Looking At the World of 2015

The year is less than a week old and much has already changed, but so much has remained the same. Politically, the U.S. Congress is now controlled by the GOP, with a greater majority in the House. The Senate now under Republican control doesn’t have a veto proof majority. However, I am excited by the change since I believe in the balance of power between the different branches of government. In the last Congress, the Senate stopped much of the potential legislation before it ever made it to the president’s desk and the veto pen. Now, we’ll see the mettle of the president as he brushes the dust off of his veto pen. Also, the GOP Congress will have to finally ‘come clean’ as to their true intent by the introduction and passage of their legislative agenda and not just be the “party of no”.

In Wisconsin, I am not looking forward to the next four years. The citizens of the state, from my liberal perspective, are entering a period of major regression. I am not afraid to say that I see our local government moving into the world of the ignorant, misinformed, reactive and dysfunctional conservative ideology. The citizens of this state have showed their lack of insight as to what it will mean once the GOP starts to enact their reactionary agenda.

1. Although, not actively supported by the governor, the legislature will ram down our throats a Right to Work law. As I’ve stated before; enacting RTW is “a day late and a dollar short”. Why is the Senate Majority Leader pushing a bill so hard? There isn’t any doubt in my mind that this has something to do with political payoffs. Those that will benefit from this legislation are the businesses who are staunchly opposed to organized labor. The GOP is particularly beholding to business campaign contributions. It really doesn’t make any sense to pass this legislation when only 5.5% of private labor is union organized and that is mostly the skilled trades and crafts.
2. Speaking of political payoffs, here comes the push to privatize education by further extending the voucher program throughout the state. From my view this is to move education from the sphere of the secular world to an alternative universe. Just as has been proven in areas of the American South, private education has allowed those who object to court ordered changes in public education, such as eliminating school prayer, etc., to be sidestepped under the guise of a private exempt education. What is now apparent is that proponents not only want to maneuver around federal and state rules, but they also want the rest of us to still pay for it. Since they are private institutions, we will have no say about how the money is spent and what is offered in the curriculum.
3. Speaking of curriculum, after agreement to “Common Core”, now they want to change that. It seems that if they stick to the “Common Core”, then their privatization of schools might suffer and “local control” becomes meaningless since the DPI will have a hand in implementing and maintaining Common Core. Tony Evers is not a real popular guy with the GOP legislators and governor who want to strip the agency of any real power. It all falls under the ideology of a continuing war on public education and teachers. If one looks closer at it, it is a war against professional educators and their implementing proven principles of education and learning, let alone curriculum content.
4. While we’re still on public institutions, the governor in his inaugural address broadly outlined several issues. He intends to make government smaller, more efficient and more accountable. These are some pretty broad nondescript goals. When of the ways he intends to do this is by consolidating agencies and staff. I can just imagine what this is going to look like. Favored programs and agencies will see expansion and the unfavored others will be given to closure, merger, reduction in size or out and out privatization. At this point it looks like the DOT and transportation funding is on the fast track to expansion as well as the investment in the Economic Development Corporation. Anything to do with social programs will be last on the list and the GOP government will look for ways to shift funding away and privatize to outside agencies.
5. Governor Walker is committed to changing the Public Employees Retirement Program. He and others in the GOP see the retirement program as an obsolete instrument in today’s economic climate. He wants to move to a system that is more like a 401(k) plan that is dominant in the private sector. There are a number of questions concerning this move. First, what is he going to propose doing with those who have worked for decades under the old system, is he going to make them switch? Secondly, what are the plans for the huge fund of around $90 billion? What I really think is going on is that he sees this as a way for the state to get out from paying a fixed contribution toward retirement and a variable benefit plan. Again this winds up like a privatization scheme. I would think he would like to also see a move to some other kind of health benefit package. If he and the GOP legislators are successful, they will be stripping away one of the last incentives for people to seek public employment. The net effect is a lower quality of public employee.
6. In times like these, how I would love to be a member of the Highway Builders Association. It would be so great to be able to cash in on the Walker’s ‘payoff program’. There is going to be so many projects and so much cash floating around, that there will be a road builder boom for at least another decade. When Walker referred to building infrastructure to attract and support business; that’s ‘Walker Speak’ for splurging on highways and highway upgrades. It doesn’t matter that highway revenues are falling short and these are now segregated for road building and maintenance, revenues will be generated through the bonding process. By doing this Walker will still be able to cut taxes and still dip into the state coffers, albeit in the future, to pay off the highway bonds. Walker and Company will be long gone by then, leaving future generations to clean up the mess. This is exactly the argument that Republicans have been criticizing Democrats of doing, from the Doyle Administration. Already, Walker is looking at a $1.8 billion budget deficit for this budget cycle, but he’ll solve the problem by cutting the size of government (sic).
7. One of the things that might provide a little balance to the oligarchy that the State of Wisconsin has become, is that the governor will be keeping his eye on the 2016 presidential nomination and race. He may be reluctant to show to much of his crazy right wing conservatism in fear of spoiling his chances for the presidency. I think this is precisely why he’s not gotten behind the push by Fitzgerald to pass Right To Work legislation. Walker is a wily enough politician to avoid some obvious pitfalls.
8. I used the term to describe our State as an oligarchy. I think, that it’s obvious to even the most casual observer, that we have given up a democratic form of government in favor of special interests and big business, calling the shots rather than the electorate. The only threat that remains to the special interests and big business is the individual voter. This is why there will be increased effort by the GOP to do whatever possible to limit eligible voters. They have pursued two main strategies to accomplish this. The first strategy is to severely restrict funding to the unions by essentially destroying public sector unions. This will be eventually followed by passing Right To Work legislation. The second strategy is to make voting much more difficult for lower income citizens and citizens of color. As the GOP has chipped away at campaign funding, they will make every effort to limit the voter pool that traditionally doesn’t vote Republican. They see this as an easier task than trying to convince these people to come into the GOP tent.

I hope you noticed that I didn’t play the “Chicken Little” card. The sky isn’t going to fall, but the state is not moving forward but definitely returning to the idealized mythological past. Once progressives regain a majority, it will take time, maybe decades, to undo the damage wrought by the conservative ideologues. At some point, people will get tired of picking up the left over crumbs that fall out of the greedy mouths of the rich and take back what has been stolen from them and exercise the only remedy to such destruction, the power of the unencumbered individual vote.