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11/28/2007
There oughta be a law...
A Wisconsin Taxpayers Alliance (WISTAX) newsletter earlier this month detailed 17 earmarks and eleven “Amendments from nowhere.” (When is a state budget not a STATE budget?)
The newsletter’s message is plain and simple. “If a state budget is to focus on statewide concerns and if local projects, such as transportation projects, are supposed to be evaluated based on relative merit, the average citizen might wonder why and how these spending earmarks and targeted mandates found their way into the 2007-09 budget. The short answer is that legislators were “taking care” of constituents.
WISTAX goes on to suggest that including policy and earmarks in the state’s biennial budget bill might “prompt a look at several sections of state law.” Prompt a look? Sounds like serious stuff to me. Here’s where WISTAX suggests we look. - Wisconsin Constitution, Article IV, sec. 18: “No private or local bill which may be passed by the legislature shall embrace more than one subject, and that shall be expressed in the title.”
Emphases are mine here and below. Pretty simple and straightforward, don’t you think? - WI statutes, Section 13.05
Any member of the legislature who gives, offers or promises to give his or her vote or influence in favor of or against any measure or proposition … in consideration or upon condition that any other person elected to the same legislature will give or will promise or agree to give his or her vote or influence in favor of or against any other measure or proposition pending ….is guilty of a Class I felony. - WI statutes, Section 13.06
Any member of the legislature who gives, offers or promises to give his or her vote or influence in favor of or against any measure or proposition … in consideration of or on condition that the governor approve, disapprove, veto or sign… any other measure or proposition… in the legislature … is guilty of a Class I felony.
Wow. Earmarks – or get serious about the deficit?
Even the Journal Sentinel says - it's time. "The time for a sensible discussion about spending and priorities is now." And there really ought to be a law. SB 34 is just one piece of legislation that means to get serious about Wisconsin’s budget deficit. The bill will mandate GAAP budget accounting and mandate deficit reductions. Wow. What a fantasy. Any chance of getting this thing past a Democrat-controlled Senate?
COMMENTS
By "democrat-controlled" you mean "Democratically-controlled" right? Democrat is a pronoun. Democratic is an adjective. Democratically is an adverb. Saying "democrat-controlled" is like saying "I ran to the store real fast," or "I eat healthy" or "mighty fine" or "I write English proper" (instead of properly). Adverbs exist for a reason. Use them!
Stephen Flynn (Tue Nov 27 23:30:11 2007)
As a snobby grammarian and proud member of the Word Police myself, I don't take the aforementioned usage lightly - and also don't take lightly using (as the New Yorker's Hertzberg slurred) "the partisan equivalent of flashing a gang sign."
William F. Buckley famously said (can you just hear him?) "[Democrat as an adjective] has the effect of injecting politics into language, and that should be avoided. Granted there are difficulties, as when one desires to describe a "democratic" politician and is jolted by ambiguity."
The ambiguity is too much for me. I will suffer your reproach, but as a proud conservative when commenting (as opposed to reporting...), will continue to use capital "D" Democrat as an adjective.
Jo E. (Wed Nov 28 03:58:13 2007)
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