CLUB FOR GROWTH NEWSLETTERS

Home > Club for Growth Newsletters

January 13, 2010

The Wednesday Update

January 13, 2010  Volume 4, Number 2    IN THIS ISSUE: It's Not Nice to Fool (with) Mother Nature; Barrett Chokes on MPS Softballs

January 13, 2010 Vol 4, Number 2	Wednesday Update
In This Issue: 1. It's Not Nice to Fool     with Mother Nature 2. Barrett Chokes on MPS     Softballs 3. Cutting Spending Really     Works	It’s Not Nice to Fool (with) Mother Nature Some call it “The Gore Effect,” having seen so many of Al Gore’s lectures on global warming ambushed over the years by howling blizzards and bone-chilling cold. Last Wednesday the Gore Effect caught up Governor Jim Doyle who was forced to cancel the Milwaukee roll out of his climate control legislation because several inches of global warming were dumping, blowing and drifting across the state. No surprise, across the Northern Hemisphere last week snowfall and temperature records were falling faster than global warming poll numbers. Doyle's bill is pure fiction, starting with its title, the “Clean Energy Jobs Act.” The biggest “act” is the administration saying with a straight face that 15,000 “green jobs” will be created. The bogus economic analysis counts employment from new nuclear plant construction among those green jobs. Yet the language "easing" Wisconsin’s ban on nuclear plant construction is written in a way that guarantees the ban will remain in place, making both the reform and the jobs claim phony. Not much of the bill is real, except of course the big increase in fees tacked onto your utility bill. Disguised as energy conservation, it’s the key to a massive slush fund for wacky liberal policy and vote-buying schemes. Send three overripe lemons to the Wisconsin Business Council for endorsing this fraud, which the Wisconsin Policy Research Institute says will cost 43,093 jobs. No word on how many of those would have been green. Barrett Chokes on MPS Softballs A legislative hearing on the prospective mayoral takeover of Milwaukee’s public schools revealed a lot more than anyone probably intended. First, it revealed a Milwaukee Mayor thinking he might have a tiger by the tail and wishing there was some safe way to let go. Not likely. Observers at the hearing noted that Mayor Barrett booted his opportunity to hit some easy lob from GOP Senator Glenn Grothman. Grothman asked questions that invited Barrett to assert his leadership with specific answers about what he would do to shape up the district. Barrett ducked and weaved, avoiding straight answers. Perhaps the Mayor realizes he’s caught in a no-win position, with the teachers union on one side and the rest of his constituents on the other. Barrett and the man he hopes to succeed, Jim Doyle, have been whistling past the graveyard hoping the Wisconsin Education Association Council will stay out of the fight. Again, not likely.  Notably, the Racine teachers' union boss showed up to testify against the Milwaukee schools which has no effect on Racine. Leadership is not his strong-suit, but at least Barrett knows when it's not safe to swing at a softball. Cutting Spending Really Works In his State of the County message yesterday. Milwaukee County Executive Scott Walker announced that his 2010 budget would cut the County’s structural deficit by $200 million over the next four years. Contrast this with a state budget that’s been drenched in red ink throughout the decade and on track to get worse. In addition, Walker highlighted other achievements like reducing county debt by 10 percent and the county workforce by 20 percent since 2002. Milwaukee County even finished 2009 with a small budget surplus. Last year the county was able to implement a Pension Obligation Bond that will save taxpayers $237 million.  Meanwhile, a report prepared for the Wisconsin Policy Research Institute says the state’s next two-year budget will start out $2.2 billion in the hole with no chance of more federal “stimulus” money to bail it out. The report says $2.2 billion is in fact the amount of stimulus money that poured in to help balance Wisconsin’s 2009-11 budget. Wisconsin's next Governor won't win any popularity contests fixing a serious, long-term structural deficit, but Scott Walker looks to be the likeliest prospect to successfully approach the thankless task.