Republicans In Madison Seemed Confused About State Owned Assets

Over the past several weeks we’ve seen the Republicans in the state legislature grant the governor broad and unethical powers to sell any variety of state assets. The plan would be to sell the facilities and lease them back from the new owners or in the case of utilities buy the heat or steam or electricity from the new owner.

Quite frankly this doesn’t make sense…there is no way that you can sell an asset that you own to a third party…lease it back while they are making a profit…and expect to get a better deal than owning the asset…the math don’t work out.

And now they’ve taken exactly the opposite tack…decide to build new buildings…namely a new Transportation Department Headquarters. In all fairness, the legislature is reducing the amount being budgeted for new buildings…but they apparently feel they need this one. Will they include a stipulation that the governor can’t sell it for a certain period of time or will we build it and immediately sell it and then lease it back?

If they really think that leasing buildings for government use is the best way to go…maybe just maybe…they should ask a developer to build the Trans Dept HQ and lease it from the get go and see how that works out for Wisconsin!

And maybe they should ask the feds exactly how that worked out for them with the Reuss Federal Plaza…ah…not so good.

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6 thoughts on “Republicans In Madison Seemed Confused About State Owned Assets

  1. Arizona is in the process of buying back its state capitol building. They sold the state capitol, fer cryin’ out loud.

    1. Sue, not only are they buying back the Arizona Capitol building, they’re doing it at a loss. They sold the building a few years ago for $81 million, and now the asking price to buy it back is $105 million.

  2. Well, it’s not only that, check out this. It’s a bill to allow government to gain access to the bank accounts of the unemployed if you’re curious.

    … I’m hearing nothing but crickets from conservatives right now. Except a troll on reddit who says the poor don’t deserve to save money and deserve to die. Which I think is more honest than any other conservative who stands with the party currently.

    1. I don’t know how many times people had to find work, but you seem to be under the impression that getting a job is the inevitable consequence of doing something right.

      It’s not. It’s the result of being the one out of hundreds of applications and having a manager decides is good enough. That’s not an objective decision, mind you; I personally know successful hiring people who, if the stack of applications is prohibitively tall, will just trash most of it even if it’s actually successful applications with it.

      There are also many managers who look for people who will take as little as possible to survive. People they could prey upon and bully. As I said, it depends on the manager, I got lucky with mine but I had my friends who have been put under someone like that.

      Do these people really believe that everyone who is out of work just isn’t trying hard enough?

  3. I see the JFC will require a cost-benefit analysis when selling public assets. How comforting. How reassuring. Pfft. Now there’s a red-flag ruse if ever there was one. Exactly what costs and benefits shall be excluded from said analyses I wonder? I’d like to see those cost-benefit models. Will all cost and benefit be monetized? Will any attempt be made to measure seemingly non-quantifiable cost and benefit? Why on earth would a concept so failed and flawed as cost-benefit analysis get past press and Dems without word one?

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