June 2009 – Christian Schneider

Month: June 2009

Taking “Going Green” Too Far

June 30, 2009 / Christian / 2 Comments

Look, I’m all about saving the environment and stuff, but come on…

Today, I slipped out for a little bathroom break at work. I made my way into the stall to take care of business and sat down. (Normally, I start singing really loudly to keep myself company, but not today.)

After about 3 minutes (honestly!) the lights went out. Completely dark. I was stuck in there, petrified. I had to dig my cell phone out of my pocket, flip it open, and use the light to navigate myself through the final stages of my business. Holding it up over my head (and continuing to hit the “clear” button to keep the light on), I made my way out of the bathroom, much like a coal miner would have to. (And with virtually all of the same toxic fumes.)

I looked over at the wall and noticed that they have recently put a motion sensor there, to click the lights off when there’s no motion. Presumably, they are trying to save electricity when people aren’t in there. But how could they not realize that when you’re in the stall there is NO MOTION. It’s not going to pick people up that are behind the sacred walls of the stall, unless I guess, it’s an especially violent expulsion.

So what are you supposed to do? Jump up in mid loaf, run out of the stall waving your arms and legs, and dart back behind the door? (I do this anyway, by the way, much to the chagrin of my co-workers.) Are you going to have to designate a “poo buddy” to go into the bathroom with you to keep the light on? (To show my appreciation for you, by the way, I hereby nominate you my poo buddy. No thanks necessary, although a small payment is appreciated.)

I’d love to have video of the first guy to go to building management to explain this situation. Chances of the guys in the office nicknaming him “The Eternal Crapper” currently stand at 98%.

America’s Newest Pastime – Blissful Ignorance

June 29, 2009 / Christian / 0 Comments

Bonds. Sosa. McGwire. A-Rod. Manny. Clemens. All names that just years ago were exalted as American heroes, each having re-written baseball’s record books. Now every one wallows in shame, having been exposed as a cheater.

In doing so, each one of these players has stolen something. They’ve stolen records from our most revered heroes like Hank Aaron. They’ve stolen millions of dollars, having been paid enormous contracts based on numbers they didn’t earn. And they’ve stolen championship rings from other, more deserving players.

For years, the American media and baseball fans simply refused to see what was in front of their eyes. Roger Maris’ single season home run record of 61 stood for 37 years, then was broken by two players in the same year in 1998. Three years later, the new record of 70 was bested by Barry Bonds, who hit 73. Sammy Sosa hit more than 60 home runs three times. Roger Clemens won three Cy Young awards before age 34, and four afterwards – including one at age 41, when he went 18-4 with the Houston Astros.

We came up with plenty of excuses. The ballparks were smaller. The balls were juiced. Players were eating better and working out more. We were so enamored with the fairy tale that we refused to believe the most obvious of explanations. Even after it became clear that steroids were wiping the record books clean, the players’ supporters made excuses – steroids couldn’t make you hit the ball farther, they said. Pitchers couldn’t use it because they’d get too bulky and muscular.

The example of steroids in baseball has uncovered what truly has become America’s newest pastime – choosing to ignore facts that are staring us in the face. We put on a blindfold and jam our fingers in our ears to block out any information that might be uncomfortable in the short term, but could be disastrous over time.

Sadly, baseball is perhaps the least important instance where we’re willfully deceiving ourselves based on the evidence before us. For years, we thought it would be a great idea to give zero percent down home mortgages to high risk homeowners, merely so we could say we were helping people afford houses. Naturally, when these lenders began to fail, the economy came crashing down faster than Rafael Palmiero’s Hall of Fame chances.

Today, we’re being told that we can have government spend its way out of a recession, despite all the historical evidence to the contrary. We are being told that when health care is free, that people will actually use less of it. (Remember the lines outside George Webb restaurants when the Brewers started the season 13-0 in 1987 and the restaurant was giving out free burgers?)

We are told that we need to make it more expensive for employers to keep their employees, then we’re shocked when businesses move jobs overseas. We are told that the same government that has reigned over years of massive deficits is going to teach General Motors how to turn a profit. (Which is somewhat like baseball putting Jose Canseco in charge of its steroid policy.)

In Wisconsin, we continue to choose to ignore facts that should instruct our behavior for the better. We seem to believe that the growing structural deficits our state government is running have nothing to do with higher taxes, as the state raises taxes by over $3 billion to try to fix it. Our politicians tell us that they can prevent businesses (oil companies, hospitals) from passing along tax increases to the consumer, despite no recorded case in human history where consumers didn’t end up paying more for goods and services to offset the tax. We vilify banks who loan exorbitant sums of money to individuals, then our state government turns around and increases its own borrowing by $3.3 billion during a recession.

And yet we roll on, completely unwilling to draw any connection between our current plight and the actions of our government. To Americans, two plus two now equals “don’t bother me right now.”

Baseball still has the ability to do what’s right. It can grant Hank Aaron and Roger Maris their rightful records back, and permanently recognize the Steroid Era for what is was (and continues to be).

But where do we go to get our economy back? Where do people who have lost their jobs because of excessive taxes and business regulation go to recoup those lost paychecks? How do we un-do all the damaging programs set into motion for the aggrandizement of political careers and not for the betterment of our citizens?

Ironically, many Americans this summer will seek respite from such questions out at the ballpark. In a bad economy, they will enjoy paying six dollars for a hot dog to pay Alex Rodriguez’ steroid-inflated salary.

-June 29, 2009

Movie Review: “Please Vote for Me”

June 24, 2009 / Christian / 1 Comment

If you’re a fan of movies (who isn’t?) and a follower of politics (who is?), I would strongly recommend you see “Please Vote For Me,” a documentary about a third grade class election in China. (It is available via the online viewing option on Netflix, if you’re interested.)

Of course, you may wonder – what’s so interesting about a 3rd grade class monitor election in China? But like any good documentary, there are themes that are immediately recognizable to followers of politics in America.

The context is important – here is a country where communism still reigns, yet the teacher goes ahead with the class experiment in democracy. So here you have people with no concept of how democracy works – yet as soon as the election starts, the kids immediately begin to utilize campaign tricks endemic to our electoral system. They begin negative campaigning – pointing out each others’ faults, rather than emphasizing their own. The candidates immediately start coordinating dirty tricks to embarrass each other. One kid’s dad takes the whole class on a monorail ride to try to buy votes for his son.

There are a few scenes of their debates that are simply amazing. One kid, Cheng Cheng, accuses the only girl running, Xiaofei, of being unable to lead because she eats her food too slowly. She responds that it shows her to be deliberate. Cheng Cheng tries to turn the class against the other candidate, Luo Lei, by asking how many kids in the class had been beaten by Luo Lei. Half the class raises their hands.

There are a couple ways of looking at the movie. It shows that these dirty tricks – negative campaigning, whispering campaigns, trying to buy votes, are simply an inextricable part of democracy. This should be a wakeup call to all these “good government” groups that lose sleep over the fact that people actually have the right to speak out during campaigns. There’s simply no way to micromanage campaign speech or contributions in a way that achieves some utopian vision of campaigning.

On the other hand, it shows that American candidates often behave like third graders.

Here’s the trailer – although it doesn’t do justice to how interesting of a movie it actually is.

The PGA Tour is Pretty Much an Inevitability At This Point

June 19, 2009 / Christian / 2 Comments

For decades, I have been golfing pretty terribly. When I’m playing really well, I usually shoot in the low 40’s for a 9 hole round. But I have never cracked the 40 mark – until yesterday.

Going into the last hole, I was only one over par. If I got a par on the ninth, I would have finished with a 37, a score which I could play another 20 years and not match. But, of course, I choked and put my drive in the water and double bogeyed the hole for the 39. I finished with an 81 for the 18 hole round.

The moment was captured by my buddy Tom, who witnessed it all:

So now, after almost hitting a home run, I’m running out of things to achieve. Sharing a bubble bath with Katherine Heigl is up next.

Doyle’s New Friend Rosy

June 16, 2009 / Christian / 2 Comments

In researching my commentary on Scott McCallum yesterday (and it appears that I remain the only one willing to publicly defend McCallum), I ran across this tidbit of info that didn’t quite fit:

When running against McCallum in 2002, then-Attorney General Jim Doyle ripped the Governor for revenue forecasts that Doyle deemed too optimistic. From a Milwaukee Journal Sentinel blog in 2006:

Four years ago, then-candidate for governor Jim Doyle attacked a prediction that future state revenues will grow by about 5%. But that’s exactly the growth that his own state budget director recently predicted, and said it will wipe out any future budget deficit.

On Sept. 25, 2002, the Democrat’s campaign ridiculed the prediction by the top deputy to then-Republican Gov. Scott McCallum that tax collections would go up by about 5% a year.

“Scott McCallum has been spending too much time with his friend Rosy Scenario,” Doyle, then the attorney general, said in a statement. “That is exactly the kind of wishful thinking and dishonest budgeting that got us into a $2.8-billion (deficit) hole to begin with.”

Now here we are in 2009, in the middle of a recession, with state revenues dropping. And the number Doyle plugs in to his budget to make it balance out?

4.5%.

So while it took three years after the mild recession of 2001 for the state to show any tax revenue growth, Doyle thinks in one year we’re going to be all the way back to the 5% growth that he sneered at McCallum for predicting. Doyle ripped McCallum for his forecast saying tax receipts are going to grow 5% in a mild recession, and now Doyle has them growing 4.5% in a disastrous recession.

It gets even better:

Said [Doyle Budget Director] Schmiedicke: “Over the past 20 years, revenues have grown at an average rate of approximately 5% a year. Assuming only average growth — and without having to cut anything from the budget — the state will see revenue growth of about $1.9 billion. That more than covers the so-called ‘structural deficit’.”

Well, we know how that turned out. Even before the bad economy hit in late 2008, the budget Doyle signed in 2007 carried a $1.6 billion structural deficit, which ballooned to the current $6.6 billion deficit. This deficit occurred even after tax revenue growth of 5.5% in 2006, 4.9% in 2007, and 3.8% in 2008. So they got the growth they wanted, but didn’t even come close to closing the “so-called” structural deficit.

Basically, Doyle justified spending beyond our means by saying we’d make more money in the future to balance things out. Well, that money came, and he continued to deficit spend – which turned into the problem we have now. (And the problem we’ll have in the future, as the budget in its current form carries a $2.3 billion deficit into the new biennium.)

McCallum’s Last Laugh

June 15, 2009 / Christian / 0 Comments

They called him a nitwit. A moron. A boob. A lightweight. And that was just his supporters.

Seven years ago, Scott McCallum walked out of the Capitol a defeated man. After serving 14 years as Tommy Thompson’s Lieutenant Governor, McCallum finally got his chance to run the state as Governor for two years, beginning in 2000. During his brief tenure, he presided over a mild recession that forced him to make choices which euthanized his chances at re-election. What McCallum did to fix the deficit, however, provides a stark contrast to the current administration’s budgeting practices, and serves as a warning to future politicians that back up their words with action.

We know what ended up happening – Jim Doyle won the Governorship in 2002, eventually facing a $6.6 billion deficit in 2009. This followed years of the Governor and Legislature raiding funds to plug budget holes, increasing taxes and spending, starting new programs, and using questionable gimmicks to balance the budget. Even Doyle’s solution, which relies heavily on new taxes and one-time federal stimulus funds, creates a $2.3 billion structural deficit in the next biennium.

What’s interesting to imagine is what could have ended up happening had 32,000 people (the size of the City of Beloit) decided to vote for McCallum instead of Doyle in 2002, sending the incumbent back to Madison. Or had Tommy Thompson’s brother, Ed, decided not to run, which siphoned off 185,000 votes – nearly three times Doyle’s margin over McCallum.

During his brief tenure, McCallum proposed a number of items that, had they passed, would have made the current recession infinitely easier to deal with. In his initial budget, in which he faced a $600 million deficit, McCallum proposed capping general fund spending to the same rate that tax revenues increase during a biennium. Even though it didn’t help him in that particular budget, McCallum looked ahead and saw the potential for large deficits in the future. In order to restore some fiscal discipline, he merely suggested that spending match up with revenues – a concept that would be ignored over the next eight years, forcing the state into deeper and deeper deficits.

In the final version of the budget, the Legislature kept McCallum’s suggestion for an expenditure cap, but riddled it with massive loopholes, rendering it worthless. For instance, school aids (around 45% of the state budget) were exempted from the cap, as were payments to the University of Wisconsin System.

In the same budget, McCallum proposed depositing 50% of any unintended revenues into a budget stabilization fund, in the event tax receipts fell short in the future. Generally, states set aside between 5% and 10% of their budgets for an emergency, yet Wisconsin had never put aside any money to plan ahead for bad times. This provision passed, creating a funding mechanism for a state “rainy day fund” for the first time. In 2007, Governor Doyle transferred $55.7 million to the stabilization fund (of course, taking credit for the fiscal responsibility mandated by McCallum’s law six years earlier – the money has since been spent, leaving the state once again with virtually no rainy day fund.)

Perhaps most importantly, McCallum made real cuts to real ongoing state programs – a decision which may have cost him his governorship. In the 2002 budget repair bill, McCallum proposed phasing out the state’s Shared Revenue program, in which the state sends $1 billion per year to local governments. Had McCallum’s plan passed, the state would today be in an infinitely more tenable position than it cuurently finds itself.

Laughably, Governor Doyle is still trying to sell a line that his budget “cuts” government, when in fact it actually increases total spending 6.3% on the strength of federal stimulus money – leaving the state with a massive 2.3 billion deficit in the next biennium. Yet it was Doyle who savaged McCallum for his proposed cuts during the 2002 campaign.

In announcing his plan to phase out aid to local governments in 2002, McCallum indelicately referred to local elected officials as “big spenders.” This turned a lot of local officials, many of them Republicans, against him. It was clear he had none of the political skill of his predecessor, Thompson, and served as a stern warning to future elected officials that dared to cut an entrenched government program.

Of course, not every move McCallum made was gold-plated. He is open to criticism for using the state’s ongoing tobacco settlement to help balance the budget – a one-time funding source that began the ball rolling in future bienna. However, in his budget adjustment bill, McCallum essentially used the tobacco settlement to fund the remaining years of the Shared Revenue program – meaning, he wasn’t using it for an ongoing program, he was using it for a program that was disappearing. Instead, the Legislature kept the cash and kept the Shared Revenue program, blowing the hole wide open in future budgets.

Since his years in the East Wing, McCallum has gone on to start a successful non-profit business that matches corporate contributions to people in need of aid. In doing so, he is demonstrating the business acumen that would have served the state wonderfully over the past eight years, and made the economic downturn much more manageable. He’s also showing that you can do a great deal of good outside the realm of government – a lesson our Legislature should take to heart (but ultimately won’t.)

Instead, we are stuck with a disastrous budget that raises taxes, increases spending during a downturn, and drives the state further into deficit. It could have been so much better.

And now Scott McCallum, you may have your last laugh.

-June 15, 2009

Here We Go Again on School Choice

June 12, 2009 / Christian / 0 Comments

It’s a the same song and dance we go through every year on School Choice, but with increased relevance given what Assembly Democrats did to the program last night. In a motion passed behind closed doors, Democrats capped participation in the Milwaukee School Choice program at 19,500, which could throw hundreds of kids back into the Milwaukee Public School system in the next two years.

Of course, it is in the Democrats’ best interests to try to handicap a program that demonstrates that kids can actually be educated by non-teachers union members, and for half the cost to boot. The teachers’ union continually tries to portray school choice as “costing” statewide school districts money, when, in fact, it actually saves state taxpayers.

Yesterday, State Representative Mike Huebsch released a memo from the Legislative Fiscal Bureau that demonstrates what would occur to non-MPS school districts if the School Choice program were reduced and Choice students were moved back into MPS – where they cost state taxpayers a lot more to educate, in a district failing miserably. The memo tells us what anyone paying attention already knows: it costs less to educate a kid in choice than it does in MPS – so if you dump those kids back into MPS, it steals money from school districts around the state.

Take a look at Table 1 of the memo: If the choice program were disbanded altogether, MPS would get $203 million more in state aid, while districts around the state would lose $145 million, since it costs so much more to educate kids in MPS. They would then jack up statewide property taxes to make up that difference, as the law allows them to do.

So if you don’t live in Milwaukee, and don’t care about School Choice because you think this is a parochial program just to help the kids in the city, you should reconsider – if only to save your own wallet.

And it can’t be said too many times – this has nothing to do with the “state budget” (as it doesn’t meaningfully affect state finances) and everything to do with strangling a program the teachers’ union opposes.

Willy Wonka Explains the Wisconsin State Budget

June 9, 2009 / Christian / 4 Comments

Yesterday, the Legislative Fiscal Bureau released their summary of the state budget as rushed through by the Joint Finance Committee last week. It’s a long and complicated document, so we here at WPRI have enlisted some help in explaining many of the big themes included the budget.

As it happens, most of what legislative Democrats passed can be explained by eccentric chocolatier Willy Wonka, star of the 1971 children’s classic “Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.” Here are some famous quotes from the movie, and how they shed light on the budget currently before the Legislature. Cuddle up with your favorite little Oompa Loompa and read along:

Willy Wonka: [singing] There is no life I know to compare with pure imagination. Living there, you’ll be free if you truly wish to be.

For weeks, Legislative Democrats have been adamant that this budget “cuts” government, pointing to the fact that general purpose spending is down 3.2% over the base year doubled. By making the case that this budget “cuts” anything, they are living in a world of “pure imagination.”

In fact, total (all funds) spending increases in this budget by 6.3% over the biennium – in a budget that we are told balances a $6.6 billion deficit. This is primarily because President Obama “made it rain” federal dollars, which simply supplant much of the general fund spending that is reduced in the first year. This will leave us with a gigantic hole in the next budget, when the federal dollars aren’t there to support the ongoing programs we have created.

One needs only to look at the state employee numbers to see how deep these supposed “cuts” are. The budget passed by the Joint Finance Committee actually increases state employees by 367.8 positions over Governor Doyle’s proposed budget. These increases come in a year when not only is the Legislature supposedly cutting spending, but when over 118,000 private sector jobs have lost their jobs.

These “cuts” are pure imagination.

Willy Wonka: [making a mysterious formula] Invention, my dear friends, is 93% perspiration, 6% electricity, 4% evaporation, and 2% butterscotch ripple.
Mrs. Teevee: [as Mr. Wonka drinks the formula] That’s 105%!
Mr. Beauregarde: Any good?
Willy Wonka: [smacks his lips, then speaks thinly] Yes.

Legislative Democrats tell us this budget is “balanced.” Yet the Legislative Fiscal Bureau has issued a memo telling us that the new budget creates a structural deficit of $2.3 billion to begin the next biennium – over $700 million more than the state had at the beginning of this biennium (caused by prior imbalanced budgets.)

Clearly, the numbers don’t add up. Maybe they should add some butterscotch ripple.

Veruca Salt: I wanted to be the first to find a Golden Ticket, Daddy!
Mr. Salt: I know, angel. We’re doing the best we can. I’ve got every girl in the place to start hunting for you.
Veruca Salt: All right, where is it? Why haven’t they found it?
Mr. Salt: Veruca, sweetheart, I’m not a magician! Give me time!
Veruca Salt: I want it now! What’s the matter with those twerps down there?
Mr. Salt: For five days now, the entire flipping factory’s been on the job. They haven’t shelled a peanut in there since Monday. They’ve been shelling flaming chocolate bars from dawn till dusk!
Veruca Salt: Make them work nights!

The petulent Veruca Salt wanted that golden ticket, and was willing to make all her dad’s factory workers log in overtime to get it.

For 15 years, WEAC (the state’s teachers’ union) has been kicking and screaming to get rid of the QEO law that guarantees them at least a 3.8% salary and benefit increase per year. They wanted more, and it didn’t matter if the “twerps” working two jobs in the private sector had to work extra hours to pay for their increased salaries.

Finally, in this budget, they get their wish (although they lobbied to have their golden ticket pushed back one year, realizing what a good deal it was in a bad economy.)

Start working nights, twerps.

Mr. Turkentine: I’ve just decided to switch our Friday schedule to Monday, which means that the test we take each Friday on what we learned during the week will now take place on Monday before we’ve learned it. But since today is Tuesday, it doesn’t matter in the slightest. Pencils ready!

Ultimately, this budget will be judged on its contents, not necessarily how it was crafted. But the Joint Finance Committee’s attempts to schedule themselves out of any scrutiny of the contents shouldn’t be forgotten. Backroom dealings, late night votes, and committee meetings on holiday weekends became routine with the Democrats on the Joint Finance Committee. It’s a sure sign that they’re embarrassed about what they passed, and their 5:45 AM votes on Friday mornings confirm that.

Willy Wonka: A little nonsense now and then is relished by the wisest men.

Governor Doyle and the Wisconsin Legislature seem to live by these words.

Take, for instance, the so-called “oil franchise fee” Doyle has been pitching for years. According to the plan, oil companies would pay a higher tax on their gross receipts, and not be allowed to pass the cost on to consumers.

Yet there’s no court in America that would uphold such an “anti-pass through” provision. The scheme, which is expected to raise the price of gas between 5 and 7 cents per gallon, is a gas tax increase, pure and simple. This has been demonstrated time and time again. Yet delusional lawmakers still somehow believe oil companies will end up paying the tax, despite all the facts to the contrary. In fact, when the oil companies eventually sue the state, they will win, and taxpayers may be asked to foot the bill for all the taxes they paid, plus damages.

Relish the nonsense.

Willy Wonka: Bubbles, bubbles everywhere, but not a drop to drink – yet.

Wonka was wildly optimistic about his new flavorful concoctions – just as the Legislative Democrats’ budget may well be overly optimistic about the revenue numbers in the coming years.

While everyone agrees that general purpose tax receipts have dropped over the past year due to the sinking economy, this budget actually expects sales, income, and corporate tax revenues to jump 4.8% next year.

In 2001, when the state suffered a relatively mild recession, state revenues remained flat for a full three years after the downturn (even when one factors in the tax cuts that went into effect in 2000.) To expect revenues to rebound so quickly after such a dramatic economic downturn seems to be asking too much. Of course, the budget goes ahead and spends those hypothetical funds, which could send the state into another budget crisis should those new revenues not materialize.

Willy Wonka: It’s all there, black and white, clear as crystal! You stole fizzy lifting drinks! You bumped into the ceiling which now has to be washed and sterilized, so you get *NOTHING*! You lose! Good day, sir!
Grandpa Joe: [shocked] You’re a crook. You’re a cheat and a swindler! That’s what you are!

If Wonka was incensed by Charlie and Grandpa Joe sampling some of the factory’s fizzy drinks, imagine how angry he’d be with the Legislature stealing $140 million from the transportation fund to plug the general fund deficit. But rather than missing out on free chocolate for life, state taxpayers will instead be punished by having to pay 20 years’ worth of interest on the bonds used to replace those stolen funds. This, of course, is on top of the interest they are already paying for the $1.2 billion in bonds issued in past budgets to plug the general fund hole (which generally blows a hole in the subsequent budget – sensing a theme here?)

Mr. Salt: Wonka, how much do you want for the golden goose?
Willy Wonka: They’re not for sale.
Mr. Salt: Name your price.
Willy Wonka: She can’t have one.
Veruca Salt: Who says I can’t?
Mr. Salt: The man with the funny hat.

Just as Willy Wonka had a golden goose, our legislators have figured out who lays their golden eggs – the taxpayers.

This budget, plus the “mini” budget passed in April, raises taxes by $3.3 billion – at a time when Wisconsin residents can least afford to pay more. Taxpayers can expect to pay more for gas, cigarettes, hospital care, nursing home beds, and they will also be asked to start paying sales taxes on an array of goods which were previously exempt. Property taxes are expected to go up by $316 on a median-value home. Even in cases where the new tax isn’t directly applied to the consumer (combined reporting, for instance), businesses will be forced to increase their prices to customers in order to make up their loss.

Of course, the business and taxpayer golden goose can always fly away to other friendlier states, leaving the rest of us to pick up the tab.

Mrs. Gloop: [Augustus Gloop is sucked into the suction pipe which takes him to the vertical pipe] Don’t just stand there, do something!
Willy Wonka: [unenthusiastically] Help. Police, Murder.

When Augustus Gloop is sucked into a chocolate tube, Wonka is unconvinced that any wrong necessarily had to be righted. Gloop, after all, had been gluttonous, and probably got what he deserved.

For some reason, the Legislature decided there were some imaginary problems for which they had to “do something.” For instance, the budget increases the amount of car insurance drivers must buy in Wisconsin. Has this really been a problem? Were lawmakers hearing from constituents who were clamoring to pay $300 per year more in auto insurance premiums?

In fact, legislators likely only heard from the trial attorneys, who will receive larger payouts as a result of the increased insurance coverage by Wisconsin drivers. As such, the trial lawyers’ gluttony dwarfs that of poor Augustus.

Mrs. Gloop: He can’t swim!
Willy Wonka: There’s no better time to learn.

This budget was the perfect time to make fundamental, systemic changes to how the Wisconsin budget works. The Legislature could have started to put money aside for future downturns, to ameliorate the effects of a slowing economy. They could have asked state workers to pitch in just a small amount to their own retirement accounts, in order to help balance the books. They could have ceased raiding state funds for cash, which has caused a large part of the shortfall in which they now find themselves.

While Augustus took being sucked into the tube as a chance to learn to swim, lawmakers in this budget learned nothing. They made no government worker reductions. They plug budget holes with temporary money, almost certainly causing another large deficit in the next biennium. They exacerbate the state’s fiscal problems by issuing more debt, and stuffed the budget with pork projects to get them through to the next election.

Sam Beauregarde: Don’t talk to me about contracts, Wonka, I use them myself. They’re strictly for suckers.

Wonka adheres strictly to contracts, as do state employees. That’s why, despite the budget eliminating 2% raises for state employees, the state only saves $72 million from the maneuver. Employees that are unionized don’t lose the raise, as their contracts are in effect. (They do, however, have to take part in the 16 day furlough plan in the budget.)

Mrs. Teevee: I assume there’s an accident indemnity clause.
Willy Wonka: Never between friends.

Wonka won’t be pleased when he finds out the Wisconsin Legislature has now made him liable for 100% of the damages to his visitors, even if he’s only 20% negligible. Perhaps he can pay the trial attorneys off with the everlasting gobstopper secret.

Willy Wonka: Not a speck of light is showing / So the danger must be growing / Are the fires of hell a-glowing? / Is the grisly reaper mowing? / Yes! The danger must be growing / For the rowers keep on rowing / And they’re certainly not showing / Any signs that they are slowing!

For years, our “rowers” (elected officials”) have been rowing our state’s finances into a ditch. And there’s certainly no sign that they’re slowing.

A Long Path to the Long Ball

June 7, 2009 / Christian / 4 Comments

Admit it – there’s no more special moment in American sports than seeing someone hit a home run. Hitting a long ball imparts super-human status on an athlete, setting them apart from the rest of us couch potatoes. In the back of our minds, we all think we could hit a jump shot in basketball or catch a touchdown pass in football. But hitting a ball over a fence hundreds of feet away requires a singularly special skill, of which only a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of the general public possesses.

To date, it was a skill I had never acquired. I played high school baseball for three years, although to say I “played” is a bit of a misnomer. I was a “member of the team.” When I graduated, I was a rail-thin 5 foot 9, 135 pounds. Television stations in Ethiopia should have had telethons for me, I was so emaciated. As such, I was not exactly what you would call a “power hitter.” And as such, I didn’t exactly get a lot of what you would call “playing time.” (When people asked me what position I played, I said “left out.”)

I tried everything to be a stronger hitter. I sat in class squeezing those spring contraptions that are supposed to strengthen your forearms. I actually did eye exercises that were supposed to strengthen the muscles around your eyeballs, helping you see the ball better. (This was before college, when I started drinking alcohol specifically for the purpose of helping me see a lot worse.)

I taught myself to bat left-handed, carrying Ted Williams’ book “The Science of Hitting” in my backpack everywhere I went. I idolized Williams, because he threw right-handed and hit left, just like I was trying to do. I wanted to craft the perfect swing from scratch, and broke it down to the inch, using videotape and the illustrations Williams had in his book. (I taped every Will Clark at bat I could, to try to emulate his swing, as well.) The benefit of Williams’ system was that you didn’t have to be a big, muscular guy to hit the ball hard – after all, he was rail-thin throughout his career. The obvious downside was, you have to be Ted Williams to be able to pull it off – he was a freak of nature.

None of it worked. I languished on the bench, a singles hitter at best. I tried to stay as active as possible when I could – I’d go out and warm up the right fielder between innings, play bullpen catcher to get relief pitchers loose, and pitch batting practice before games. (Which was ideal, since my best fastball was a perfect batting practice pitch.)

But sitting the bench was still humiliating. Especially since the girl I was completely in love with went to a lot of the games. I\’d be out in left field for warmups before the game, and I’d be able to see her large hairspray teased mane sitting in the stands. (This was 1989, after all.) Then during the game, I’d disappear from the field, and she’d never see me again. As if I was never on the team at all.

My junior year, our team was terrible. Our coach tried every lineup and combination possible – except playing me. There was one game in particular that I thought for sure he’d start me, just to give me a shot. But when I checked the lineup card, my name wasn’t on it. When I took my spot in the outfield for pre-game warmups, tears started streaming down my face. If I wasn’t going to play now, I never would – and I proved that for once, there was crying in baseball.

I didn’t even try out for the team my senior year. Instead, I played tennis. Working so hard to be a good hitter and not playing was too painful to bear. This probably caused some consternation with my dad, who was a baseball star at Pius XI in Milwaukee, and went on to play on the team at West Point. I didn’t pick up a bat again until college, when I played some intramural softball with my fraternity’s team. We were actually good enough to win our whole university’s tournament and make it to the state intramural tournament. After that, my career lay essentially dormant until this year, when I signed up to play for the Club Tavern co-ed softball team with some friends.

And so it was this Friday night that a 36 year-old former high school baseball player walked up to the plate. I would be completely unrecognizable to the 17 year old high school kid I once was. 60 pounds heavier, every bone and muscle aching – after each game, I have to pack my entire body in ice and gobble ibuprofen like they’re tic-tacs.

Ball one came. I was looking to pull one to right field, as I normally do, which really should be considered cheating – since teams traditionally put the person in right field that is only playing because their spouse is making them. You get a lot of real beauties out in right – people in wheelchairs, people with one leg, dyslexics, etc. Trying to hit it to right is as much cheating as using steroids is, with the benefit that your onions don’t fall off.

Then came the second pitch – it was clearly a strike, on the inside portion of the plate. My devious plan to steal a hit by hitting it to right field was about to come to fruition. But after it left the bat, it did a strange thing. It kept going. And going.

I took one step forward, watching the bright white ball climb up further into the dark night sky. It was a 10:00 PM game, so the softball complex had all but completely cleared out, leaving only family members and their dogs in the stands. At the point in which the ball usually starts dropping it kept rising. Get up, get up…

The right fielder, who had been playing almost with her back to the wall, stopped moving, and looked up – just like you see in major league games when an outfielder watches one sail over their head and into the stands. I took another step forward, incredulous to what was happening.

Then, the ball disappeared over the right field wall…

Foul.

It had cleared the wall by a good 10 feet, but had curled around the right field pole.

Two pitches later, I struck out looking. In slow-pitch softball.

Our team won, pushing our record to 6-1. But my longball-that-wasn’t kept nagging me. Just ten feet to the left, and I would have hit my first home run in my life, at any level. (The fact that it came at age 36 would have immediately gotten me a mention in the next Mitchell Steroids report, I’m pretty sure. Right next to Fernando Vina’s skinny beard.) But how many of those dopes that played ahead of me in high school can say they\’re still hitting home runs? How many of those guys who got all the playing time while working half as hard as I did can still spray line drives all over the field after a decade of retirement? Most importantly, does anybody know where my girl from high school lives, so I can send her this picture of the swing? (Damn crappy blurry camera.)

After the game, I went to my car to change out of my cleats and into my sandals. A girl on my team drove by and asked me if I wanted the ball I hit over the fence. She pointed to the parking lot across the street, where the softball sat alone, right in the middle of the lot. Nobody had even bothered to go pick it up. I ran across the street in my socks, gave it a kiss, and triumphantly held it up – a souvenir that meant nothing to everyone except me.

Ladies and Gentleman, Your State Budget Update

June 4, 2009 / Christian / 0 Comments

The Wispolitics Budget Blog is doing a great job of covering the briefing Assembly Democrats are receiving on the budget handed over to them by their colleagues on Joint Finance. There’s a bunch of good stuff in there, but this one stands out:

Currently, there’s a lively debate on joint and several liability language, which some are having trouble comprehending.

“Can you put it in layman’s terms?” Speaker Mike Sheridan asked.

“I’m a non-lawyer and I’ve dumbed it down as far as I can,” said an LFB staffer.

“We need a book ‘Legislating for Dummies,'” Schneider cracked.

Rep. Rob Turner suggested the proposal isn’t “ready for prime time” if the lawmakers are having trouble understanding it.

Pocan said there would be a clearer explanation for lay people handed out to the caucus by Monday.

Rep. Mark Radcliffe was not happy that the caucus was spending time worrying about joint and several.

He said he spent yesterday with a constituent who was losing her job because of the DMV center closure in his district. He said he wanted to talk about job creation “not some crap” that doesn’t matter to his constituents.

“This is ridiculous. Let’s talk about the budget and how we are going to save jobs in this budget,” Radcliffe said.

Of course, Mark Radcliffe is more concerned about saving the job of one of his constituents than he is about sweeping policy changes that could bankrupt businesses. Honestly, if we can’t cut a couple DMV centers when we have a $6.6 billion deficit, then we can’t cut anything.

Of course, shortly thereafter, the Assembly Democrats went into closed caucus, to avoid media coverage of their confusion.

“You’re Going to Love my Nuts”

June 3, 2009 / Christian / 2 Comments

Words simply do not do justice to the Slap Chop:

“Life’s hard enough as it is.”

Especially when you’re beating hookers.

Helping the Sick Pay More for Health Care

June 2, 2009 / Christian / 1 Comment

Last week, the Joint Finance Committee passed a budget with numerous non-fiscal policy items tucked in amongst the myriad tax increases, fund raids, and increased borrowing. One of the most talked about policy items, the changes made to “joint and several liability” laws, still has yet to resonate with the public. (Perhaps opponents should introduce a mascot, like “Whiskers, the Joint and Several Liability Bunny” so people get the idea.)

In order to clarify what effect the new law may have on the legal climate in the state, the Wisconsin Medical Society (which represents the state’s doctors) has provided us with a handy-dandy example of how it will affect health care:

A patient sues three physicians as a result of an injury. After trial, a jury determines that physician A was 30 percent negligent, physician B was 25 percent negligent and physician C was 45 percent negligent. Under current law, each physician and his or her insurer would be liable to pay based on the percentage of negligence because each physician was less than 51 percent negligent. In this example, none of the three physicians would be required to pay the entire award.

The proposed change in the law, as amended by the Joint Committee on Finance, replaces the 51 percent negligence threshold for joint and several liability to apply to 20 percent. Therefore, under the new proposal any of the physicians could be required to pay the entire award because of joint and several liability. This could be especially problematic depending on where the physicians are employed. If a medical liability case involves physicians who pay into the Injured Patients and Families Compensation Fund and some who do not, this creates the scenario where “deep pockets” become the primary incentive for a suit rather than the amount of negligence involved in a case. For example, if a physician who pays into the IPFCF is found to be 20 percent negligent while a non-paying physician is found to be 80 percent negligent, the plaintiff could recover the entire amount of the liability from the physician who pays into the Fund despite that physician’s low level of negligence.

Wisconsin’s medical liability insurance laws require that the Fund pay for claims that exceed the primarily level of medical liability coverage, which could mean more money coming out of the Fund in cases described in this example. If the Fund has greater liability because of the joint and several liability issue, then Fund fees could increase dramatically. The potential for increased liability for the Fund based on changes to the comparative negligence statute might be something that the actuaries consider in calculating the financial risk to the Fund. Private medical liability insurers might also increase insurance premiums for primary coverage if they believe there is a risk of paying more in claims because of the proposed change.

In short, health care just got more expensive. Higher lawsuit payouts will mean greater costs to doctors and insurance companies, which will need to pass these costs along to consumers. Plus, it could lead to less efficient care as physicians get pushed more toward defensive medicine, ie. overutilization of MRIs when an x-ray would do, etc.

This appears to be the logic of legislative Democrats – they’re going to make your health care more affordable by making it more expensive. Sadly, people looking for cheaper health care don’t generally make campaign contributions. So when two liberal interests collide, you can bet the one that writes the checks out during election season will win.

Government’s Billion Dollar Word

June 1, 2009 / Christian / 0 Comments

In the world of linguistics, words actually mean things. In many cases, tacking one qualifying word on to another can completely change the meaning of the original word being used. For instance, everyone enjoys a juicy apple. But one would be hard pressed to find someone that enjoys a “horse apple” in the same way. We often associate “wind” with a cool, gentle breeze. But if someone “breaks wind,” it’s liable to clear out your dinner party. If someone offers you “water,” they might think you’re thirsty. If someone offers you “waterboarding,” then you should immediately begin digging a getaway tunnel.

Even state government has its own language that often employs such qualifiers to its own benefit. Under the Wisconsin Constitution, the state may not run a “deficit,” meaning the books have to be balanced on a cash-in, cash-out basis. Yet the state continually runs a “structural deficit,” meaning its government merely pushes off much of its spending into future fiscal years, leaving taxpayers to pick up the tab down the road. In the case of the 2009-2011 budget, Governor Doyle’s acceptance of the word “structural” is worth about a billion and a half dollars to the taxpayer.

Conversely, in the cases where it helps to grow government, meaningful adjectives are cast aside to allow for profligate spending. Take, for instance, the way we fund state government employee retirement benefits.

Under the current Wisconsin Retirement System (WRS), each state government employee earns a taxpayer-funded employer contribution of roughly 5% of their salary every year. These same employees are expected to kick in an annual “employee contribution” of a similar amount – but in actuality, state government pays each employee’s individual contribution for them. In 2007, 99.6% of all contributions made to the WRS – both the “employee” and “employer” portions – were paid by state taxpayers.

In short, the “employee contribution” is nothing of the sort – there’s a better chance of seeing a “clay pigeon” eating birdseed than of seeing a government employee contributing a cent to their own retirement benefits. In 2007, these contributions combined cost taxpayers $393 million, and that’s just for employees at the state level.

Several weeks ago, Governor Jim Doyle announced that the state’s fiscal situation is going to much worse than he had anticipated. Lagging tax receipts and previous fiscal mismanagement could very well drive the state deficit up by $1.6 billion. As a remedy, Doyle suggested state employee cuts and furloughs, as well as funding reductions for school districts and local services. Many local governments are also looking at cutting staff and services.

Yet to date, no one has proposed an obvious budget remedy – merely making the term “employee contribution” mean exactly what it says. Requiring the WRS’ 263,000 participants to invest just a small amount of their money in their own retirement system could save state and local governments in the neighborhood of $1.3 billion over the upcoming biennium. Consequently, these governments could eliminate many of the program cuts that they are warning would be so damaging. Children would continue to learn, fires would continue to be put out, and garbage pickup would proceed on schedule if governments took the term “employee contribution” literally.

According to the state Department of Workforce Development, Wisconsin’s private sector lost 128,000 jobs in the last year, while government jobs actually increased by 5,700. To this point, the only sacrifice made by state employees has been to avoid running over all the private sector unemployed people wandering the streets on their drive to work.

Putting the “employee” back in “employee contribution” can go a long way to leveling the playing field between the state’s public and private employers, and eventually save the jobs of many of those government employees that will inevitably resist such a plan.

In 2003, Governor Doyle said he would be “open to every solution” that would allow him to fix the state’s shortfall without taxes. He could start by making the term “employee contribution” mean something again.

-June 1, 2009

Christian Schneider

Author, Columnist