bad, the Doyle Administration swooped into Milwaukee County in February to stage a take-over of the county’s food assistance call center. It appears the plan may have backfired.
The Doyle Administration is doing a dreadful job running the program. For starters, they changed the center’s phone number but failed to inform the program clientele about the change. According to Patrick McIlheran at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:
The problem, says Sherrie Tussler, who leads the Milwaukee food-for-the-poor charity Hunger Task Force, is that the state has done a wretched job of letting anyone know the new number. How bad? “They don’t want the customers to call." she concluded last week.
That’s not the kind of free publicity team Doyle was angling for as evidenced by these email correspondences between high level officials at the Wisconsin Department of Health Services (DHS) and a reporter for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. The emails raise serious questions about the ethical conduct of the reporter, and the true intentions of the Doyle Administration.
In a series of emails beginning on January 31, 2009, officials at the Department of Health Services discussed plans to take over the Milwaukee County call center following a Milwaukee Journal Sentinel story by reporter Steve Schultze. The story highlighted problems with call center operations which hindered delivery of food stamp assistance and medical benefit services. On Saturday January 31st, Rhea Holmes, Executive Assistant to Secretary Karen Timberlake sent an email to Timberlake and Deputy Secretary Mark Thomas regarding the article. Holmes message read: “No mention of Walker letter. Foreshadows our plans. Unfortunately no human story.”
On February 2nd, DHS Communications Director Seth Boeffli forwarded an email exchange between himself and Schulze to Timberlake, Holmes and Thomas. In the exchange, Reporter Steve Schulze provided Boeffli with a letter from Walker requesting state assistance for the call center operation and Schulze asked Boeffli if his agency would move up their announcement of the call center take over, presumably to preempt Walker’s request. Boeffli responded by telling Schulze that DHS could not announce their takeover plans until after they met with members of the Milwaukee County board the following day.
Schulze posted his article titled, “Walker: Smells like Politics” at 6:58 pm on February 3, 2009, following the DHS meeting with Milwaukee County Board members.
Boeffli resumed emailing with Schulze and Agency Executives on February 6th regarding Walker’s complaint that DHS failed to give him notice of their plan to announce a state takeover of the call center. The email string discussed ways to make it look as though Walker had been properly notified by DHS even though they lacked the “paper trail” (as requested by Schulze) to prove it.
Good thing we have the media to serve as a watchdog on government.
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Arranged Marriage
Anytime the UW-Madison delves into politics, conservatives are best advised to cover their ears. But in the case of the recent state budget, the UW may have it just right.
The state budget signed by Governor Doyle allows UW employees to unionize and gives an appointed state panel the power to assign staff to specific unions without their consent. In an effort to beef up public employee unions, the Governor Doyle and the Democratic legislature may force employees to unionize against their will.
This plan doesn't sit well with the UW System's spokesperson:
"This is not the right they fought for," said David Giroux, spokesman for the System. "Already we’ve begun hearing from academic staff members who are really concerned."
There appears to be some disagreement about the meaning of Governor Doyle's veto of one provision of the new law, and whether it actually allows academic staff to be reassigned without their will – as the UW System believes it will.
Undoubtedly this matter will be settled in an expensive court battle because Doyle failed to veto the provision in its entirety.
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