Walker Wants us all to Go to Church and Beg for Assistance, Privatize America.

How can a guy like this run for governor? Milwaukee County Executive Walker hasn't created jobs but lost them, depleted maintenance funds to nothing for roads and parks and wants to remove public service accountability and give it to the private sector. Am I dreaming? In the Isthmus article about Walker, he said this at a summer tea party;

"Some people put their faith in the government," thundered the Milwaukee County executive and Republican candidate for governor, drawing a predictable chorus of boos and setting up his next line. "But we put our faith in the people and the employers who make this country great."

Is Scott unaware the "people" elected their representatives? According to the writer of the article, Roger Bybee,

"His message to voters has a populist flavor aimed at reaching disaffected working people, yet with an unabashedly pro-business punch. This at a time when trust in the banks, corporations and insurers with whom Walker is aligned has plummeted. He's even recommended dissolving Milwaukee County government and spreading its duties to the city and other municipalities.

How can a person who sees government as a main part of the problem make it an integral part of the solution? "It's like saying you want to run the Brewers, yet you hate baseball," quips former Milwaukee County Supv. Roger Quindel. And, like governors Mark Sanford of South Carolina and Bobby Jindal of Louisiana, Walker initially sought to reject stimulus funds available to Milwaukee County for job creation."
In his current run for governor, Walker promises to bring a host of "free-market" policies that will attract new jobs and prevent the further erosion of the state's family-supporting jobs. He calls for greater reliance on volunteerism and freeing corporations from restraints and tax levels that discourage investment.

"Many if not all of my social services in the future will be more about community partners like Catholic and Lutheran social services, Goodwill, other community-based partners who don't carry the type of legacy costs that public-sector employee-based systems do," Walker declared on WHA's "Here and Now" program in late August.

Walker also advocates widespread privatization of state agencies, saying everything from the Department of Motor Vehicles to correctional institutions should be considered.

"The people who pay for government," he says, "shouldn't be paying considerably more for health care and other benefits than the people that are provided those salaries." In other words, Walker would rather attack the benefits of government employees than argue that all working people deserve good benefits.

Which points out the biggest problem Republicans have with public policy; humanity. Has Scott turned down his own government provided benefits and has he promised to refuse coverage as governor? No. Pure conservative elitism.

He believes Wisconsin's taxes on corporations and the wealthy drive them out of the state, and he talks about luring retirees back from Florida and Arizona.

Walker's critics say his push to cut taxes, privatize whenever possible, and slash public employment has meant neglect of vital public institutions and fewer services for the poor. They say that outsourcing public-sector functions creates problems of accountability and that
cutting back services creates more problems than it solves.

He believes Wisconsin's taxes on corporations and the wealthy drive them out of the state, and he talks about luring retirees back from Florida and Arizona.

Walker's critics say his push to cut taxes, privatize whenever possible,
and slash public employment has meant neglect of vital public institutions and fewer services for the poor. They say that outsourcing public-sector functions creates problems of accountability and that cutting back services creates more problems than it solves.

Here's what the Moneyedpolitician.net thinks about Walker:

Only corporate favors will bring jobs back to Wisconsin.

Where he has it wrong is believing that he can balance the state’s budget and run it in the black. It just can’t happen, at least not under our current moneyed political system.

Taxpayers want politicians to reduce spending and the Fat Cats that fund the elections want the opposite. The latter will win it every time. It does no good to be a fiscal hawk when your legislature is being paid to spend money, and it does no good to try to attract companies and jobs to a high-tax state. Solve the political problems first and then go after the growth.

Walker has made it clear that he does not support “government-run” health care, so that leaves the current privatized insurance system in place. Which, incidentally, also keeps the campaign cash rolling in.

And if congress does pass a health care bill that gives states the option to implement their own single payer, I’d count on a Walker veto here too. His brand of compassionate conservatism doesn’t reach that far.

Bothersome is Walker’s penchant for “privatizing” things; namely, at the moment, Milwaukee’s Mitchell Airport. To believe that the added corporate wastes (executive salaries, bonuses, profits and political contributions) would somehow not be passed onto the taxpayers is wishful thinking.

Outsourcing does not decrease government spending, it ultimately increases it. Chicago (and Milwaukee) are now looking at privatizing their water systems, which will surely come back to bite them. If the state politicians were smart — and nobody has ever accused them of being that — they’d buy back the power companies throughout the state. The ratepayers of WE Energies alone are forking out an extra $9.9 million for its CEO’s salary, a bit much for this neck of the woods.

The only benefit of privatization (to the politicians, anyway) is that government can’t give campaign contributions but private industry can. And that’s what we want to eliminate, not expand.

In one comment, this bit of wisdom:

Free Market success depends upon whether or not the choice to purchase a good or product is “free” to begin with. Some goods and
services operate under Captive Market rules (i.e. “have to have, or else” sort of thing). Free Market rules break down and don’t work when used to rule over Captive Markets, or what should be public goods and services. Captive Markets depend upon management using humane values that serve the “Good of the Whole”, while Free Markets depend only upon materialistic values serving the welfare of individuals.