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Today's Blog: Time for the Guv to morph into Chris Christie
My husband and I and a couple hundred friends watched in Green Bay as ...(more)

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Time for the Guv to morph into Chris Christie (6/28/2011)

Time for Gov. Walker to talk more about the cake (3/4/2011)

Today, reality hits home (3/1/2011)

FoxPolitics News going on hiatus (1/28/2011)

Brown County Executive candidate forum Feb. 8 (1/28/2011)

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6/21/2010
Walker’s doin’ it

“The only way we’re going to get spending under control is to fundamentally change the way we govern, enacting long term solutions that reduce the cost of government.”

That’s Scott Walker. And I don’t think he means the tried and true “we’re going to eliminate fraud and waste in government.” I have to say that with a bit of a caveat in Wisconsin these days. Of late, pretty massive fraud has been exposed in our great (eek) state. FoodShare fraud (what used to be called food stamps – I haven’t yet seen total dollar amounts), unemployment benefits fraud ($17.7 million in 2009) and fraud in the Wisconsin Shares child care program (crackdown on fraudulent providers is expected to save taxpayers $45 million in 2010 alone).

Ok. Let’s say investigators and regulators finally doing their jobs saves $75 million at a cost of beefed up staffs, say $10 or $20 million worth. Still some big money. So yes, commit to constantly looking to find savings by getting rid of fraud. But then, let’s take the next step. The courageous step.

Unlike many other states, Wisconsin’s pension fund is in pretty good shape – we’ve kept up our obligations to fully fund the system. From a good summary piece in the New York Times this weekend, other states with troubled pension systems are working all angles to reduce their liabilities.

Illinois raised its retirement age to 67, the highest of any state, and capped public pensions at $106,800 a year. Arizona, New York, Missouri and Mississippi will make people work more years to earn pensions. Virginia is requiring employees to pay into the state pension fund for the first time. New Jersey will not give anyone pension credit unless they work at least 32 hours a week.

However, all this reform doesn’t do a thing to reduce states’ budget deficits. Again, the Times:

Though heralded as breakthrough reforms by state officials, the cuts phase in so slowly they are unlikely to save the weakest funds and keep them from running out of money. Some new rules may even hasten the demise of the funds they were meant to protect.

Lawmakers wanted to avoid legal battles or fights with unions, whose members can be influential voters. So they are allowing most public workers across the country to keep building up their pensions at the same rate as ever. The tens of thousands of workers now on Illinois’s payrolls, for instance, will still get to retire at 60 — and some will as young as 55.

One striking exception is Colorado, which has imposed cuts on its current workers, not just future hires, and even on people who have already retired. The retirees have sued to block the reduction.

If Walker has anything to say about it, he will reduce state expenditures by $180 million annually by going the route of Virginia, requiring employees to actually pay their portion of retirement contributions.

It’s a gutsy move. Is it generalizing too much to say the state employee unions won’t like it?

At a Brown County Taxpayers Association meeting last Thursday, Walker noted that a significant portion of Wisconsin’s budget crisis relates to wage and benefit costs.

Currently, taxpayers pay both the 5% employee portion of their state employee retirement benefits AND the 6% employer portion. That’s just not fair to the thousands of Wisconsin families who are asked to make a personal contribution to their retirement plan.

Asked in a conference call after the meeting how realistic it was to get state employees to pay a portion of their own retirement contributions, Walker said the reality is the union can’t ignore the state’s $2.4B deficit. “We would use any and all legal means we have at our disposal to get the job done.”

Walker’s aim is to balance the state budget without short-term trick fixes used in past years. He’s apparently done it repeatedly in Milwaukee County. Perhaps, just perhaps, he has the experience, courage and commitment to get the job done in Madison.

Jo Egelhoff, FoxPolitics.net

**FoxPolitics has been talking about public employee retirement contributions and costs for quite some time.

Retirement from public sector employment in Wisconsin
Earliest age of retirement is at a fairly young age; how more states are changing that

It’s time public employees paid their fair share

Does your legislator support pension reform in Wisconsin?
Details a proposal by Representative Gottlieb that never moved out of committee.

Nice work if you can get it
I.e., retiring at age 54 with less than 25 years of service.

COMMENTS

If Walker wants to "fundamentally change the way we govern," he'll support public funding of elections where candidates can opt out of the system of political bribery. Otherwise he is just more of the same.

Jack Lohman (Mon Jun 21 08:37:20 2010)

Here is a group that comes to a decidedly different conclusion than Jack about public funding:

http://www.campaignfreedom.org/blog/detail/the-false-promise-of-tax-funding-in-political-campaigns

Remember that public funding gave AZ the arguably corrupt gov. Janet Napolitano. Under the AZ legislation, if one candidate gets a big shot of donations, the other side can get matching funds from the state. But are the publicly funded candidates any less prone to corruption? Not as long as they see the public treasury as their means to buy votes.

And how would independent expenditures be accounted for? Should the information that third parties want to get out be limited? That is to say, should FREE SEECH be limited? Hopefully not in the land of the free.

Remember, CU v Fed elections board was about a video detailing the history of Hillary Clinton. How is the public interest being served by limiting the amount of info. one can obtain about candidates?

No, Jack's panacea would favor big government types, and the status quo. There is NO substitute for a moral and informed electorate.

Ken Van Doren (Mon Jun 21 12:43:56 2010)

Ken, you have your head in the sand. You favor a system that allows bribery of politicians; I don't. And if my panacea favored the status quo we would have had publicly funded elections decades ago.

No, we don't want to limit political bribes (the free speech you so cherish), but we do want to give candidates the option to say NO to the current system and still have enough funds to run a credible race.

Even in AZ your Libertarian buddies ran while taking public funding. Go figure.

And Napolitano didn't become corrupted until she went to work for Obama, one of the most corrupt.

Jack Lohman (Mon Jun 21 13:10:36 2010)

Jack, once again YOUR response clearly indicates that YOUR head is buried in the sand. The GAO study uses the criteria of folks like you, YOUR parameters, to prove that public financing is at best a wash, and does not acheive its stated ends. So why have it?

Also, I believe it was the Goldwater Inst that pointed out that, whether candidates have a credible opponent, or no opponent at all, they can receive taxpayer funded campaign money. This has led to the unintended (??) result that in non-competitive districts, candidates can save this cash for when the do have more credible opponents, or give it to enhance the political positions they favor.

And again you ignore that, it is illegal for me to bribe voters with my campaign cash, but not with the proceeds of the public treasury. Until that is addressed, there is no way that any number of "reforms" will be successful. Again, reforms will tend to favor incumbents and big government folks,as history has proven.

Ken Van Doren (Mon Jun 21 15:08:52 2010)

Ken, you want less government spending, but promote the system that has increased govt spending for decades. How are you liking it so far? Political campaigns work exactly as intended; they increase spending and taxes or else they wouldn't be given. You want zero regulations and (effectively) zero laws. Thank God the L's are on the outside looking in.

Jack Lohman (Mon Jun 21 15:25:21 2010)

Hi Folks:

I can't believe you "Guys"! We're talking about the ADVISABILITY of modifying (Reducing) the Wisconsin Public Employees Retirement Plan to make it SOMEWHAT more realistic, when compared to the "Folks" out here that don't enjoy the same level of Benefit, and you all revert right back to re-hashing the ILLS of the current political system, where contributions BUY votes!

Look, there's something BASICALLY WRONG when Wisconsin Public Employees can retire as early as age 52, after ONLY 25 years of service at virtually FULL PAY (when combined with Social Security). THAT'S ABSURD! NONE of you, who are paying for this "Rubbish" have Plans that pay that! It's just a rip-off of the Taxpayer. Let's begin work on this now, and move it in the other direction! GLS

GL Schilling (Mon Jun 21 16:21:51 2010)

Jack says:
"And Napolitano didn't become corrupted until she went to work for Obama, one of the most corrupt. "

This is a joke, right? or did Obama twist her arm to make her put Dean Martin, state of AZ treasurer on the no fly list? It also ignores a number of less-than-honorable dealings Nappy had in AZ before trotting off to DC.

And you deliberately mis-characterize my arguments, and your proposal does nothing to address the real root of the problem, that is, the virtually unlimited use of public funds to buy votes. If politicians could not indulge in that post-election graft, what point would there be in giving so much to candidates?

Let me know when you would like to have an HONEST discussion of this question.

Ken Van Doren (Mon Jun 21 19:22:42 2010)

Sorry GL, I started talking about how we "fundamentally change the way we govern," Walker's words in paragraph one, and that is probably even more costly of a problem than the singular public employee benefits.

But let's look ONLY at your concern: I agree with you. Teacher and public employee pay is out of sight, much because the bureaucrats negotiating these things don't have skin in the game. I would propose putting all state legislators on an incentive plan to keep costs down, and then you might see reasonable management of the state treasures. But I'd also demand that they be full time since we are paying them full time, and not letting them off for six months to prepare for elections.

But until you get the politicians working for the people that isn't going to happen.

Jack Lohman (Mon Jun 21 17:41:28 2010)

Ken, you are not capable of a discussion on this front; honest or otherwise. You are too ideologically tainted. When you develop some pragmatism let's talk.

Jack Lohman (Mon Jun 21 19:39:12 2010)

Mr. Schilling, you are RIGHT ON. Thank you for your pragmatic wisdom.

Jo (Mon Jun 21 19:44:54 2010)

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