Walker calls for merging several state agencies, says Wisconsin can be leader

MADISON, Wis. — Gov. Scott Walker is calling for merging four state agencies into two, saying Wisconsin can be a leader in making government more efficient and accountable to the public.

Walker proposed in his State of the State speech Tuesday that the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation be merged with the Wisconsin Housing and Economic Development Authority. He is also calling for merging the Department of Financial Institutions with the Department of Safety and Professional Services.

Walker says he believes that government has grown too big and is too intrusive in people's lives, but it still has to work to do.

He did not provide any estimated savings, or impact on state workers, in his speech.

On the other side of the aisle, state Rep. Mandela Barnes (D-Milwaukee) said he was wary of the plan, pointing to the problems that followed a 2011 move by Walker and lawmakers that converted the then-state Department of Commerce into what is now WEDC. Barnes called the creation of WEDC a "failed experiment" that had to be reshaped because of mishandling.

"WEDC has been habitually reckless," he said.

In October, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel found that with its nontraditional structure WEDC has outpaced Commerce in quickly responding to companies looking either to move to the state or expand operations here. But the newspaper's review also found that in the rush to make those changes, WEDC relaxed its watch over taxpayer money, failing for a time to track systematically $12 million in past due loans originally made by Commerce.

Since then, the agency has improved its financial safeguards but struggled to repair its reputation.

The GOP has a fresh strategy to attack Social Security: pitting older Americans against people with disabilities. The Social Security trust fund supports retired workers, while the Disability Insurance Trust Fund provides for working people of all ages who become too disabled to work full time. According to the Social Security Administration, the trust fund has enough money to pay full benefits until 2034, but the disability insurance fund will need to be replenished next year in order to avoid cuts of approximately 20 percent for its 8.9 million recipients.

Congress can keep both funds solvent through 2033 by simply shifting a small percentage of money from the trust to the disability insurance fund, according to the Social Security Administration. It has done this type of reallocation routinely almost a dozen times to shore up both funds. But one of the first actions of the new House majority was to pass a rule change by a vote of 234-168 prohibiting any reallocation that isn’t accompanied by cuts to recipients or increases in revenue.

Rep. Sam Johnson, R- Texas, a chief proponent of the measure, said he is trying to keep the “fraud-plagued” disability program from “raiding” the retirement fund. This assertion is nonsense. Disability insurance fraud rates are miniscule. A 2013 Government Accountability Office report concluded that only about 0.4 percent of beneficiaries may receive payments they don’t deserve.

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The GOP can only achieve its elusive dream of gutting and privatizing Social Security by first creating an imaginary crisis. Don’t fall for it.

MADISON – Tonight, Rep. Chris Taylor (D-Madison) released the following statement about Governor Walker’s State of the State address:

“The State of the State address is traditionally reserved for a Governor’s victory lap of their successes. Unfortunately, Governor Walker doesn’t have too much to brag about because he’s failed to put Wisconsin families first.

“Governor Walker failed our economy by creating a 2.2 billion dollar deficit. Governor Walker failed our workers by falling short on creating the jobs we desperately need and refusing to give Wisconsin’s working families a needed raise. And Governor Walker is failing our children by refusing to make the necessary investments in their future.

“In contrast, Democrats are focused on restoring economic opportunities, creating opportunities for our children to succeed and protecting our personal freedoms. That is our vision for the State of the State.”

Madison, WI - Representative Lisa Subeck (D-78) made the following statement in response to Governor Walker’s State of the State Address:

“After four years of putting politics ahead of people, Governor Walker again fails to put Wisconsin families first. In his State of the State address tonight, Walker offered no tangible policy solutions to help struggling families in our state. Instead, he offered a series of gimmicks, claiming to reform state government but offering no real benefit to the public. Walker touted property tax declines, neglecting to mention these decreases have left schools and local governments strapped for dollars needed to provide basic services.

In his address, Governor Walker painted an artificially rosy picture of Wisconsin’s economy and current state of affairs. In reality, the state faces a $2.2 billion structural deficit and consistently lags behind our Midwest neighbors in job creation, wages and other economic indicators. At the same time, Walker’s policies on education and economic development continue to move our state backward.

Only one week into the legislative session, Republicans have already launched attacks on our public schools with a fast-tracked bill that takes away local oversight of neighborhood schools under the guise of school accountability. This comes on the heels of last session’s statewide expansion of a failed private school voucher program and is nothing more than an attempt to further decimate public education, handing over our schools to Walker’s special interest campaign donors.

Instead of focusing on an extreme right wing agenda and catering to special interests, Governor Walker should refocus his efforts on growing Wisconsin’s economy and ensuring all Wisconsin residents have the opportunity to prosper.

These charter schools have at best no better a record than our public schools, and too many of them have a dismal performance record. Some of the failing charter schools have shut down without warning as owners abruptly leave the state, taking our tax dollars with them. In addition, we have no doubt that political ideology will play a prominent role in curriculum development and mandates.

"... an overwhelming theme of communications to my office to this point is that most individuals simply share their points of contention with the bill. I would certainly appreciate hearing solutions offered for an equitable system to improve the performance of students at our persistently under-performing public schools and private schools in the Parental Choice Program. Feel free to share specific ideas via email or at the hearing."

Dear Rep. Thiesfeldt;

We appreciate your prompt response to our concerns. You write that you would appreciate hearing solutions. While we're not educators, we can suggest some obvious solutions.

1. Recognize and acknowledge that our education problems weren't created overnight, and they won't be solved overnight. Quick fixes won't accomplish anything, especially since the roots of the problem are societal, and educators can't solve them; we have to address the societal problems.

2. Make K-12 education a field bright young people want to go into. That means first and foremost, treat educators as respected professionals, not the scapegoats for everything that's wrong with society (and not in their control). Provide full college scholarships to high-achieving high school students to major in education in exchange for a commitment to teach for a given number of years.

3. Provide mechanisms for adequate funding of public education. Our children are our future; why would we want to minimize the costs of something so critically important?

4. Recognize that some areas regarded by some as 'frills' are not frills. Don't cut funding for music, for example -- it involves simultaneously learning an entirely new language, higher-level math and the physics of sound in time and space. An avalanche of studies are demonstrating that children who study music and learn to play an instrument are gaining intellectual ability and self-discipline in all other areas as well. If legislators don't believe educators about this, ask neuroscientists.

5. Provide under-performing parents with support and guidance in parenting skills -- this should begin the day an infant is born and continue through the school years.

6. Establish family-friendly employment laws so that parents have the time and energy to provide a home environment in which their children can flourish.

7. Create and expand programs to ensure that children receive adequate nutrition, health care and a roof over their heads. How can they learn when they're hungry, sick and homeless?

8. Teach the public that 'elite' is not a dirty word. Americans once were proud to think of our country as elite -- the best in the world. We are rapidly losing ground globally to countries that emphasize and invest in education. If we think 'elite' is undesirable, how can we motivate our children to become the best they can be? They all want to become elite professional athletes because that earns status and recognition -- use the power of the media to which you have access to promote the position that intellectual achievement is the most exciting and worthwhile thing young people can aspire to. Create recognition and award programs for academic achievements that get as much attention and status as school athletics does.

America cannot thrive if the goal of education is teaching 'job skills.' We must teach children to think, question, experiment and contribute to the sum of human knowledge. We cannot survive as a nation of serfs and lords -- that day is long gone.

'New York Bozo!' Aaron Rodgers welcomes Chris Christie to Lambeau


On second-and-2 on the Green Bay Packers' opening drive on Sunday against the Dallas Cowboys, quarterback Aaron Rodgers called out an audible that — best guess — had a funny little double meaning.

"New York Bozo! New York Bozo!" Rodgers shouted as he scanned over the defense.

Hmm, let's see ... who is the most talked-about guest of a certain Cowboys owner? Yes, we imagine this was the Packers' response to New Jersey governor Chris Christie and his infamous red sweater being pals with Jerry Jones and a guest at the divisional playoff game at Lambeau Field, as well as several other big games this season dating back to Thanksgiving.

Yes, New Jersey is not New York, but it's one fewer syllable. Same difference in some folks' minds, maybe in all Wisconsinites' minds Sunday.

Take that, Omaha.

U.S. Senator Ron Johnson, you know-- the guy who got rich by finding someone to support him, has a pearl of wisdom for all the working single moms out there: If she wants to "increase her take-home pay” instead of having yet "another child out of wedlock" to increase her welfare windfall, she should instead "find someone to support her." (see video below)

Johnson is quick to admit that he stole this incredibly sexist riff comes from his uber-misogynist pal, U.S. Rep. Glenn Grothman. But some things are so awesome, that you just have to use them yourself! Some variation of this single mom marrying the government instead of a marrying real man has become a central talking point of Johnson's stump speech as he gears up for re-election 2016.
Good luck with that, RoJo.

As anyone who works and has kids would expect, Johnson and Grothman's modern redux of the "welfare queen" has been rated "Mostly False" by Politifact and was given "Two Pinocchios" by the Washington Post's fact checker. Why? Because it is a ridiculous notion to suggest that when you’re a single parent, working below the poverty line, that you would intentionally have another child to get more government assistance and "increase your take-home pay." Obviously, food stamps, health care and other government assistance don't come close covering all the expenses that come with having a child and what Johnson and Grothman fail to grasp in their misleading calculations of "income," is that children actually eat and children actually get sick-- the "increased income" they're talking about comes in the form of increased benefits that all (in most cases literally) get eaten-up by the children.

Which is why, as we still struggle to climb out of the Great Recession, during which a record number of people (including families headed by single moms) needed help in the form of food stamps and other government assistance programs, the birth rate in the United States came to a screeching halt. It's also important to point out that in the current generation of children, more than half will spend at least part of their childhood in a single-parent household and although most of these single-parent households are headed by women, most single women with children don't receive government assistance that we typically think of as "welfare."

House GOP votes to increase oil spills in Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota, Kansas, and Oklahoma.

BREAKING: Mitt Romney tells donors he's considering a run for president in 2016, and has a "whole new series of gaffes planned".

FOX NEWS: Ronald Reagan created 22M jobs during the Clinton Presidency. Now Mitch McConnell has created 11M jobs for Obama.

After Obama proposed offering free tuition at community college, Ted Cruz introduced a bill raising community college tuition to $1 million.

Dear Friend of Education,

I am emailing you today to inform you of an important piece of legislation concerning education in Wisconsin that was recently scheduled to receive a public hearing in the Assembly Committee on Education (the Committee). The bill, 2015 Assembly Bill 1 (AB 1), is the first legislative order of business proposed by the Republican Party and has raised great concern with many education leaders statewide.

I wanted to make you aware of this proposal, and I would encourage you to testify at the public hearing scheduled for Wednesday, January 14th at 10 AM, or contact the members of this committee to convey your thoughts about this piece of legislation.

Find below a link to AB 1 on the state’s legislative website. Also find below a link to the Public Hearing Notice issued by Committee Chairman Jeremy Thiesfeldt as well as a listing of members who serve on the Committee.

As always, if you have any questions about this or any matter before the State Legislature, do not hesitate to contact my office.

Sincerely,

Dianne Hesselbein
State Representative
79th Assembly District

A copy of Assembly Bill 1 can be found here:
http://docs.legis.wisconsin.gov/2015/related/proposals/ab1.pdf

A copy of the Public Hearing notice can be found here:
http://docs.legis.wisconsin.gov/raw/cid/1152050

Find below a list of members of the Assembly Committee on Education:

Rep.Thiesfeldt@legis.wisconsin.gov (Chair)
Rep.Kitchens@legis.wisconsin.gov (Vice Chair)
Rep.Jagler@legis.wisconsin.gov
Rep.Knudson@legis.wisconsin.gov
Rep.Rodriguez@legis.wisconsin.gov
Rep.Brooks@legis.wisconsin.gov
Rep.Horlacher@legis.wisconsin.gov
Rep.Murphy@legis.wisconsin.gov
Rep.Quinn@legis.wisconsin.gov
Rep.Hutton@legis.wisconsin.gov
Rep.Pope@legis.wisconsin.gov
Rep.Sinicki@legis.wisconsin.gov
Rep.Genrich@legis.wisconsin.gov
Rep.Barnes@legis.wisconsin.gov
Rep.Considine@legis.wisconsin.gov