What are the priorities of the Walker administration? Balance the budget? Maybe. Create jobs? Let's hope so. Improve the reputation of the state with business? Likely. These were all issues that were central to his campaign. So why so much opposition to what Walker has stated he wants to do? What was missing is the "how". How would all of these goals be achieved? Now that the vague campaign speeches are long part of history, we know that the "how" of achieving these goals under Walker could never have been a part of his campaign speechs. He needed to cloak his methods in order to get elected. In addition, there are a whole host of new priorities that cropped up once they gained all the majorities in the legislature. In so many aspects of life, it isn't really the "what" that bothers people, it's the "how".
A graphic representation of how to understand the Walker priorities
Most of us realize you can't make a real assessment of a politician simply based upon what is said during a campaign. You have to dig deeper than the superficial media stories and ads. Had that been the case with Scott Walker we might have been able to predict more accurately how he intended to make the changes that have come down in Wisconsin. Contrived folksy appeal to the citizenry (see Rick Perry's speech in Iowa with straw bales, or Walker's Saturn and brown bag lunches) showing that they are just like one of us is so phony I can hardly believe anyone buys it. Given this and so much more, I feel it is safe to say that we are in an entirely different place than most voters believed we would be based upon what they were told by the media and Walker's campaign ads.
Walker, and his mouthpieces, often try to state that the "tools" are working. The "tools" being the elimination of collective bargaining rights for public sector workers, with the notable exception of Milwaukee police and fire, who had supported his campaign. The removal of collective bargaining rights was passed in violation of the open meetings law of the State of Wisconsin. They then had the Supreme Court rule, after only days of deliberation, on the afternoon of a potentially difficult vote in the legislature that there was no open meetings law violation so that they wouldn't need to risk the bill's re-passage. I won't even get into the Prossergate incident on the Court that occurred that afternoon. This was one of the ways in which we got to where we are now.
Now let's look at the budget and the rest of the last six months under Walker. We took a hit of $1.6 billion to public schools while expanding the public funding for private schools and the chartering authority of the state. The state also placed restrictions on local municipalities ability to raise revenue to meet their needs. $250 million was cut from the University of Wisconsin System, now resulting in tuition increases of at least 5.5% for Wisconsin residents. Reductions were made in funding to BadgerCare, Planned Parenthood, and environmental regulations for corporations. While stating that we were broke, Gov. Walker approved obscene amounts of expenditures for passage of the most restrictive voter id bill in the nation, spent about $500,000 on work that could have been done by the state at a much lower cost to develop a deeply partisan and potentially illegal redistricting map, and handed out over $200 million in corporate tax breaks annually. Ironically, redistricting was signed by the Governor on the afternoon of the August 9th recall elections. Walker never spoke in opposition to the fake Democrats that ran costly primaries against real Democrats running to unseat Republicans up for recall simply buy more time for them to fundraise and campaign. The Governor has given himself more authority to appoint cronies rather than have certain state employee positions be filled by civil servants. The governor has on more than one occassion given away state jobs as rewards for campaign contributors to very unqualified individuals. We have passed concealed carry with few guidelines on who can actually carry. Initially there wasn't even going to be a training requirement. Only because of some Republican opposition were policy items like ending recycling mandates and requiring road construction privatization killed in the legislature. I'm certain I've missed a few items, but this has been a dizzying ride of six months. Of course, that is by design. ALEC members are encouraged to run many items at once to depress the oppositions ability to kill individual policy items. Call it a form of chaos theory or legislative triage.
Most of what I have outline shows a deep abiding to values that are in contrast with most Wisconsinites. Instead the priorities have been to advantage the wealthy and the Republican party at the cost of the rest of us. It has been Scott Walker's agenda to place party loyalty above all else, knowing that he will be rewarded in the end for creating a playground for corporate lobbyists and their benefactors.
A balanced budget done on the backs of teachers, law enforcement, fire fighters, the elderly, students and the disabled, is in direct violation of Wisconsin principles and values of fairness and good government.
To strip away right of public sector employees and blame them for economic hard times has deeply divided the state for years to come. When the offers were made by public employees to increase contributions to health care and their pensions the Governor should have taken it and we could have moved on without costly recalls, scorched earth politics and the deep divisions among our residents.
To redistribute the income and security of public servants in order to pay for tax breaks to corporations without any obligation to create jobs in order to qualify for the bulk of the tax breaks is immoral. Over 30 years of trickle down economic theory has yet to demonstrate that it works. Rather it has created a greater and greater disparity between the rich and poor, while weakening the middle class of America. Yes, I'm quite sure that CEOs feel the climate has improved in Wisconsin for them. It's the rest of us that I worry about.
Any course Walker takes now will look like he is dialing back an aggressive policy agenda, but I don't think the Governor is quite done yet.