Ever since the election was over in Wisconsin, Scott Walker has been running for President. He stopped in Wisconsin briefly to drop off his extremist austerity budget and quickly left town. Hey, there's billionaires and Republican primary voters that need his attention. He came back just long enough to pledge hundreds of millions of dollars for a new sports arena that the billionaire owners of the Milwaukee Bucks want, and left again.
His own budget is bad enough, but with the King away, the mice will play. And they're playing hardball with the budget. Introducing even more extremist measures on top of Walkers severe cuts. With little or no public input and nearly no debate, the Republican dominated Joint Finance Committee is affecting everything in sight.
As the Legislature's Joint Finance Committee makes its way through Gov. Scott Walker's proposed budget, a number of significant policy changes have been inserted into the package with little or no public input or prior notice.
They're following Walkers lead of "government by surprise" as well as his tactic of including major non-budgetary items in a "must pass" budget.
Some of their "surprises" (the most outrageous thing is the last item - I wanted to warm you up a bit before your blood boils):
Limit cities use of hotel tax money for the exclusive use of promoting tourism
Even before Walker nearly eliminated state shared revenues (a percentage of the state sales tax returned to the communities where they were generated), cities used those taxes as general revenue. The need for money in local budgets for community services is even greater today than ever.
Special Needs Vouchers
Proposals to issue vouchers for private schools to parents of special needs students have already been defeated. Twice. So, Legislators simply inserted it into the "must pass" budget to ensure success.
High School Civics Testing
Another Scott Walker-style ambush - inserting a non-budgetary item into a budget. This one requires high school students to take and pass a civics test. If they fail, they won't be allowed to graduate. This was done by Rep. James Edming (R-Glen Flora). Sheesh!
Allowing Home Schooled and Private School Students to Play on Public Schools Sports Teams
Here's a doozey that also didn't pass the Legislature last session either. It would require public schools to allow (and finance) students that don't even go to their school so they can participate in the schools sports programs. Rep. Bob Kulp (R-Stratford) stuck that provision in because 10-15 parents in his district want their kids to be involved in sports.
And pretty nice of Republicans to allow home school/private school parents to use public school resources, uniforms, equipment, and fields without having to pay any of those pesky school fees that the other parents have to cough up every semester.
Let me call it what it is: Mooching by legislative decree!
Anti-Environment Grab Bag
Everything from increasing logging in state forests, to cutting funding for state parks, weakening the ability of local communities to protect their shorelines, to a specific takeover of the Dane County (Madison area) water planning are now in the "budget" by being inserted with little to no input or advance notice.
Even More Outrageous:
Since these items are included in the "must pass" budget, it will be difficult or impossible to remove them.
The really off the rails thing is below the orange blood clot (warning: your blood is going to boil over this one).
BUT HERE IS THE REALLY OUTRAGEOUS OFF THE RAILS THING:
Visual image of changes Republicans are making.
As horribly as these guys treat teachers, they now are
changing teacher certification so that
even a high school dropout can receive teacher certification.
Anyone with a bachelor's degree could be hired and licensed to teach sixth- through 12th-grade English, math, social studies or science in Wisconsin under a provision slipped into the state budget proposal by a Republican lawmaker.
And any person with relevant experience — even a high school dropout — could be licensed to teach in any other non-core academic subject in those grades, according to the provision.
You can thank Rep. Mary Czaja (R-Irma) for dropping that turd in the punchbowl. And Republicans on the Joint Finance Committee for letting her do it.
It's outrageous for anyone to even think that just anyone can become a teacher without specialized education, training and a supervised period as a student teacher. How incredibly disrespectful and ignorant of the teaching profession these Republicans have become.
Teaching is a profession for a reason. Not only do you need to have mastery over the subject material, you need to know how to effectively teach and motivate students. Thinking that any Joe Schmo can waltz in and teach classes is incredible.
I want this to get national attention. Please tweet, share on social media, or pass this on to people. I want these Legislators to be publicly shamed and humiliated for doing this.
Solidarity!