Friday, September 17, 2021

For Vos-Republicans, what's "Radical?"

 After all this time, nearly 3 years, and no reporter has asked the one simple question of Republicans; what's so radical about Gov. Tony Evers, or his agenda? Correct me if I'm wrong, but a majority of Wisconsinites rejected Scott Walker after 8 years of doing nothing. Evers gave voters a choice; solve a whole list of festering problems or keep Scott Walker. 

Radical Rebecca (Kleefisch), announced her run for governor with this ridiculous accusation on her webpage...

"Former Lieutenant Governor Rebecca Kleefisch has officially launched her campaign to FIRE radical liberal Tony Evers."

But what fired me up was a Politico article about Vos, declaring him a smart adversary for Gov Evers. Of course Vos retweeted it...

Not exactly a badge of honor, the title described Vos this way...: 

Vos' approach is simple and offers a model for Republican legislators serving with Democratic governors in other swing states: Deny Democrats any big policy wins, thus depriving them of any major accomplishments to promote when seeking reelection.

Despite denying much needed legislation from Wisconsinites for purely political reasons...

“Today I’m keeping my word. I’m signing one of the largest tax cuts in history.” He’s fielding criticism from Republicans, who say he’s taking credit for their budget. Vos: "He took credit for the hard work that we did."

With Evers' tax cut promise accomplished and then some, he owned Republicans, sending Vos into another laughable tantrum.

Also, with a $4 billion surplus and a $2 billion tax cut with no additional spending, WI is projected to receive another surplus of $1.7 billion by June 2023. That's lots of state revenue to fix, replace, and solve growing problems brought to light by the pandemic. Nope.

Radical Liberal Agenda...? What? Reporters have never asked what Republicans think is so radical about the Evers/Democratic agenda. So what if it's a "liberal wish list?" Remember: Republicans threw out Evers budget so any duplication of policies would be credited to them, and not the Governor. They also needed a template to work from, lazy bastards... 

For Republicans, these are Radical Policies...???

1. Providing Tax Relief to Working Families: DONE. 

2. America’s Transportation Awards named the I-94 North-South Freeway Project one of the nation’s outstanding infrastructure projects for 2021 completed on schedule and under budget in 2020. Not the disaster Radical Rebecca claims.

3. Providing improved access to dental care for everyone directly impacts their overall health. 

4. Extending broadband infrastructure and affordability, $200 million help connect folks in both rural and urban areas to work from home, engage in telehealth, and access education at all levels.

5. Slow impacts of climate change, lower the costs to repair roads, crops, and communities. 

6. Investing in our agricultural industry (Farms) to promote our state from one end to the other.

7. Provide WEDC with $8 million, increase WEDC's total block grant funding by $10 million.

8. $10 million to fund worker training programs.

9. Create state tax-preferred savings accounts that would allow first-time homebuyers to subtract from their adjusted gross income.

10. Increase general operations funding for the University of Wisconsin.

11. Tuition freeze at UW, while funding UW to offset the fiscal effects of the freeze.

12. Translation of military training and credits to licensure requirements.

13. Reform the state's unemployment insurance law to make it less complicated for individuals, make necessary upgrades.

14. Support Wisconsin families, Modifying and expanding the Wisconsin Family Medical Leave Act.

15. Increase the state minimum wage for general workers.

16. Allow self-employed individuals to deduct their medical care insurance premiums against all sources of income.

17. Require the Legislature to take up the redistricting maps proposed by the People's Maps Commission.

18. Expand Medicaid providing health care coverage to 90,900 additional Wisconsinites while saving $634 million GPR.

19. Invest in a healthy women, healthy babies initiative to improve birth outcomes.

20. Create a nonrefundable individual income tax caregiver credit for family caregiver.

21. Provide a total of $565.6 million in federal and state funds for the major highway program. Provide $75 million for local multimodal transportation projects.

22. If approved by local referendum, allow counties to impose an additional 0.5 percent sales tax and allow municipalities with populations over 30,000 to impose a 0.5 percent sales tax to diversify local revenue sources and better empower local governments to fund police and fire protection, transit, roads, and other important services.

23. Make it easier for communities to work together to create cross-boundary transit corridors, and that each participating county or municipality must have passed a referendum approving the agreement.

There's so much more of course, but "radical is not something that comes to mind. The bigger issue highlighted by this list? How far behind the state is when serving the interests of Wisconsinites.  

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