Joel Kleefisch outsources drafting of bill to limit child support for the wealthy to a wealthy divorced donor

A controversial bill that would allow high-income parents to avoid paying tens of thousands of dollars a year in child support was written with the help of a wealthy donor to the bill’s author, Rep. Joel Kleefisch. The Oconomowoc Republican acknowledged Friday that Michael Eisenga, a multi-millionaire business owner, and his attorney helped write the bill, which could pave the way for Eisenga to force the court to reopen his divorce settlement.

The lawmaker insisted in an interview that the measure, Assembly Bill 540, would not affect Eisenga’s case. “I’m certain the bill would not affect Mr. Eisenga in any way because it’s not retroactive,” Kleefisch said. “He wanted it retroactive. It’s not retroactive.”

However, the bill would require judges to lower child-support payments if they are 10 percent or more above the amount that would have been ordered using the new requirement. That requirement caps incomes subject to child-support payments at $150,000 a year.

Kleefisch’s bill also would prohibit judges from taking into account a parent’s assets in determining the level of child support.

It's getting to be one hell of a country, these United States. Compare and contrast the following two developments in politics and law. First, in Washington, D.C.:

* A panel of 12 men on the Republican-controlled House Judiciary Committee held a hearing on a bill that could allow the IRS to audit survivors of rape or incest because they used their contraceptive health care coverage.

Meanwhile, here in Wisconsin:

* According to news reports, subpoenas issued in the the John Doe investigation into campaign spending and fundraising by conservative political groups in state recall elections of the governor and other mostly Republican lawmakers were quashed in a sealed ruling by the appeals court judge presiding over the case.

The conservative political action groups that had been served with subpoenas reportedly proclaimed that their right to keep their activities secret is now "vindicated." Quite the proclamation, given that those groups essentially outed themselves (see earlier blog at URL below) n this case before apparently asserting that their Fourth Amendment right to privacy (mind you, not secrecy but only privacy) was being trampled. In any rational legal system, however, you don't get to kill your parents and then earn the court's mercy because you're an orphan.

...

These two cross-eyed developments Friday all add up to this: if you're a well-heeled conservative political action group in Wisconsin, you're apparently closer to the day when you can pretty much spend your fat wad of cash anonymously and however you like, influencing elections and cooperating with campaigns in return for unknown favors, without fear that the IRS or anyone else will be legally able to check out your operation. But if you're a woman anywhere in the US who was sexually assaulted and you used your health insurance for contraceptive services, you apparently are closer to the day when you may be subjected to government audit. Because, hey, you may be a victim but you'll have no right to privacy when it comes to issues of reproductive choice.

The pace of scientific research into music making has never been greater. New data about music’s relationship to brainpower, wellness and other phenomena is changing the way we perceive mankind’s oldest art form, and it’s having a real-world effect on decisions about educational priorities. The briefs below provide a glimpse into these exciting developments.

...

Middle school and high school students who participated in instrumental music scored significantly higher than their non-band peers in standardized tests. University studies conducted in Georgia and Texas found significant correlations between the number of years of instrumental music instruction and academic achievement in math, science and language arts.
Source: University of Sarasota Study, Jeffrey Lynn Kluball; East Texas State University Study, Daryl Erick Trent

...

Students who were exposed to the music-based lessons scored a full 100 percent higher on fractions tests than those who learned in the conventional manner. Second-grade and third-grade students were taught fractions in an untraditional manner ‹ by teaching them basic music rhythm notation. The group was taught about the relationships between eighth, quarter, half and whole notes. Their peers received traditional fraction instruction.
Source: Neurological Research, March 15, 1999

...

Research shows that piano students are better equipped to comprehend mathematical and scientific concepts. A group of preschoolers received private piano keyboard lessons and singing lessons. A second group received private computer lessons. Those children who received piano/keyboard training performed 34 percent higher on tests measuring spatial-temporal ability than the others ‹ even those who received computer training. "Spatial-temporal" is basically proportional reasoning - ratios, fractions, proportions and thinking in space and time. This concept has long been considered a major obstacle in the teaching of elementary math and science.
Source: Neurological Research February 28, 1997

ArmedWithReason Gun Study Database

This database includes more than 100 academic studies that support our position and have at least an abstract available to the public. It is a work in progress. If you have any suggestions for further additions to the database or questions, feel free to contact us at armedwithreason@gmail.com.

For 40 years Republicans have tried to convince working-class whites that their hard-earned tax dollars were paying for "welfare queens" (as Ronald Reagan decorously put it) and other nefarious loafers -- a cunning strategy using racial prejudice and economic anxiety to distract attention from corporations that were busily busting unions, outsourcing abroad, and using technologies to replace jobs.

But as the economy has shifted, poverty is now a condition almost anyone can fall into. Nearly 55% of Americans between the ages of 25 and 60 have experienced at least a year in poverty or near poverty; half of all American children have at some point during their childhoods relied on food stamps. A growing portion of the middle class are in part-time or temporary positions, or contract workers. And two-thirds of those below the poverty line at any given point identify themselves as white.

All this renders the old Republican divide-and-conquer strategy obsolete. Which means Republican opposition to extended unemployment insurance, food stamps, jobs programs, and a higher minimum wage pose a real danger of backfiring on the GOP, making way for a new political coalition of America's poor and working middle class bent on getting a fair share of the economies' gains and repairing frayed safety nets.