Republicans, not Democrats, passed the $100-per-child tax rebate earlier this year and the sales tax holiday last month.
But as the party in charge in Madison, Republicans are responsible for what the MacIver Institute reports:
Wisconsinites hunting for back-to-school deals are out of luck for yet another year thanks to the state’s minimum markup law, which outlaws sale prices that are too low.
The minimum markup law, formally known as the Unfair Sales Act, bans retailers from selling merchandise below cost. The law was originally passed back in 1939 and also requires a 9 percent price markup on specific items like alcohol, tobacco and gasoline.
Unfortunately for back-to-school shoppers, Wisconsinites are forced to pay for this archaic law that’s still on the books despite multiple attempts to repeal it.
According to advertisements obtained by the MacIver Institute from the end of August, Walmart stores in Milwaukee charged higher prices for a number of common back-to-school items compared with other Walmart stores inIowa and Michigan.
Like in past years, families in Milwaukee buying basic items like notebooks, markers, and crayons can expect to pay anywhere from 14 to 146 percent more than Walmart shoppers in Dubuque, Iowa, and Kalamazoo, Mich.
A 24-pack of Crayola Crayons posted the largest price difference, costing 146 percent more in Milwaukee than in cities in the neighboring states. The same was true for similar basic school supplies.
Parents picking up a one-subject notebook at Walmart in Dubuque, for example, only paid 25 cents. That same notebook cost 40 cents in Milwaukee – a 60 percent gap. Crayola markers cost 97 cents in Kalamazoo, but thanks to the archaic minimum markup law, those same markers cost $1.97 in Milwaukee, a whopping 103 percent difference.
A Texas Instruments graphing calculator cost $100 in Milwaukee, but just $88 in both Iowa and Michigan.
The added costs stack up. A basic shopping list would cost 17 percent more for a Milwaukee back-to-school shopper than in nearby states – 85 percent more not including the calculator.
Efforts to repeal the antiquated minimum markup law stretch back several years. Most recently, a partial repeal bill led by Sen. Vukmir and Rep. Jim Ott, and joined by Sen. Dave Craig and Rep. Dave Murphy, was the first repeal attempt to receive a hearing in the legislature.
“What are you hoping to accomplish by keeping this outdated law on the books?” Todd Peterson, regional general manager for Walmart Stores in Wisconsin, asked the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Small Business and Tourism. Much has changed since the law was enacted in 1939, he and his colleagues argued.
But as with previous attempts at repealing the anti-consumer law, that bill went no further.
Even though minimum markup repeal has hit a wall in the Legislature, a 2015 poll found that Wisconsinites are tired of paying higher prices and want the law finally taken off the books. The poll found 80 percent of respondents had an unfavorable view of the minimum markup law when told “Wisconsin residents are required to pay more for many on-sale items than residents in neighboring states simply because of this 75-year-old law.”
Respondents were just as angry when told that “the law forbids retailers from selling to consumers below cost and also requires that gasoline retailers sell gas to consumers with a minimum 9 percent markup.”
The minimum markup law also outlaws many of the discounts posted on popular national bargain hunting days like Black Friday or Amazon Prime Day, which in Wisconsin could better be called “Amazon Crime Day.”
While this year shoppers in Wisconsin enjoyed a sales tax holiday on many back-to-school items earlier in August, bargain hunters would save money year-round on virtually all products if not for the minimum markup law.
With repeal efforts once again stalled at the doors of the Legislature, bargain hunters should beware: Wisconsin’s Price Police remain on the prowl during yet another back-to-school shopping season.
The next time you see a candidate for this fall’s election, ask him or her whether he or she favors repeal of the minimum markup law, and if not, why not.
Since a brain tumor claimed Sen. John McCain’s life, Democrats have been effusive in their praise of his “maverick” style of politics. Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer called him one of the “few truly great people….a truth teller, never afraid to speak truth to power in an era where that has become all too rare.”
Top House Democrat Nancy Pelosi said “America is in tears over the loss of a great man.” Hillary Clinton praised him for his “example of working across the aisle,” while former President Barack Obama urged grieving Americans to “aspire to the courage to put the greater good above our own.”
If we’ve learned anything this week, it’s that America’s Democrats loved John McCain. So why don’t any of them want to be him?
Who is the John McCain of the Democratic Party? The “maverick” who disagrees with his or her party’s orthodoxy and is willing to confront it? Is there such a figure?
Instead, an analysis of Congress by the Lugar Center found that, of the top 10 most bipartisan U.S. senators, just one—Joe Donnelly of Indiana—is a Democrat. Overwhelmingly, most of the “reaching across the aisle” is reaching from the Right.
Yes, there are a handful of Democrats in red states who occasionally vote with Republicans— Sens. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota come to mind. But they’re not “mavericks” bucking their party’s ideology. They’re just Democrats in Trump Country trying to figure out how Democratic they can be and still get re-elected.
How about one of the members of the Senate “Pro-Life Democrats” caucus. Oh, wait—there isn’t one. Because there aren’t any pro-life Democrats in the Senate. Sometimes senators like Manchin, Joe Donnelly of Indiana and Bob Casey of Pennsylvania are characterized as “pro-life.” But their current scores from the National Abortion Rights Action League are 72, 74 and 100 percent, respectively. In a party whose chairman pledged the Democratic National Committee would only support pro-choice candidates (before he was forced to walk it back), this is hardly a surprise.
The point is not that whether the pro-life or pro-choice position is the right one, but rather that the same Democrats who are celebrating McCain’s political heterodoxy demand ideological purity from their own members. To many on the Right, who weren’t big fans of McCain precisely because they disagreed with him ideologically, it appears what the Democrats and media are really celebrating isn’t McCain’s “independence” but rather his willingness to oppose the GOP.
In a piece that almost reads like parody, for example, the Washington Post just ran an article entitled “Five of John McCain’s most courageous political moments.” At the top of the list: The speech he gave when he lost to Barack Obama. (“Of course the media loved McCain,” one longtime Republican told me this week. “He’s a Republican who lost.”)
All the other moments involved McCain either attacking a Republican or defending a Democrat.
Not to be outdone, USA Today offered “Six memorable moments when John McCain earned a reputation as a ‘maverick.‘” Same thing. They include McCain saving Obamacare and supporting amnesty for illegal immigrants. Political courage, it appears, seems to inevitably involve voting against the Republican Party.
The media can’t stop admiring the many times Sen. McCain took to the floor of the Senate to criticize Republican positions on issues like immigration or campaign finance reform. OK, fine. So where is the Democrat who’s done the same?
That speech will never be given, because there isn’t a single “maverick” on the Democratic side of the aisle to give it.
Or how about this one: “My fellow Democrats, the American people elected Donald Trump. I think he’s a terrible president, and I disagree with him on almost everything. However, I respect the democratic process and I believe it is wrong to spend so much time and effort trying to de-legitimize his election or plotting for his future removal. We owe the voters the respect of doing our jobs, compromising when we can, and moving legislation forward—even if that means working with Donald Trump. It is wrong for us to be the party that #Resists the outcome of an election.”
A speech like that would actually help create the sort of bipartisanship we’ve been celebrating in the life of Sen. McCain. The tricky part: Finding a Democrat with the courage to give it. They would be ostracized from their own party.
Don’t believe me? Ask Joe Lieberman. In 2000, he was the Democrat’s nominee for Vice President of the United States. In 2006, he was driven out of his own party in a primary and had to run as an independent to hold onto his Connecticut U.S. Senate seat. What was Lieberman’s alleged sin? Working to closely with Republicans. One in particular: Sen. John McCain.
What Sen. Schumer and President Obama and MSNBC are celebrating isn’t McCain’s independence, it’s his willingness to join the Democrats and their cause. And we know it’s true because a Democrat who showed the same willingness to work with the GOP wouldn’t be praised. She would be a pariah.
If Sen. McCain had worked just as hard and faced just as much political backlash fighting to on behalf of the causes of pro-life, traditional marriage and school vouchers—would he be receiving the same praise he is today? Not a chance.
For many Americans on the Right, the real lesson of Sen. McCain’s career as a “maverick” is that the definition of bipartisan is a group of Democrats and Republicans getting together to act like Democrats.
There aren’t any Democratic mavericks in Wisconsin either. Just like parrots every Democrat running for governor promised to repeal Act 10 without, say, asking school district administrators and school boards their opinions on the subject. (Those two groups overwhelmingly favor Act 10.) There are no anti-abortion Democrats. There are no Democrats who believe in Second Amendment rights, despite its presence in both the U.S. and state constitutions. Not a single Democrat this election cycle has proposed any kind of tax cut.
U.S. Sen. William Proxmire (D–Wisconsin) gave out regular Golden Fleece awards for government waste. Proxmire also spent hundreds, not millions, of dollars getting reelected. You don’t and won’t see that anymore either.
History will record that the last Wisconsin Democratic maverick was state Rep. Bob Ziegelbauer, who was called by one of his legislative colleagues a better conservative than many Republicans. Ziegelbauer ended his time in the Legislature as an independent because Ziegelbauer had just too much independent thought for the state Democratic Party, though not for his constituents.
Officials with the Democratic National Committee are in Milwaukee this week, scouting the city as one of three possible locations for the 2020 Democratic National Convention. Really, though, they don’t even need to visit the other two finalists—Houston and Miami Beach—since there is no better place in America to highlight the impact of the Democratic Party’s platform than Milwaukee.
And what a past it’s been! Milwaukee hasn’t had a Republican mayor since 1908 and its Common Council has been dominated by liberals for nearly as long, meaning that Democrats can showcase a city that they have totally controlled for more than a century. Their policies and their policies alone are responsible for making Milwaukee the city that it is today…the tenth worst city in America in which to live.
Each year, the news and commentary website 24/7 Wall Street measures cities on a wide-ranging index of socioeconomic conditions, including crime rates, economics, education levels, environmental conditions, public health, housing, infrastructure, and recreation and leisure. This year, Milwaukee ranked tenth-worst.
“More than one in every four Milwaukee residents live in poverty, more than double the 11.8% state poverty rate,” researchers Samuel Stebbins and Evan Comen wrote. “Poor cities often have higher crime rates than more affluent cities, and Milwaukee is no exception. There were 1,546 violent crimes for every 100,000 Milwaukee residents, more than five times the statewide violent crime rate of 306 per 100,000.”
Yes, by holding their convention in Milwaukee, Democrats can show the nation how their crime prevention policies have led Milwaukee…to the 15th-highest homicide rate in the nation in 2016 (the most recent year for which complete data is available).
“Milwaukee remains one of the most dangerous places in the country,” Comen noted. “Overall there were 1,533 violent crimes — which also includes rape, robbery, and aggravated assault — per 100,000 residents in 2016, nearly four times the national rate of 386 incidents per 100,000 residents and the eighth most of any city.”
Holding the 2020 convention in Milwaukee would also allow the Democratic Party to make further inroads into its all-important African-American voter base. As University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee researchers concluded in 2012, “no metro area has witnessed more precipitous erosion in the labor market for black males over the past 40 years than has Milwaukee.” Even more illuminating, after 108 years of Democratic rule Milwaukee is the single most segregated city in the country for renters and third most segregated overall.
Wait, how can this be? How can a place governed by Democratic policies not be the utopia that Democratic promises indicate that it should be? This disconnect is the very heart of why Milwaukee is so perfect a city to host the Democratic National Convention, as the city would stand as perhaps the most concrete example of liberal policy failures at a time when the 2020 presidential nominee would be making even more utopian promises.
As the Democratic nominee would invariably promise to incarcerate fewer criminals, overhaul America’s education system, and end the nation’s “school-to-prison pipeline,” voters would see a century of Democratic leadership resulting in Milwaukee’s sky-high violent crime rate and a public school system so dysfunctional that it boasts just a 59.7% graduation rate and includes “one of the lowest performing comprehensive public high schools in America.”
As the Democratic nominee would invariably promise to improve race relations and make America a better, more tolerant place, voters would see a century of Democratic leadership resulting in a place that is, “by many measures,” the “toughest U.S. city for blacks.”
Why is Milwaukee so perfect for the Democratic National Convention? Because Milwaukee is the inevitable result of Democratic leadership; Milwaukee is what happens when Democrats govern with unchecked and unbroken control for more than a century.
And it’s about time the rest of the country saw it.
As Madison continues to battle flooding, @GovScottWalker filled sandbags at Tenney Park this morning. An Elizabeth Street resident used Walker’s appearance in Madison to remind the governor about climate change. #wipolitics
Is this a political photo op? Of course it is, but at least Walker was contributing something to the flood efforts. Sign Boy behind him was not.
As for the argument here … someone who knows history might observe that Madison was carved out of a swamp around lakes Mendota and Monona. Someone who grew up in the People’s Republic of Madison and left because of imbeciles like Sign Boy might also note the irony of that sign considering that Madison is a classic case of making your own environment worse yet more flood-prone by covering up said swamps with concrete, asphalt and the impermeable surfaces that make up buildings, and by sucking up wetlands and farmlands to build more buildings.
And someone who observes politics might observe that Sign Boy isn’t likely to make anyone vote for Tony Evers, but he probably will push more turnout among conservatives for Walker and other Republicans.
A new Marquette Law School Poll of Wisconsin voters finds a tight race for governor following last week’s statewide primary elections. Among likely voters (that is, those who say they are certain to vote), incumbent Republican Scott Walker receives 46 percent, Democrat Tony Evers receives 46 percent and Libertarian Phil Anderson 6 percent. Only 2 percent say they lack a preference or do not lean to a candidate.
Among likely voters in the race for the Wisconsin U.S. Senate seat on the ballot in November, 49 percent support the incumbent, Democrat Tammy Baldwin, and 47 percent support Republican Leah Vukmir, while 3 percent say they lack a preference or do not lean toward a candidate.
Among all registered voters surveyed in the poll, the race for governor remains tight, with Walker at 46 percent, Evers at 44 percent and Anderson with 7 percent.
There is a wider margin among all registered voters in the Senate race, with Baldwin receiving 51 percent and Vukmir 43 percent.
Awareness of Evers and Vukmir has increased among registered voters since the last Marquette Law School Poll in July. Forty-six percent lack an opinion of Evers, down from 60 percent in July. For Vukmir, 48 percent lack an opinion now, compared to 66 percent in July.
Among likely voters only, 35 percent lack an opinion of Evers and 41 percent lack an opinion of Vukmir.
Evers is viewed favorably among 38 percent of likely voters and unfavorably by 27 percent. Among all registered voters 31 percent have a favorable view and 23 percent an unfavorable opinion.
Vukmir has a 30 percent favorable rating and a 29 percent unfavorable rating among likely voters while among registered voters 25 percent rate her favorably and 26 percent rate her unfavorably.
Few respondents lack opinions of the incumbents. Among all registered voters, 5 percent lack an opinion of Walker and 17 percent have no opinion of Baldwin. For likely voters, 4 percent have no opinion of Walker and 11 percent have no opinion of Baldwin.
Walker is viewed favorably among 49 percent of likely voters and unfavorably by 47 percent. Among all registered voters 49 percent have a favorable view and 45 percent an unfavorable opinion.
Baldwin has a 46 percent favorable rating and a 42 percent unfavorable rating among likely voters while among registered voters 43 percent rate her favorably and 40 percent rate her unfavorably.
The governor’s race results are similar to what the poll found at this point in the 2014 cycle. The August 2014 Marquette poll showed Democrat Mary Burke with a 2-point lead over Walker among likely voters, but Walker leading by about 3 points among registered voters.
All things considered, this is good news at least for Walker, and maybe for Vukmir too. Walker predicted last week he’d be behind in the first post-primary polls, but he’s not in the poll that is more credible than other polls.
That point about where Walker was four years ago is important as well. Four years ago voters didn’t know who Mary Burke was, but they came to discover her overstated involvement in her family business and other things that proved she wasn’t ready to be governor.
Four years later, Evers is going to have to explain a few things, such as what James Wigderson reports:
Americans for Prosperity is spending $1.8 million on an advertising campaign to remind voters Evers actually praised Governor Scott Walker’s last education budget before the schools superintendent decided to run for governor himself. Evers was for Walker’s budget before he was against it.
Thanks to his pro-growth policies, Governor Walker has invested millions in our schools and received a lot of praise: A “pro-kid budget …” “An important step forward …” “… Commitment for K-12 education is good news …” So who said those things? Tony Evers. But now that Evers if running for office, he’s trying to take back his praise. The truth? Governor Scott Walker is improving Wisconsin education … and Tony Evers knows it. Paid for by Americans for Prosperity. Not authorized by any candidate, candidate’s agent or committee.
Eric Bott, the state director of Americans for Prosperity in Wisconsin, commented on the flip-flop by Evers in a release announcing the ad buy.
“Tony Evers had it exactly right when he praised Governor Walker’s education budget as a ‘pro-kid budget,’ an ‘important step forward,’ and ‘good news,’” Bott said. “Now that he wants Scott Walker’s job, Evers is backpedaling so fast, I’m worried he’s going to end up in Minnesota before too long.”
There is concern over whether Walker could suck resources from other Republicans, specifically either Vukmir or Attorney General Brad Schimel, whose opponent should be elected if you believe in lawsuits for the sake of lawsuits instead of, you know, law and order.
More from the poll:
When asked the most important issue facing the state, 24 percent of registered voters pick jobs and the economy, 22 percent choose K-12 education and 19 percent say health coverage is their most important issue. No other issue reached double digits as “the most important,” although the condition of roads ranked fourth, with 9 percent of registered voters selecting it.
When voters were asked for their second-most-important issue, the condition of roads rose to the top three most-frequent answers, with K-12 education first at 18 percent, jobs and the economy at 17 percent, the condition of roads at 16 percent and health coverage at 15 percent.
I bet the economy number is actually bigger with voters. In fact, in my lifetime, every election has been decided by the economy, or more accurately voters’ perception of the economy. If voters think the economy is doing well, they vote for incumbents. If they don’t think the economy is doing well, they don’t vote for incumbents.
Fifty-three percent of Wisconsin registered voters see the state as headed in the right direction while 41 percent think the state is off on the wrong track. In July, 52 percent said right direction and 42 percent said wrong track.
Walker’s job approval among registered voters stands at 48 percent, with 45 disapproving. … Among likely voters, 50 percent approve and 47 percent disapprove.
All of this is generally in keeping with what was reported here last week — that among “swing” counties Walker is doing pretty well.
There is also this, though how it will affect this election is unclear, as pointed out by Facebook Friend Nathan Schacht:
More Dems than Republicans are against tariffs.
58% of Republicans think steel tariffs will help the economy, 9% of Dems think they will help.
On free trade, more Dems than Republicans think free trade agreements are a good thing:
45% of Republicans think they are good,
72% of Democrats think they are good.
So the Democrats are more conservative on trade issues now…good Lord.
I’m not sure “more conservative” is as correct as “more free-market,” except that Democrats are certainly not free-market on such other issues as education and health care. One wonders if Democrats have suddenly realized the virtues of free trade, or if Democrats are now free-trade because Trump isn’t. I think I know the answer by posing the question of whether Democrats have discovered the virtues of free markets in education and health care.
Hmm. Maybe if state treasurers were doing this sort of thing more often, I might have not voted to eliminate the position. This is the first time I am aware of any state treasurer actually exposing waste, fraud or abuse.
James Wigderson appeared on WTMJ radio’s Steve Scaffidi show, and, as Wigderson’s RightWisconsin reports:
“Tony Evers is definitely the weakest of the Democratic candidates because he has a record of not doing anything that he should be doing as Superintendent of Schools,” Wigderson said. “They’re going to hammer him. They’re going to start hammering him on his inability to take away a teacher’s license that was viewing pornography in the classroom.”
Wigderson also pointed out Evers’ mistake in entertaining the idea of raising the gas tax $1 per gallon.
“Tony Evers stumbled right out of the block when he got asked about gas taxes and he said everything’s on the table when they threw the figure of a dollar at him,” Wigderson said. “His campaign later tried to backtrack on it, but when Tony Evers says sure, a dollar per gallon is on the table, that’s going to haunt him between now and November.”
A recent ad from the Republican Party of Wisconsin goes after Democratic gubernatorial candidate Tony Evers for failing to commence revocation proceedings against Andrew Harris, a Middleton-Cross Plains teacher who viewed pornographic images on his school computer. Evers, the Superintendent of Public Instruction, claims he was powerless, going so far as to claim that seeking revocation would have been “breaking the law.”
This last claim is ridiculous. Evers would have broken no law by attempting to revoke Harris’ license. In fact, Evers would have had a plausible argument in support of revocation. He might not have prevailed in court had the decision been challenged, but the argument could have been made. Evers made a choice. He decided not to go after a teacher who had viewed pornographic images on his computer, shared them with at least one other teacher and who was alleged to have made sexual remarks about middle school students. His claim that he had no choice is wrong. Here’s why.
The decision to start a legal proceeding is usually a matter of assessing probabilities. Very often, a legal claim – in this case whether a teacher’s license can be revoked for viewing porn at school – is neither clearly right nor clearly wrong. Evers, who had to decide whether to try to take this teachers’ license, had to decide whether the he had a plausible argument in support of revocation, not whether revocation was clearly required. He could then decide whether the need to get such a teacher out of the classroom was worth the effort. He had to make a choice.
At the time of the Harris incident as now, a teacher’s license could be revoked for ‘immoral conduct.” At the time, however, immoral conduct was defined as “conduct or behavior that is contrary to commonly accepted moral or ethical standards and that endangers the health, safety, welfare or education of any pupil.” After this incident, the legislature changed the law to make clear the viewing pornographic material at school constituted immoral conduct for revocation purposes, the matter was less clear at the time. While no one seems to have doubted that viewing pornographic materials was contrary to commonly accepted moral or ethical standards, the question was whether Harris had endangered “the health, safety, welfare or education of any pupil.”
Evers’ argument seems to be that teachers can engage in immoral conduct on school property as long as it does not directly impact students and students have not seen it and, perhaps, would have been unlikely to see it. Perhaps. But a credible argument can be made that this goes too far. Conduct that presents a risk of discovery or that is incompatible with teaching middle school students might very well be said to “endanger” those students. While prior case law has called into question (although the Supreme Court has not decided) whether a teacher’s license can be revoked simply because he or she has done something away from school that is incompatible with being a good “role model,” behavior at school presents a different level of risk. Imagine – well, you don’t have to because it has happened – teachers who have had sex in an unused classroom after hours. Imagine teachers who convened a clandestine Klan meeting in the teachers’ lounge. Is revocation impossible because no student has happened along?
Although efforts by the Middleton-Cross Plains school district to fire Harris were unsuccessful, Evers’ was free to start revocation proceedings. He might not have been successful, but there was a plausible argument in support of revocation. Evers chose not to proceed. To respond to the Republican Party ad, he ought to defend that choice and not deny that he made it.
Eserberg covers what Evers did (not do). Sam Morateck covers what Evers wants to do:
Following his victory in the Democratic primary for governor [last] Tuesday night, Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Evers made big promises on education but omitted any plans for funding them in his victory speech.
“I will make the largest investment in early childhood education that our state has ever seen,” Evers said. He added, “In my first budget I will finally return to two thirds funding for our public schools.”
Last month Evers announced his education plan which included an additional $600 million dollars in special education funding. The Journal Sentinel noted that Evers’ additional funding request would equal $969 million for special education funding in the next biennial budget, which would be up 163% from the current $369 million.
As for the two-thirds funding promise, Dr. Will Flanders of the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty said it would cost state government $1.5 billion.
So how would these monumental increases to education be paid for? According to his school finance reform plan, all these historic increases in funding will somehow be offset by the decline in local school property taxes and the elimination of the School Levy Tax Credit (SLTC).
“This plan holds the line on property taxes,” Evers’ plan said. “In the first year of the plan, gross statewide school property taxes are estimated to decrease by more than 18% – more than when the state instituted the two-thirds funding commitment in the 1990s. In net terms (i.e. when the impact of the SLTC is considered), net statewide school property taxes are estimated to be held at 0%.”
Media Trackers spoke with Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce (WMC) Director of Health & Human Resources Policy Chris Reader, who was skeptical on Evers’ plan. He pointed out that funding for his plan may compromise important reforms such as the manufacturer and agriculture tax credit, which has helped attract employers to Wisconsin.
“You certainly cannot fund education by putting more taxes onto businesses and homeowners, which if we would eliminate a tax credit for property owners that’s what would happen,” Reader said. “You also cannot fund education by taxing employers more by eliminating important reforms from recent years like the manufacturer and agriculture tax credit which have helped pull employers into our state, and that’s another area he wants to eliminate.”
Reader said Evers’ increased spending on education will have to come from somewhere.
“We have record investment in education right now in Wisconsin and that’s a good thing,” Reader said, “You can’t just continue to put huge sums of money into it just to one up your opponents without it raising taxes somewhere. Whether it’s going to raise property taxes or income taxes on employers, it will result in increased taxes, unless he highlights what other programs around the state he wants cut.”
Ever’s additionally told WISC-TV he would “absolutely” repeal Act 10 if elected governor, which the MacIver Institute estimated to have saved school districts $3.2 billion in benefits costs since it’s passage in 2011. While Evers also promises to raise funding for healthcare and transportation, his promises leaves one to wonder at where all this money is going to come from.
In case Evers is unable to do math, eliminating a property tax credit does not cut property taxes. Eliminating a property tax credit increases property taxes.
Meanwhile, this might be old news, but as far as I know Evers has not repudiated what he said back in December to Wisconsin Public Radio:
Democratic gubernatorial candidate Tony Evers is calling for stricter gun laws in Wisconsin in the wake of Sunday’s deadly shooting in Las Vegas.
Evers said Tuesday he would support more rigorous background checks for gun buyers, a state gun owners registry, and a ban on an accessory that helps semi-automatic guns perform more like automatic weapons.
“We just have to have some honest conversations,” Evers said. “And I think now is an appropriate time. I think we can grieve and also think about the future.”
Gov. Scott Walker said last week that he is likely to start out the gubernatorial race behind.
There has been concern in Republican circles about the larger turnout for Democrats than Republicans in last week’s primary. And Republicans certainly need to get out and get out the vote.
Keep in mind, though, that (1) Democratic turnout may well have included people who intend to vote Republican in November but voted Democrat because of (2) the gubernatorial race and because (3) they intended to vote for whoever won the U.S. Senate Republican primary.
Around 200 news publications across the United States have committed to a Boston Globe-coordinated effort to run editorials Thursday promoting the freedom of the press, in light of President Trump’s frequent attacks on the media.
Some of the most respected and widely circulated newspapers in the country have committed to taking a stand in their editorial pages, including The New York Times, The Dallas Morning News, The Denver Post, The Philadelphia Inquirer, and the Chicago Sun-Times. The list ranges from large metropolitan dailies to small weekly papers with circulations as low as 4,000.
The Globe initiative comes amid the president’s repeated verbal attacks on journalists, calling mainstream press organizations “fake news” and “the enemy of the American people.” Tensions came to a boil in early August when CNN reporter Jim Acosta walked out of a press briefing after White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders refused to refute Trump’s “enemy of the people” comments.
‘‘We are not the enemy of the people,’’ Marjorie Pritchard, deputy managing editor of the Globe’s opinion page, told the AP last week.
The Globe’s request to denounce the “dirty war against the free press” has been promoted by industry groups such as the American Society of News Editors, as well as regional groups like the New England Newspaper and Press Association. The request also suggested editorial boards take a stand against Trump’s words regardless of their politics, or whether they generally editorialized in support of or in opposition to the president’s policies.
‘‘Our words will differ. But at least we can agree that such attacks are alarming,’’ the Globe appeal said. …
Pritchard previously said the decision to reach out to newspapers was reached after Trump appeared to step up his rhetoric in recent weeks. He called the media “fake, fake disgusting news” at an Aug. 2 rally in Wilkes-Barre, Pa.
‘‘Whatever happened to the free press? Whatever happened to honest reporting?’’ he asked at the rally, pointing to journalists covering the event. ‘‘They don’t report it. They only make up stories.’’
Pritchard said she hoped the editorials would make an impression on Americans.
‘‘I hope it would educate readers to realize that an attack on the First Amendment is unacceptable,’’ she said. ‘‘We are a free and independent press; it is one of the most sacred principles enshrined in the Constitution.’’
If you are a supporter of the free press specifically and the First Amendment generally, then you should accept the existence of, if not agree with, opposing points of view — in this case, Patricia McCarthy:
[Pritchard’s] big idea is her response to President Trump’s relentless attack on those among the media who relentlessly publish fake news. Trump has never said all of the media are disingenuous, or that all of the media publish and promote fake news. He clearly goes after the news outlets who do: CNN, MSNBC, ABC, NPR, CBS, NBC, NYT, WaPo, L.A. Times, and too many others.
The president is targeting what has become known as the mainstream media, the MSM, or the “drive-bys,” as Rush Limbaugh rightfully calls them. They are clones of one another. There is not an original thought or idea among their “reporters.” Their reporters are not journalists in any sense of the word. They all take their marching orders from the leftists who head up each of these organizations. Throughout the 2016 presidential campaign, not one of them deviated from the Clinton campaign party line.
Ms. Pritchard, then, is working hard to prove Trump’s point. He rages against the leftist machine that is the MSM, and she is bound and determined to prove him right for all to see. She, and all those editors who are jumping onto her bandwagon, is playing right into his hands. How clueless can these anti-Trumpers be? They are mind-numbed idiots, so easily trolled by the master. They see themselves as defenders of the free press!
The only free press today is vast, available to all of us, and thoroughly outside their realm of conformity. They think they matter; they have yet to grasp the fact that they are largely irrelevant. Jim Acosta thinks he is a reporter; he is a rude clown, subservient to tyrants, disrespectful to Trump and Sarah Sanders. He actually thinks people care what he says, does, or thinks. They do not. He is a joke.
Since interest has dimmed in Stormy Daniels and her “creepy porn lawyer,” as Tucker Carlson has dubbed him, the new star the MSM are celebrating is the pathetic Omarosa Manigault Newman, with her book of lies and accusations that everyone knows are fabricated. The anchors on all the MSM outlets know exactly who and what she is but are wooing her in the hope that she will be the one to take Trump down. They never give up. They never learn. From the Access Hollywood tape to Omarosa, they are confident that each new lowlife with a story to tell will be the one to overturn the election. They are like Energizer bunnies; they have motors but no brains. They never give up, no matter how ridiculous the attacks on Trump become. In short, they are utter fools.
Ms. Pritchard says newspapers use “differing words.” Uh, no, they don’t. They use the same words. Just as that JournoList functioned under Obama, talking points went out, and they all repeated them verbatim. These people do not think for themselves. Throw a differing, conservative opinion at them, and they cry racism. That is their only defense, no matter how specious.
Conservatives are looking forward to Thursday’s coordinated anti-Trump editorials. We will have a definitive list of news outlets to never trust again because they will have revealed themselves to be unthinking soldiers in a nasty war against a man for whom over sixty million Americans voted to be their president. So far, he has been a truly terrific president. He has accomplished more good for the nation than either Bush or Obama did in sixteen years.
Economy great thanks to tax cuts and de-regulation.
Unemployment at lowest point ever, for blacks and Hispanics, too.
Food stamp use down by a few million.
The man who has accomplished all this in nineteen months is whom they want to destroy. What does that tell us about who the left is today? Leftists do not have the country’s best interest at heart. Their hatred of this man motivates them in a most destructive way. Let those hundred or so newspapers follow Pritchard’s orders and publish their anti-Trump op-eds on Thursday. They will be demonstrating for all to see just how right Trump is when he calls out the perpetrators of fake news.
McCarthy’s piece is an opinion. So is whatever those 200 newspapers write today and this week.
One of Wisconsin’s best weekly newspapers wrote this piece this week on its opinion page, patriotically called The First Amendment, that its veteran award-winning editor doubts fits into what the Globe has in mind.
As someone who has been doing this crap — I mean, has been a journalist — for three decades, I have trouble fitting in on this subject, which I will attempt to explain here.
Is the free press vital to this democratic republic? There is absolutely no question that it is. Trump specifically and whichever party and politicians in power conveniently forget that, or don’t want that to be the case, far too often. But Trump isn’t the first president to try to prevent the press from doing its job, though he probably has been the most verbal about it. (Other than Harry S. Truman, who once threatened to punch out Washington Post music critic Paul Hume for the latter’s uncomplimentary review of Truman’s daughter’s performance. Trump hasn’t gone that far. Yet.)
Should Trump not say bad things about the news media? Well … I don’t care what Trump or any other politician says about the media generally or myself specifically. I really don’t. Once upon a time when journalists had more backbone than today, nasty comments from politicians were something a journalist should put on his or her résumé.
Our job as journalists is to hold the powerful accountable, regardless of party or lack of party. Politicians, law enforcement, the criminal justice system, the educational system and every other level and function of government everywhere do their work with our tax dollars, and for that reason alone the free press is necessary to make sure they’re doing what they should be doing, and not doing what they should not be doing.
Freedom of the press is part of the First Amendment. The First Amendment does not belong just to the press. It belongs to all Americans, and if it doesn’t, then it’s just almost-illegible words on old paper. The Wisconsin Constitution’s free-expression protections also belong to all Wisconsinites, as do the state Open Meetings Law and Open Records Law.
There seems to be a bit of a misunderstanding today about the media and its history on the subject of reporter bias. The period where the media was seen as impartial is not that old in American history.
To too many people “unbiased” actually means “biased in favor of my point of view.” Does this strike you as unbiased?
In the middle of ABC-TV’s coverage of Robert F. Kennedy’s assassination, Howard K. Smith and Frank Reynolds practically demanded Congress pass gun control. So did Cronkite on CBS even though, of all people, Dan Rather correctly pointed out that the gun control measures then in Congress wouldn’t have prevented either Kennedy assassination.
All you need see for evidence of previous institutional press bias is see the number of newspapers with the words “Democrat,” “Republican,” “Progressive” or similar words. And even when those words weren’t in the names of the newspapers, there have usually been conservative newspapers (the Chicago Tribune, Milwaukee Sentinel, Wisconsin State Journal, and once upon a time the Los Angeles Times) and liberal newspapers (the New York Times, Milwaukee Journal and The Capital Times) in multiple-newspaper markets. The State Journal is unquestionably more liberal than it was now that it’s the only daily newspaper in Madison, while The C(r)apital Times is still as lefty as always, including in its news coverage. (One associate editor wrote in a news story “the so-called Moral Majority,” which is an error because that was the group’s name, and the writer’s opinion of it didn’t belong in a news story.)
Remember these good old days?
My suspicion is that what’s written today and this week is going to be read as nothing more than ripping on Trump (particularly in the opinion of those sympathetic to views like McCarthy’s), and will give an unrealistically gauzy view of the news media, with related offended whining that people fail to worship the media’s work (this, for instance), accompanied by hand-wringing that Trump and his supporters are destroying democracy. (They aren’t and won’t.)
Truth be told, the media has a lot of flaws today, and this campaign might be one of them. For one thing, it’s practically impossible for me, someone who has worked for low pay but long and irregular hours in the First Amendment Wars, to think I have very much in common with Acosta, Pritchard or people who get their paychecks from big media, even though I used to work for one of this country’s biggest (at the time) media companies. They get paid an order of magnitude more than I do in much better conditions with much better benefits, including being wrongly famous.
Is Trump trying to control the media? Of course he is. So did his predecessor, and every president in this media age, and probably every president before that. So do most politicians. They have media relations people to feed quotes and pass on good things about their guy and bad things about the other side. They all answer questions posed by the media with answers to the questions they want to be asked, instead of what they were asked.
That, however, is part of the job, and always has been. A reporter who expects to be fed information and not have to do actual asking of questions is either lazy or a toady for whoever is in power. (Too many journalists worship at the altar of government because they cover government.)
A few things have certainly gotten worse in my professional lifetime. There have been far too many stories labeled “Analysis” that are in fact the writer’s opinion not on the opinion pages. There are far too many expressions of reporter opinion on social media, particularly on Twitter reporter accounts, when the correct number of opinions that are not labeled opinions is zero. (News-media social media should report and only report, not give the reporter’s opinion.)
Too much of this “analysis” since approximately the Clinton administration has been inside baseball — some political staffer feeds their view about the brilliant politics of (insert politician’s name here). That violates the sentence I have had printed on top of every computer I’ve had for more than 25 years — “What does this story mean to the reader?” And unless you’re a political junkie, the political fortunes of a politician are and should be about 367th in your list of important things.
There are also far too many journalists who seek to curry favor among the politically powerful. In fact, I have to wonder how much news media bitching is taking place due to failures to curry favor among the Trump administration. The Washington phrase, “If you want a friend, get a dog,” applies to journalists in state capitals, county seats and basically anywhere else.
There is a large and growing disconnect between the news media and the people we are supposed to be serving. Yes, news media people are considerably more politically liberal on average, and because of that many seem to not grasp conservative views. (Conservatives working in the mainstream media often keep their political views secret because they think those views will hurt their career among their liberal colleagues and bosses.) The media utterly failed in not seeing the possibility of Trump’s election, and they compound that error by refusing to see why people might have voted for Trump, and that a huge number of Americans believe that government failed them under the previous administration.
But the political divide isn’t the only divide. Those readers who live in communities with newspapers or radio stations with news departments might get an education by finding out how many reporters (1) live in the community they work in, (2) have or had children, and (3) go to church regularly. That was me once upon a time, when the only thing I did among those three was live where the job was. Your view of life and what’s important, and therefore what is important news and what isn’t, changes when you have ties to a community, particularly children. And as has been pointed out on this blog, the media gets more things wrongabout guns and gun control than can be listed here.
Here is a dirty little secret about Trump and the media: Trump is president today not just because he was running against Hillary Clinton and as an anti-Barack Obama vote; he is president today in large part due to the news media. Trump has been providing quotable copy and video for the media since he was a New York City developer who showed up on “Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous.” The media focused on Trump in 2015 because Trump was so much more interesting than any of the other presidential candidates. Trump and the media have a symbiotic–parasitic relationship regardless of what Trump or the media say about eachother.
I sort of feel like an orphan in today’s argument, not on Trump’s side but not on the media’s side.(I can generally pick apart most publications and see their flaws.) I have, I think, more respect for the First Amendment than most journalists do anymore. I believe in giving the opposing side a voice. It’s hard to see that from the national media today.
Individual thinking is not in very much evidence today on any side of the political divide. I have always wanted to be judged on my own work, not lumped in with everyone else in the news media.
But as I wrote before, I really do not care what politicians think of the media or of me, and I have to wonder why media people care what Trump or any other politician thinks of them. I would have thought that journalists would have thick skins and not be snowflakes, but apparently I was mistaken.
In my professional life, I’ve gotten threats of various kinds, including threats to my health. I got invited by a school board president to stand in front of their table and listen to what they were saying while they were trying to skirt the Open Meetings Law. (I did.) I got publicly asked to leave a speech given by Madison Catholic Bishop Robert Morlino. (I didn’t. He did.) They didn’t, don’t and won’t faze me from doing my work. Nor will anything any politician says about the news media. We always get the last word when we want it.
Back in my public TV pundit days, the late Wisconsin Public Television “WeekEnd” show had a post-election “hangover” show in which WPT would invite all of its pundits to an on-air party in Madison.
The last such show was the most strange, because the Friday after the 2000 presidential election was a show that, unlike every previous such show, included one very prominent race that was not yet decided, with no prospect of a decided result.
That is certainly not the case with this “fall” primary election, which if anything featured surprisingly wide margins in some races, including the U.S. Senate Republican primary, with U.S. Sen. Leah Vukmir (R–Brookfield) having no problem defeating Kevin Nicholson despite Nicholson (and his out-of-state money) vastly outspending Vukmir.
Nicholson is evidence of how out-of-state money doesn’t necessarily translate into votes, especially if the candidate has a clueless campaign. Anyone who has paid any attention to politics should have known the fights Vukmir was involved in the Legislature during her career, including Act 10, school choice and various tax cuts. Obviously GOP voters found most of what Nicholson claimed to lack credibility. To paraphrase Mark Twain, the demise of the GOP establishment in Wisconsin was exaggerated.
That doesn’t necessarily end Nicholson’s career, of course. In fact, the next 12 weeks will prove how much Nicholson is interested in Wisconsin politics, or not. If he doesn’t campaign hard for Vukmir and other Republicans, we’ll know the answer. If he’s really interested in haviing a future in state politics, he should also be looking for an office — state Legislature, or maybe the Fifth Congressional District if U.S. Rep. James Sensenbrenner (R–Menomonee Falls) retires — to run for in 2020.
Dan O’Donnell has more on the Vukmir race and other Tuesday stuff:
“Crucial Waukesha County” has been a running joke among pundits on election nights, but last night it proved just how crucial it is. As of this writing, Vukmir’s 22,005-vote margin of victory in Waukesha County made up approximately 73 percent of her statewide margin of victory. That, combined with her 9,679-vote victory margin in Ozaukee and Washington Counties, means that nearly all of her statewide margin of victory came from just three counties.
All told, she won just 16 counties (nearly all of them in southeast Wisconsin) while Nicholson won 56. Yet Vukmir’s margin of victory in the counties she won was simply too much for Nicholson to overcome outstate.
In presenting himself during the campaign as an outsider running against the weak, timid, do-nothing Republican Establishment, Nicholson made what would have been in any other state a wise gambit in the Age of Trump.
In southeast Wisconsin, however, it proved to be disastrous.
From the moment Governor Walker first proposed Act 10 in his first major act after his inauguration in 2011, Wisconsin Republicans—especially those who represent the very conservative WOW counties—found themselves in an all-out war with the most thuggish elements of liberalism. But they didn’t waver; they held together and won. And then they kept on winning, passing voter ID and right-to-work laws, repealing prevailing wage for local construction projects, and cutting tax and regulatory hurdles that reopened the state for business.
Along the way, they became the model for conservative governance for the rest of the country and a shining example of what Republicans could accomplish if they would only hold together and hold to their promises. Nicholson’s campaign, though, divisively suggested—first obliquely and then openly after he lost the GOP nomination and internal polling likely showed him struggling in the race’s final months—that the Wisconsin Republican Party was just like the dreaded “Republican Establishment” everywhere else; that it was somehow standing in the way of conservative reform instead of enacting it.
In attempting to cast Vukmir as a “typical politician” and an “Establishment type,” Nicholson also cast the rest of the Wisconsin GOP and those who have supported it as the Establishment. The gross miscalculation of voters in the counties he needed most is enough to make even the most casual observer of politics say “WOW.”
Not surprisingly, those voters resented it, and they punished Nicholson for it.
That, however, was [Tuesday]. Today, the divisiveness of the primary must give way to a united conservative movement or every one of Wisconsin’s conservative reforms is in jeopardy.
In a far less bitter primary, State Superintendent Tony Evers won the Democratic Party’s gubernatorial nomination. As of this writing, more than 525,000 people voted in that primary, compared with about 430,000 who voted in the Republican Senate race and 442,000 who voted in Governor Walker’s largely uncontested primary. Neither of those are perfect comparisons, of course, but they are still gaps of roughly 95,000 and 83,000 more Democrat votes across the state.
In Wisconsin’s First Congressional District, which leans Republican, roughly 1,200 more votes were cast in the contested Democratic primary (which was won by Randy Bryce) than in the Republican primary (won by Bryan Steil).
This would seem to confirm that the enthusiasm gap between Republican and Democrat voters in Wisconsin is both very real and very concerning. To put it in perspective, in the Republican wave election of 2010, Ron Johnson beat incumbent Democratic Senator Russ Feingold by 105,091 votes out of 2.14 million cast for the two men combined—a margin of victory of 4.9 percent. Walker defeated Tom Barrett by 124,638 votes out of 2.13 million cast for the two of them—a margin of 5.8 percent.
[Tuesday] night, the “margin of victory” for statewide Democrat votes cast in the gubernatorial primary over Republican votes cast in the Senate primary was 9.9 percent (and nearly 100,000 total votes out of fewer than half of the total cast in the general election eight years ago).
This, again, is far from a perfect comparison, but it does illustrate the challenges that both Vukmir and Walker will face this November. This is also why it is absolutely imperative that the divisiveness of yesterday’s primary be forgotten (or at least forgiven) today.
If it isn’t, if conservative voters decide that they don’t want any part of Wisconsin’s “establishment” Republican Party, then Democrats will win—not just the Senate race, but the Governor’s race, too—and every conservative reform of the past seven years will be in jeopardy.
Once again, southeast Wisconsin (especially the WOW counties) will take the lead, but every other county must join them and be every bit as active and engaged if conservatives are to win again this year.
One might say it’s crucial.
One explanation for the lower GOP turnout might be the lack of must-vote races. I suspect most Republican voters would vote for the Vukmir–Nicholson winner regardless of Tuesday’s outcome because neither Vukmir nor Nicholson are Baldwin. That, however, requires getting out to vote Nov. 6.
Steve Prestegard.com: The Presteblog 