Posted in Class Warfare, Climate Change, Election 2012, Environment, Humor, Hypocrisy, Idiocy/Lunacy, Local Politics, The Cheddarsphere, Those Kooky Conservatives!, Wisconsin, Wisconsin Politics

The GOP’s next step….

   March 11, 2011

As part of the nationwide right wing looney agenda, Scott Walker wants to end recycling.

Congressman Ed Markey is on to their insane shenanigans!

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17 thoughts on “The GOP’s next step….”

  1. WRONG. State law will still require recycling. His budget removes the subsidy and local mandate.

    “Last week, Walker’s two-year budget proposal eliminated the subsidy and the mandate that each community operate a recycling program. In 2010, the state subsidized 27% of the cost of the program. The price tag of the subsidy was $29.3 million.”
    http://dev.www.jsonline.com/news/statepolitics/117502093.html

  2. You are correct, i should have described it more. HE is no longer subsidizing local communities, and he wont allow communities ti raise taxes, so he is passing the burden to the communities to make them stop recycling. So even though he keeps the recycling mandate, he has no interest in helping the state recycle.

    1. I am sure communities can figure out how to recycle. It’s about priorities. Don’t tell me there’s not some waste (pardon the pun) in their budgets they can cut to make up for the loss in their state subsidy so that the community can keep recycling. It’s provisions like this that will help force their hand on being more efficient with taxpayer money.

  3. Of course because they all have been spending like crazy for years. Except in reality everyone has been cutting for years. Who knew though that the Big Government republicans would come in and decide that scott walker was more capable of making the decisions for all of the communities in this state better than any local elected official?

    1. Necessity is the mother of invention. When they’re not getting “free” money from the state, I bet it will be amazing the ways they find to save money. In general, there are so many local governments with unnecessary or overlapping services. Maybe this will finally force them to look more rationally at their budgets and combining services. That’s where collective bargaining comes in. Like this example…

      “Manitowoc County Executive Bob Ziegelbauer says Governor Walker’s plan to limit public employee bargaining rights would make it easier for him to balance the county budget. He cites the local union’s refusal to allow the closing a rarely-used juvenile detention center.

      Manitowoc County’s detention center rarely holds more than one or two juveniles a month on 72-hour holds. But it costs the county $650,000 a year in salaries for the two union correctional officers who staff it round the clock. Ziegelbauer wants to close it and house those inmates in neighboring counties. But a provision in the union contract prevents him from laying of the guards.”

    2. Of course because they all have been spending like crazy for years. Except in reality everyone has been cutting for years.

      Are you kidding me? My property tax bill says otherwise. Looking at my mom’s (since I’ve moved & don’t have data for the property very far back), $2662 in 1998, $5148 in 2010. That’s 2 years of Thompson, 2 of McCallum and 8 of Doyle.

      And the whole purpose of revenue caps was to provide some semblance of control over rising property taxes. Not only did it not do a very good job of doing that, the state simply upped their take.

      Personally, I actually do disagree about the revenue limits – especially given the cuts the state is making, the local municipalities should have more options to make it up, not less. That said, right now, they should have an easier sell than normal on a referendum to allow them to exceed the cap. And is it really so awful to make our elected officials ask us before raising our taxes?

      I’m very happy to see the state cut shared revenue drastically because local control is better. I can pick up the phone or grab a minute with my local town board members at a community event (or the local watering hole). They don’t have millions, or even thousands of dollars to spend campaigning so they listen or they are voted out.

      1. I do agree with you in the local control in terms of accessibility to local elected officials(in every community but mine anyway), however many communities could not fund many things without shared revenue.

        Why dont we also make our elected officials ask us before they have major tax cuts also??

        1. Why dont we also make our elected officials ask us before they have major tax cuts also??

          well if you’re going to throw out fantasy hypotheticals…

          1. Joking aside, much as I get frustrated at the old fogies who vote down any school spending referenda and make it really difficult to build new schools when they’re needed, if you think referenda to cut spending wouldn’t pass in a heartbeat, you’re quite mistaken.

            It’s also a fundamentally different situation – saying government should have to ask us if it’s ok for them to take MORE money from us is not at all the same with the government taking LESS money from us.

            1. Locke, in all honesty, i think you would be surprised if we had to pass a referendum to cut taxes how many would fail.

              I think many people have no problem screwing everyone who isnt themselves. That being said things like the HSA tax cut that walker just passed, if we put that to the people alone, would not have passed. Who would say we want to cut taxes for about 5% of the people and take multi millions of revenue out of the economy. Sound good? Of course like all bills they would start putting miniscule tax cuts for everyone and bigger for the higher brackets to get them passed.

  4. A good point to remember is there isn’t an incredible amount of waste in most local budgets. My experience is that most towns villages, counties and cities debate long and hard over purchases and budgets and have been cutting for the last several years. Now they will need to replace funds that they will not have returned by the state even though they’ve already made commitments to their citizens to plow snow, provide safety, enforce ordinances etc..

  5. If recycling has value to people, they will do it. If it has value to Waste Management, they will pay others to bring it to them. If it only has value to do-gooders and they want to force others to pay for their goodness, then recycling will halt.

  7. i would say that with all of the scientific evidence showing the reality of mans effect on climate change, at this point, the earth is now the commons. If we rely strictly on where the profit lays we would have the indian with the tear standing in front of every lake, forest, greenspace in this country.

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