I’m happy we have finally been able to put this dark period in Wisconsin history behind us:

My new column is up over at the WPRI mothership. It argues for allowing people to dry their laundry outside – something banned by the majority of U.S. neighborhood associations, and a great deal of local governments. It basically makes the case that people should have the right to save money, and help the environment if they choose to do so. It also shows that I’m probably corrupt, as I have accepted a great deal of cash from “big clothespin.”

Don’t let it be said that I don’t address the burning issues on the mind of every Wisconsinite.

26 years. And now, suddenly, Milwaukee is once again the center of the baseball universe.

At 7:00, I received the following one-line e-mail from one of my friends. It said, simply:

“I’m not gay, but I’d like to kiss Doug Melvin on his mustachioed mouth for pulling this deal off.”

And that’s how I found out the Brewers had pushed all their chips to the middle of the table for this season.

I’ll spare you all the third-rate analysis about whether it was a good deal or not. For all the hot air on message boards by people claiming to know a lot about baseball, nobody will ever really know what would have happened had Matt LaPorta stayed a Brewer. We’ll never know what the effect of LaPorta being gone will have on other prospects, who might now get a chance to step up. It’s never just a one-plus-one-equals-two calculation.

But here’s what we do know for a fact – that Doug Melvin has, to quote my buddy The Gooch, “balls the size of Jupiter” for making this deal. And it’s the lack of certainty I mentioned above that makes this such a great deal. Let’s say the deal doesn’t get done and Ben Sheets walks away at the end of the year. For the forseeable future, you’re looking at some good young starters, but no ace. And maybe you bring up LaPorta and maybe he provides some good offense, but a 30 home run hitter isn’t exactly what the Brewers need at this point. (They need a leadoff hitter that doesn’t need a GPS device to find first base, for starters.)

But the scenario that developed today is the way any business should run. If Sabathia helps them make a playoff run, that means more revenue to the team. Packed stands through the remainder of the season and in the playoffs may mean the team can make a competitive offer to Sheets in the offseason. I’ve seen some suggest that anything short of a World Series victory means the Brewers have had a disappointing system. Let’s not get ahead of ourselves, here.

Obviously, Doug Melvin wants to win now. But if the Crew can make enough money down the home stretch to put the team in a better financial position to retain their core talent in the next few years (Fielder, Hart, etc.), this will have turned out to be a good deal regardless of how the season ends. (At least that’s what I’ll be telling myself when Ben Sheets is attacked by a crocodile on the field and the season goes in the tank in September.)

All night, I kept watching ESPNews, with the bright red “breaking news” banner coming on every five seconds. And every time it crawled across my screen, it was as if Jennifer Connelly was whispering it directly into my ear.

“Indians Trade Pitcher C.C. Sabathia to the Brewers.”

“Indians Trade Pitcher C.C. Sabathia to the Brewers.”

Sadly, my TV did not take the extra step and offer to make me a sandwich.

Plus, it’s not as if the Brewers haven’t had good luck dealing with the Indians. Remember, the Brewers relieved the Tribe of Jeromy Burnitz in 1996, in exchange for the rotting corpse of Kevin Seitzer. Burnitz went on to hit over 30 home runs in 4 of his 5 full seasons with Milwaukee. The 35 year-old Seitzer played 86 games with the Indians and retired.

And who can forget July of 2000, when the Brewers sent Bob Wickman, Steve Woodard, Jason Bere, and a signed John Jaha home run ball to the Indians for Richie Sexson? That was such an easy deal that Dean Taylor, who was to general managing what Madonna is to music, was able to pull it off.

So, upon reflection, here are the big winners and losers from the Sabathia deal:

Winner: ME! WOO HOO!

Loser: My wife. With the Brewers competitive late in the season, I might as well be living in a bio-dome in my own basement. Chances of my popcorn bowls making it into the dishwasher just dropped by 50%.

Winner: Tom Haudricourt, of the Journal Sentinel. He was on this story, and was accurate throughout.

Loser: Tom Haudricourt, of the Journal Sentinel. While his reporting was timely and accurate, he actually showed up on one of his own blog comment threads and publicly attempted to fellate himself for essentially doing exactly what a beat writer for a team in the middle of a major trade negotiation was supposed to do. In attempting to shoot down two dopey anonymous commenters, he actually wrote the following:

I don’t need to ban hayseed whatever or cauleys. They both know I took them to the wood shed and they have to live with it. We are still the only source confirming this deal, as far as I know. I was ahead of it from the very start, saying it would be LaPorta and two lower-level minor leaguers. I shot down all the Hardy and Escobar nonsense and went with the truth. That’s all I need to know, and I appreciate all those on the blog who know what I did.

Pure class.

Winner: Buster Olney, ESPN. On the above message board, there’s a lot of mention of who scooped whom when it came to this story. Haudricourt deserves credit for doing his job. But even though Olney may not have been getting a lot of original info on this story, I think it takes a lot of stones to go on national TV and declare the Brewers as the frontrunner in the biggest trade sweepstakes of the year. Every major league team has a beat writer that has their fans convinced that their team is about to trade for Johan Santana or whatever. But it is unique for a national writer to step out and predict something so bold and be right. So good for him – now maybe I can start taking someone seriously who actually refers to himself as “Buster.”

(Incidentally, I got a kick out of ESPN continuing to say “Buster Olney has learned that the Indians have agreed to trade Sabathia to the Brewers,” well after it had been on the Journal-Sentinel website. Really, Buster? You “learned” that secret piece of information? Did you “learn” how to use the internet at about 6:00 tonight?)

Loser: Tom Oates, Wisconsin State Journal. Just last week, Oatsey gave us a column explaining how C.C. Sabathia was out of the Brewers’ reach. A few days later, when it started to look like the Brewers actually were in the running, he tried to cover his tail with a column explaining why the team needed Sabathia NOW! Just more evidence that the only requirement for writing a sports-related column at the State Journal is the ability to turn on your computer and type complete sentences that don’t reference genitalia.

Winner: Inebriation. If the Crew makes it to the World Series, it’s going to be a Brew Town Throwdown. Believe that.

Loser: Former Brewer Eric Young, ESPN. When asked about the trade, “EY” decided he had some reservations, for the following reason: Sabathia is left-handed, and the Cubs have a lot of good right-handed hitters. Brilliant observation, since the Cubs and Brewers only play a handful of times the rest of the year. Actually, I think Sabathia is around to help the Crew in the remaining 80 games, not necessarily the sprinkling of games against the Cubs. But now that the precedent has been set, I demand to know what Franklin Stubbs thinks about the trade.

Oh, and make sure you go vote for Corey Hart for the all-star team. I probably voted 50 times already. And I didn’t even need the DNC to buy me cigarettes. Plus, there has to be at
least one creepy flesh-colored beard in the All-Star game. So follow the link below.

And here’s an interview with LaPorta from a month ago:

Yesterday, I headed down to Discovery World on Milwaukee’s lakefront to catch the Concord Coalition’s “Fiscal Wake Up Tour.” The Coalition is made up of members of both left-leaning and right-leaning national think tanks who all agree that federal entitlement programs and government debt are going to swallow us whole in the decades to come if nothing is done to rectify the situation. Their panel was joined onstage by fiscal dreamboat Congressman Paul Ryan, whose “Roadmap for America’s Future” attempts to deal with the looming budgetary apocalypse.

For some background on the issue, watch this outstanding “60 Minutes” piece on former U.S. Comptroller General David Walker, who is heading up the Coalition’s education effort:

The panelists each made their case for changing the way government handles its entitlement plans, so the programs can remain fiscally solvent for our children. Each provided powerpoint presentations to make their points. They can be viewed here:

“Saving Our Future Requires Tough Choices Today,” By David Walker, President and CEO of the Peter G. Peterson Foundation

“Fiscal Wake-Up Tour Introduction (PowerPoint Presentation),” By Robert Bixby, Executive Director, The Concord Coalition

“The Budget and Entitlements: Time to Take Action (PowerPoint Presentation),” By Stuart Butler, Vice President for Domestic and Policy Studies, The Heritage Foundation

Since members of the coalition have different ideological backgrounds, naturally they didn’t completely agree on the measures necessary to remedy the budget imbalance. Alice Rivlin of the liberal Brookings Institution advocated for some targeted tax increases to boost federal revenue. Some of the conservatives conceded that a future plan will likely see a mix of revenue increases and spending constraints. Even Paul Ryan’s plan contains some provisions to raise revenue, which drew him a sharp rebuke from a Libertarian in the crowd, who called his plan “the Communist Manifesto.” During question time, Ryan also earned a harsh rebuke from a liberal in the crowd, which had people squirming in their seats. (And me considering crying and yelling “LEAVE PAUL RYAN ALONE!”)

Each panelist agreed that Social Security was going to be a lot easier to fix than Medicaid and Medicare. Social Security, while a big program, has a straightforward formula that sends money to recipients. In order to control costs, the remedies are clear.

Health care, on the other hand, is infinitely more complex. In order to control health care costs, you have to get a handle on a number of things – most of which, lawmakers can’t agree are actually causing cost overruns. Is it too much competition (duplication of services)? Is it not enough competition? Is it people not having the incentive to take care of themselves? Is it government not spending the money wisely?

It appears that video of the event will be available on WisconsinEye at some point, and I’ll link to it when it goes up.

My only complaint of the day was that it was held right next to Summerfest, which made parking impossible. According to the panel’s estimates, by the time I parked and walked to the event, the federal debt had increased by $100 trillion. They should have just consolidated venues and put the Fiscal Wake Up Tour on one of the Summerfest stages. Then again, the tour’s groupies might have gotten out of hand, as they normally do.

ANNOUNCER: “MILWAUKEE! ARE YOU READY FOR SOME FISCAL RESPONSIBILITY?”

CROWD (TOGETHER): “WE WANT SOCIAL SECURITY SOLVENCY! AND MORE BEER! PREFERABLY MORE BEER, IF WE’RE BEING HONEST ABOUT IT!”

In June, WPRI’s George Lightbourn and Sammis White issued a report that made recommendations on moving Milwaukee’s economy forward.  Among their recommendations was a plan to attract and keep more foreign-born college degree holders to the city.  They say:

While foreign-born college graduates are a prominent element in the economies of successful cities, a 2006 Census Bureau survey showed less than 1% of the college educated workers attracted to metro Milwaukee fit this description. The surest way to attract more foreign-born college graduates is to increase the number of foreign students attending Wisconsin universities. Not only do these foreign students tend to acquire majors that are critical to a knowledge-based economy, they are less likely than native-born students to return home after graduation. Somewhere between 37% and 53% of foreign-born UW graduates do not return home. This is a talent pool that could provide a critical ingredient to Milwaukee’s future growth.

Last week, George F. Will wrote a column that agreed with this premise on a national scale.  Will wrote:

The semiconductor industry’s problem is entangled with a subject about which the loquacious presidential candidates are reluctant to talk — immigration, specifically that of highly educated people. Concerning whom, U.S. policy should be: A nation cannot have too many such people, so send us your PhDs yearning to be free.

Instead, U.S. policy is: As soon as U.S. institutions of higher education have awarded you a PhD, equipping you to add vast value to the economy, get out. Go home. Or to Europe, which is responding to America’s folly with “blue cards” to expedite acceptance of the immigrants America is spurning.

Two-thirds of doctoral candidates in science and engineering in U.S. universities are foreign-born. But only 140,000 employment-based green cards are available annually, and 1 million educated professionals are waiting — often five or more years — for cards. Congress could quickly add a zero to the number available, thereby boosting the U.S. economy and complicating matters for America’s competitors.

Suppose a foreign government had a policy of sending workers to America to be trained in a sophisticated and highly remunerative skill at American taxpayers’ expense, and then forced these workers to go home and compete against American companies. That is what we are doing because we are too generic in defining the immigrant pool.

Will points out that efforts to increase the numbers of employment-based green cards always get stuck in the mire of broader immigration reform.  Yet this small change could be a large step to turning the lagging economy around.  It’s time we start importing the world’s brain power, and keeping them here.