Boots & Sabers

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Category: Politics – Wisconsin

Evers’ Semi-Retired Work Ethic

by | 1734, 21 Sep 22 | | 7 Comments

If you wonder why it was so easy for government officials to close down your business or force people to stay home or create mandates that put people out of work… this is why. Throughout the pandemic when people were out of work, businesses were going under, and paychecks were squeezed, our governor was putting in 30-hour weeks and getting home to his taxpayer-funded mansion in time for Wheel every day. All the while, he never missed a paycheck; never had to sit across the table from a valued employee and tell them that they didn’t have a job anymore; never had to tell his wife that they needed to cut household expenses because his hours were cut; none of it. Evers, like all of the other politicians who put millions of people out of work, continued on completely immune from the negative effects of their decisions. Other than wearing a mask and finding his favorite restaurant closed, Evers felt no impact from his decisions.

Empower Wisconsin compared the governor’s calendars for the first week in February in the years 2019, 2020, and 2021. This is historically a busy week for a governor. The Legislature was in session, and Evers was preparing a budget in two of the years. He was also dealing with a pandemic and related problems. But the governor kept a relatively light schedule. He averaged just under 36 hours of total official government work, according to his calendars.

 

For the week around February 15 in 2019, ’20 and ’21, Evers averaged just 33 1/2 hours per week. And for the last week of February, he worked on average just over 20 hours.

 

On Wednesday Feb. 27, 2019, Evers put in just over six hours of official business, according to his calendar. That included a 45-minute breakfast with Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes and a half hour of drive time back and forth between the Executive Mansion and the Capitol. He got home at 2:45 p.m. The rest of the day is redacted.

 

The average Wisconsin worker logged nearly 42 hours per week last year, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The average worker was paid a lot less than Tony Evers.

 

Over the last year-plus, Evers has been spending a lot more time on the road — or in the air, using the state plane. Much of that travel has to do with the billions of dollars in federal COVID aid the Democrat has been able to use as a kind of unregulated campaign slush fund. He’s handed out a lot of big checks, covered by the taxpayers of the United States of America. Despite his travels, Evers is generally back at the mansion in time to watch the “Wheel of Fortune.”

 

It’s not all work and no play. A few days before Christmas last year, Evers jumped on the state plane for a tour of the Potawatomi Community Center and a pickleball match. It’s well known Evers is a big pickleball fan. His official day ended at 2:35 p.m.

 

Evers took the rest of the week (through the day after Christmas) off. There was one item listed on his Dec. 27 calendar: A phone call with President Biden, who also isn’t known for burning the midnight oil in office. His calendars show no activity on Tuesday, Dec. 28, just a quick COVID-19 Response check-in call the next day, and then very little on his schedule until Jan. 3. The governor apparently had settled his brain for a long winter’s nap.

Terrible school performance demands real action

by | 0740, 20 Sep 22 | , | 20 Comments

My column for the Washington County Daily News is online and in print. Readers of this blog won’t be surprised by the thoughts. Here’s a bit:

Also, kids are individuals. They are not cattle. They learn at different speeds, with different methods, and with different styles. It is unrealistic to expect any single school to cater to the individual needs of students. Our kids are better served if we encourage the development of an educational heterogeny and trust parents to choose the best option for their children. All that understood, first, we must implement universal school choice with equal funding for each child irrespective of the school they attend. In Wisconsin’s current School Choice programs, taxpayers get a bargain because they provide much less money for a kid who attends a choice school than if the kid attends a government school. We must equalize funding to equalize choice. The current rate in Wisconsin is $16,017 per child. The full funding should follow the child.

 

Next, we should implement rigorous, focused, testing of core subjects for all schools that receive funding. The taxpayers are paying for a quality education and deserve to know that their money is being well spent. The key, however, is that the testing must only test true core subjects and not impose any other strictures on the schools. If 70% of the children are proficient in reading, writing, math, and civics, then that is more than twice as good as the current government schools are delivering. We should use the power of the purse to demand very high standards in a very limited number of key subjects.

 

Once the funding and testing infrastructure is in place, Wisconsin should privatize all K-12 government schools. All of them. We should get government out of the business of delivering education.

 

When I have suggested privatization in the past, people tend to have one of two sincere reservations. Some folks worry about for-profit schools. We have been culturalized to think that profit is incongruous with education. It is not. Capitalism and the profit motive have improved the lives of more people than any other system in the history of humankind. They have lifted people out of poverty and cured diseases. Education is not immune from its benefits. From a taxpayer perspective, if a school can deliver 96% reading proficiency and make a profit, we should be delighted.

Step 1: Admit that you have a problem

by | 0736, 16 Sep 22 | , | 34 Comments

Here is my full column that ran in the Washington County Daily News this week. It is particularly apropos in light of the state DPI releasing their budget request asking for more and more money.

The data is telling. The more we have spent on K-12 education, the worse the results have gotten. If we are to make data-driven decisions, there are only two conclusions. 1) There is no correlation between money spent and educational outcomes. The outcomes are a result of other inputs. 2) There is a negative correlation between money spent and educational outcomes. More money actually results in poorer outcomes.

Personally, I think the answer is #2. Here’s why: once basic needs are funded (we did that a long time ago), more money becomes a distraction from core education. Every administrator, department, specialist, etc. who is hired is looking for something to do. They create new curriculum, new programs, change standards, create study committees, have meetings, and on and on and on. All of that is time that is not being spent in classrooms teaching core subjects in proven ways.

This happens in corporate America too. When companies get fat, they spend a lot of time-wasting energy around the edges of their core businesses and profits erode. That’s why the market tends to love it when a company cuts fat in a deep layoff.

Anyway, here’s the column. Look at the data:

The first step in the renowned twelve steps of Alcoholics Anonymous is to admit that you have a problem. One cannot begin the path to recovery if one does not admit to having a problem. Well, Wisconsin has a huge problem. Our government education system is utterly failing our kids and it is getting worse every year. Our governor, Tony Evers, with a lifetime spent in government education, accepts such failure as normal and acceptable. It is not.

 

According to the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction, every significant benchmark of student achievement is in freefall since well before the abysmal response of government schools accelerated the decline. Student proficiency on the ACT is down.

 

Between 2016-2017 and 2020-2021, the percentage of Wisconsin eleventh graders who were proficient or better on the English language arts part of the ACT, which measures understanding of English, writing, and knowledge of language, dropped from 39.5% to 33%. That is a 16.4% drop in scores in five years.

 

Math scores are even worse. Over the same time span, the percentage of Wisconsin’s eleventh graders who were proficient or better at mathematics dropped from 35.7% to 25.5%. That is a 28.6% drop in proficiency in just five years.

 

The story is the same for the ACT Aspire, which is given to ninth and tenth graders. Proficiency in English dropped from 41.2% to 32.4% between 2016-2017 and 2020-2021. In Mathematics, proficiency dropped from 37.1% to 29.8%. Those are declines of 21.4% and 19.7%, respectively.

 

Looking at the younger students between third and eight grades who take the Forward exams, the decline remains consistent and persistent. On the Forward exam over the same five years, the number of students who were proficient or better in English language arts declined 24.1% from 44.4% to 33.7%. In mathematics, their scores declined 21.5% from 42.8% to 33.6%.

 

But let us step back from the cold numbers for a moment and put them in perspective. The fact than only 33.7% of Wisconsin’s students between third and eighth grades are at least proficient in English language arts is abysmal. According to the DPI, the Forward Exam tests what, “students should know and be able to do in order to be college and career ready.” That means that barely a third of Wisconsin’s students are meeting grade-level standards to be ready to attend college or start a career. Only one in three of Wisconsin’s kids are proficient in English or math — two key skills for success as an adult.

 

What the heck are we doing? Is that really good enough? Two-thirds of our kids are falling behind and we collectively shrug and accept it? Have we been so cowed by the government education bullies that we are willing to accept that their failure is normal and satisfactory?

 

Our governor thinks it is. On his campaign website, he brags about his accomplishments on education. As proof, he noticeably fails to mention anything about student achievement. Instead, he cites the fact that the state spends more money than ever on K-12 education. If the spending is not resulting on better results for our kids, then what is the point?

 

In fact, the more we spend, the worse our student achievement is getting. According to DPI data, between the 2016-2017 and 2020-2021 school years, total state and local spending on government K-12 schools ballooned 14.8% from $11.5 billion to $13.2 billion. Over the same period, total enrollment declined 3.6% from 855,307 to 823,827 students. That is a whopping 19% increase in spending per student over just five years.

 

What are we getting for our money? Why are we continuing to pump more money into government bureaucracy who produces increasingly poor results every year? Governor Tony Evers recently announced that he wants to spend an additional $2 billion on K-12 schools. Given that a $1.7 billion increase in spending over the last five years resulted in a 24.1% drop in English scores on the Forward exam, will another $2 billion push scores down further?

 

Like any addiction, spending more money on it makes it worse because the spending obscures the real problems. In Wisconsin, we have been failing our kids and making ourselves feel better about it by spending more money on them. They do not need more money. They need a quality education and our government education establishment is increasingly unable or unwilling to give them that education.

 

It is time to stop. Stop the excessive spending. Stop the pretending that our government education system works. Stop accepting abysmal performance as normal or acceptable. Stop rewarding failure. Admit that we have a real problem and we are failing our kids at every grade level.

 

We cannot begin on the path to fixing our government education system until we admit that it has failed. As a lifelong insider of that system, Governor Tony Evers is never going to take the first step to recovery. We need a governor who will.

 

We need a governor who will focus on outcomes instead of inputs. We need a governor who will value our kids more than the system. Let me rephrase that … our kids need a governor who will value them more than government workers. Tony Evers is not that governor.

Concerns at Samaritan

by | 1821, 14 Sep 22 | | 0 Comments

From the Washington County Insider. I’ve had some personal insight into Samaritan and it is in sore need of attention. One wonders when that shoe is going to drop.

What once appeared a priority in the county with a dedicated Task Force and study committee, now, as a Samaritan resident noted, did not even manage a reference during the county executive’s 2022 state of the county address.

 

So, what is the status of the Samaritan Home and what is the future?

 

[…]

  • Part of the discussion during the July 2021 meeting was financing and awaiting funds from the U.S. Treasury. A section of the story read; Washington County is in line to receive approximately $26.2 million in federal COVID relief funding. Schoemann said it is possible the federal money the County will be receiving could pay for this. “That’s why I said we have to let Matt finish all his work. By the time he finishes we should have final guidance from the U.S. Treasury.  I don’t know that it would pay for all of it, but it may be able to pay for a good portion,” he said.

 

The “Matt” referred to in the story is Matt Furno. Calls have been placed to Furno but recently a policy was enacted by the county executive and Furno said he cannot now speak directly to the issue. “I am not allowed to speak,” he said, “We could use your help in this whole thing.”

 

An email was sent to have a sit-down interview with Furno but so far there’s been no response.

 

[…]

 

Inside the Samaritan Home residents talk about the limited staff and some have mentioned how staff are paid with gift cards as incentives should they choose to work 7 days a week or more. Residents have also mentioned feelings of worry and insecurity about their living situation. Another wondered if the National Guard would be brought in to help with staffing.

 

County Supervisor Jodi Schulteis is Chairperson of the Human Services Committee, which in part, is informed about the Samaritan Home and its status. On the county board since being appointed in 2020, Schulteis said she has not been inside the Samaritan Home.

 

Questioned about the future of the Samaritan Home she said, “We continue to meet on it and discuss it and we continue to take the Task Force recommendation seriously but there has been no decision one way or the other.”

Step 1: Admit that you have a problem

by | 0739, 13 Sep 22 | , | 0 Comments

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

The first step in the renowned twelve steps of Alcoholics Anonymous is to admit that you have a problem. One cannot begin the path to recovery if one does not admit to having a problem. Well, Wisconsin has a huge problem. Our government education system is utterly failing our kids and it is getting worse every year. Our governor, Tony Evers, with a lifetime spent in government education, accepts such failure as normal and acceptable. It is not.

 

According to the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction, every significant benchmark of student achievement is in freefall since well before the abysmal response of government schools accelerated the decline. Student proficiency on the ACT is down.

 

Between 2016-2017 and 2020-2021, the percentage of Wisconsin eleventh graders who were proficient or better on the English language arts part of the ACT, which measures understanding of English, writing, and knowledge of language, dropped from 39.5% to 33%. That is a 16.4% drop in scores in five years.

 

Math scores are even worse…

 

[…]

 

But let us step back from the cold numbers for a moment and put them in perspective. The fact than only 33.7% of Wisconsin’s students between third and eighth grades are at least proficient in English language arts is abysmal. According to the DPI, the Forward Exam tests what, “students should know and be able to do in order to be college and career ready.” That means that barely a third of Wisconsin’s students are meeting grade-level standards to be ready to attend college or start a career. Only one in three of Wisconsin’s kids are proficient in English or math — two key skills for success as an adult.

 

What the heck are we doing? Is that really good enough? Two-thirds of our kids are falling behind and we collectively shrug and accept it? Have we been so cowed by the government education bullies that we are willing to accept that their failure is normal and satisfactory?

 

Our governor thinks it is. On his campaign website, he brags about his accomplishments on education. As proof, he noticeably fails to mention anything about student achievement. Instead, he cites the fact that the state spends more money than ever on K-12 education. If the spending is not resulting on better results for our kids, then what is the point?

 

[…]

 

Like any addiction, spending more money on it makes it worse because the spending obscures the real problems. In Wisconsin, we have been failing our kids and making ourselves feel better about it by spending more money on them. They do not need more money. They need a quality education and our government education establishment is increasingly unable or unwilling to give them that education.

 

It is time to stop. Stop the excessive spending. Stop the pretending that our government education system works. Stop accepting abysmal performance as normal or acceptable. Stop rewarding failure. Admit that we have a real problem and we are failing our kids at every grade level.

Judge Orders WEC to Follow Law

by | 0739, 8 Sep 22 | , | 17 Comments

The only reason this is even in court is because the WEC is a rogue agency that won’t follow the law.

WAUKESHA — A Waukesha County judge on Wednesday ruled that the Wisconsin Elections Commission’s guidance to municipal clerks about filling in missing witness information on absentee ballots runs counter to state law and banned the practice.

 

Waukesha County Circuit Court Judge Michael Aprahamian issued a temporary restraining order and injunction against the Wisconsin Elections Commission, barring it from advising clerks to follow guidelines it issued in 2016 regarding incomplete witness information on absentee ballots. The WEC in 2016 said if information pertaining to witnesses on absentee ballots is missing a component like an address, clerks are to do all the reasonably can to “cure” the ballot and get that missing information, including relying on election records, personal knowledge, or other databases. Voters or witnesses “may” provide the missing information in person, by phone, fax, email or mail, or voters can request a new ballot. Clerks were advised they could return the ballot envelope to voters to get the information.

Tax increases coming in conservative Washington County

by | 0658, 3 Sep 22 | | 3 Comments

Here is my full column that ran earlier this week in the Washington County Daily News:

What is going on in Washington County? The county that brags about being the most conservative county in the state is awash with proposals for massive tax increases. Several local governments and the county itself are lining up for huge tax increases during a recession when inflation is raging out of control. The numbers always tell the story. Let us dig a little into the numbers of Washington County, the city of West Bend, and the West Bend School District.

 

Washington County has put a referendum on the ballot this November asking the voters if they should increase the property tax levy by 9.9% to add positions to the Sheriff’s Department. County officials are selling the tax increase as necessary to combat an increase in crime and drug use that is spilling over the border from Milwaukee. Officials are also selling the notion that the tax levy rate will still decrease even with the increase. Free money, right?

 

Looking into the numbers, the crime and drug issues are certainly real. The portrayal of the budget is not. According to county budget information, in 2010 the county spent $118.38 million. The proposed 2023 budget is $135.37 million. That is a spending increase of 14.3% over the period. Over the same period, the county’s population increased by 4.5% according to U.S. Census data. The county has been increasing spending faster than the underlying population it serves has been growing. County officials are correct that the property tax rate has been decreasing for several years. How have they pulled off an increase in spending with a decrease in taxes? The answer is twofold. First, while the levy rate has been decreasing, the property values that it taxes have been increasing. Second, the county has been more and more reliant on the county sales tax. According to the Wisconsin Department of Revenue, per-capita county sales tax collections in Washington County have increased by a whopping 63% between 2010 and 2021.

 

Washington County has been more frugal than most governments, but that is like bragging about being the smartest Bears fan.

 

The city of West Bend rejected the idea of putting a referendum on the ballot to ask for a big tax increase, but that is only because they chose to consider increasing taxes on their own authority. In West Bend’s case, they are arguing that they need to enact a huge tax increase to improve the roads. The numbers argue against giving them more money to spend.

 

In 2016, the earliest year for which city officials have chosen to publish numbers on their website, the city’s operating budget general fund spent $21.4 million. In 2022, that budget is $25.8 million. That is a 20.5% increase in spending in six years. Over the same period, the city’s population grew a negligible 0.08% from 31,702 to 31,727 according to census data. A city taxpayer might ask where all of that increased spending has been going if not to repair the roads.

 

The West Bend School District is in the beginning stages of thinking about asking the taxpayers for more money in a referendum as early as April of next year. As in previous referendum attempts, the school district will want to spend more money on facilities and will paint the scary picture of students being educated in unsafe conditions. Again, the numbers tell a story.

 

According to data from the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction, in fiscal year 2013, the West Bend School District spent $76.01 million. In fiscal year 2021, they spent $87.03 million. That is an increase of 14.5%. At the same time, the district saw enrollment decline 16% from 6,952 to 5,824 students according to the district’s own figures. Increasing spending in the face of declining enrollment resulted in a per-student increase in district spending of 36.7% over the last ten years. Again, a prudent district taxpayer might ask where all of that money is going if not to ensure that the students are receiving a quality education in a safe environment.

 

If there was any time when conservative elected leaders should be standing up for taxpayers, this is it. The taxpayers’ family budgets are already being squeezed from all directions. Conservative elected leaders should start from the position that the government has enough money and budget from there.

UN is Late Again

by | 1915, 1 Sep 22 | , | 0 Comments

The UN is like that scrawny kid who runs in after the fight is over sucker punches the loser. We have known about China committing genocide against the Uyghurs for years. We don’t need the UN to tell us that. The question is whether or not the world community is going to do anything about it. We already know the answer to that too.

The UN has accused China of “serious human rights violations” in a long-awaited report into allegations of abuse in Xinjiang province.

China had urged the UN not to release the report – with Beijing calling it a “farce” arranged by Western powers.

 

The report assesses claims of abuse against Uyghur Muslims and other ethnic minorities, which China denies.

 

But investigators said they found “credible evidence” of torture possibly amounting to “crimes against humanity”.

Human rights groups have been sounding the alarm over what is happening in the north-western province for years, alleging that more than one million Uyghurs had been detained against their will in a large network of what the state calls “re-education camps”.

COVID Money Dumped Into Money Pit

by | 1942, 30 Aug 22 | | 1 Comment

Remember when all of this emergency COVID money was supposed to rescue us? Now COVID is over and it’s being dumped into Evers’ favorite money pit.

MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Gov. Tony Evers is giving Wisconsin K-12 public schools $90 million more in federal COVID-19 relief money, a move he announced Tuesday just before schools were to open for the fall.

Tax increases coming in conservative Washington County

by | 0732, 30 Aug 22 | | 0 Comments

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

What is going on in Washington County? The county that brags about being the most conservative county in the state is awash with proposals for massive tax increases. Several local governments and the county itself are lining up for huge tax increases during a recession when inflation is raging out of control. The numbers always tell the story. Let us dig a little into the numbers of Washington County, the city of West Bend, and the West Bend School District.

 

Washington County has put a referendum on the ballot this November asking the voters if they should increase the property tax levy by 9.9% to add positions to the Sheriff’s Department. County officials are selling the tax increase as necessary to combat an increase in crime and drug use that is spilling over the border from Milwaukee. Officials are also selling the notion that the tax levy rate will still decrease even with the increase. Free money, right?

 

Looking into the numbers, the crime and drug issues are certainly real. The portrayal of the budget is not. According to county budget information, in 2010 the county spent $118.38 million. The proposed 2023 budget is $135.37 million. That is a spending increase of 14.3% over the period. Over the same period, the county’s population increased by 4.5% according to U.S. Census data. The county has been increasing spending faster than the underlying population it serves has been growing. County officials are correct that the property tax rate has been decreasing for several years. How have they pulled off an increase in spending with a decrease in taxes? The answer is twofold. First, while the levy rate has been decreasing, the property values that it taxes have been increasing. Second, the county has been more and more reliant on the county sales tax. According to the Wisconsin Department of Revenue, per-capita county sales tax collections in Washington County have increased by a whopping 63% between 2010 and 2021.

 

Washington County has been more frugal than most governments, but that is like bragging about being the smartest Bears fan.

Wisconsinites Face Tax Bill for School Loan Handout

by | 1704, 29 Aug 22 | , | 5 Comments

Obviously, the best solution is to abolish the state income tax.

Joe Biden‘s student loan relief plan could trigger up to $1,100 in state-level taxes in at least 13 states because the $10,000-$20,000 in forgiveness could count toward an individual’s income when filing their taxes.

 

[…]

 

The top tax figures for New York and Wisconsin, $685 and $530 respectively, do not include consideration of top marginal rate ‘because it would apply to relatively few eligible beneficiaries’ of the plan.

Crooks Sue Evers Over Delays

by | 2009, 28 Aug 22 | , | 0 Comments

Between the crooks, the lawyers, and the governor, I kind of hope everyone loses.

Moore’s aunt said he spent an extra month in jail waiting for a lawyer to even ask for lower bail. He’s being held on a $30,000 bail for charges of armed robbery and possession of a firearm by a felon.

 

“This ain’t gonna be nothing but a lawsuit, they’re making it hard on themselves, too,” said Moore’s aunt Denise Cunningham about the delay in providing attorneys for the indigent.

 

The lawyers bringing the lawsuit say Moore is among thousands of indigent defendants forced to wait months or more to get a lawyer. Milwaukee Attorney John Birdsall said the issue has been getting worse for at least 15 years.

 

“The reason is because the public defender office, which was created to meet our state’s constitutional obligations to provide counsel, has been chronically underfunded, and everybody knows it,” Birdsall said.

 

The lawyers hope this lawsuit will force the state to increase public defender funding affecting an estimated 35,000 defendants like Moore.

 

“Apparently, because there’s not enough public defenders to go around with the criminal system,” Norton said. “So he’s just sitting there.”

No Ratchets for Mandela Barnes

by | 0702, 25 Aug 22 | | 9 Comments

I had forgotten about this gem. Barnes has led such an immoral personal life that these little windows into it get lost in the wash. By the Left’s standards, the misogyny and transphobia displayed should be disqualifiers for office.

Barnes was listed as a host for a 2009 event titled “Pretty In Pink A Vicky Secret Affair,” a lingerie party that barred “ratchets” – slang for trashy women – from attending.

The scandal initially broke as Barnes ran for lieutenant governor in 2018. Facebook screenshots of the event published by local media outlets at the time show that Barnes was listed as one of the party’s co-hosts.

[…]

Barnes’ party also advertised prizes “FOR THE GIRL GOIN’ THE HARDEST IN HER VICKY’S!!!”

The Democratic Senate candidate’s Facebook event said that bouncers at the door would be “handin’ out free choke slams and sleeper holds” to men who showed up and that it is “a Vicky’s Secret party, why would you wanna roll on the ground wit a dud anyway???”

Dane County Awards Millions to Urban Triage

by | 2059, 23 Aug 22 | | 0 Comments

This is a telling story from MacIver. If you wonder why Democrats love these government handout programs, this is why. They award them to shady groups run by their supporters. Remember that the purpose of this program was not to help people with rent. That was a secondary goal. The primary goal was to make sure that the people administering the program got paid millions for it. Go read the whole thing.

Regardless, the committee members relented. They voted unanimously to recommend the contract. Later that evening, the full county board of supervisors approved it. Urban Triage now has two contracts for administering rental assistance worth a combined $21.4 million. It gets to keep a total of $2.4 million.

“No” To Washington County Referendum

by | 2131, 22 Aug 22 | , | 1 Comment

Guest article from former Assembly Representative Jesse Kremer. I agree.

As a former legislator and Vice-Chair of the Public Safety Committee in the Wisconsin Assembly, my family and I support our local law enforcement 100%.  While I agree that we could use a few more servants in blue patrolling the streets, permanently raising our county taxes by nearly 10% will not reduce crime.  I will be voting NO on the Washington County Board’s Anti-Crime Plan tax referendum this fall.

 

It is blatantly obvious that our county government leaders have begun actively campaigning for this behemoth tax increase.  They are regularly publicizing the types of individuals being apprehended while traversing our county.  I have no doubt that our taxpayer funded county newsletter will also be actively shilling for our YES vote in the near future.

 

Crime is a real problem and there are real solutions.  We just need to be engaged.

 

Many families, including ours, does not have the means to perpetually shell out money.  Washington County used to be the most conservative county in Wisconsin.  Pushing referendums on residents with no studies or data, however, is reckless, especially when our families are all experiencing:

  1. Rampant inflation and “COVID-excuse” supply chain issues increasing our grocery bills by 30%.
  2. Spiking energy costs, twice this year already, to cover supply shortages and subsidize the “renewables” being purchased by energy companies.
  3. A 250% increase in fuel bills from just a couple of years ago.

 

But what if some of the initial funds are “free money” – grants from the state or federal government? Free money does not exist.  After the funds are gone, we, the taxpayers, will still be on the hook to cover the costs of a government program that once established, will not be eliminated.

 

While I am extremely concerned with the rampant crime in our state, it is not because we do not have enough local law enforcement – or enough laws from Madison.  There are real solutions:

  1. In modern-day American, there is no deterrent for crime. Judges and prosecutors are not locking up offenders to the fullest extent of the law.  Case in point (2022WA000414):  Recently there were several high-dollar, commercial thefts and burglaries in Washington County.  Our public servants did their job and arrested the perpetrators.  Our newest judge, Sandra Giernoth, a Gov. Evers appointee, turned around and released him on a $10,000 bond allowing the criminal to simply skip out on his hearing and continue to terrorize the community.  It is time to hold our judges and prosecutors accountable.  We must kick them out via the election process if they are unable to keep our communities safe!
  2. There is no sense of morality. Over the past 70 years our government and many of our public agencies have actively campaigned to destroy religious institutions and take a wrecking ball to the nuclear family.  This has to stop!  Strong families must be encouraged and our religious organizations allowed to thrive.

 

If we must increase taxes to fight crime it would be better invested in additional prisons resulting in more, and longer, incarcerations.  This may be the one solution that the 2-3% of thugs who are destroying our society, and the Mayberry lifestyle as we knew it, can comprehend.

Prioritize Spending Instead of Raising Taxes

by | 1800, 21 Aug 22 | | 5 Comments

Here’s a great column by a Kenosha Alderman that every West Bend alderman and Washington County Supervisor should read.

I strongly support our officers and firefighters and believe they need to be well funded. A central tenet of our government is to protect our rights, which includes the right to be free and safe, and I believe it to be a proper and moral use of taxpayer money. Knocking doors during my campaign, the vast majority of residents told me safety was their number one concern. So I think it’s imperative to allocate the City’s budget to move towards that assurance.

 

However, prioritizing funds is not the same as raising taxes, which my constituents are against. The City needs to fix its debt and development problem in order to free up funds. I also believe the way this proposal is being presented to the public is misleading and unethical. I ultimately voted “No” for the referendum, which passed 16-1.

Attorney General Josh Kaul’s terrible tenure

by | 1505, 21 Aug 22 | , | 1 Comment

Here is my full column that ran in the Washington County Daily News last week.

The races for governor and U.S. Senate are sure to dominate the attention of most voters this November, and rightfully so, but there are also other important choices for the voters including that of attorney general. Josh Kaul has used the office as a platform for activism and fallen well short of his duty to Wisconsin as the state’s top law enforcement officer. Voters would do well to ensure that he is not allowed to continue his malfeasance for a second term.

 

Josh Kaul, the son of the late disgraced former Attorney General Peg Lautenschlager, was narrowly elected in the blue wave election of 2018. He was elected with less than 50% of the vote and defeated his Republican opponent by a scant 0.65%. Despite his narrow plurality win, Kaul has used every tool in the attorney general’s box to advocate for his leftist causes at taxpayer expense. Meanwhile, he has failed to fulfill the basic duties of the job to fight crime.

 

Let us start with some of the things that Kaul has been spending his time on instead of prosecuting criminals. In the wake of the United States Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, Kaul announced that his office — the people’s office — would not prosecute anyone who violated Wisconsin’s abortion laws. Whatever one thinks about the law, it is a constitutional law that was passed by a duly elected legislature and signed into law by a duly elected governor (a Democrat, no less). Kaul has a sworn duty to uphold the laws of the state. Kaul has gone a step further and is suing the Republican leadership in the state Senate over Wisconsin’s abortion law arguing that it is unenforceable. Instead of spending his time and the taxpayers’ resources on fighting crime, Kaul is taking it upon himself to sue to change laws with which he does not agree. Kaul is not a participant in the law-making structure of government. The attorney general is supposed to be the people’s prosecutor and enforce the people’s laws. Instead, he is trying to usurp the power of the people to pass laws with the courts.

 

This is not the only issue on which Kaul is spending his time and the people’s resources to engage in leftist activism. Kaul has been a vocal advocate for curtailing civil rights with more restrictive gun laws. He has advocated for legalizing marijuana despite the disastrous consequences we see ravaging other states that have legalized it. Kaul has used his office to defend the bureaucratic dismantling of our elections laws that leave Wisconsin open to sloppy and fraudulent elections. Kaul is a busy guy, but he is not busy doing the things that Wisconsin needs done.

 

While Kaul has been acting as the state’s top activist, he has been failing as the state’s top cop. Under his tenure, he has left dozens of state prosecutor jobs unfilled. Fewer prosecutors leads to fewer prosecutions and Kaul has been engaging in his personal “defund the police” action.

 

The State Crime Lab, which former Attorney General Brad Schimel fixed, has fallen victim to Kaul’s neglect. The turnaround time for routine lab tests has increased by over 30% since Kaul took office. His mismanagement of the State Crime Lab means that criminals are staying on the street longer as police wait anxiously for the evidence they need to arrest them.

 

The evidence of Kaul’s dereliction is in the crime data. According to FBI crime statistics, Wisconsin’s violent crime rate in 2020 was the highest it had been in 35 years. Milwaukee has already had over 500 non-fatal shootings and over 130 homicides this year. The carnage is real. While Kaul is using his office to advocate for leftist causes, his failures in running the Department of Justice are being measured in dead bodies and ruined lives.

 

Wisconsin needs an attorney general who will work tirelessly to enforce the laws of the state and put criminals in jail. Josh Kaul has proven time and time again that he will prioritize his personal political causes over that of the people of Wisconsin every time.

Fentanyl Deaths Nearly Double in Wisconsin

by | 0713, 19 Aug 22 | , , | 11 Comments

Tragic. Our soft on crime policies are not helping. And our open border is a pipeline of death.

MADISON (WKOW) — The Wisconsin Department of Health Services (DHS) has issued a public health advisory about fentanyl’s presence in overdose deaths.

 

State health officials said there were 651 fentanyl overdose deaths in Wisconsin in 2019. By 2021, that nearly doubled to 1,280.

That’s a stark reversal of a pre-pandemic trend, when Paul Krupski, DHS’s Director of Opioid Initiatives, said Wisconsin actually recorded a decrease in opioid deaths.

 

[…]

 

MADISON (WKOW) — The Wisconsin Department of Health Services (DHS) has issued a public health advisory about fentanyl’s presence in overdose deaths.

 

State health officials said there were 651 fentanyl overdose deaths in Wisconsin in 2019. By 2021, that nearly doubled to 1,280.

That’s a stark reversal of a pre-pandemic trend, when Paul Krupski, DHS’s Director of Opioid Initiatives, said Wisconsin actually recorded a decrease in opioid deaths.

The Evers’ Crime Wave

by | 0744, 18 Aug 22 | , | 5 Comments

The MacIver Institute has a very long, but very good, story about the Evers crime wave. It’s easy to say that Evers’ has encouraged or allowed crime to rise. Sometimes we forget that it isn’t just about attitude. It is about policies. Evers has enacted specific policies that have encouraged the rise in crime. It is an intentional policy choice and one in which Evers accepts the increase in crime and pain of victims as the acceptable price of his ideological tenet that criminals are victims of the system instead of perpetrators of mayhem.

Tony Evers has been a leader in the movement toward leniency on crime, and decarceration.  His success in advancing these policies as governor has been accompanied by the largest rise in violent crime in more than a generation. And like his colleagues on the left, he isn’t backing away from his policies, he’s just pointing the finger of blame away from the perpetrators.

 

Here is a recap of the Evers Felons Before Families initiatives we’ve covered:

  1. Releasing half the prison population (he’s already nearly 1/3 of the way to his goal)

  2. Lying about how many violent criminals are in prisons (it’s 70%, not 20%)

  3. Turning a blind eye when prisoners in the community refuse to comply with the terms of their supervision

  4. Refusal to remove DAs for low and no bail policies that kill

  5. Appointing a parole commissioner who would swiftly boost the number of criminals given a “second chance” and then pretending he went rogue and asking for his resignation

  6. Lavishing sympathy on accused rapist Jacob Blake who resisted arrest while armed

  7. Chastising victims’ families – telling them to “take a breath” – for their anguished demands for justice

  8. Vetoing a legislative package of Tougher on Crime bills

  9. A complete overhaul of the criminal justice code to dump Truth in Sentencing, reduce sentences, and increase early releases.

  10. Replacing words like ‘prisoner’ and ‘sex offender’ for gentler terms like ‘person in our care’ and ‘client’ that harm criminal self-esteem

 

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