Category: Wisconsin politics

The Republican Party put this on Facebook yesterday:

This is technically incorrect. No secretary-level appointee in state government raises or lowers taxes. You haven’t heard her say she opposed James Doyle’s tax increases, however, have you?

What exactly is Burke’s position on taxes? Apparently it depends on when you ask her:

The Wisconsin Daily Independent writes:

The gubernatorial election is four weeks from yesterday.

It’s obvious what voters are voting for if they vote for Scott Walker. It’s also obvious what voters are voting for if they vote for Mary Burke — the not-Scott Walker.

And that’s about all you can say about Burke, the Club for Growth claims:

Among the more effective weapons available to any shifty office-seeker is the widespread perception that the political arts are steeped in arcane knowledge incomprehensible to voters.  Conversely, a shifty office-seeker’s nightmare is widespread realization that he (or she) is really playing a fairly simple game. We resist believing the latter: If we’re going to be fleeced, we naturally hope it will be by someone who knows more than we do.
But sometimes the only choice is to face facts and admit the office-seeker is plying a dreary and pedestrian trade, and perhaps not even proficiently. There’s no other explanation for the incredible lifespan—now nearing three weeks—of the Mary Burke plagiarism scandal.

We like our initial interpretation better all the time. The serial plagiarism is revealing far beyond Burke’s willingness to lift economic development ideas; it suggests we are at risk of being governed by a nonentity.

Appearing Sunday on Madison television, she struggled to identify a single component of her jobs plan that was a certifiable Burke original, then picked one that promptly tuned out to have been plagiarized.

And recall, she immediately fired the consultant responsible for the plan when the plagiarism story broke, but retains the plan and produced a defiant television ad saying so. If she received a contribution from someone who later turned out to be a bank robber, would she keep the money?

We argued a week ago that Burke seems strangely indifferent to the realities of her campaign, begging the question whether she’s really interested in governing. Come the debates, someone should ask whether she actually wants to be governor.

It would be interesting to hear if they ever reach the follow-up question: “Why?”

“Why” is obvious — she’s not Scott Walker.

But what would happen in Wisconsin if Burke were elected?

There is no way Republicans will not retain the state Assembly after the Nov. 4 election. It looks decreasingly likely that Democrats will even be able to take the state Senate, in which Republicans have a 17-15 majority, with one vacancy.

The word that comes to mind, of course, is “gridlock.” Mike Nichols examines the potential Gov. Burke:

The elephant in the room is the elephants in the room — the big room with the white columns, stuffed eagle and oak desks that is known as the Assembly Chamber.

There are 60 Republicans in the Assembly and only 39 Democrats. Robin Vos, the Republican Assembly speaker, thinks Republicans, if anything, might actually pick up a few seats this November. And even if they don’t, they will retain an enormous majority.

The GOP also currently controls the Senate, though by a much slimmer 17-15 margin with one vacancy — the southeastern Wisconsin seat Neal Kedzie resigned in June to take over the Motor Carrier’s Association. Democrats will not pick up Kedzie’s solidly Republican seat, and they on are track to lose the redistricted seat currently held by Democratic State Sen. John Lehman, the one-time Racine teacher who could end up as Burke’s lieutenant governor. That means Democrats will need to pick up a total of three other seats to take over the 33-seat chamber.

It’s not altogether impossible. Democrats hope to capture seats held by outgoing Sens. Mike Ellis, Dale Schultz and Joe Leibham. But it’s extremely unlikely, and even if Burke does win and Democrats prevail in the senate, the fact is she will still have to deal with a very conservative Assembly.Mary Burke’s hopes won’t rest with allies in the Legislature. They will, at least initially, rest with her veto pen. …

“I think we are unique in the scope of the governor’s authority,” says Fred Wade, a Madison attorney who has long criticized the way Wisconsin governors can use the partial-veto to “create legislation that the Legislature did not approve.”

Like other governors, Wisconsin’s chief executive has the ability to veto legislation in toto. But he — or she — also has the ability to partially veto appropriations.

Governors dating to Pat Lucey in the 1970s have used and abused this so-called “partial veto.” Jim Doyle, for instance, transferred more than $400 million from the transportation fund to schools by almost comically crossing out words and stitching together parts of different sentences.

That’s no longer possible. Voters altered the state constitution and eliminated the so-called “Vanna White” and “Frankenstein” vetoes that once allowed governors to delete letters in words or crudely stitch together parts of different sentences. But, Wade says, governors can still cross words, digits, whole sentences and commas out of appropriations bills in ways that can entirely defy legislators’ intent.

“For Mary Burke the temptation will be to do what Jim Doyle did,” says Wade. “Because he was stymied in the legislature, he used the power extensively to write legislation the Legislature did not approve but that reflected his priorities.”

Republican legislators could limit Burke’s ability to do the same by excluding purely policy matters from the budget bill. And, Vos points out, governors are not able to “veto an appropriation higher.” But, he concedes, Burke, if so inclined, would be able to stop Republicans “from cutting taxes or cutting waste.”

In the end, it would be virtually impossible to fireproof the budget bill to prevent the new governor from creatively tweaking it to suit her agenda. But chances are that any conflicts with Republicans in the budget would be over the power of the purse. …

Burke has made it clear that she would try to repeal provisions of Act 10 that “crippled the political power of public-sector unions.” She has called Act 10’s implementation of annual union elections and ban on automatic dues collections “nothing more than heavy-handed attempts to punish labor unions” and has said she would work to repeal those provisions.

Vos says he can’t see how she would accomplish that without control of the Legislature.
“I believe that she does not have the ability to do very much on Act 10,” he says.

Retiring Democratic Sen. Tim Cullen essentially agrees, telling Wisconsin Interest it is “highly unlikely” she could roll back Act 10.

Joe Zepecki, communications director for the Burke campaign, says, “There is no silver-bullet strategy” on the issue.

“It’s bringing people together and getting that done.” She would, he says, “turn down the volume a little in terms of the political back-and-forth.”

Overall, Cullen thinks Burke would “govern somewhere near the middle.” Vos, for his part, says that if she wins, “she gets to reshape state government in a way that is much more liberal.” …

What’s clear is that while Burke would have virtually no ability to push major policy initiatives without the acquiescence of Republican legislators, she could also stand in the way of Vos and fellow Republicans pursuing their own conservative agenda.

Zepecki says Burke has no doubt that she can work with people like Vos and Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald. Should she win, there will certainly be much talk of bipartisanship.

In the end, though, there wouldn’t just be a struggle for power between two political parties. There would be a broader struggle between branches of government. There are conservatives who feel too much power has already migrated from the legislative to the executive branch — and there will be an attempt to reclaim some ground.
“We will end up having a Republican legislature that will pass all kinds of bills that Mary Burke will veto,” predicts Vos. He suggests it will become much harder to reform entitlements, for instance, or keep a lid on taxes and spending and regulation.

Cullen lacks credibility on being “somewhere near the middle” given his role in the Fleeing Fourteen. Nothing Zepecki says should be believed, period.

Gridlock is the most optimistic view of Burke as governor. At no point has Burke ever during this campaign uttered one word about her own party’s faults — that they totally screwed up state finances in the late 2000s, for instance. Burke has demonstrated zero ability to translate her supposed business experience to legislation and policy. When you advocate the loss of 120,000 jobs, your credibility on the economy will rightly be in question.

You can certainly kiss tax cuts goodbye. Burke is apparently claiming that the Walker tax cuts were only $11 per month. How arrogant to claim that state government can spend your $132 better than you can, or, for a family of four, your $528. But hey, when you take two years off work and your daddy gets you a job in the family business, maybe money’s not a big deal for you.

Waukesha’s city administrator and an urban planner say that public employee collective bargaining reforms — the controversial Act 10 of 2011 — need to go further:

In its Sept. 17 editorial about Gov. Scott Walker’s second term agenda, the Journal Sentinel Editorial Board said, “Act 10 was a mistake” (“Gov. Scott Walker’s second term? Same as the first,” Our View). Act 10 virtually ended collective bargaining for many, but not all, state and local public employees.

It was not a mistake and should be followed up with Act 10.2 and Act 10.3. One would address the expensive early retirement feature included in the Wisconsin pension plan for all state and local public employees, and the other would bring in police and fire personnel, left out in Act 10. Police and fire together amount to about 60% of most local budgets, leaving only 40% covered by Act 10.

Wisconsin was the first state in the Union to allow public employees to bargain collectively, and, by the 1970s, unionization was showing its worst feature. That feature was, and will always remain, that unions cannot resist the temptation to try to control both sides of the bargaining table. They do this by being politically active in electing union-sympathetic public officials and in de-electing taxpayer sympathizers. The state teachers union was the first to consistently apply this power both in local and state elections and was very effective at both levels.

Wisconsin, having first created public collective bargaining, rightfully should be the first state to remove it. Indiana was slightly earlier, but the Indiana public at referendum put it back in place. That action, and the current race for Wisconsin governor, shows just how much unions are fighting to regain this power.

Early public employee unions recognized that public employee strikes did not sit well with the public. In exchange for removing the right to strike, unions were given arbitration, a power that likely gained more for unions than striking. The problem with arbitration is it becomes an averaging of the surrounding lowest and highest wages.

As the wealthier tax bases raise their wages and benefits, over time the lower tax base communities rise to the previous average of the higher base. If they both can rise faster than inflation, which they have done by a ratio of 2.5-3 to 1, in only a few successive contract periods the lower tax base pay equals the former high base levels.

Where bargaining has been especially deleterious for taxpayers is unions began focusing on fringe benefits, which are hidden from public view and often hidden from employees themselves and under-appreciated by them. It is now common for public employees to receive benefits that cost 50% of their total pay, whereas the private-sector ratio is around 25%. This “fringes strategy” has paid excess dividends to public workers in two costly areas: health insurance and pensions.

In health insurance, public employees were shielded from the huge run-up in health premiums because they were able to bargain 100% employer pickup of the cost. Such premiums between 1978 and the 2008 economic slump rose 600%, or double the 300% rise in general inflation.

For teachers, they achieved an extra bonus from their employer-paid health insurance. The local unions bargained, and won in 60% of Wisconsin school districts, that the no-bid contract for health insurance go to the insurance company owned by the state teachers union.

That insurance can be called “cadillac coverage.” Not only did it have five-way coverage — doctor, hospital, drugs, vision and dental — each was top of the line. For example, in private-sector dental insurance, when it existed, $1,000 per year was the typical limit per patient in the family. A few companies offered $1,200, and a very few $1,500. Some teachers’ coverage: $2,000 per patient per year.

Similarly in patient-paid deductibles, zero was a common ratio for teachers. When private-sector family premiums were reaching $18,000 per family a year, the teachers’ company was $22,000 to $25,000. School districts are learning they can retain this high coverage, but by bidding can lower the cost greatly, in some cases so far by over 50%.

In pensions, most private-sector employers contribute up to 3% of wages into the company 401(k) plan, and under 401(k) rules, employees may add another 3%, a total of 6% between them. But because the early retirement feature of the Wisconsin plan is so costly, the plan specifies total contributions as high as 16% a year.

In bargaining, there have been efforts to have the school district pay the entire 16%. Under the “Rule of 85,” a Wisconsin public employee may retire as early as age 55, provided he or she has worked 30 years under the plan. Until age 65, when federal Medicare begins, collective bargaining has won employer-paid health insurance covering that gap for early retirees. Often, it even continues after age 65 for a lifetime, thereby exempting retirees from paying their share of Medicare. Wisconsin’s early retirement is out of step with the times, considering longer lives and Social Security raising its age to 66, then to 67. …

The final, and some public administrators say, the worst aspect of collective bargaining, was how the labor agreement came to supersede some civil service rules and other rightful employer prerogatives. An example is how bargaining contracts typically dictate layoffs be only by least seniority, so the last in is the first out. School districts before Act 10 sometimes were laying off their most promising young teachers because of their recent hiring. Under Act 10, for the first time in four decades, public bodies again are creating their own handbook of work rules and benefits, which are correcting these past union-imposed arbitrary situations.

That last paragraph is all the evidence you need of why Act 10 had to become law, controversial and divisive though it was. The employees do not get to decide who works and who gets laid off. That is properly the role of management, whether or not the employees like the managers.

Gov. Gaylord Nelson’s signing of the law allowing government employees to unionize might be the single worst piece of legislation signed into law in Wisconsin in the 20th century. You’ll notice that neither Walker nor any other Republican has mentioned overturning that law, though it should be overturned.

You may remember claims by Da Union during Recallarama that the teacher unions were willing to bargain bigger employee contributions for their benefits. That was a statement that lacked any credibility for two reasons. First, given that there are 427 school districts in this state, no state union official can speak for every school district union head, let alone a majority of the members of all 427 teacher unions. Contract negotiations also take place behind closed doors, meaning Da Union could say one thing in public and do the opposite in private.

Act 10 is one step, and only one step, to giving taxpayers the power over the government we’re paying for instead of politicians and government employees, whose salaries and benefits are paid for by us taxpayers.

While the media reports that Mary Burke apparently borrowed her ideas from several different sources …

… it turns out someone is swiping her ideas, wherever those ideas came from.

(By the way: I came up with the headline last week, though it showed up on Facebook Saturday by two of my Facebook Friends.)

Breitbart reports on South Dakota Democratic gubernatorial candidate Susan Wismer:

BuzzFeed reported Thursday that Susan Wismer, the Democratic Party’s gubernatorial nominee in South Dakota, has been caught plagiarizing from the already plagiarized jobs plan of the party’s Wisconsin gubernatorial nominee, Mary Burke. Wismer also plagiarized from the Democratic Party’s gubernatorial nominee in Texas, Wendy Davis.

Until this plagiarism of a plagiarized plan story broke on Thursday, Wismer liked to point out the similarities between herself and Burke of Wisconsin.

On her campaign website, for instance, the lead story in her news section cites an article published in the Washington Post last month, which reported that “Mary Burke made Wisconsin history Tuesday. She and South Dakota’s Susan Wismer — both of them Democrats — this year became the first women since 1970 and likely ever to secure a major-party nomination for governor in their respective states, according to the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University.” …

The instances of plagiarism first identified by BuzzFeed on Thursday (shown below) are numerous and blatant:

Mary Burke’s Jobs Plan:

She knows how to make responsible decisions that keep a balance sheet in the black while creating jobs because she’s spent her career doing it. Scott Walker has taken a different approach. Despite making historic cuts to education, he’s turned a projected budget surplus into a deficit, and state spending has shot up by $4.6 billion.

Susan Wismer’s Campaign Document:

As an accountant, Susan knows how to make responsible decisions that keep a balance sheet in the black while creating jobs because she’s spent her career doing it. This governor has taken a different approach. After making historic cuts, he took a $127 million dollar budget surplus and padded his reserves rather than giving back what was cut to areas desperate for funding.

Mary Burke’s Jobs Plan

Mary believes Wisconsin schools should be among the best in the nation—and she knows that making historic cuts isn’t the way to do it. She’ll work every day to strengthen our public education system, from K-12 to our technical colleges and university system.

Susan Wismer’s Campaign Document:

Susan believes South Dakota schools should be among the best in the nation and making historic cuts isn’t the way to do it. Susan will work every day to strengthen our public education system– from K-12 to our technical colleges and university system.

Wendy Davis’ Campaign Document:

Wendy Davis will build a well-trained workforce of teachers by engineering guaranteed pathways to careers in education and ensure ongoing support by raising teacher pay to be in line with the rest of the country.

Susan Wismer’s Campaign Document:

Susan will build a well-trained workforce of educators and ensure ongoing support for them by raising salaries to be on par with the rest of the country.

Wendy Davis’ Campaign Document:

When responsibly invested, economic development funds can help bring new businesses and jobs into the state, promote innovation, and encourage technological advancements. But under the wrong leadership and without accountability, too often they become giveaways to special interests and insiders that drain valuable resources from essential investments like our schools and increase taxes on working Texas families.

Susan Wismer’s Campaign Document

Susan knows that the best businesses for communities are usually local businesses. When responsibly invested, economic development funds can help create new businesses and jobs, promote innovation, and encourage technological advancements. However, under the wrong leadership and without accountability, too often they become giveaways to special interests, corporations, and insiders that drain valuable resources from essential investments.

Wendy Davis’ Campaign Document:

As Governor, Wendy Davis will:

Promote transparency, accountability, and responsible investment of economic development funds to ensure they actually create jobs, as well as encourage innovation and development that benefits all Texans.

Susan Wismer’s Campaign Document:

As governor, Susan will promote transparency, accountability, and responsible investment of economic development funds to ensure they actually create jobs and encourage innovation and development that benefits all South Dakotans. She will establish strong, independent oversight of our incentive funds. Susan will ensure transparency and accountability of tax exemptions.

Mary Burke’s Jobs Plan:

The Walker administration has taken a different approach. Rejecting hundreds of millions of our own federal tax dollars means our money goes to cover health care in other states, and leaves us paying more as a state to cover fewer hard working Wisconsinites. It’s an example of what happens when you put politics ahead of progress. And it’s just wrong.

Susan Wismer’s Campaign Document

The Daugaard administration has rejected hundreds of millions of our own federal tax dollars, money that is covering healthcare in other states, and leaves us paying more to cover fewer hard-working South Dakotans. It’s an example of what happens when you put politics ahead of progress.

Mary Burke’s Jobs Plan:

Mary will overturn the current administration’s refusal to accept the federal expansion of Medicaid, bringing hundreds of millions of dollars of our taxpayer money back home to our state, where it belongs.

Susan Wismer’s Campaign Document:

Susan will overturn the current administration’s refusal to accept the federal expansion of Medicaid, bringing over $272 million of our taxpayer money back to South Dakota, while providing 48,000 South Dakotans with access to affordable, preventative health care.

Breitbart News requested a comment from the Wismer campaign but has not received a response.

There have been no reports yet that any other Democratic gubernatorial candidates have plagiarized Wismer’s plagiarization of Burke’s plagiarized plan. But with another 40 days still left until election day, it is still too early to discount the possibility of a third generation of campaign document plagiarization among Democrats this cycle.

It’s getting to the point that a diagram will be needed to connect who swiped which ideas from whom. One also wonders how many incorrect facts are in Wismer’s plan, such as the inaccurate claim about job growth in small business since the Recovery In Name Only began.

Of course, as I’ve pointed out ever since this hit the interwebs, the big issue here is much less about stolen ideas (though it speaks to Burke’s personal character) as it is the quality, or lack thereof, of those ideas. Advocating policies that will chop 120,000 jobs from the state doesn’t qualify under any sane person’s definition of “best practices.”

About those ideas, the Club for Growth observes:

On hearing Friday’s news that Mary Burke’s job-creation plan was plagiarized from other Democrats running for governor, in Delaware, Tennessee, and elsewhere we thought, well…there are think tanks whose business is to share such ideas.

But Burke reacted less calmly, firing the consultant responsible for the cut-and-paste job. Why? For duping her into thinking she had a jobs plan?

More intriguing than Burke snatching ideas that may be interchangeable among Democrats is her apparently scant familiarity with what she is proposing.  The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel quoted her saying “This is my plan on how to drive Wisconsin’s economy forward,” later adding that she had made it “the centerpiece” of her campaign—begging the question of why she wouldn’t recognize material that wasn’t her own. The lingering impression is that the content doesn’t matter, least of all to Burke.

So what does matter in this singularly odd campaign?

A jobs plan outsourced because there had to be one; a resume mixing employment by a company her family owns with periods of prolonged unemployment and activity Burke strains to define.  A privileged baby-boomer in a candidacy disconnected from achievement, based solely on Mary Burke not being Scott Walker.  That. Is. All.

As Jim Doyle’s Commerce Secretary, effectively his chief job-creation officer, didn’t Burke have ideas of her own?  Dare we ask how they worked out? Weekend stories detailed more plagiarism that couldn’t have involved the fired consultant. Has Burke no agenda she can safely reveal?

If anything about the Democrats’ handpicked nominee seems familiar, seems to resonate with current realities in America, it’s the apparent detachment from the necessities of governing. A vaporous, unfocused figure glimpsed occasionally through swirling mists, the anti-Walker, nothing more.

Indeed much of Burke’s plan was copied, but not just from other campaigns.  Burke also plagiarized copyrighted material.  Her jobs plan, “Invest for Success”, directly copied material from “Manufacturing’s Secret Shift”, a study copyrighted in 2011 by Accenture, one of the world’s largest consulting firms.

Take a look at these two passages, the first from Accenture, the second Burke’s.

“Companies are beginning to realize that having offshored much of their manufacturing and supply operations away from their demand locations, they hurt their ability to meet their customers’ expectations…” 

“But today, many companies are beginning to realize that moving their manufacturing and supply operations overseas has hurt their ability to serve their customers.”

This is sometimes referred to as mosaic plagiarism, the splicing of key phrases with only minor changes within the same sentence structure and meaning.  A Harvard grad like Burke might know this.  The rest of us can Google “Harvard mosaic plagiarism.” That Burke plagiarized copyrighted material is beyond doubt, but there is more.

Mary Burke might “take the time to read the whole” Accenture study she was plagiarizing. It might help her understand why her proposals for Wisconsin are so misguided.  Accenture asked manufacturers to identify the most important factors in selecting locations for their operations.  Respondents ranked as most important these factors: labor costs, proximity to the customer, skills of workforce, taxes, transportation costs, and government regulations.

Wisconsin must be more competitive in attracting and keeping manufacturing in our state. We need to improve the skills of our workers, reduce taxes and streamline regulations. Mary Burke’s mistake is much bigger than plagiarism. Burke is advocating failed liberal ideas that would move us in the wrong direction on labor costs, taxes and regulations.