This Is Not Helpful Right Now: Vos Evers Feud Continues

While the state leaders are supposedly putting together a bipartisan state economic support bill for Wisconsin…it seems that there really is NO bipartisan activity on Madison’s capitol whatsoever. While the needs of Wisconsinites are immediate, the bill they’ve been working on is already a month old. WTF??

But here’s what’s really not helpful:

Seeking to further curb Democratic Gov. Tony Evers’ power, Republican lawmakers are proposing to give a handful of lawmakers the ability to cut school aid and slash state spending if a deficit materializes.

Does that sound bipartisan to you? Why the flock are we putting such nonsense in an emergency economic package in the first place? It is really time to just sit down and hash this stuff out and stick to the point. What can the state do and how will it do it…to mitigate the pain the state is suffering from the COVID-19 pandemic?

Needless to day the governor is considering a veto. I understand why…and this just harkens back to the lame duck legislation that has already weakened the governor’s authority.

…Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald, R-Juneau, said in a statement. “Millions of relief dollars are at stake for Wisconsin. Suggesting he’ll veto the full bill publicly, while privately we’re still negotiating, is irresponsible.

Yeah, but. Meanwhile in their own little fiefdom:

Republican legislative leaders said the relief package is still being negotiated with the help of Democratic legislative leaders.

“We’ll keep working with the minority party to put together a bill that can hopefully pass soon with bipartisan support,” he said.

But that isn’t the perspective from other side of the aisle:

Republicans did not collaborate with Senate Democrats on the proposals released Wednesday, according to Kate Constalie, a spokeswoman for Senate Minority Leader Jennifer Shilling of La Crosse.

or maybe it is:

Assembly Minority Leader Gordon Hintz, D-Oshkosh, said his office “kept in regular communication with Republican leadership to share ideas on a bipartisan package we could all support.”

But I am not sure exactly what the Republicans expect from the Democrats on the GOP bills when they opened the discussion by delaying the whole enterprise for three weeks and dissing the governor’s early proposal out of hand.

The GOP plan…comes three weeks after Evers first proposed to lawmakers at least $706 million worth of spending to provide relief for the state as the virus outbreak shutters businesses, infects thousands and grinds daily life to a halt.

At the time, leaders said Evers’ proposal was a nonstarter in large part because of a provision that would provide the state Department of Health Services unlimited spending authority during the public health emergency.

Fortunately the governor is still optimistic:

Evers said he believes the two sides can compromise.

This whole thing is shameful. If even Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, and the Trump administration can put together a bill…there is absolutely no reason that Wisconsin’s elected official haven’t by now.

Sit down, work it out. This isn’t one of those things that will get better the longer we wait.