The Aristocrats!
Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker continues his long-term project to dismantle America one middle-class income at a time, this time with a performance art piece he ostensibly refers to as his
2015 state budget proposal.
[A]s the Governor struggles to close a nearly $2 billion budget gap, state officials on both sides of the aisle tell ThinkProgress the plan is “nonsensical,” and predict it will trigger public sector layoffs, weaken environmental protections and devastate higher education. State leaders are also blasting the budget as fiscally irresponsible, estimating that one controversial proposal to administer drug tests for food stamp recipients could cost local counties millions.
I see Walker continues to crib most of his budget ideas from things other states have tried that ended in dismal failure. Or as he calls it, Republicanism. In addition to still more tax cuts, which will not blow holes through future budgets
this time around because Scott Walker's invisible pet unicorn told him so, the budget conspicuously singles out the usual targets.
The plan also makes unprecedented massive cuts to state universities and public media. The state Department of National Resources will also take a big hit, losing 66 jobs, the ability to create new land conservation until 2028, and much of its power to regulate polluters.
The Koch brothers' candidate seeks very specifically to demolish the power of his state to regulate polluters, go figure.
He really is the perfect parody of Republican governance, so much so that I'm always a bit surprised the Republican power broker world hasn't kneecapped the fellow or fitted him with cement boots and tossed him in Lake Superior. Surrounded by outrageous corruption—staffers stealing money from veterans' charities? Really?—and with an economic record that managed to do the remarkable, which is to implode in on him before he had managed to skip town, he's now proudly announcing that the answers to his state's self-inflicted woes is to slash the state's higher education programs, fire the people making sure companies aren't turning your town into the next Love Canal, and drug test the poor people just to make sure they're not getting away with anything.
It's all very House of Cards, but with a prop-comedy vibe to it. I keep waiting for him to give that one final speech that gives the whole game away, the speech in which he comes out, rips off his tie and shouts to the nearest camera: "The Aristocrats!"
Until then, we're apparently still pretending this butler to the robber barons is a serious fellow who has been making really top-notch contributions to his movement. Sure he's a blowhard who's led his state into steep debt and worse services and the people who exchange emails with him keep ending up under indictment, but he just gets America, don't you know? He hates all the right kind of people, he does.
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