Boots & Sabers

The blogging will continue until morale improves...

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Author: Owen

EVs Aren’t the Savings You Think

by | 0934, 8 Jul 2323 | , , | 19 Comments

Heh.

However experts are warning that it takes an average of six years to break even on a purchase – and it can take up to a decade for the premium to pay off.

 

Customers are also taking to social media to express their regret at their EV purchase, with difficulties tracking down charging spots and unexpected costs. So how long does it really take to save money on an electric car – and is it worth the price?

 

[…]

 

When it comes to fuel, electricity is generally cheaper than gas. On July 7, the average cost of gas in the US was $3.53 a gallon.

 

According to the Natural Resources Defense Council, the cost of charging an EV is equivalent to filling up a gas tank at roughly $1 per gallon.

 

Gas prices also tend to be more volatile than electricity prices, which have historically been more stable.

 

[…]

 

The calculator estimates that the electric car owner will save $1,404 a year charging their vehicle rather than filling up on gas.

 

By dividing the price premium on the EV by the estimated annual savings on fuel, it would take over eight years to break even on the purchase.

The article shares stories from EV buyers who have buyer’s remorse. I say shame on them for not doing more homework before buying their cars. I’ll say the same thing I’ve said for years… EVs can be an excellent option for some people and a terrible option for others.

EV discussions have become common with people I know. I’ll give two examples of people who have Teslas and love them. Both are high-income people where the purchase price was not much of a factor. It’s more about the experience.

The first person lives in the Bay Area. He rarely drives for more than a couple of hours a day and has a charger in his garage. He commented that he can’t remember the last time that he charged in public. When he travels, he will generally fly if it is more than a 3 or 4 hour drive. He loves his Tesla and raves about the lack of maintenance required (oil changes, etc.) The Tesla simply has fewer moving parts to maintain. He did comment that it burns through tires rather quickly, but that’s a minor inconvenience.

The other person lives in Colorado. The person is single and travels a lot. The person likes his Tesla, but is annoyed by a few of the aesthetic features like the gull wing doors and the long windshield. This person works from home and doesn’t drive much, but occasionally goes on a long trip. In a recent example, the person drove from Colorado to Tulsa to Austin and back home. The travel time took twice as long as it would have in a gasoline car because of the time needed to charge. And in one example riding through the panhandle of Texas, the car almost ran out of charge before sliding into a station. To compensate, the person slowed way down. Overall, the person was annoyed with the travel time, but as a single person without a pressing reason to get back home, the extra time of travel was just that – an annoyance.

In both circumstances, the people like their EVs and are willing to put up with the inconveniences, and, more importantly, can afford to put up with the inconveniences.

In my own case, we do not own a garage or driveway in which to charge an EV. We would have to rely on public chargers. Also, we regularly take cross-country road trips (4 to 6 times a year) where we need to make the transit in a day or two to work around my work schedule. Owning an EV would be incompatible with our lifestyle.

This is where I would like the national conversation to progress. EVs are not morally or economically superior to gasoline vehicles (GVs). They are simply a different technology designed to complete the same task of personal transportation. The choice should center around lifestyle and preference instead of being some political or ethical talisman.

Milwaukeeans Rage at Prospect of Higher Taxes

by | 0739, 7 Jul 2323 | | 2 Comments

Huh. Who knew? Perhaps they should have been this energized at the ballot box.

Scores of Milwaukee residents turned out Thursday evening to voice their opposition to a proposed 2% city sales tax just days before Common Council members are set to take a critical vote on the new revenue source.

 

“They’re telling us if we don’t pass the 2% sales tax then we’re going to go bankrupt. Well, then we’ll go bankrupt,” Beverly Hamilton-Williams said to applause at a town hall at Clinton Rose Senior Center, 3045 N. King Dr.

 

[…]

 

The frustration residents at the senior center expressed over the sales tax — and the bevy of changes to Milwaukee policies included in the new law that allows the city to enact it — stood in stark contrast to a smaller, more conversational town hall held at the same time by council members from the city’s south side.

 

[…]

 

Before the Steering and Rules Committee vote on June 26, Ald. Mark Borkowski raised concerns about blowback from constituents if council members were to vote to implement a sales tax that doesn’t enhance city services.

 

“Current services suck,” he said.

Californians Move to Texas in Droves

by | 0739, 6 Jul 2323 | , , | 2 Comments

They are like locusts. Let’s hope they leave their politics behind.

About 300 Californians moved to Texas each day in 2021 – a staggering 111,000 people, newly released data shows.

That is double the 63,000 that made the same move in 2012, according to a new report from Storage Café, which examined California-Texas migrations patterns over nearly a decade.

Of those that moved in 2021, nearly half were millennials, born between 1981 and 1996, and headed to counties around major cities such as Austin, Houston and Dallas.

The study found Californians were lured from their state by a number of factors, including cheaper housing, lower taxes and booming work opportunities thanks to Texas’ tech and energy industries.

Fueling that shift was the COVID pandemic which increased the number of people that could work from home, releasing them from traditional commitments that would tie them down.

Note that Wisconsin looks more and more like California every day – especially after this last state budget.

Growing government is our bipartisan pastime

by | 1319, 5 Jul 2323 | | 1 Comment

For reference, here is my column that ran in the Washington County Daily News after the legislature finished their work:

At the time of the writing of this column, the Republican-led Legislature has passed a biennial state budget and sent it to Gov. Tony Evers’ desk for his signature. Evers is likely to sign the budget, but only after exercising his powerful line-item veto to make it more to his liberal liking. That being the case, the budget passed by the Legislature represents the most conservative version of the budget that was passed by a legislature with very strong Republican majorities.

 

From a conservative’s perspective, there is not much to get excited about in the Republican budget. There is a significant income tax cut. If that survives Evers’ veto, then it is a significant win that lets taxpayers keep significantly more of the money they earn.

 

There are also a few smaller conservative wins, like defunding the University of Wisconsin System’s culturally destructive and expensive diversity, equity and inclusion enforcers, but the only other significant conservative wins in this budget are the myriad bad ideas that were in the governor’s budget that the Republicans declined to include. But the absence of leftist ideas does not make it a conservative budget.

 

The Republican-approved budget comprises a very lengthy list of spending increases. It includes about a $1 billion increase in spending for government K-12 schools. Most of that is in the form of direct state spending, but the remainder is in the form of allowing local districts to increase property taxes. This is the largest single spending increase on government schools in state history and is happening in an age of declining enrollment and plummeting performance.

 

The budget includes another historic spending increase of $2.4 billion for capital building projects.

 

Part of the reason for the building boom is that the Republicans are paying for about half of the spending increase with cash from the previous budget’s surplus, thus reducing the reliance on debt, and using cash to pay off about $400 million in debt. Using cash to fund capital projects instead of using debt is only a good decision if one accepts that the projects are necessary. Either way, it is another huge spending increase.

 

There is a substantial pay increase for state employees, University of Wisconsin System employees, corrections employees, prosecutors, and public defenders. In the Biden economy with runaway inflation, many of these employee raises are likely necessary, but the Republicans failed to bind pay increases with staff reductions. Except for a few departments in state government, like the Department of Corrections, the state’s payroll remains bloated and inefficient.

 

The Republican budget has an increase in transit spending, half a billion dollars for housing programs, $125 million more for PFAS cleanup, and, of course, the funding for the (yet another) historic $275 million spending increase in shared revenue. There is even $2 million for the Green Bay Packers to help pay to host the NFL Draft. A few million here and half a billion there and it starts to add up.

 

All in, the budget that the Republican Legislature passed — before Governor Evers makes it worse with his veto pen — spends $97,407,275,400 over two years. That is a whopping 9.2% increase in spending over the previous budget. They managed to just squeak under a double-digit spending increase.

 

Lest one thinks that the spending is being driven by additional federal funds, the general fund, which is the state’s main checking account, is spending 11.5% more than the previous budget.

 

Even with huge legislative majorities, the Republicans’ best proposal is to grow government by almost 10%. That is pathetic. It is difficult for this conservative to muster the vim to rally behind the elephants when the output of the effort is just a larger government with a few conservative baubles as distractions.

 

As we celebrate our Independence Day from the oppression of arbitrary and oppressive government, I took the opportunity to, once again, read our hallowed Declaration of Independence. One feels the frustration building throughout the document. We appear to be at this point in the cycle of liberty:

 

“… all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.”

Evers Uses Veto to Increase Taxes and Spending

by | 1315, 5 Jul 2323 | | 16 Comments

As predicted here and elsewhere, any Conservative gains written into the budget by Republicans have been obliterated. Evers has had a spectacular Spring in terms of getting almost everything he wanted from the Republican legislature while giving up very little.

MADISON – Democratic Gov. Tony Evers, a former public school educator, used his broad partial veto authority this week while taking action on the next two-year state budget to increase funding for public schools for the next four centuries.

 

The surprise move will ensure districts’ state-imposed limits on how much revenue they are allowed to raise will be increased by $325 per student each year until 2425, creating a permanent annual stream of new revenue for public schools and potentially curbing a key debate between Democrats and Republicans during each state budget-writing cycle.

 

[…]

 

Evers also vetoed the majority of the centerpiece of Republican lawmakers’ budget plan: a $3.5 billion tax cut that focused relief for the state’s wealthiest residents. Instead, the reshaped budget will provide $175 million in tax relief and won’t condense the state’s four income tax brackets into three as Republicans proposed, according to the governor.

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America

by | 0823, 4 Jul 2323 | | 0 Comments

Read it. Learn it.

In Congress, July 4, 1776

 

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America, When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

 

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.–Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

 

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

 

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

 

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

 

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

 

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

 

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

 

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

 

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.

 

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

 

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.

 

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

 

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.

 

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

 

For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

 

For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

 

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

 

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

 

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:

 

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences

 

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:

 

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

 

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

 

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

 

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

 

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

 

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

 

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

 

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

 

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

 

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

Police Decline to Take Action Over Naked Child at Naked Bike Ride

by | 0912, 3 Jul 2323 | | 2 Comments

Here’s where we are in the normalization of pedophilia. 

MADISON – A girl believed to be about 10 years old participated in Madison’s Naked Bike Ride in June, but police and prosecutors have concluded state laws aimed at protecting children from exploitation or abuse do not apply to the incident.

 

The Madison Police Department received multiple complaints alleging the girl participated in the bike ride, but the Dane County District Attorney determined her participation did not violate any state laws.

 

According to a MPD case report obtained through an open records request, a photo posted to Facebook showed the girl and four adults on Johnson Street, west of the Bassett Street intersection, facing away from the camera. The girl appeared to be nude, except for shoes and a helmet, and her buttocks were visible.

 

One of the complaints came from a member of a nudist community who was concerned after seeing the photo online, which was posted by Milwaukee’s Naked Bike Ride organizer. Another came from a couple who saw the girl walking around naked during the ride. Another complaint was made online.

 

“You can’t tell any aged person if they can protest or they cannot protest,” said John Jankowski, the organizer of the Milwaukee Naked Bike ride. “Everybody is welcome.”

Americans Oppose Discrimination and Deadbeats

by | 0814, 3 Jul 2323 | , | 1 Comment

Given the media coverage, one might be led to believe that only a sliver of Americans agree with the recent Supreme Court rulings. Yet even the slanted polls show broad support for them. The reason is simple… for most Americans, we still believe that discrimination is wrong and that people should pay their debts – even if the most recent Leftist orthodoxy teaches otherwise.

Majorities of White and Asian American respondents approved of the decision overturning affirmative action, while Latino and Hispanic Americans were evenly split and 52% of Black Americans disapproved in the ABC News/Ipsos poll. Overall, 52% approved and 32% didn’t.

 

[…]

 

The court’s rejection of Biden’s student-loan forgiveness plan met with 45% approval in the ABC News poll, while 40% disapproved.

 

When Leftists Collide

by | 0846, 1 Jul 2323 | | 3 Comments

Ha!

Just Stop Oil have stormed London’s historic Pride parade, after issuing threats to the LGBTQ+ event earlier this week.

 

Seven eco-zealots have been arrested after nine blocked the capital’s Pride March today amidst calls for the event to condemn new oil, gas and coal.

 

At around 1:25pm, the group sat down in front of the festival’s Coca-Cola float, branding it ‘the world’s worst plastic polluter, accused of numerous human rights abuses’.

Growing government is our bipartisan pastime

by | 0726, 1 Jul 2323 | | 1 Comment

My column for the Washington County Daily News is online and in print. Yes, it’s early – on a Saturday – because there won’t be a paper on the Tuesday due to the Independence Day holiday. Here’s a part:

All in, the budget that the Republican Legislature passed — before Governor Evers makes it worse with his veto pen — spends $97,407,275,400 over two years. That is a whopping 9.2% increase in spending over the previous budget. They managed to just squeak under a double-digit spending increase.

 

Lest one thinks that the spending is being driven by additional federal funds, the general fund, which is the state’s main checking account, is spending 11.5% more than the previous budget.

 

Even with huge legislative majorities, the Republicans’ best proposal is to grow government by almost 10%. That is pathetic. It is difficult for this conservative to muster the vim to rally behind the elephants when the output of the effort is just a larger government with a few conservative baubles as distractions.

 

As we celebrate our Independence Day from the oppression of arbitrary and oppressive government, I took the opportunity to, once again, read our hallowed Declaration of Independence. One feels the frustration building throughout the document. We appear to be at this point in the cycle of liberty:

 

“… all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.”

Biden Moves Fast to Force Blue Collar Americans to Subsidize College Grads

by | 1713, 30 Jun 2323 | | 0 Comments

My, the President is hell bent on making the working class pay for the debts of the upper class, ain’t he?

Just hours after the Supreme Court struck down the president’s student loan forgiveness plan, the White House came back on Friday with several avenues to support borrowers.

 

The Biden administration is seeking to provide debt relief under the Higher Education Act of 1965 and has initiated that regulatory process. Additionally, the Education Department is creating a temporary 12-month on-ramp repayment program that removes the threat of default if borrowers miss payments once they restart in October. Third, the administration finalized a new income-driven repayment plan that it called “the most affordable repayment plan in history.”

 

The goal is to ease some of the financial strain many borrowers face when it comes to their student loans and is a direct response to the Supreme Court’s decision earlier Friday.

Legislature Sends Budget to Evers

by | 0757, 30 Jun 2323 | | 0 Comments

Meh.

MADISON – Assembly lawmakers late Thursday sent to Gov. Tony Evers a $99 billion two-year spending plan that leverages a historic surplus to cut income taxes by more than $3 billion for Wisconsin residents.

 

The action now shifts to Evers, and the Democratic governor has promised to deploy his powerful veto authority over aspects of the Republican-authored spending plan.

 

Assembly lawmakers voted 63-34 along party lines to pass the 2023-25 state budget, which includes a $1 billion increase in state and local funding for K-12 schools, a $32 million cut to diversity programs at the University of Wisconsin System, higher fees for electric vehicle owners, and pay boosts for state employees and correctional officers.

FBI Coverup Revealed

by | 1422, 29 Jun 2323 | | 3 Comments

Who watches the watchers?

The FBI first learned of Hunter Biden’s abandoned laptop, full of incriminating data, in October 2019, an IRS memo shows.

 

The memo, written by senior IRS Criminal Investigation official Gary Shapley in 2020, reveals how senior law enforcement officials sat on the treasure trove of evidence from the First Son’s computer and waited months before handing over mere excerpts to investigators working the case.

 

It also directly contradicts an open letter from 51 top former intelligence officials published weeks ahead of the 2020 presidential election which dismissed the laptop as having ‘all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation’.

SCOTUS Strikes Blow Against Racism

by | 0710, 29 Jun 2323 | , , , | 3 Comments

Excellent

The US Supreme Court struck down decades of legal precedent that allowed colleges and universities to consider race as a factor in admissions.

 

The court on Thursday specifically ruled against race-conscious student admissions programs at Harvard University and the University of North Carolina.

 

Those programs “violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment,” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for the 6-3 majority ruling in both cases, Students for Fair Admissions v. President and Fellows of Harvard, and Students for Fair Admissions v. University of North Carolina.

 

[…]

 

In concurring with the majority, Justice Clarence Thomas wrote that under the 14th Amendment, “the color of a person’s skin is irrelevant to that individual’s equal status as a citizen of this nation.”

Squandering America’s Wealth

by | 0707, 28 Jun 2323 | | 1 Comment

They aren’t even close to the total yet. And remember that much of that fraud was intentional with billions of dollars flowing to political friends and allies through loose rules and arbitrary decisions. The pandemic bailout is the greatest looting of the American people in history and it happened right in front of us.

The federal government squandered more than $200 billion in potential fraud in its aggressive rush to prop up small businesses as the COVID-19 pandemic threatened to shatter the U.S. economy, according to a report published Tuesday by the inspector general of the Small Business Administration.

 

The hefty sum, which amounts to approximately 17% of the $1.2 trillion dispersed by SBA, updates previous estimates from the inspector general, Hannibal “Mike” Ware, as investigators from several federal agencies continue to trace and recover millions of dollars lost to fraud, waste and other abuses that occurred during the pandemic.

Republicans finally propose a tax cut

by | 0726, 27 Jun 2323 | | 1 Comment

My column for the Washington County Daily News is online and in print. Here’s a taste:

Wisconsin currently has four income tax brackets. Under the Republicans’ plan, they would reduce it to three brackets and reduce the rates on all three remaining brackets. Simply put, everyone who pays state income taxes would benefit from paying less.

 

While the Republicans push for a tax cut and the Democrats oppose it, let us remind ourselves of why it is necessary. As this column recounted last week, Wisconsin is facing an existential threat to its economy and ability to fund government. People are leaving the state. Wisconsin is now losing population. One of the reasons is that the inherent mobility of the modern workforce means that people are moving to states that provide a good quality of life and a lower tax burden. The income tax is a big part of that.

 

This fact is particularly true for high-income people. Low-income people already do not pay much, if anything, in income taxes. According to those same Department of Revenue statistics, the bottom 40% of income taxpayers (474,050 filers) paid an average of just $303.80 in income taxes. That only includes people who earned enough to file taxes. Nobody is going to move to another state to save $303.80 in taxes. But for the top 40% of tax filers, who are paying thousands of dollars every year in state income taxes, the math is different. This is especially true for tech-sector professionals where remote work has become the norm. Retirees have been fleeing the state for decades in search of lower taxes and warmer climes, but the advent of the remote technical workforce has made this choice viable for professionals in the middle of their careers.

 

This column has long advocated for abolishing the state income tax. It can be done. It should be done. But it will not be done because neither elected Republicans nor Democrats have the will to do it. As a second choice, a true flat income tax would set Wisconsin apart and catapult it into the upper echelon of attractive tax states for mobile affluent professionals. As a third choice, the Republicans’ current proposal is a step in the right direction. It will not move the needle substantially, but it will help.

 

As it stands, even with this tax cut, the current budget proposals still increase state spending by at least 10% over the previous budget. That is an abomination that explains why taxes will not be reduced further.

$42 Billion for High Speed Internet

by | 2113, 26 Jun 2323 | | 4 Comments

What’s the over under on how much of this is going to wasted on fraud, graft, and theft? I put it at $31 billion. This is going to be like poverty programs where it becomes an excuse for politicians to dole out taxpayer money to their cronies to “fix” a problem and then they just keep moving the goalposts so that the problem is never actually “fixed.”

WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden is kicking off a more than $42 billion plan to give every American household access to high-speed internet by 2030.

Legislature Proposes to Merge UWMWC and MPTC

by | 2052, 26 Jun 2323 | , | 1 Comment

The combined enrollment of these two schools is less than the enrollment of just MPTC ten years ago. There is not rational reason for the taxpayers to continue to support two campuses. Whether they merge or just close one, something needs to be done to adjust to the shrinking demand.

The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Washington County would merge with Moraine Park Technical College under a plan pushed through by Republican lawmakers Thursday as part of the state budget.

 

If signed into law, UWM-Washington County could become the second UW branch campus to effectively shutter its doors since a 2018 restructuring put the UW System’s two-year campuses under the oversight of four-years.

 

UW-Platteville Richland essentially closed at the end of this school year, a move that came after more than a decade of stagnant state funding, tuition freezes and declining enrollment that left the Richland Center campus with less than 60 students studying there.

 

The Joint Committee on Finance voted to shift UWM-Washington County from a UW branch campus to a “joint Moraine Park Technical College/Washington County operation.” It’s unclear from the motion what, if any, UW’s involvement would be post-merger. UW System could receive $3.35 million, pending the budget committee’s approval, to aid in the transition.

DeSantis Opposed Birthright Citizenship

by | 2039, 26 Jun 2323 | | 0 Comments

I agree.

In a detailed list of immigration objectives he released on Monday, DeSantis, who also spoke to supporters and reporters in the Texas border town of Eagle Pass, pledged to “take action to end the idea that the children of illegal aliens are entitled to birthright citizenship if they are born in the United States.”

Eviction Moratorium Comes to an End

by | 2007, 26 Jun 2323 | , | 0 Comments

Our nation was founded on the sanctity of private property. Eviction moratoriums are an affront to freedom whereby squatters are empowered with the full force of violent government to encroach on others’ property.

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Retiree Pamela Haile has paid property taxes, insurance and other bills on a house she lets out in Oakland, but for more than three years her tenants have paid no rent thanks to one of the longest-lasting eviction bans in the country.

 

The eviction moratorium in the San Francisco Bay Area city expires next month and Haile can’t wait. The 69-year-old estimates she is owed more than $60,000 in back rent, money she doubts she will ever see. Moreover, the tenants have trashed her house and it will cost tens of thousands of dollars to make it habitable, she says.

 

“It’s unbelievable and it’s like, how can they have the nerve to just let something like this happen? If this happened to them, how would they feel?” Haile said of her tenants. “Dealing with this whole thing gets me so upset.”

 

Eviction moratoriums were put in place across the U.S. at the start of the pandemic in 2020 to prevent displacement and curb the spread of the coronavirus. Most expired long ago, but not in Oakland or neighboring San Francisco and Berkeley, all places where rents and rates of homelessness are high.

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