Monday, March 2, 2015

Why is Scott Walker doing this to Wisconsin?

Scott Walker is stripping away from government, everything the state has built up over a century or more. He isn't even asking us. Walker is fulfilling his twisted ideological dream of small government, all at the public's expense. Yes, it will cost us dearly. 

Cutting off the state's biggest money makers, the UW and state parks, seemed crazy and surreal. It just keeps getting worse. Now with the Legislative Audit Bureau’s breakdown of Walker’s proposed plans for Wisconsin, we're getting the sinking feeling there won't be anything left once he leaves office. But the price of everything will skyrocket. Walker apparently owed the private insurance industry a big favor:
WSJ: School districts and local governments would need to turn to private insurers or start their own fund if the Legislature adopts a provision in Gov. Scott Walker’s budget that does away with a state-managed property insurance program.

The fund covers everything from street sweepers, schools, salt sheds, dogs and horses for more than 970 municipalities and school districts across the state. Shutting it down would send many units of government to the private insurance market and almost certainly lead to higher costs, said city of Madison risk manager Eric Veum.

The proposal orders a halt to the Local Government Property Insurance Fund … The program is managed by the state Office of the Commissioner of Insurance.
Walker's "small government" = Bigger Bills for taxpayers: The same way big business saves money with its own health insurance plans, the government created its own affordable property insurance system:
The original state property insurance fund began when “coverage was made available to counties, cities, towns, villages, school districts, and library boards in 1911 and 1913, when it was difficult for these units of government to obtain reasonably priced coverage in the private sector.” A report by the Legislative Audit Bureau (found) the fund’s premiums for many years were at a level “with which the private market could not compete, resulting in the vast majority of local units of government participating in the fund.

Curt Witynski, the league assistant director, said the proposal to eliminate the fund may have come from two fields: “I am totally guessing here … there was a request from private insurance providers who thought it was unfair competition to sell property insurance.”

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