Tag: wisconsin

Gov. Scott Walker (R) calls for pay raises for Wisconsin state employees.

Apparently the budget can handle it now. Makes sense, now that all those bloated union contracts are receding into unfond memory:

Most state workers would get a 1% pay raise in each of the next two fiscal years under a plan by Gov. Scott Walker’s administration.

The general wage increase would be the first in four years for most rank-and-file employees and the first in five years for most managers, according to the administration.

The pay raise would cost more than $140 million over two years and apply to most state workers, including employees at University of Wisconsin System campuses. Employees making less than $15 an hour would see an additional increase of up to 25 cents an hour.

If you think that I’m laughing at this rather elegant in-your-face to Wisconsin progressives, you should read Ace of Spades HQ: they’re using the phrase “Pondering menacingly while relaxing upon his throne of skulls.” AoSHQ thinks that this is part and parcel of a general plan to build support for a hypothetical 2016 Presidential campaign; I personally want to get through the 2014 election cycle first, but it certainly won’t hurt Scott Walker if he’s demonstrating skill at turning states around.  Because God knows we’re going to need somebody to do that in 2016. Continue reading Gov. Scott Walker (R) calls for pay raises for Wisconsin state employees.

Wisconsin Democrats looking at “Anybody But ME!” for Governor race?

Democrats in Wisconsin want you to know: they’re going to be on the stick for 2014!

Wisconsin Democrats repeatedly made the argument at their state convention over the weekend that Governor Scott Walker needs to be defeated in 2014.

Hear that!  They’re tanned! Rested! And ready to go!

However, there continue to be few hints about exactly who will take on that challenge in the coming months.

…Oh.  Right.  One of them will have to actually volunteer to walk into the buzzsaw. Continue reading Wisconsin Democrats looking at “Anybody But ME!” for Governor race?

Wisconsin’s formerly-forced union members continue to organize with their feet.

Amazing what applying free market principles to labor organizing can do, huh?

According a Labor Department filing made last week, membership at Wisconsin’s American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Council 40 — one of AFSCME’s four branches in the state — has gone from the 31,730 it reported in 2011, to 29,777 in 2012, to just 20,488 now. That’s a drop of more than 11,000 — about a third — in just two years. The council represents city and county employees outside of Milwaukee County and child care workers across Wisconsin.

Labor Department filings also show that Wisconsin’s AFSCME Council 48, which represents city and county workers in Milwaukee County, went from 9,043 members in 2011, to 6,046 in 2012, to just 3,498 now.

Continue reading Wisconsin’s formerly-forced union members continue to organize with their feet.

Former Wisconsin recall Lt-GOV candidate breaks with Left, Stands With Scott Walker.

Cle-ver, Governor Walker:

Mahlon Mitchell, the president of the Professional Fire Fighters Association of Wisconsin, says he backs Gov. Scott Walker in his effort to end residency rules statewide.

The move comes less than a year after Mitchell ran unsuccessfully against Lt. Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch in an attempted recall of Walker and Kleefisch.

This is a good way to help splinter off the firefighters from the government drones.  Oh, yes, I’m sure that Mr. Mitchell will take the position that this is just a one-time, specific issue, no-precedent sort of thing.  He just wants to know what it’s like to be on the winning side in Wisconsin for once, you see.  And he’d like his fire fighters to know, too.

So, don’t worry your pre… your heads over this, ye Wisconsin progressives.  Everything’s still going your way.

Dammit, we got too greedy…

…Wisconsin Democrat (and frothing lunatic) Graeme Zielinksi will be shutting up now.

After a couple of tweets on March 1 comparing [Governor Scott] Walker to Jeffrey Dahmer, Zielinski is out as spokesman although he’ll still be working for the Wisconsin Democratic Party, Democratic Party staffer Graeme Zielinski dropped as spokesman after Twitter outburst…

Oh, well, nothing lasts forever.

Judicial probe into Scott Walker associates ends unhappily. For progressives.

Point:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vapsfffHj3Y

Ed Schultz concluded the segment by making a wild assertion. “Scott Walker could very well be indicted in the coming days,” the MSNBC host said.

…What’s that?  You want to take a moment to drink Schultz’s pain, there?  Of course, of course.  We can wait*. Continue reading Judicial probe into Scott Walker associates ends unhappily. For progressives.

Scott Walker opts Wisconsin out of Medicare expansion.

Gee, no bias in this at all:

Gov. Scott Walker announced Wednesday that he won’t propose expanding Medicaid services in Wisconsin, breaking with other Republican governors who decided to accept federal money for an expansion as offered under the health care overhaul law.

And, from later in the article:

So far, six Republican governors have agreed to the Medicaid expansion, while fourteen have turned it down.

Which means that it was those six Republican governors that have been doing the breaking, Sparky. And every single one of ’em is keeping close to the exit, setting it up so that the legislature could tell ’em no, or both.

Sheesh. The media we have today!

Heads up: bad news about Scott Walker’s new budget numbers…

… well, it’s bad news if you’re a progressive Wisconsinite, that is.

Wisconsin’s budget picture brightened Thursday, with new estimates that show a surplus will grow to $484 million, giving Republicans and Gov. Scott Walker even more room to pursue their tax cutting agenda.

The estimate from the nonpartisan Legislative Fiscal Bureau was nearly $137 million better than one Walker’s administration released in November. The numbers will be used by Walker as he puts the final touches on his two-year spending plan, which he’s set to unveil on Feb. 20.

Yes, I’m a dirty so-and-so. So?

Via Althouse, via Instapundit.

Scott Walker (R, Wisconsin) planning state income tax cuts.

He’s also planning to freeze property taxes as much as possible, but Walker is thinking about how to lower Wisconsin’s state income tax rates for upcoming years.

Walker didn’t discuss how much of an income-tax cut he was talking about, other than to say it would be “significant” and would be put in place over a number of years. That means some of the tax cuts wouldn’t take effect until 2016 or later – after the next budget ends in mid-2015.

And here’s the important bit (bolding mine)

For years, such long-term commitments created a massive structural deficit that made budgeting much more difficult for governors and lawmakers. Walker largely eliminated the structural deficit – the imbalance between expected revenue and expected expenses – in his first state budget and has repeatedly touted that.

As well he should tout that; between Scott Walker and the Republican-controlled legislature, Wisconsin’s showing/projecting a budget surplus for the first time in years.  Good thing that that recall nonsense went nowhere, huh?

Via Legal Insurrection.

A thought on Wisconsin and collective bargaining reform.

I was putting together a rather mean-spirited and mocking post on a somewhat related subject (then I remembered that it’s Christmas, and that the ROI would probably suck anyway), when this thought occurred to me: we can stop pretending that opposition to Walker’s and Wisconsin Republicans’ collective bargaining reform policies was anything except a distinctly minority opinion, right?  Possibly even fringe? – I mean, the Wisconsin electorate had three opportunities – four, if you count that Supreme Court election separately – to retract the legislature’s reforms, and at the end of it all the Wisconsin electorate pretty much shrugged.

And that includes the 2012 general election: after all, the same electorate in that state that returned Barack Obama to office “punished” the Wisconsin GOP by… putting them back in charge of the state Senate.  I can only conclude that they’re generally fine with their tax money being saved like that.

That’s it.  Just a random thought.

Moe Lane