State Republicans wage War on Wisconsin Identity, Expensive Junk Food!!!

Remember when Republican State Rep. Dale Kooyenga wanted to clean up state statutes by removing the requirement that dairy state restaurants always provide butter with or without a serving of margarine. What's that all about?

Republican state Rep. Dale Kooyenga, a 32-year-old accountant from Brookfield wants to undo law he calls silly, antiquated and anti-free market. Kooyenga argues that changing the law would save the state money since margarine is typically a third of the cost of butter.

Brilliant stuff. Another Republican, Rep. Dean Kaufert is trying to ban junk food from the food stamp program...a ban that includes a few other important dairy state products. Doh!

Members of the state affairs committee are approving a bill that limits the amount of junk food that can be purchased with food stamp benefits.

The big butt....

WMTV: "This bill does not allow for Wisconsinites who are utilizing the FoodShare program to purchase sharp cheddar cheese, Swiss cheese, shredded cheese or reduced sodium cheeses," said State Rep. JoCasta Zamarripa, D-Milwaukee. "And I just want to indicate again how that hurts not just those individuals, those Wisconsinites using the FoodShare program.....but it hurts our dairy farmers."

The committee passed the bill 7-2, so it'll be heading to the full Assembly for consideration in May.

I don't know why farmers typically vote conservative when in fact, Republicans have shown time and time again that they'll stab their constituents in the back in the blink of an eye.

People Want Butter at Restaurants!! Put a Knife in it.

This maybe the last story I'll do on the repeal butter law in Wisconsin, but the story below deals with the point I was trying to make when this topic was first reared its ugly head. The dairy industry and restaurant owners will have the final word:

Marshfieldnewsherald: Rep. Dale Kooyenga, R-Brookfield, introduced the bill to repeal the margarine restrictions and said the law is a "classic case of big government."

Roy Heilmeier, co-owner of 2510 Restaurant on Wausau's west side, said he goes through five or six times as much butter as margarine. Darryl Rapolz, owner of The Airport Restaurant & Lounge at Central Wisconsin Airport in Mosinee, said it never even crossed his mind not to serve butter, because that's what most customers want. "Most people will take the butter over everything," he said. "If I put out margarine, they won't touch it."

But Kooyenga's bill has struck a nerve with some people in the Dairy State, "It's a bill that's misguided," said Brad Legreid, executive director of the Wisconsin Dairy Products Association. "It shows a total lack of support for Wisconsin's dairy industry." One of Kooyenga's arguments is that the law inhibits the free market … Trevor Wuethrich, co-owner of Greenwood-based Grassland Dairy, said the idea that the law affects the free market is tough to believe. Wuethrich and restaurant owners said it has a symbolic meaning that is important to Wisconsin.

The obscure law is a connection to Wisconsin's rich dairy culture. "I think as a restaurant person, you'd be pretty foolish not to support such an important industry in our state," Heilmeier said.

Let’s take whatever makes us Wisconsin, and destroy it. Like Butter.

Republicans have done everything they can to make us like every other state in the country. They've taken our state identity and crushed it with their ideological sledge hammer. Sure we have higher taxes, but we also have a better quality of life. Better schools, lower cost of living expenses to go along with our generally smaller paychecks, and great parks and lakes. That's what made us Wisconsin. 

Screw that. We want low taxes. Dairy state? Not anymore.

One numskull by the name of State Rep. Dale Kooyenga, and originally from south of the cheddar curtain, is trying to do away with a law that requires restaurants to offer you and me butter for crying out loud. Kooyenga said to the Journal-Sentinel the existing law is "silly, antiquated and anti-free market."

The Dairy state law is…silly? Silly us. I personally want the law to stay in place. I expect butter when I dine out. It makes going out to eat just that much better then eating cheap margarine at home. 

You know, maybe we don’t appreciate what we have in this state. Maybe we’re okay with an Illinois import like Kooyenga to make butter disappear.  Let’s do away with the dairy states buttery uniqueness.

Out of Georgetown, Texas, Food Renegade Kristen Michaelis wrote this amazing tale:  

It’s not where you think it is. Not long ago, someone was treating me to breakfast and took me to I.H.O.P. I asked the waiter if he could bring me butter, and he brought me margarine.

“Excuse me,” I asked him politely, “but do you have any butter butter? Real butter, I mean, not margarine?” His momentarily confused expression quickly passed, and then he promised to go ask his manager. Five minutes later, the manager came out and asked me what I wanted. I reiterated that I simply wanted some butter. I wasn’t trying to be a pain, but surely the restaurant had real butter somewhere back in the kitchen. Five minutes later, he returned. “We don’t have any butter,” he said. That big scoop of creamy, salty, yellow stuff on the pancakes you eat there? Margarine. The little single serving pats they bring out with your toast? Margarine. The “butter” you asked them to cook your eggs in instead of refined vegetable oil? Margarine.

Making this discovery started my quest. I wanted to see how many restaurants even had butter. Nearly half a year later, and can you guess what I’ve discovered?

One. One restaurant out of dozens. Over the past 6 months, I’ve eaten out more than I have at any other time in my life. I’ve been to small town cafes and expensive fine dining. I’ve been to the local, hip places serving grass-fed beef and the major restaraunts dishing up oysters and pate. But you’d expect more of them to have butter, wouldn’t you?

Wait till the Republicans find out about the "community" owned socialist Green Bay Packers.

Thanks to the Caledonia Patch and Janine Anderson for taking up the fight.

We should be guaranteed Butter in our restaurants, schools, hospitals and prisons. Period!!! We’re the DAIRY STATE for gods sake.

Ever wonder why there’s always a dish of little butter things in a bowl on your table at restaurants? I have. And I’ve always welcomed the chance to break away from the boring margarine I use at home, for that one chance to relish the special sweet rich flavor of butter when I go out to eat. 

Forget all that now. A young history deficient accountant, now a tea party representative, wants to short change the Dairy State’s sale of butter with blocks and tubs of hardened oil. In the DAIRY STATE of all places.

WSJ: A quirky Wisconsin law intended to protect the state's dairy industry by making it illegal for restaurants to serve margarine as a replacement for butter is being targeted for repeal … loophole: Restaurants can abide by it simply by serving both butter and margarine.

What is it about dumb-ass Republican accountants (dumb Ron Johnson is one too):

Republican state Rep. Dale Kooyenga, a 32-year-old accountant from Brookfield wants to undo law he calls silly, antiquated and anti-free market.

Silly and anti-free market? What the hell is he talking about? It doesn’t stop anyones ability to ask for margarine, or buy it at the store if they're so addicted. In fact, it’s not an issue:

Pete Hanson, director of government relations for the Wisconsin Restaurant Association. It's simply not an issue, he said. "Restaurant owners are in business and are successful because they give customers what they want and in Wisconsin that's generally butter," Hanson said. "I don't think there necessarily needs to be a law requiring butter to be on the table. I think most patrons in Wisconsin prefer butter."

Oh but there is a need for another new law from the party that hates regulations.

The law Kooyenga seeks to replace also requires that butter be served to students, patients and inmates at state institutions, except as necessary for the health of the person. In accordance with the law, butter is served to the roughly 21,000 inmates in Wisconsin's prisons. Kooyenga argues that changing the law would save the state money since margarine is typically a third of the cost of butter.

Yeah for proposing a more convoluted law to replace the “old” butter law on the books. Let's give everyone unhealthy cheap trans-fat loaded hardened oil to clog up their arteries. 

I’m wondering how the Wisconsin dairy industry is going to like losing its place at the table. Will their profits just melt away?