If Davis wanted Tommy!’s endorsement for his bid for Lieutenant Governor, he should have thought twice about introducing a bill to reverse a 13-year old statute that Tommy! created, along with Scott Walker and the Republican controlled legislature back in 1997.

And the RPW might have thought twice about throwing stones at a no-bid provision created by their most revered member to promote railroads in Wisconsin.

Yes, in fact it is Tommy!, Scott Walker and the rest of the GOP-controlled legislature who, in 1997, put into the state budget a loop-hole eliminating the need to collect bids for commuter train projects.

Contrary to RPW claims, it's Walker’s standing up for one of the RPW’s biggest campaign donors, that reeks of cronyism.

Tommy! has been a big Amtrak proponent after all, sitting on the national board and even getting a train named after him, and must have thought that loop-hole would give him the opportunity to expand commuter train in Wisconsin.

Tommy’s words in November 2001:

But America's railway system is not just a matter of history. America still needs a strong passenger rail system. Without it, we discourage economic growth in urban areas. Passenger rail - and specifically, high- speed rail - is important to the economic growth of our cities and our overall transportation system in a nation of nearly 300 million people.

In Wisconsin and in eight other states, work continues on the Midwest Regional Rail Initiative. In Wisconsin, the goal is to have high-speed service from Madison to Milwaukee by the end of 2003.

How disappointed Tommy! must be in Walker and Davis who are so crassly spurning his past efforts to bring high-speed rail to Wisconsin. Rather it's Doyle and Barrett acting on Tommy!'s vision for high-speed train service connecting Madison and Milwaukee.

Time for Tommy! to call out Davis for pandering and Walker and Luber for their lies.

During some downtime between creating super awesome and totally relevant Ayn Rand fanboy videos and posting them on Facebook, Paul Ryan managed to find time to offer up the latest GOP lead-balloon plan for propping up the rich and corporations while selling out the middle class. Ryan’s ‘Roadmap for America’ was brought to the forefront of the debate during the question and answer session between the President and House Republicans. The President even praised Ryan for offering a substantive idea, and though President Obama didn’t say so, I’m sure he was thankful to hear something from the Republicans that didn’t question his citizenship, attempt to incite racially-charged violence or contain a reference to teabagging. A breath of fresh air, if you will.

The failed conservative economic policies of giving endless tax breaks to corporations and the rich finally got a full-throated repudiation last night as voters in Oregon passed a tax increase on the wealthy and corporations to fill that state’s gaping budget hole.

Voters sick and tired of watching corporations get rich while state services and funding for public education are cut endlessly finally stood up and said ‘ENOUGH!’ Despite the typical crying and scare-tactics from corporate interests that somehow paying their fair share will “kill jobs,” Oregonians knew better. Many corporations in Oregon have skirted taxes for years, often paying the minimum tax allowed by Oregon law, ten bucks. Ten dollars – yeah cause that’s paying a fair share for the state services that corporations so willingly use.

Before criticizing Doyle for statewide job losses during a recession, Walker should pay attention to what's going on in his own backyard.

In 2009 Milwaukee County lost over 30,000 jobs -- with the unemployment rate jumping from 5.5% to 9.2% in just one year. (bls.gov)

And just what sort of "economic development" has Walker been up to as county executive? It's a legacy of mismanagement and shuffled responsibilities. And even budget deficits: "Milwaukee County economic develpment division has $3M deficit," Daily Reporter, 3/30/2007.

When Walker was elected exec he had two divisions under his supervision that managed economic development programs in the county -- the Department of Administrative Services (DAS) Economic & Community Development division (a merger of Economic Development and Housing & Community Development), and directly in the Executive Office was the Office of Community Business Development Partners (initially called Disadvantaged Business Development).

In his 2006 budget Walker moved the Office of Community Business Development Partners out of his office to the County Board after several years of reducing funding (in 2002 the program was funded at $680,454 and by 2005 Walker recommended funding of just $494,688).

After four years of recommending flat funding, Walker reduced funding for the DAS Economic & Community Dvlp department by $3 million (2007 budget), and then followed that up in his 2008 budget by stripping the program down to just real estate management and federal block grant distribution.

In his 2009 budget, introduced right in the midst of the 2008 financial collapse, the division was completely eliminated.

Walker reduced what had been $18-19 million each year in county spending on economic development (2002-2006), to just over $1 million in his proposed 2010 budget.

And so his grand 2010 effort to save face in light of the county's weak record on economic development: Milwaukee Works! A weak marketing ploy that probably had more to do with his gubernatorial campaign than with actually creating jobs in Milwaukee County.

Walker’s legacy of managing the Milwaukee County parks: mid-year budget deficits, pool closures, underfunding, complete and utter mismanagement by his appointed staff, and taking credit for a national award that was granted because of the efforts of a creative director and private citizens who took park maintenance into their own hands.

Walker’s often used strategy of making public infrastructure and services so terrible that the only option appears to be privatization is clearly on display once again.

Dan Cody writes here about the problems with the MJS story about the parks audit, and the underlying issue of needing a dedicated funding source.

These issues, however, could have been addressed by Walker long ago. He’s had eight years and eight budgets now with opportunity to clean up the problems. Instead there have been repeated mid-year budget crises, repeated layoffs and downsizing, increased fees, and reduced access through closures and repeated attempts to shut down various beloved community pools. All in an effort to further strip the parks budget. Walker’s leadership has been inconsistent at best, and downright destructive in his zeal to eliminate county jobs.

As is the tradition, a tour through the best and worst of the year.

The Best

The year started off on the high note that was watching the Worst President Ever leaving the White House for the last time, which brought with it another yearly best: the endless video compiliations of the worst Bush moments. YouTube never had it so good. 

Here in Wisconsin, decisive and effective action from Madison earlier this year is leading Wisconsin out of the worst of the Bush recession. Unemployment here has been dropping since June and is lower than the national rate, and despite the worst rhetoric from Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce bashing Wisconsin’s economy, business are opening and relocating here and bringing jobs to the state. 

For sheer entertainment value, President of Teabag-istan Sarah Palin’s descent into madness during 2009 is second to none. Remember when she quit being governor on July 4th weekend? What a patriot! Remember how she doesn’t even ride in that stupid bus on her stupid book tour? Or how she still demands to be called governor and requests English-only reporters? 

Combining two of her most juvenile and irritating hobbies, namely lying and facebooking, she launched the Lie of the Year: Death Panels. And at her no cameras, no cell phones, no media, no nothing event in Milwaukee for Wisconsin Right to Life on November 6, she floated another whopper, suggesting that President Obama and “teh libruls” conspired to move “In God We Trust” from the new dollar coin when in reality it was the previously mentioned Worst President Ever. 

News last week the unemployment rate nationwide is up over 10 percent for the first time since the Reagan administration. And of course, the Dow is back up over 10,000, because these days, when Wall Street gets rich, real Americans get screwed. Perhaps a different post for a different day.

As we’ve been told so many, unemployment is a lagging indicator, meaning job numbers will bounce back more slowly than other economic numbers. So even though President Obama’s policies have GDP on the rebound, officially ending the recession, it’s going to take some time for national unemployment increases to subside.

Here in Wisconsin however, unemployment has been dropping consistently since hitting 9.2 percent back in June.

The state’s largest business lobby, Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce, isn’t really interested in attracting businesses to our state or creating a positive business climate here. Its singular mission is to attach a massive vacuum to the purse of Wisconsin’s taxpayers and suck out as much cash as possible for corporate interests and the wealthy.

If WMC truly cared about bringing good paying jobs to Wisconsin, it wouldn’t constantly rail against the supposedly bad business climate in the state because it’s simply not true. The conservative Wisconsin Taxpayers Alliance spelled it out in plain English last week – according to an upcoming WISTAX report, Wisconsin ranks 24th for corporate taxes. One would think since WISTAX is so loaded with past and present WMC board members the two organizations would be able to get on the same message.

Fear-monger extraordinaire Todd Berry’s conservative talking points are once again proven wrong by, you know, reality. Berry claimed in September of this year the repeal of the Qualified Economic Offer (QEO) in the state budget could lead to disaster -- teacher’s salaries could explode out of control[!!!] bankrupting school districts and leading to MASSIVE CUTS and OHMYGOD HUGE TAX INCREASES!!!!

Of course, Berry and WISTAX’s opposition to lifting the arbitrary cap on teacher’s salary aligns perfectly with the conservative agenda in Wisconsin that wants to take money out of public schools and choke off public school teachers at any opportunity.

Then last week, in the first major post-QEO negotiation, the Madison teachers union, Madison Teachers Inc., voted in favor of a new contract that raised salaries by whopping 1 percent. What a rapid acceleration! The total compensation increase (including benefits) in the MTI contract is 4%. The average increase in total compensation under the QEO? 3.8%.

A study by the Institute for Wisconsin’s Future about the Mercury Marine debacle that unfolded earlier this summer reveals the true nature of the corporate greed that’s taken over our economy, turned the free market on its head and is destroying working families, all for the sake of padding the pockets of the those at the very top.

Since 2005, IWF reports, Merc’s parent company Brunswick has shed over 5,300 and those that were lucky enough to keep their jobs were forced to take massive pay and benefit cuts. This summer, Merc threatened to leave Fond du Lac unless the union accepted a ridiculous seven-year pay freeze and other massive cuts. Like one union rep said, corporate basically gave workers two choices: vote against the concessions and lose everything (cut off your head) or vote for the concessions and at least have something (cut off your leg). At least if you cut off your leg, you still have a chance to walk someday.

Shares in the company dropped 70% and even management claimed Brunswick corporate screwed them -- in September, 100 Merc managers filed suit against Brunswick when the company refused to pay promised bonuses for management efforts to cut costs. The bonus program promised to pay out bonuses of 10% of whatever savings were realized, but when the time came to pay out the $7 million, corporate refused.

But guess who’s done really well since 2005? Brunswick CEO Dustan McCoy! Since he took over in 2005, right as Brunswick started shedding jobs and losing money, McCoy has taken over $10 million EVERY YEAR. Five senior board members also received an average of $506,000 each year. So while they drive the company into the ground, these fat cats are grabbing as much cash as they can get their hands on. Sick.

A must-read release from CBTU:

The Coalition of Black Trade Unions (CBTU) are outraged by County Executive Scott Walker's budget he has submitted to the County Board .  He is proposing the elimination of hundreds of family-supporting county jobs.  The vast majority of those jobs are in the lowest wage classifications -- Housekeeping and Custodial positions at the Behavioral Health Division and the Court House and other county facilities, and Security positions at the Court House.  The workers targeted are overwhelming people of color.

These positions are paid $12.00 to $15.00 per hour.  Walker is proposing to privatize these jobs, so the incumbents will have to train their replacements or accept employment with the private vendor at a fraction of their current wages, with no health insurance, pensions, or other fringe benefits.