Try to follow along as Scott Walker, Fred Luber (MacIver Institute Chair, Super Steel Chair, and Scott Walker Campaign Finance Co-Chair), and right-wing leaders play politics with job creation. Let’s watch.

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Scott Walker's blast at Tom Barrett and Jim Doyle over the award of a train contract that is bringing jobs to Milwaukee is hysterical in
both senses of the word.

Walker's way-over-the-top news release, accusing Barrett and Doyle of everything short of racketeering, sounds like Walker may be hysterical, if not rabid.

It's also hysterical in the sense that it's laughable. The more you read, and the more you find out the facts, the funnier it gets.

Walker's beef is that a Spanish train company has decided to build its cars at the former A.O. Smith yard instead of at Super Steel, a Milwaukee firm owned by one of Walker's sugar daddies, Fred Luber, a major donor who was his finance co-chair when he ran for governor in 2006.

Walker fulminates about Doyle giving the Spanish company, Talgo, a no-bid contract, about Barrett using tax money to offer incentives for the company to come to Milwaukee, and on and on.

A couple of thoughts:

First, Barrett is the mayor of Milwaukee, and his job is to try to bring jobs and economic development to the city. Walker and Luber Walker complain about

Barrett’s use of taxpayer funds from the office of Milwaukee City Development to unfairly compete against Super Steel as well as proposed sites in Appleton, Janesville, and Racine in an apparent effort to boost his image in the race for Governor.

Or in an apparent effort to do his job. City development funds are intended to bring jobs to Milwaukee, not Appleton or Janesville or Racine. If you're governor, that's a different story. Wonder how many jobs Walker has brought to Racine or Janesville, since he has brought precious few to Milwaukee County in the last 8 years.

Walker says Super Steel got dissed in the process, but Barrett actually signed an appeal to Talgo asking the company to use the Super Steel facility.

Walker also blasts Doyle for using a no-bid contract with Talgo for the trains, but that has been the law since 1997, when it was changed to exempt passenger rail purchases from the state’s competitive bidding rules.

Let's see, was Jim Doyle the governor in 1997? No, it was a guy named Tommy Thompson. Fred Luber was a major Thompson fundraiser and donor.

There's more, but it seems like overkill.

How desperate is the Walker campaign -- and how inept?

UPDATE: Walker voted for the no-bid law he's attacking.

The employment outlook for Milwaukee County snowplow drivers? Like many other Milwaukee County employees, layoffs. Fully half of all the drivers in the county could be laid off in the next year unless the County comes up with more money. Milwaukee County might have enough funding to get through this winter, but next summer and winter are already looking like rough roads ahead. mmmmmm. Potholes.

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Imagine just for a moment that you live in a state where traffic congestion is significantly reduced, your environmental footprint becomes smaller each day and travel time to other states is more of a commute than a trip.  This can all become possible if a high speed passenger rail system is introduced to the United States.  Nearly every fully industrialized country around the world has a high speed rail system, including Japan, France, China and even South Korea.  Although the United States is behind compared to the rest of the world on this project, elected officials in states like Wisconsin are leading the push to receive federal stimulus funding to begin construction and should be congratulated.  Senators Kohl and Feingold have already asked for a large chunk of the $8 billion set aside in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act to begin this shovel-ready project.    Read More »

From Milwaukee County First, of which I am the Chair:

For many years, riders of the Milwaukee County Transit System has seen its routes get cut and the fares go up, as less and less money is available for it. Once a standard for the nation, it has been in steady decline. This year, it has been recommended by the current administration, contrary to all advice, to again slash routes by up to 40% and raise fares by charging a quarter for each transfer. This will have a devastating effect on the local economy, not just of Milwaukee County, but for the entire southeast region of Wisconsin.

Likewise, the Milwaukee County Parks System has seen cuts for each of the past 27 years. This year will be no different, except that it appears that the parks will suffer the most severe cuts yet. Some of the options being considered by the current administration is closing ALL of the outdoor swimming pools, closing both community centers, and cutting maintenance at the senior centers.

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Eight hundred miles away in our nation’s capital, someone’s looking to stimulate Milwaukee County’s economy as County Executive Scott Walker chooses not to. Yesterday, U.S. Dept. of Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood announced Recovery Act funds in the amount of $27.4 million to pay for Wisconsin transit improvements, most of which are heading to Milwaukee County.   Read More »

A story in the Journal Sentinel this morning might as well been a press release from the garbage lobby: “Plan would make Wisconsin's garbage fees highest in nation, group says.” Wow, that’s quite a claim! I wonder who this group is and why they care about Wisconsin?   Read More »

Judge for yourself.

http://www.onewisconsinnow.org/GOPbudget

By all accounts it's still a big, fat nothing from the state Republicans on how to solve the massive budget deficit the eight years of failed George W. Bush policies have levied on Wisconsin and nearly every state in the nation.

One Wisconsin Now sent our OWNews reporter Cody Oliphant to the state Capitol in the hopes of finding answers from GOP leaders.

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Governor Doyle's proposal to increase taxes on oil companies has triggered a wave of the predictable right-wing, pro-business histrionics that we've grown so accustomed to over the last few months. The Wisconsin State Journal has even gotten in on the act, berating the plan as "the wrong choice" for Wisconsin. Really? The wrong choice for Wisconsin?

Are you bleeping kidding me?

Less than one year ago, Americans were paying $4 a gallon at the pump. Oil prices were at a record high of $150 per barrel, and the economy was slowly sliding into a recession. In short, things were bad.

Unless, that is, you were an oil company. Then, you were reaping the benefits of an illegal occupation of Iraq and the subsequent - and equally illegitimate - privatization of that country's oil. At the same time, you were charging Americans an arm and a leg for a resource upon which millions depend. And things were good. Things were very, very good.

$45.2 billion. That was ExxonMobil's profit for 2008. It is also the largest corporate profit ever. In other words, no company has ever made more money in one year. EVER.

Yet this year, the poor old oil companies are facing their lowest profits in almost a decade. If you listened to the State Journal, you'd think these were upstanding, commendable corporations, perhaps even ones in need of a bailout in these direst of times. But once again, people, these companies have been making money hand over fist for the past decade. At the risk of repeating myself, ExxonMobil made more money in 2008 than any company in history. If you had the faintest inkling of common sense, you'd realize that Doyle's tax is the right thing to do.

With such a tax in place, Wisconsin would gain $270 million per year to finance infrastructural growth and repair, in the process creating jobs for the rapidly growing number of unemployed. Perhaps the money could even be used to promote a new green economy, thus reducing our self-destructive reliance on foreign oil and mitigating the suffocating influence of big oil.

The fact is, it's time the oil companies made amends for their egregious political, environmental, and economic offenses of the last ten years. So Mr. Governor, you have my blessing. Ignore the State Journal's nonsense, and make these bastards pay. Their corporations have emptied our pocketbooks, polluted our environment, and destroyed our credibility abroad. It's about time they give something back.

One Wisconsin supporters! Please take a moment to take action for a budget that is supportive of immigrants in Wisconsin. Follow the link to change.org where you can automatically send letters to your state representatives asking them to do two important things.

1) Support a budget provision that would allow undocumented immigrant students who have graduated from WI high schools the opportunity to attend wi colleges at in state tuition rates.

2) Create a budget provision that would allow for undocumented immigrants to get a driver's certificate which would allow them to legally drive in Wisconsin. A licensed driver is a safer driver and we need safe roads in WI!

You can take action here:

http://www.change.org/ideas/932/view_action/support_immigrant_communities_in_wisconsin_state_budget

In the Thursday morning report, WisPolitics ran a piece on a study from the California-based Reason Foundation that called the benefits of the Kenosha-Racine-Milwaukee commuter rail line as “not credible.”

One might ask, what is this Reason Foundation? Who’s behind the curtain, pulling the strings? And why exactly do WE care? We live here after all. They’re in California. What do they have to say that could add anything to a debate here in Wisconsin?

Well, a quick visit to the Reason Foundation website sure reveals a lot. First, like many conservo-mouthpieces, they breathlessly espouse the value of Friedman’s unrestrained free market. And according to the website, they support the “rule of law,” whatever that means. Pretty clear where these guys are coming from. Government? Bad. Unfettered capitalism gone wild, no matter what the human cost? A-OK.

But that’s just scratching the surface. Digging a little deeper, we find the true impetus behind the Reason Foundation’s attack on commuter rail: they’ve got oil on their brains and in their veins.

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On Monday morning the Southeastern Wisconsin Regional Transit Authority (RTA) voted for a stable, sufficient and dedicated local funding source for local transit including the KRM Commuter Rail. By a vote of 6 to 1, the RTA approved a report that includes seeking a half percent increase in the sales tax in the three county region (Milwaukee, Racine, and Kenosha). Naturally, Milwaukee County Executive Scott Walker’s appointee to the RTA was the lone vote against progress. Even the appointee of his Republican counterpart in Racine voted in favor of the plan. After today’s supermajority vote it will now go to the Governor and the legislature. Now is the time for people to encourage their public officials to fully support this important investment in our infrastructure.

A new poll shows that there is strong support among the general population in the three-county region for raising the local sales tax to fund and expand public transit and to remove it from the property tax. This poll comes on the heels of Milwaukee County voters passing a referendum to modestly raise sales tax to remove transit, parks and others important services from the property tax. The same poll revealed that a full 82 percent say that it is important for the greater Milwaukee region to have a modern efficient transportation system. They further agreed that such a system would be essential to the economic growth of the region.

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Ever since Wisconsin voted to enshrine discrimination against gay families in its constitution, conservatives usually respond to the subject with the  same mantra, “the people have spoken.” So it seems odd that many of those very same conservatives have conveniently forgotten that line of reasoning concerning the many progressive referendums that passed all over the state on Tuesday.

City of Milwaukee voters overwhelmingly approved a requirement that employers provide paid sick days to all workers. The paid sick day referendum was passed with a whopping 68 percent of the vote. Can someone on the right say mandate? Instead, we can expect to hear only complaints and insults from the right about voters in the state’s largest city. Many of them will likely support the protracted legal battle that is being promised by the business elites in Milwaukee. Even though such a massive majority of the people have spoken, conservatives appear content in ignoring their voices and burning tax dollars on needless lawsuits.

Health care reform has long been a top issue in our state and across the nation. In 2006, many communities across the state passed referendums calling on the state legislature to act on the issue. At that time, I contended that the call for health care reform very well could have been a major issue in flipping control in the state senate. Once again, on November 4, many people voted on similar referendums all across the state again.

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John McCain has described "Buy American" provisions as "ludicrous" [Congressional Record, 10/7/05] and has even gone so far as to sponsor and pass amendments to waive them.

On Tuesday, the same day Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett held a press conference at the Milwaukee Building and Construction Trades Council, Steelworkers leafleted USW worksites across the state to spread the word about John McCain's opposition to buying American-made motorcycles like Harley-Davidsons.

CLICK HERE to WATCH Steelworker Greg Hinds talk about John McCain's OPPOSITION to buying American-made motorcycles

From the legislator who brought the great state of Wisconsin a plan to arm teachers with guns in an effort to curb school violence (you all remember his hilarious appearance on the Daily Show about 2 years ago…), comes another idea worthy of all kinds of jokes and ridicule – lifting a ban on drilling for oil in the Great Lakes.    Read More »

Whither public transportation in Milwaukee County?

Will Scott Walker succeed in his quest to eliminate it and make everyone drive a car?

Bill Sell, a transit advocate from Bay View, adds to the conversation with a new blog, Socrates Children, which features two thoughtful "On the Bus" posts for starters.

A sample:

Confession of a Milwaukee party animal out on the town: Swept off my feet, ensnared in its delights, I have fallen asleep in the arms of the #15 bus.

Read it here.

Hat tip: Political Environment.

The resident's of the A.O. Smith/Tower Automotive neighborhood and everyone who feels personally connected to the site have decided it is time they build a united front for change in their neighborhood. They are researching Community Advisory Board models around the country with the hopes of creating their own board here in Milwaukee. The board will not be a 501c3, will be autonomous from any funding strings and will speak directly to the needs and the political concerns of the residents.

Residents who are interested in helping this effort should attend the next neighborhood meeting on May 10th, 2008 at the Center Street Library. (27th and Fond du Lac) at 10:15 AM.

This meeting is open to anyone who cares about what is happening in our city and believes that residents should have the opportunity to compete for the jobs our money creates!