Blogging Blue

I know I can be very passionate - sometimes to a fault - when it comes to issues that matter a great deal to me, and I’m sure it’s obvious to all six of my regular readers that autism happens to be one of those issues. In a blog entry, I said Mark Honadel, “apparently doesn’t care too much about autistic kids, as he voted against Governor Doyle’s proposed budget.” Having corresponded with Assemblyman Honadel, I’m cautiously optimistic that’s not actually the case, and so I feel a bit like a horse’s hind-end.

This is a lesson learned on why not to blog when you’re angry.

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I’m not going to say much about this video, because it speaks for itself, but I will say I’m just glad they put that disclaimer at the end.

(Many thanks to Kevin B. for tipping me off to this little gem)

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Shame on him for caving in and allowing mandatory health insurance coverage for autism treatment to be cut from the budget “compromise” reached late yesterday. It’s really a sad day when politicians are so readily willing to make treatment for autistic kids a political issue, and it’s a sad day when Democrats are so quick to give up on the issue just so they can say they got a budget deal done.

In a multi-billion dollar state budget, mandating insurance companies provide coverage for autism treatment would have cost 1.3 million dollars, and I can’t help but wonder if that’s money that couldn’t have been cut from somewhere else.

I’m actually disappointed I had faith in Governor Doyle and all his talk about helping autistic kids.

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A few days ago, I wrote a little about the anti-tax rally held in Madison by the conservative fringe group Americans For Prosperity, as well as the counter-rally held by members of AFSCME, Wisconsin’s largest government employees union. I noted then that the number of AFSCME members was almost double the number of folks attending the AFP rally, even despite the AFP’s efforts at busing folks in for the rally.

Shortly after the rally ended, conservative bloggers were quick to denounce the members of AFSCME for their boorish, disruptive, and thuggish behavior, despite my having heard no reports of any arrests or citations for any illegal behavior on the part of the folks from AFSCME. Folks on the conservative end of the spectrum, including Fred Dooley from “Real Debate” Wisconsin, were also quick to assert AFSCME’s interest in organizing a counter-rally had little to do with their members expressing support for getting a budget done, but instead was nothing more than, “getting more money for their members.”

What I found most interesting wasn’t necessarily Fred’s post itself, which is pretty standard anti-union garbage that most conservatives love to spout, but rather his comments section. Mixed in among his comments were a few choice comments by Cathy Stepp, a former State Senator who was mired in ethical issues as the result of her authoring legislation that would benefit her special interest benefactors, since she was firmly in the pocket of special interests in the building, construction and real estate industry who contributed more than $80,000 to her election campaign. Stepp is also notable for her attempts to sell out her constituents during the last round of budget negotiations, when she supported a Republican-proposed budget that would have cut state aid to Racine-area school districts. In her comments, Stepp uses some pretty fuzzy math (to put it mildly) to assert state employees somehow aren’t regular taxpayers like John and Jane Q. Public. Stepp said:

The 42% of us in the private sector (aka “Real World”) pay the salaries of the 58% in government jobs.

Now obviously I was more than a little taken aback at Stepp’s assertion that government employees don’t pay taxes, because it defies logic that someone who spent four years in the Wisconsin State Senate can’t seem to master the most basic principles of mathematics. After all, Cathy Stepp seems to think 42% of folks in Wisconsin who are in the “real world” pay the salaries of the 58% in government jobs, which is curious, because as one of the aforementioned 58% who are government employees, I get taxes - both state and federal - taken out of each and every one of my checks. This is a talking point I’ve seen at more than one conservative blog - the assertion that the salaries of lazy, no-good state employees are being paid by hardworking folks in the private sector - as if state employees don’t pay taxes too. Conservatives are quick to demonize state employees as leeches off taxpayers, but the simple concept that they fail to grasp is that state employees pay taxes too, so in essence, state employees help pay their own wages.

It’s exactly this kind of dishonesty that’s going help the Republican Party lose even more seats in the Senate and the Assembly in 2008, which promises to be a very bleak year for conservatives in the State of Wisconsin.

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…but that doesn’t mean the budget debacle is over. The State Senate and Assembly still have to vote in favor of the agreement reached by Governor Jim Doyle and legislative leaders.

The package includes a $1 per pack increase in the cigarette tax and a $200 million transfer from the Patients Compensation Fund to balance the books and pay for new programs like the expansion of BadgerCare.

But it does not include some other revenue uppers that Doyle had originally proposed, including a tax on hospitals designed to generate more federal money for medical assistance or the tax on oil companies to pay for transportation projects.

Though leaders have signed onto the plan, there remains some question if the package will be approved by the Republican-controlled Assembly, where 22 members have signed a “no tax” pledges, or the Dem-controlled Senate, which gave up its universal health care plan Healthy Wisconsin and other priorities.

On the surface, it’s obvious both sides compromised; Doyle gave in on the oil and hospital taxes, and Republicans gave in on the cigarette tax. Without seeing the specific agreement reached, I can’t really say who came out on top, but I’m just glad both sides came to an agreement.

However, I will be very curious to see if the Autism Insurance Mandate was included in the budget deal, because I know the mandate was one of the items Republicans found to be “objectionable” in the budget previously submitted by Governor Doyle. I really hope common sense prevailed on the issue of the AIM, because there’s a good number of autistic individuals in Wisconsin who sure would benefit from the health insurance coverage the AIM would provide.

Edit: So it appears Governor Doyle caved in and dropped mandatory coverage of autism treatment by health insurance providers. Words just can’t adequately express how disappointed I am right now.

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