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Assembly takes up Bucks arena deal

by Owen | 0804, 28 Jul 1515 | Politics - Wisconsin | 0 Comments

My column for the West Bend Daily News is online. Here it is:

Almost two months ago it appeared that a bad deal for taxpayer support for an arena for the Milwaukee Bucks was going to be slammed into the budget with little input and less transparency. At the time, I wrote that it was a bad deal that needed to be taken out of the budget and reworked. Since then, exactly that has happened.

The budget passed without a deal for a Bucks arena. The Republican state leadership and the Democratic leaders of Milwaukee went back to the drawing board, included state Democratic leaders and the Senate passed a new version of a Bucks arena deal with a surprising bipartisan majority. Today the State Assembly is taking up for consideration the deal that the Senate passed.

Overall, the deal got better. The state Senate made three significant changes to the original deal being discussed in June. First, the deal imposes a taxpayer-funding cap. One of the problems with the earlier deals was that it left open the question of who would pay for the inevitable cost overruns for construction of a arena. The current deal caps taxpayer funding at what is stated and places the responsibility of an overrun into the hands of the Bucks’ owners.

The second major change was that the contribution from Milwaukee County was modified. In the previous version, the state would have paid $8 million per year for debt service with $4 million of that being offset by a convoluted plan whereby the state would collect debt owed to Milwaukee County. It was a dubious plan because it assumed that the debt could be collected (if it could be collected, why wasn’t the county already collecting it?) and left the state taxpayers on the hook if the debt could not be collected.

The new deal simplifies Milwaukee County’s contribution by fulfilling its $4 million obligation by reducing the county’s shared revenue funding by that amount. This means that Milwaukee County will have to find a way to either replace that $4 million in its budget or reduce spending by that amount, but it is a much more sensible and honest than the previous plan.

The third significant change in the deal imposes a perticket fee of $2 to help fund the arena. Of that $2, $1.50 of it will go to the arena’s governing district and 50 cents will go to the state. This fee is estimated to offset the state’s obligation by about $15 million. Financially, this provision helps reduce the taxpayers’ financial commitment to an arena, but politically, it is an essential concession that the people who will receive the benefits from a new arena will be contributing to its construction.

The deal got better, but is it good enough? Maybe, but the Assembly should insist on more information before supporting this deal. We learned a few weeks ago that the taxpayers’ obligation for the Bradley Center if a deal is not made is not necessarily $120 million as supporters previously asserted. Instead, the taxpayers’ obligation is likely somewhere between zero and $20 million. Assemblymen should know what the actual cost of saying “no” is.

Also, the economic impact for new sports arenas has varied wildly across the country. Any such projections offered by proponents of a deal should be evaluated with some skepticism. Instead, the lawmakers should focus on the more definitive economic projections related to the Bucks’ staff and players’ salaries and the Bucks’ direct financial impact. Any subsequent economic development from a new sports arena that might develop should be viewed as unpredictable, but welcome, gravy.

While the senate made the deal better for the taxpayers, there are still too many unanswered questions for the Assembly to pass it. While there is a deadline for a deal to be reached before the NBA pulls the team out of Milwaukee, the deadline is not so imminent that a deal must be passed by the Assembly today or even this week. There is time to get some more questions answered before casting a vote obligating the taxpayers of Wisconsin to an arena for the next 30 years.

John D’oh!

by Owen | 0632, 21 Jul 1515 | Law, Politics - Wisconsin | 1 Comment

My column for the West Bend Daily News is online. Here it is:

The Wisconsin Supreme Court issued a ruling last week that finally put an end to the outrageous John Doe investigation of alleged campaign laws violations between Gov. Scott Walker’s recall campaign and third-party organizations. It was a sweeping, forceful and utterly definitive ruling with the only disappointment being it was not unanimous.

In combining and resolving three cases regarding the John Doe investigation, the ruling made it crystal clear when Justice Michael Gableman stated, “Let one point be clear: Our conclusion today ends this unconstitutional John Doe investigation.” The court also ruled, “It is utterly clear that the special prosecutor has employed theories of law that do not exist in order to investigate citizens who were wholly innocent of any wrongdoing. In other words, the special prosecutor was the instigator of a perfect storm of wrongs that was visited upon the innocent unnamed movants and those who dared to associate with them.”

The ruling gives some details about the John Doe investigation that were previously secret that show how utterly out of control the prosecutor was in this investigation. It is easy to read the ruling and see it as a win for Walker and paint it with a partisan hue, but evaluating the issues involved — absent the political ramifications — reveal just how important it is for protecting our liberty.

As a people, we invest our prosecutors with a tremendous amount of power and legal protections that allow them to levy that power. In return, we expect prosecutors to be the pinnacle of discretion and measured judgment when using that power. The power of a prosecutor to investigate, charge and try citizens has enormous ramifications for the prosecutor’s target. Even if the one being investigated and prosecuted is innocent, it can cost them savings, privacy, reputation and peace of mind.

In this case, the facts show the John Doe prosecutors shockingly abused their power. They swept up emails, computers, files and other information about people on their hit list, including personal material and material from months prior to when Walker’s recall election even started. Much of this material was not, and could not have been, related to recall election politics. Worse than that, the prosecutors used tactics usually reserved for violent gang members like pre-dawn paramilitary raids on the targets’ homes — scaring children — and demanding that they remain silent as the investigation leaked damaging documents to the media. And all of this was done for something that, as several judges who ruled prior to the Wisconsin Supreme Court said, was not even a crime.

What happened here is clear. The John Doe prosecutors willfully and maliciously abused their power to intimidate conservative advocates into silence and damage their ability to participate in Wisconsin’s political conversation. They did so while concealing their actions behind the secrecy protections of the John Doe process and the protections afforded all prosecutors from being held accountable for their actions.

As it stands, the John Doe prosecutors have suffered a legal defeat, but have not been held accountable for their egregious abuse of power. While the targets of their investigation have suffered great harm despite their confirmed innocence, the prosecutors have not felt any consequences for their actions. If Wisconsinites are to have confidence in our prosecutors to use their vast powers in a judicious, non-partisan, fair and humble manner, the John Doe prosecutors must be held responsible for abusing that power. While some of the victims of their abuse are seeking relief in civil suits, the prosecutors should be investigated for criminal wrongdoing.

The Wisconsin Supreme Court has affirmed Wisconsinites’ constitutional-protected freedom of speech — even if that speech rankles liberal partisan prosecutors in Milwaukee. While the damage cannot be undone, justice demands consequences.

Walker makes his run at Washington

by Owen | 0748, 14 Jul 1515 | Politics - Wisconsin | 0 Comments

My column for the West Bend Daily News is online. Here it is:

Gov. Scott Walker made it official yesterday. In front of throngs of supporters in the heart of his conservative base of Waukesha County, Walker announced that he will be a candidate for the President of the United States. He is already an early frontrunner for the Republican nomination in a very crowded primary field.

Once again, Wisconsin can be proud that for the second presidential election in a row, one of her native sons will be featured prominently on the national stage. In the last election, Rep. Paul Ryan was plucked into the limelight by Mitt Romney to be the vice presidential candidate after Romney won the nomination. This time, Wisconsin will be subjected to the national spotlight for the duration of the election cycle.

Walker has rightly earned a reputation as a flag bearer for the conservative wing of the Republican Party. His tenure as a legislator, Milwaukee County executive and Wisconsin’s governor have all been marked by a steadfast conservatism that is popular in a national Republican primary election.

In particular as governor, Walker’s record is truly impressive. Although Wisconsin has been trending slightly more conservative in the past few years, it is still a relatively liberal to moderate state in which the majority of the voters chose liberals Barack Obama and Tammy Baldwin at the same time they were voting for Walker.

Yet in that sea of purple voters, Walker managed to sign landmark conservative legislation like right to work, castle doctrine, concealed carry, the expansion of school choice, a university tuition freeze and, of course, his signature government union reform law, Act 10. Throughout his short tenure as governor, the Republicans have gained seats in the legislature under his leadership and turned more conservative as a caucus.

With a proven record of conservative success in a somewhat liberal state, Walker is a favorite of national talking heads to win the nomination. But the path will not be easy. With all of Walker’s successes, there are some major drags on his campaign. While the state has steadily added jobs and the economy has been improving, he badly failed to keep his campaign promise to add 250,000 jobs in the state, and his flagship state jobs agency is riddled with failure and mistakes.

Walker’s campaign has also had some early missteps, like his misguided dalliance with open records laws and mealy-mouthed statements regarding immigration policy. Also, while many people do not view a college degree as a prerequisite for high office and justly believe that a person should be judged on his or her accomplishments, many other people see a college degree as a necessary stamp in a passport to the nation’s highest office — and Walker left Marquette University before graduation.

Regardless of whether Walker wins the nomination, two things are certain. First, Walker will be a major determining factor in who the nominee is. If it is not him, his support will be crucial for whoever the nominee is to secure the conservative faction of the Republican Party and the Midwest states that are Walker’s base.

Second, as my fellow columnist Mark Belling pointed out, win or lose, Walker is almost certainly going to resign before the end of his term. If he wins the presidency, then, obviously, he will resign as governor. If he does not win, he will exit the presidential race as a bona fide national conservative political figure. He may be called upon to serve in a Republican administration as a vice president or cabinet secretary, or he may choose to use his national stature to advance the conservative agenda while earning an income he could never earn as a politician. And Walker is a young man. If he does not win the presidency this time, he will still be in the vigor of life to run again in 2020 or 2024.

If Walker does resign as governor by the end of next year (can you hear Wisconsin’s liberals rejoicing?), Lt. Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch will take the state’s helm. Kleefisch is smart, conservative, resolute, articulate and consistently underestimated by her opponents. It would be a marvelous thing for Wisconsin for a Gov. Kleefisch to take the state further down the path upon which Gov. Walker started.

Owen Robinson is a West Bend resident. Reach him owen@bootsandsabers.com.

An attempted assault on open government

by Owen | 0624, 7 Jul 1515 | Politics - Wisconsin | 21 Comments

My column for the West Bend Daily News is online. Here it is:

Something very troubling happened in the Republicanled Joint Finance Committee last week for which the public needs more answers than have been offered. The Republican majority passed a series of sweeping provisions that would be a severe setback for open and transparent government.

As part of a larger budget bill, the JFC voted to keep the drafting files for legislation secret and give legislators the legal privilege to refuse to divulge any communication that occurred during their term and to prohibit their employees from doing the same. In short, the measures passed by the JFC allow elected politicians to keep the vast majority of their communications and records secret from the citizens they serve.

The opposition to this attack on open government was swift, fierce and came from all sides of the political spectrum. Conservative Republican Attorney General Brad Schimel blasted the move, saying “Transparency is the cornerstone of democracy and the provisions in the budget bill limiting access to public records move Wisconsin in the wrong direction.”

Liberal state Sen. Jon Erpenbach said “Creating exemptions in open records laws in the dark of the night is the biggest mistake Republicans could ever make.” Erpenbach may be underestimating the Republicans’ ability to make mistakes, but he and Schimel are absolutely correct. Open and transparent government is a necessary and fundamental component of a Republican form of government. Citizens are robbed of their ability to make intelligent and informed decisions about their representatives if they are purposefully rendered ignorant of those representatives’ actions.

In the face of such withering dissent from all sides, Gov. Scott Walker and the Republican leaders of the Legislature have relented. Although the provisions restricting open government are still part of the budget bill the JFC passed, the Republicans have pledged to remove those provisions from the budget altogether.

In a statement by Walker, Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald, Assembly Speaker Robin Vos and Joint Finance Committee Co-Chairpersons Sen. Alberta Darling and Rep. John Nygren, they said, “The intended policy goal of these changes was to provide a reasonable solution to protect constituents’ privacy and to encourage a deliberative process between elected officials and their staff in developing policy. It was never intended to inhibit transparent government in any way.”

First, their statement is, on its face, unbelievable. The documents that the bill would have hidden from public view were mostly those between legislators, their staffs, lobbyists and others involved in the legislative process. Relatively few actual constituents are involved enough in that process to require such drastic measures to protect their privacy. And the claim that it was “never intended to inhibit transparent government in any way” is just plain false. There can be no other result of such laws other than to inhibit transparent government.

Second, even though Walker and the Republicans have reversed course on restricting open government, that is not good enough. The Republicans are not admitting who put the open government restrictions in the budget bill or what the real purpose was. They are also not being forthright on whether Walker knew of or supported the restrictions before they were made public. Generally speaking, the Republican leaders of the Legislature would not put anything in the budget without the governor’s approval, but the Republicans have been very disjointed with Walker on the presidential campaign trail.

What we do know is that the 12 Republican members of the Joint Finance Committee voted to severely restrict open government and shield politicians from public scrutiny. The people deserve to know the truth about the creation and purpose of those restrictions so that they can hold their representatives accountable for their actions.

Owen Robinson is a West Bend resident. Reach him owen@bootsandsabers.com.

The rise and fall of the Supreme Court

by Owen | 0742, 30 Jun 1515 | Law, Politics | 37 Comments

My column for the West Bend Daily News is online. Here it is:

The Supreme Court issued a series of bad rulings last week that indicate this court has lurched from being an austere arbiter of the law to a highly partisan legislative body. Unfortunately for the American people, it is a legislative body that consists of members appointed for life and not accountable to the people. In no case did the Supreme Court belittle itself more than in the case of King v. Burwell — the case about the Obamacare subsidies.

This was a case that was about the plain reading of the English language. The Obamacare law gave each state the ability to create a health care exchange, but if a state chose not to do so, the federal government would create one. The Obamacare law also clearly states in several places that the federal government would provide a means-tested subsidy for participants in the state Obamacare exchanges, but only for participants in the state exchanges. The law specifically excludes giving a subsidy to participants in the federal exchange.

The purpose for the law’s language on subsidies was obvious and clearly stated by advocates of the law in the press and in official Congressional debates. The advocates of Obamacare wanted the states to create the Obamacare exchanges so that the states, and not the federal government, would bear the brunt of the cost of Obamacare. In this way, Obamacare could be sold to the public without having to disclose its actual, and enormous, cost to the taxpayers. The subsidies were used as a political cudgel to incent the states to create Obamacare exchanges under the calculation that no state would dare to turn down “free” subsidies to their citizens.

The law did not play out the way the Obamacare advocates planned. Many states, including Wisconsin, wisely saw through the game they were playing and refused to create a state exchange. This left President Barack Obama a political disaster with the prospect of millions of Americans being forced into the federal Obamacare exchange without a subsidy. So, Obama and team did what they have always done: They ignored their own law and issued subsidies to participants in the federal exchange anyway.

This is what King v. Burwell was about. Does Obamacare say what it actually says — that the subsidies only apply to participants in the state exchanges and not those in the federal exchange? The Supreme Court ignored the plain language of the law, the context in which it was written and the purposeful intent for why it was written. Instead, the court ruled that the law means whatever Obama and team want it to mean. The Supreme Court has officially sanctioned arbitrary rule.

Chief Justice John Roberts admits as much in the majority opinion. He writes, “If the statutory language is plain, we must enforce it according to its terms. But oftentimes the meaning — or ambiguity — of certain words or phrases may only become evident when placed in context.” Brown & Williamson, 529 U.S., at 132. So when deciding whether the language is plain, we must read the words “in their context and with a view to their place in the overall statutory scheme.”

In other words, it does not matter to Roberts what the actual words mean. He and his fellow legislators in black robes will give the words whatever definitions they choose irrespective of the clear meaning of words in the English language.

As usually happens, Justice Antonin Scalia perfectly eviscerates the majority’s bad decision in his dissent. He says, “… the cases will publish forever the discouraging truth that the Supreme Court of the United States favors some laws over others, and is prepared to do whatever it takes to uphold and assist its favorites. I dissent.”

As do I.

Owen Robinson is a West Bend resident. Reach him at owen@bootsandsabers.com

Obama Suffers Defeat In the House

by Owen | 0721, 16 Jun 1515 | Politics | 3 Comments

My column for the West Bend Daily News is online. Here it is:

In a spectacular defeat for a key initiative of President Barack Obama, the United States House of Representatives rejected a bill that would have granted the president socalled “fast track” negotiating authority for crafting international trade deals. The vote also exposed some major divisions in the body politic that do not run along traditional party lines.

There are two issues being debated that the media and advocacy groups often conflate for their own purposes. The first is the bill to grant the president fast-track authority. This is a power often granted to presidents that reduces the requirements for Senate approval of a final deal. Instead of using the normal constitutional requirement of a two-thirds vote by the Senate for approval of a treaty, the fast-track provisions allow for a simple majority vote without amendments or filibustering. It is designed to allow the president to negotiate intricate international trade deals with less risk of the Senate injecting domestic politics into it. It is this fast-track authority that the House rejected.

The second issue is the trade deal for which Obama wants to extra-constitutional authority. This is the Trans-Pacific Partnership Trade Deal that has been negotiated for 10 years with 11 other Pacific Rim nations. It is a deal representing a gross domestic product of $28 trillion — 40 percent of global GDP — and one-third of the world’s trade. It is the largest trade deal since the North American Free Trade Agreement in the last century.

Obama and the supporters of the TPP believe, rightly, that the deal could not garner support of two-thirds of the senators in order to pass in the normal manner. This is why they need the fast-track authority in order to lower the barrier to passage. Opponents of the TPP know that the best way to kill it is to prevent the president from being granted fasttrack authority, hence the fierce opposition to the bill. The battle over the fast-track authority bill is a proxy for the TPP deal.

In a testament to the ancient idiom that politics makes strange bedfellows, Obama’s champion for fast track authority in the House is Wisconsin’s Paul Ryan, who appeared across the ballot from Obama as Mitt Romney’s vice presidential running mate in 2012. Obama and Ryan argue that the TPP deal is necessary for free Pacific trade and vital for America to participate in the global economy.

Opponents, including the big labor unions and protectionist liberals, argue that the TPP is a disastrous freetrade agreement that will be disastrous to American jobs — particularly in manufacturing and technology.

Generally speaking, support or opposition to the TPP hinges on one’s support or opposition for free trade. Normally this would see the political lines drawn with strong Republican support for the TPP, because they generally support free trade, with Democrats strongly opposing it because they are ideologically opposed to free trade. But that is not how the vote in the House went.

Instead, the fast track authority fell far short of passage with 144 Democrats joining 158 Republicans to vote “nay.” This was despite the fact that the Republican leadership, whichcontrols the House, supported the bill and Obama took the highly unusual step of driving up to Capitol Hill to personally lobby reluctant Democrats.

The reason has less to do with this deal than it does with this president. Normally, enough reluctant Democrats would have rallied to their president to join with enough freetrade Republicans to pass the bill. But that did not happen. Obama was unable to get his own party to follow him and too many free-trade Republicans could not be convinced.

The reason is that none of them trust this president any more. Obama has lied too many times. Phrases like “not even a smidgeon of corruption” (on IRS scandal), “the NSA is not abusing its power,” “I said Benghazi was a terrorist attack from the beginning,” and Politifact’s Lie of the Year, “if you like your health care plan, you can keep it,” still ring in the ears of legislators. Liberal Democrats and unions do not trust Obama to negotiate a deal in the best interests of American workers. And free trade Republicans do not trust Obama to give away American interests and sovereignty to advance his anti-American energy and global warming agendas.

In the end, Nancy Pelosi, Jim Sensenbrenner and Mark Pocan are right. Paul Ryan, Glenn Grothman and Obama are wrong. This president has not demonstrated the negotiating acumen (see: Iran nuclear deal) or honesty to be trusted to negotiate a deal of the magnitude of the TPP without the normal congressional scrutiny as prescribed in the Constitution.

Owen Robinson is a West Bend resident. Reach him at owen@bootsandsabers.com.

Ending Tenure

by Owen | 1407, 11 Jun 1515 | Politics - Wisconsin | 37 Comments

Here is my column from the West Bend Daily News last Tuesday.

The Legislature’s Joint Finance Committee is in the final stages of putting together the state’s next biennial budget for the full Assembly and Senate to consider. Assuming that they do not try to cram the proposed deal for a new arena for the Milwaukee Bucks into the budget where it does not belong, the final remaining major piece is the transportationbudget. The committee has resolved the portion of the budget concerning the University of Wisconsin System. Intended to allow the university more flexibility in managing its budget, one of the provisions passed by the committee is to remove tenure for professors from state statute and allow the UW to decide how, when and if tenure should be extended.

The reaction from academia has been predictable. Throughout the halls of higher education, cloth is being rent and teeth gnashed as professors predict the waning of academic freedom and demise of UW. As the beneficiaries of the tenure system, academics have a vested interest in protecting the status quo, but that does not mean it should persist.

Tenure is the right of someone to hold a job permanently. While overcoming the protections of tenure can occasionally be overcome in the event of gross incompetence or criminal behavior, it is almost impossible to fire a tenured professor once it has been granted.

The argument for tenure is that it empowers academic freedom by protecting professors from a retaliatory job action if the professor challenges prevailing thought or ventures into unpopular subjects. The expansion of thought and learning is a fundamental and necessary element for a university and, indeed, for our civilization to advance.

While the goals of tenure are laudable, the real world effects of it are less so. Although the iron protections of tenure occasionally might protect a professor who chooses to color outside of the lines, more often it protects professors who may have been brilliant at one time but have tumbled into the crevasses of laziness and idleness that is the preferred trajectory of most humans. Many tenured professors teach few classes, work few hours, conduct little or inane research and contribute little to advancing thought while continuing to collect all of the pecuniary benefits of full-time employment.

The concept of tenure is a relatively new one. It is an American creation of the 19th century, intended to protect teachers at a time when political, racial and other forms of retribution too often found good teachers out of a job. Most of the elite people of thought and learning throughout human history plied their skill without the benefit of tenure. In fact, only a miniscule sliver of the knowledge that underpins modern civilization came about from a tenured professor — and even most of that which did was never under threat to require tenure protection.

The reason that state lawmakers have included the removal of tenure from state statutes is because the maintenance of tenure is expensive. Not only is the university hamstrung to manage its budget when it has to pay for professors whose useful life has long since passed, but they are also forced to lay off more productive, non-tenured staff when the budget gets tight.

By removing tenure from the statutes, the Legislature is not ending tenure altogether. The Board of Regents is free to enact tenure as a policy of the university, which they have already done. The difference is that the Board of Regents is also at liberty to adjust the terms of tenure instead of state lawmakers. Should this provision pass into law, the right and responsibility of tenure, for good or ill, passes into the hands of the leaders of the university.

Tenure is an outmoded concept whose time has passed, if it ever existed at all. It is a protectionist racket that shields people from the just consequences of their behavior. Permanent employment is a socialist’s dream that is ill suited for a free society. State lawmakers are right to remove it from statutory protection.

(Owen Robinson is a West Bend resident. He can be emailed at owen@bootsandsabers.com).

Bad Deal for Bucks Arena

by Owen | 2053, 2 Jun 1515 | Economy, Politics - Wisconsin | 7 Comments

My column for the West Bend Daily News is online. Of course, as happens when writing about a very fluid situation, some of the details have changed since I wrote this. When I wrote this, there was a deal that was to be announced any minute and the details were leaked. By Monday, they were still working on a deal and it still hasn’t been released. I suspect the feedback they got regarding the leaked details sent them back to the drawing board. Good.

Here it is:

After months of wrangling, the owners of the Milwaukee Bucks and political leaders from the city, county and state have come to an agreement on how to fund a new arena for the Bucks. They need to return to the smoke-filled room, because this is a bad deal both structurally and economically.

Let us start with the premise that we all want the Milwaukee Bucks to remain in Wisconsin. Putting aside the emotional attachment to a sports franchise, the Bucks are a profitable business that is good for Wisconsin. The reason this is a debate is because the new owners of the Bucks signed an agreement with the NBA that they will be playing in a new arena by 2017 or the NBA will buy back the Bucks and possibly move the team to another city.

The new and former owners have pledged $250 million for an arena estimated to cost $500 million. That leaves a $250 million gap that the owners expect the taxpayers to fill. The argument for taxpayer support is two-fold. First, if the Bucks leave, the BMO Harris Bradley Center will still cost the state taxpayers $120 million to pay off and for repairs. That number is likely exaggerated by supporters of a new arena because it assumes that the old arena should be repaired. Why repair an arena with no tenants? But there is no question that the taxpayers are on the hook for tens of millions of dollars should the Bucks leave.

Second, it is in the taxpayers’ interest to support economic development. The problem is making good projections that justify the expense. Will a new Bucks arena return an investment of $250 million to the taxpayers? The Bucks’ owners say yes. They say that the new arena will spur a billion dollars in economic activity. Will it? Maybe, but the history of these deals is dubious. According to a 2012 study from Colgate University, only 8 of 55 stadiums in use at that time that were constructed with at least 25 percent public funding actually resulted in spurring economic development in the surrounding area. That is a pretty dismal record that should cause taxpayers to pause and take a hard look at the economic development numbers being tossed about by the Bucks’ owners.

Given these factors, the political leaders making a deal began with the dubious assumption that $250 million in taxpayer support is the right amount just because the owners of the Bucks said so. There has not been any public justification for that $250 million to show that it is a good deal for the taxpayers. I suspect that is because it is not a good deal. It is far too much.

The deal itself is convoluted and full of holes. Let us examine a few of the more glaring ones.

The city of Milwaukee is offering $12 million in TIF bonding and a $35 million parking garage that they can use whether or not the Bucks stay. That is a paltry amount considering it is the city that benefits the most from the Bucks than all of the other communities being asked to subsidize the new arena. $12 million is less than a quarter of what Mayor Tom Barrett managed to put together for a useless trolley. It is apparent that, once again, the city of Milwaukee is expecting the rest of the state to pay for its luxuries.

Milwaukee County is offering $80 million — sort of. The $80 million is being “funded” by the state issuing bonds to be repaid with uncollected debt in Milwaukee County. Essentially, the county is giving up on collecting a lot of questionable debt for things like back taxes, fines, etc. and giving it to the state to collect to pay for the arena. It is likely that much of that debt will remain uncollected, thus leaving the state taxpayers on the hook to pay off the bonds anyway.

The Wisconsin Center District has the most honest approach to providing $93 million. They are going to raise taxes to do it. They will issue bonds and repay them with taxes levied on hotels, rental cars, food and beverages. They would extend taxes that were supposed to expire and raise the existing taxes to make it work. Yes, that is a tax increase.

The deal commits state taxpayers to $80 million plus assumption of the $20 million that is still owed for the BMO Harris Bradley Center. The plan is to fund that with the additional taxes collected from the net increase taxes collected from the Bucks and projected economic development. But make no mistake — the state taxpayers will have to pay whether or not the promised economic development ever materializes.

Finally, with no mention of who is responsible for any cost overruns for the project, we have to assume that the taxpayers would be on the hook for that too.

This is a bad deal. It is too much taxpayer money with too much risk for dubious value. They need to go back to the drawing board.

One more thing: the Republican legislative leaders are trying to put a deal for the Bucks arena in the state budget. This makes it easier for them to pass because legislators can hide behind their votes. The citizens of Wisconsin deserve better than that. Whatever the deal eventually entails, it should be voted on as a standalone bill so that the citizens can see precisely where every legislator — Republican or Democrat — stands.

(Owen Robinson is a West Bend resident. He can be emailed at owen@bootsandsabers.com)

Joint Finance Committee advances education in Wisconsin

by Owen | 0700, 26 May 1515 | Politics - Wisconsin | 3 Comments

My column for the West Bend Daily News is online. Here it is:

The Wisconsin legislature is putting together the next biennial budget to go into effect July 1. As the process works, the Joint Finance Committee puts together a budget and passes it onto both houses of the Legislature. Then the Senate and Assembly pass a budget and, once possible differences are worked out in a conference committee, the budget goes to the governor for his signature and vetoes. If history is any guide, most of the yeoman’s work of political compromise takes place in the JFC.

A lot of political sausage will get made in the next five weeks.

The Republican-led JFC passed a substantial education reform package with significant changes. There are 51 components of the education package, but six of them are worthy of note.

First, the JFC voted to reverse the cut to K-12 education in Gov. Scott Walker’s budget proposal and add an additional $70 million in the second year of the budget. This represents about a $200 million increase in K-12 spending over Walker’s proposal and a $70 million increase over the previous budget. Public school advocates should be lauding the increase, but they are, predictably, decrying it as not enough. If there is anything we have learned over the years it is that the taxpayers can never spend “enough” on public schools for some.

Second, the Department of Public Instruction would be required to grant teaching licenses to those with work experience and teacher training who want to teach technical courses. This is a sensible idea that would allow Wisconsin’s students to learn specific skills from experts who have also been trained to teach those skills. It is a wonder that this is controversial at all, but it is for those who want to protect the establishment.

Third, students would be required to pass a civics test to graduate. The test would be similar to the U.S. citizenship exam given to new Americans. Given that one of the purposes of universal education is to ensure that the citizenry is equipped to exercise its right to self-govern, a rudimentary knowledge of our political system is critical. While a test may not be the best way to address this, it will certainly help.

Fourth, there would be a process to allow low-performing public schools in Milwaukee to be converted to charter or voucher schools overseen by the Milwaukee County executive. This plan attempts to address the worst of the worst Milwaukee public schools that have been failing kids for a generation. It is unclear whether or not it will actually improve education for the kids who attend those schools because it does not specify what changes, if any, should be made. But it does attempt to free the hand of an executive to make substantial changes that he or she deems necessary. The effectiveness will depend on the decisions made by the county executive.

The fifth and sixth items are linked and represent the greatest reform in the package. Under the education reform package passed by the JFC, the statewide school choice program would be vastly expanded by gradually lifting the cap on the number of students participating and by implementing vouchers for students with disabilities.

Under the reform, the enrollment cap in vouchers would be lifted to 1 percent of the student population of each school district in the first year, or from 1,000 students to about 9,000 students. After that, the cap would be increased an additional 1 percent per year until the 10th year, when the cap would be abolished.

The funding of the plan would be modeled after Wisconsin’s long-standing open enrollment system where tax dollars follow the student. With this system, the vouchers would be $7,200 for K-8 students and $7,800 for high school students. Also, the new special needs vouchers would be $12,000, but would only be available after a student was turned down for open enrollment to another public school.

The expansion of the voucher program is the most substantial education reform in the budget and will be of tremendous benefit to families and kids all over Wisconsin. The slow expansion over the course of a decade is worrisome because an anti-education reform Legislature could reverse the expansion, but it is necessary to prevent the ill effects of expanding too rapidly.

While not perfect, the education reform package passed by the JFC is a significant piece of conservative legislation for which Wisconsinites can be proud. The full Legislature and the governor should pass it into law.

The Transportation Test

by Owen | 0622, 12 May 1515 | Politics - Wisconsin | 0 Comments

My column for the West Bend Daily News is online. Readers of this blog will find some of it familiar. Here it is:

A gap in the budget cycle will try the Legislature

The Republicans in the Legislature were hoping for a reprieve. Gov. Scott Walker’s budget proposal had some big cuts in it along with some big borrowing that they were hoping to avoid. There were also some big new expenditures that they wanted to make, like $150 million or so in an arena for the Milwaukee Bucks. The projected tax revenues for the next couple of years were not going to be enough to cover everything they wanted to do and they were hoping beyond hope that the May projection would be higher to make their jobs easier.

The projection came in and it was not what they had hoped. They stayed the same as they were in January. The projection from the Legislative Fiscal Bureau is that tax collections will increase over the next three years, but not enough to cover the proposed spending.

This means the Republican legislators have some tough choices to make. Nowhere is this more evident than in the transportation budget.

There is a gap in the next budget cycle of $1.3 billion between what the Department of Transportation wants to spend and the tax revenue that is projected to be available. There are only three ways to deal with this gap.

The first way is to increase revenue. This means raising taxes. Transportation is funded with a segregated fund filled primarily with the gas tax and registration fees. Walker has said that he does not support an increase in registration fees and there does not appear to be any appetite for a gas tax increase in the Republican caucus. There has been some talk of some new taxes like a mileage fee or toll roads, but there is not any serious effort behind those either. In short, a tax increase seems to be off the table, which is a good and expected thing from this legislature.

The second way to fill the gap is with borrowing. This is what Walker has proposed with $1.3 billion in additional borrowing to fully fund transportation spending. Republicans in the legislature are pushing back on so much borrowing — especially in the face of an improving economy — and floating the idea of “only” borrowing a billion dollars instead. That is still far too much additional debt, but even at that it leaves a $300 million gap.

The third way to address the spending gap is to reduce the spending, which is where the real problem lies. Wisconsin needs a high-quality transportation system, but we simply spend more than we have to on it. To their credit, the last two Republican state budgets have improved the state’s transportation spending. According to Reason’s Annual Report on the Performance of State Highway Systems, which measures how much bang each state gets for their transportation buck, Wisconsin has jumped 10 spots to 15th place in the country since 2011, but it ranks 36th in spending per state-controlled mile. Wisconsin spends a whopping $226,901 per mile — way more than every other Midwestern state except Illinois. Iowa and Minnesota manage to spend less than $134,000 per mile.

Consider that if Wisconsin could reduce its spending per mile to just the same level as our neighboring states, there would be a surplus of transportation funding. To do this, the Republican legislators are going to have to take a hard look at the reasons for that bloated spending, but so far they are not showing much appetite for that. One of the most obvious causes of bloated spending are the prevailing wage laws that studies show inflate labor prices by as much as 45 percent, but the repeal of those laws died in committee last week thanks to the vote of newly elected Republicans and all of the Democrats.

The debate over the transportation budget is a microcosm of the entire budget debate. The Republican legislature does not want to raise taxes; is willing to add some debt as long as it is not too much; and except for a feisty minority of valiant conservatives, they lack the political will to enact real spending reform.

The next few weeks are going to be test of leadership for Republicans and a measure of how conservative they really are.

(Owen Robinson is a West Bend resident.)

Prevailing Over Prevailing Wage

by Owen | 1519, 5 May 1515 | Politics - Wisconsin | 11 Comments

My column for the West Bend Daily News is online. Here you go:

Repealing Wisconsin’s prevailing wage laws would be one of the most beneficial and impactful actions that the legislature could possibly take this session, but it looks like it might not happen.

The prevailing wage laws were first enacted in Wisconsin during the Great Depression as a means of protecting local workers from losing work to migrant workers who might do the work for cheaper. It was one of many protectionist laws passed during that era. The law essentially requires any the businesses that work on any public project of a given size to pay the prevailing wages for the area in which the work will take place.

In practice, the prevailing wage laws mean that taxpayers must spend a lot more than necessary to get work done. The Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development sets the prevailing wage for an area by means of an annual survey. As the Wisconsin Taxpayers Alliance recently pointed out in a study, the survey is hopelessly flawed. Only about 10 percent of the surveys are completed and returned, and 87 percent of the respondents are union, as compared to only about 25 percent of the industry. In short, the “prevailing wage,” according to the DWD, is not representative of the actual wages being paid in that area. In fact, they are about 45 percent higher than the actual market rates.

While the same study says that the prevailing wage laws cost Wisconsin taxpayers as much as $300 million per year in unnecessary costs, let us see what that looks like in local terms. West Bend Mayor Kraig Sadownikow points out that West Bend does about $1 million per year in road maintenance. Most of that work is subject to the prevailing wage law. The end result is that West Bend can improve about 25 percent fewer road miles than it could if the taxpayers were allowed to pay the actual market labor price for those projects. Another way to look at the math is that with the same amount of money, West Bend could improve fully 33 percent more roads every year for the same money if the prevailing wage laws were not in effect. That’s a huge difference.

In another example cited by Sadownikow, the prevailing wage laws also apply to public projects that are not funded by taxpayers. In West Bend, private donations from local corporations and citizens were used to fund 100 percent of the improvements for the stage, pavilion and concession stand in Regner Park. Even though no taxpayer dollars were used, the prevailing wage laws meant that every dollar donated only purchased 75 percent of the products and services that they would have if the projects were on private property.

These two examples alone represent hundreds of thousands of wasted dollars for just one community. The prevailing wage laws are costing all Wisconsinites real money, and yet the Republicans in the legislature are seemingly unable to garner the votes to repeal them. Why? The excuse given for public consumption is that repealing the prevailing wage laws would harm the workers who are currently being paid the inflated wages, and that would harm Wisconsin’s economy. That is an incomplete picture. The money to pay for those inflated wages comes from somewhere — the wages of other Wisconsin workers. And the above-market wages being paid for public projects means that fewer projects are being done than could be. That means fewer people being employed to work on those projects.

But the real reason that some Republicans are opposing the repeal of the prevailing wage laws is the one that they won’t put in a press release. Many of the people who oppose the repeal are the owners and bigwigs of the large contractors that do most of those public projects. The large contractors love the prevailing wage laws because they artificially inflate the cost of labor and prevent newer, hungrier, companies from underbidding them. The law protects their business and their profits. And many of them are large political donors to Republicans.

In the end, we have the most basic of political calculations. The argument in favor of repealing the prevailing wage laws is a simple one of principle. The argument opposed is one of base political cronyism.

Sadownikow said it best. The laws of supply and demand work far better than the prevailing wage laws. Wisconsin’s legislative Republicans should remember that.

(Owen Robinson is a West Bend resident.)

Keep immigration safe, legal and common

by Owen | 0637, 28 Apr 1515 | Politics, Politics - Wisconsin | 5 Comments

My column for the West Bend Daily News is online. Here it is:

John Ashley was born in 1625 in Gloucester, England. He and his brother, William, competed hotly for the hand of Lady Jane Cooper with the understanding that the loser would leave the country for new adventures in the colonies. John won the lady’s hand and William headed for America. The lure of adventure was too much, and John and Jane followed William around 1650. They settled in Lancaster, Virginia, and had two sons, Thomas and Isaac, before passing away in 1671.

Further inland nestled in the shadow of the Blue Ridge Mountains near Roanoke, Virginia, lies the tiny Mount Union graveyard. If you look in the old section you will find the grave of Bryan McDonald II, who died in the summer of 1757. Bryan was born in Ireland sometime in 1686 and was brought to the colonies by his father, Bryan McDonald I. Bryan the Younger was married in New Castle, Delaware, and had 10 children with his wife, Catherine, including the aptly named Bryan McDonald III.

Eleven generations after John Ashley, and 10 generations after Bryan McDonald II, a goofy genetic brew conspired to produce me. John and Bryan are the most recent known immigrants in my family tree from my mother’s side and father’s side, respectively.

My American story, like that of almost every other American, begins with someone leaving one life behind to start a new one in what has been the world’s land of opportunity for more than 400 years: America. This is why Americans instinctively love immigrants and why the political debates over our immigration policy often becomes very emotional.

Gov. Scott Walker reintroduced a dormant aspect of the immigration debate last week with his comment that our legal immigration system should be based on, “first and foremost, protecting American workers and American wages.” Up until now, most of the immigration debate had centered on the problem with rampant illegal immigration, but Walker’s statement reminds us that there are also very different perspectives on how our legal immigration system should be managed.

Walker’s position is a populist, protectionist one that resonates with a lot of Americans who are in sectors of the economy that are threatened by new workers who are willing to work for less. But while Walker’s immigration policy position may be popular for some folks, it is also unworkable and harmful to America, which has long thrived by offering opportunity to new Americans, whether they be English, Irish, Italian, Chinese, Vietnamese, Indian, Kenyan, Brazilian or any other heritage.

The notion that protecting American jobs and wages should be the first priority is emotionally attractive, but it would require a costly army of bureaucrats to monitor and throttle immigrants based on what job they might aspire to and the relative impact on wages by industry, region and job role. A gargantuan apparatus like that cannot possibly be universally accurate or fair, thus further aggravating what is already a Byzantine immigration system that frustrates everyone and pushes more people to follow illegal paths to America.

Also, trying to protect Americans’ jobs and wages from immigrants is counterproductive and damaging in the long term. First, remember that legal immigrants are on a path to be Americans themselves. It is not foreigners competing for American jobs — it is new Americans competing with old Americans. Americans have traditionally thrived in competitive environments that sharpen our skills and abilities. It has been precisely this competitive spirit that has driven America’s ascension to the pinnacle of global success. If we remove the grindstone of competition from our labor economy, it will become dull.

Our immigration system should be as simple as possible. We should regulate immigrants to ensure that they are not terrorists, criminals or carrying some nasty disease. Then we should throttle the number of immigrants only by some broad measures to make sure we do not overwhelm our ability to absorb them in our schools, housing and general economy.

Our current legal immigration system is a mess. The answer is not to make it more complicated and difficult. Instead, we should make it easier, faster and cheaper for all aspiring Americans to navigate. We should make it easier to legally immigrate to America and harder to do it illegally.

(Owen Robinson is a West Bend resident.)

UW regents vote to increase tuition

by Owen | 0651, 21 Apr 1515 | Politics - Wisconsin | 4 Comments

My column for the West Bend Daily News is online. Here you go:

The University of Wisconsin Board of Regents took action last week to jack up tuition by $6,000 over the next two years, and left the door open to even more increases after that. Don’t worry, though — the increase will not affect Wisconsinites … yet.

In Gov. Scott Walker’s budget proposal, he offered to grant the UW system much more autonomy in exchange for a $300 million cut in state funding. That proposal is already meeting an icy reception in the Legislature with members opposing both the size of the cut and the plan for more autonomy.

In reaction to the prospect of a possible reduction in state funding by some yet-to-be-determined amount, the leaders of UW have two choices: They could either find a way to reduce costs, or they could increase revenue. Naturally, they chose to increase revenue.

UW-Madison Chancellor Rebecca Blank proposed increasing revenue in one of the few places she can. Given that the Legislature wisely imposed a freeze on in-state tuition, she proposed a 35 percent increase on tuition for out-of-state students over four years. Her proposal was for a full $10,000 increase that would have made out-of-state tuition $35,523 per year.

With lightning speed and no meaningful debate, the UW regents approved the first half of Blank’s proposal in a voice vote. Tuition for outof- state students at UW-Madison will increase by $6,000 per year by 2016 — far more than the actual cost of education. The immediate and instinctive reaction by UW’s leadership is concerning on a number of levels.

Philosophically, the automatic turn to a tuition increase instead of looking for efficiencies and cost reductions is troubling. For decades, the cost of higher education has increased much faster than the rate of inflation. It is the climbing cost of higher education that is driving rampant student debt and making it more difficult for the middle class to afford a college education. But while the price of higher education in Wisconsin has increased faster than people’s ability to pay, the quality of that education has not measurably improved at the same pace. It just costs more for the same product.

While it makes sense for some costs, like new technology, to increase faster than inflation, it is difficult to explain why the cost of a professor imparting knowledge to a class full of students has increased so quickly. When one digs deeper into the enormous building projects and bloated administrative staff, the reasons for the cost increases become much clearer.

When faced with a slight reduction in revenue (less than 5 percent with Walker’s full cut), UW was unable to even consider any significant cuts to keep tuition affordable. Since the tuition increase, Blank has announced a reduction of 400 jobs, but it has since been learned that the vast majority of those jobs are already vacant and unnecessary. It was window dressing designed to encourage students, staff and alumni to activism rather than a serious executive looking to seriously manage a revenue shortfall.

The UW regents are raising tuition on out-of-state students for obvious reasons. They can; and they think, probably correctly, that Wisconsinites will not be too upset at it because it does not impact tuition for them. But the increasing imbalance between in-state and out-of-state tuition adds political pressure to eventually raise in-state tuition too. After all, they will argue, is it fair to make out-of-state kids subsidize the education of Wisconsin’s kids?

The tuition increase also affirms what many legislators have been saying in regards to UW: They cannot be trusted with more autonomy and they cannot be allowed unfettered power over tuition. They have not demonstrated the slightest willingness, much less an ability, to control costs.

UW-Madison’s chancellor and the regents have gotten their tuition increase and a slight reprieve from having to make difficult decisions, but in doing so they have demonstrated why they must be actively managed by the state’s elected leaders. (Owen Robinson is a blogger at bootsandsabers.com and a resident of West Bend.)

Time to revisit welfare reform

by Owen | 0642, 14 Apr 1515 | Culture, Politics - Wisconsin | 1 Comment

My column got the West Bend Daily News is online. Here it is:

This Saturday, I found myself doing one of those necessary chores that millions of people do every day — grocery shopping. While not my favorite way to pass the time, this occasion provided some enlightenment.

The lines at Woodman’s in Menominee Falls were surprisingly short despite the mass of people shopping on a beautiful day. When we pushed our cart into the checkout lane, there was only one family ahead of us and they were already half done checking out.

They were a lovely family. The small boy sat in the cart swinging his Nikes. The older boy stood by the bagger. He looked athletic and happy in designer jeans and Adidas basketball shoes. The mother was a large woman with a beautiful outfit and glittering jewelry. When the cart was empty, the total came to $246 and change. A quick swipe of the card displayed “food stamps” on the display and the total was knocked down the $3. Another quick swipe of a card by the mother and the total was reduced to $0 with $80 cash back.

It was a frustrating experience. As I stood there in my Wal-Mart shorts and clearance rack shirt, getting ready to purchase my groceries, I was confronted with the reality that I was also going to be buying that family’s groceries along with my own.

What made my experience even more frustrating was the recognition that my little anecdote is not unique. It is an experience shared by hard-working taxpayers all over the country who work hard to pay for their own groceries as well as their neighbors’ groceries. Most people agree that food stamps and other welfare programs are a shared societal responsibility exercised through our government to care for those in our community who are either temporarily fallen on hard times or have some severe permanent disability, but their use by able-bodied people who are using other people’s money for necessities while spending their own money on frivolities is offensive, at best.

The use of food stamps, officially labeled the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or “SNAP,” in America has exploded to the point that they have become, for many, a lifestyle choice instead of a hand up. The statistics bear this out. During the Great Recession, the use of food stamps grew from 26.3 million people in 2007 to 33.5 million people in 2009. That is a 27 percent increase in two years, but somewhat understandable given the economic circumstances of a deep recession.

Since 2009, however, the use of food stamps has continued to rise. While peaking at 47.7 million food stamp participants in 2013 (four years after the recession ended), there are currently 46.5 million people using food stamps in America. That is a full 77 percent increase in food stamp usage since before the recession and a 39 percent increase since the recession ended. While unemployment has decreased and the economy has strengthened — albeit slowly — the use of food stamps has risen unabated.

The reason for this trend is simple. Our government has intentionally liberalized the standards and softened the enforcement to allow more people to get on the dole — whether they really need it or not.

It is against the backdrop of a seemingly unquenchable growth of welfare that Gov. Scott Walker proposed some more accountability in the distribution of those benefits including work requirements, employability training and even drug testing. These proposals have two primary purposes: The first is to do a better job of ensuring that the benefits go to those who really need them and are withheld from those who do not. The second purpose is to help make the recipients as employable as possible so that they can improve their station in life through the power of their thoughts or the sweat of their brows.

Walker’s welfare reform proposals are modest compared to some of those pushed through by one of his predecessors, Gov. Tommy Thompson. The legislature should consider those proposals a starting point.

Playing games on a Bucks’ arena

by Owen | 0628, 8 Apr 1515 | Politics - Wisconsin | 10 Comments

I forgot to post my column from the West Bend Daily News yesterday. Here you go:

It seems that all of the politicians in Wisconsin are trying to find a way to help fund a new arena for the Milwaukee Bucks. The various plans and machinations are revealing.

When Herb Kohl sold the Milwaukee Bucks last year to an ownership group headed up by Wesley Edens and Marc Lasry for $550 million, they committed to keeping the Bucks in Milwaukee. Shortly after the sale, however, they revealed that there was a provision in the deal that would force them to move the Bucks out of Milwaukee in a couple of years unless they got a new arena.

The Bucks owners pledged $150 million for an arena and Herb Kohl committed another $100 million. They estimate that an arena will cost $500 million. So the situation is that the Bucks owners are challenging the rest of Wisconsin to pay the $250 million gap or else the team will leave the state.

While it is easy to oppose any taxpayer funding of an arena under the argument that the taxpayers should not be paying for an arena for billionaires so that millionaires can play a game, the Bucks are a Wisconsin business that has a positive impact on the state. It would be a true loss if they left.

Into the $250 million gap step the politicians. In Gov. Scott Walker’s budget proposal, he included a plan for the state of Wisconsin to cover $220 million of it with a bonding plan that would be paid back with the increase in tax collections from the Bucks players. The plan was quickly kiboshed in the Legislature for a variety of reasons.

The most recent proposal from state legislators being floated is more modest. It offers $150 million using funds from another state agency, instead of bonds, that would be paid back by the increased taxes from the team. This plan avoids using any state tax money, which is the only way that most legislators from outside of Milwaukee would vote for it. State legislators from Rice Lake, for example, would have a hard time supporting a plan that spends their constituents’ tax dollars for an arena in Milwaukee.

The city of Milwaukee and Milwaukee County are offering $50 million for the stadium, but mostly in the form of infrastructure improvements around the arena.

For those keeping count, the current proposals still come up $50 million short from the estimated needed for an arena. Nobody is stepping forward to fill that gap.

What does all of this tell us? First, it is clear that there is not any appetite in the state legislature to use tax dollars for an arena. The Bucks’ economic impact diminishes rapidly as one travels further from the city of Milwaukee and legislators rightfully have a hard time justifying using state tax dollars for an arena.

Second, Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett and Milwaukee County Executive Chris Abele have been noticeably slow to offer support for a new arena despite the fact that the city and the county benefit the most from a new arena. Specifically, Barrett is planning to spend more city tax dollars on a trolley with negligible perceivable economic impact than he is willing to spend on a new arena. As usual, a Milwaukee mayor is expecting those of us who do not live in the city to pay for Milwaukee’s projects. That stance is only making state legislators dig in their heels on their arena plans.

Third, the behavior of the Bucks’ owners divulges their true motivations. They have conspicuously failed to put forth an actual plan for a new arena. We have an estimate of $500 million, but they have not revealed what the arena would look like, how big it would be, what other attractions would be attached to it or even where it would be located. We know nothing about it other than they think it will cost about $500 million, but we do not even know if that number is valid without an actual proposal to evaluate.

Also, it is worth noting that the owners have unequivocally stated that they will not spend any more than $150 million on the arena. The combined net worth of the owners is several billion dollars, yet they will not spend a penny more than $150 million for their own building.

Why? Follow the money.

The value of NBA teams has increased in recent years. The most recent example is when the L.A. Clippers were bought for $2 billion. It is undisputed that the Bucks would be worth more, possibly a lot more, if they moved to another city with a larger media market. The San Diego, Seattle or Jacksonville Bucks are more valuable than the Milwaukee Bucks.

While the Bucks’ owners had to commit to Kohl that they would keep the Bucks in Milwaukee in order to get him to sell the team to them, everything they are doing now suggests that they are trying to keep that from happening. We must remember that the Edens and Lasry are investment guys and it appears that they are seeking to reap a substantial return on their investment in the Bucks by pushing them to a larger market where the teams’ value will dramatically increase.

4K Is a Complex Issue

by Owen | 0601, 31 Mar 1515 | Politics - Wisconsin | 0 Comments

My column for the West Bend Daily News is online. Here it is:

A perennial issue has crept into the public discourse again as the candidates for the West Bend School Board make their cases for election. Four-year-old kindergarten is not offered by the West Bend School District, but some think that it should be.

The issue of 4K is, on the one hand, incredibly simple. Is more education at a young age better for kids? Of course it is. On the other hand, the issue is incredibly complex in that it invites discussion on the role of government, parents and the general culture.

When people discuss 4K, they are generally referring to a 4K program provided by the taxpayers through the public school system, but 4K education has always been provided through a variety of means including parochial 4K, private child care centers, Head Start and, of course, by parents at home. After a spike around 1900 in urban 4K and the end of rural one-room school rooms in which over half of 4-year-olds were educated at public expense, the responsibility shifted to the home with over 80 percent of 4-year-olds being educated outside of the public school system.

The trend reversed in the direction of the public schools in the 1980s and has expanded ever since. Consider that in 1980, only six public school districts in Wisconsin offered taxpayerfinanced 4K, and now more than 90 percent of districts offer 4K. What has never changed in all of the swings in public and private 4K offerings is that we all generally agree that education is not something that magically starts when a child reaches 5 years of age. It is something that begins, as it must, much earlier.

The recent push for 4K in the public schools has a couple of primary motives — one laudatory, one not so much. One motive is the desire to provide a better education for kids. The demands on kids is pushing higherlevel skills lower in the grades where kids in 5K or first grade are expected to know a lot more than they did 20 years ago. By providing 4K, more kids will be better equipped entering 5K to allow the teachers to provide that education instead of remedial training.

The other motive for 4K in the public schools is financial. There is a lot of tax money available for 4K education and the costs are relatively minor compared to the costs of education for the older kids. Launching a 4K program tends to be a profitable enterprise for school districts that engage in it. In times of strained budgets, anything that spins off surplus funds is attractive.

The argument against 4K in the public schools is that it is the parents’ responsibility, not the taxpayers’, to raise their kids and prepare them to enter their primary schooling years. Given the limited, although important, amount of education that is possible with 4-year-olds, public school 4K is mostly a glorified form of day care at taxpayers’ expense. There is a lot of truth in that argument.

When the issue about 4K in the West Bend School District came up a few years ago, it died fairly quickly for a very simple reason. The West Bend School District lacks the physical space to start a 4K program. While the district has expanded some of the buildings since then, it has closed others and the space issue has not abated. If the West Bend School District seeks to start a 4K program, it will likely have to do so in partnership with community and church organizations.

The three candidates running for the West Bend School Board have expressed different perspectives on 4K with Therese Sizer supporting it while Vinney Pheng and Monte Schmiege show considerably more caution on the matter.

Whether or not the West Bend School District should have a 4K program is likely to be an issue before the board in the next couple of years. Consider that as you cast your vote.

Conservative choices in the 4th aldermanic district

by Owen | 0628, 24 Mar 1515 | Politics - Wisconsin | 0 Comments

My column for the West Bend Daily News is online. Here it is:

Of all of the elections on the ballot next month in West Bend, perhaps the most interesting one is also the smallest. The voters in the 4th aldermanic district of the city of West Bend will make a choice that is symbolic in the recent history of the city’s Common Council.

For many years, West Bend’s city government had been an insular, lethargic, somewhat typical small city body where everyone seemed to go along to get along. Taxes crept up most years without much fuss and the size and scope of city government followed the trajectory that its own momentum created.

In 2007, things began to change. In the heat of a particularly obnoxious appointment for a mayoral replacement that reeked of the “good ole’ boy” network at play, many conservative citizens of West Bend decided that they had had enough and wanted their city to reflect their values. It began with the election in April 2008 when conservatives Tony Turner and Richard Lindbeck were elected to the council over the more centrist incumbents. That gave conservatives a majority on the Common Council that they have held ever since. That conservative majority has strengthened and now includes Mayor Kraig Sadownikow.

The results of conservative city leadership have been impressive. West Bend has not had a tax increase in this decade. The budget has been balanced. City debt has been reduced. Meanwhile, the police station was expanded, city services have been maintained and city employees are seeing a pay raise this year. Conservative leadership works.

The alderman for district 4, Randy Koehler, has been part of this conservative revival. He defeated one of the incumbent liberal aldermen — Nick Dobberstein, in 2011 — solidifying the conservative majority. Koehler voted for several of those no-tax-increase budgets, supported library board members whose values were more in line with the public, backed many of the positive reforms in city government and has generally been a solid conservative voice on the council.

Last year, Koehler began to shift his message about taxes. He voted against the last city budget because the ratio of debt service in that budget. Koehler also began saying that the council should consider tax increases as one of many options on the table. Koehler has never advocated for a tax increase, but he has said repeatedly that a tax increase should be considered while not offering any further solutions for otherwise balancing the budget.

In August, Koehler announced that he was not going to run for re-election. On that news, Chris Jenkins, whom Koehler defeated in the primary in 2011, stepped into the race. Koehler changed his mind in November and decided to run after all, setting up the contest between Jenkins and himself in April.

Jenkins is no stranger to running for office. At age 25, he already has two unsuccessful races under his belt including a run for mayor when he was 18. Jenkins is a vocal conservative of the libertarian bent with a passion for public service. He has recently shown his conservative mettle as the president of the West Bend Library Board. Jenkins has garnered an impressive array of endorsements including Rep. Bob Gannon, former alderman Tony Turner, Common Sense Citizens President Paula Becker, School Board members Randy Marquardt and Rick Parks, and many others.

Jenkins can add me to that list of supporters. Koehler has been a good conservative alderman who can be proud of his service to his constituents. His two terms have been marked by many achievements for which we can all be proud. But his recent openness to tax increases and lack of concrete initiatives for further reforms or economic development do not bode well for a third term. There might come a time when the Common Council will have to come to the taxpayers and ask them to approve a tax increase or risk vital city services, but we are not near that time yet.

In contrast, Jenkins’ firm stance against tax increases and passion for reform would bring a fresh perspective to the Common Council and continue the conservative revival of our city. Once again the voters of West Bend’s 4th district are privileged to choose between two conservative leaders. This time they should choose Chris Jenkins.

Electing the Chief Justice

by Owen | 0646, 18 Mar 1515 | Law, Politics - Wisconsin | 0 Comments

My column for the West Bend Daily News is online. Here it is:

The April election offers the voters of Wisconsin the opportunity to amend the state constitution to allow for the election of the chief justice of the Wisconsin Supreme Court. This proposed amendment has created far more controversy than such a minor change warrants.

Under the state constitution, all of the justices to the Wisconsin Supreme Court are elected. Among the elected justices, the chief justice is not elected. The job simply goes to the longest serving justice on the court. Justice Shirley Abrahamson has served as the chief justice since 1996.

After passing two different legislatures, the following proposal is being put to the voters on the April ballot: “Election of chief justice. Shall section 4 (2) of article VII of the constitution be amended to direct that a chief justice of the supreme court shall be elected for a twoyear term by a majority of the justices then serving on the court?”

That is fairly straightforward. The Assembly elects its speaker and leadership. The Senate elects its Majority Leader and the rest of the leadership. It makes little sense that the chief justice should be selected by seniority rather than being elected by his or her peers.

The controversy over this proposed amendment lies in the makeup of the current court. Abrahamson is a member of the liberal — and minority — faction of the court. Her fellow liberals are accusing the Republicans, who control the Legislature and passed this proposed amendment, of using the amendment process as an attack on Abrahamson. Rooted in that accusation is the fact that Abrahamson is not well-liked by her fellow justices and will likely be ousted as the chief justice if they are given the opportunity to elect their leader.

While Abrahamson is no friend of conservatives or Republicans and there are surely a few supporters of this amendment who would take no small pleasure in seeing Abrahamson ousted from her post, that would be an incredibly short-sighted motivation for amending the state constitution. The real drivers for this amendment are far more practical, and less exciting, than vengeful Republicans trying to smite their enemies.

One must remember that the duties of the chief justice are not that huge. Much like the chief justice of the United States Supreme Court, the chief justice of the Wisconsin Supreme Court has a number of administrative duties in running the court. He or she also has the senior privilege to author opinions. That is about it. The role of chief justice is mostly just about the prestige of the position. The chief justice does not have any impact on what cases the court will hear or how they will be decided. In fact, the chief justice has far less influence on the actual outcomes from the court’s work than the respective leaders of the houses of the legislature.

Since the primary role of the chief justice is the administrative running of the court, why shouldn’t the justices elect the person the handle that? If the justices are not satisfied with the competent running of the court, they can choose someone else. Frankly, administrative competence has little to do with judicial ideology.

Whether the chief justice is elected, appointed, selected or chosen at random will have no effect on how the court rules on the cases before it. Allowing the justices to elect their chief will allow them the same right to choose their leader as afforded to members of the legislature. It is an appropriate emendation to our constitution that will have lasting benefits well beyond the tenure of the current chief justice.

(Owen Robinson is a West Bend resident.)

Let the facts be our guide

by Owen | 0615, 10 Mar 1515 | Culture, Law | 0 Comments

My column for the West Bend Daily News is online. Here you go:

Let the facts be our guide

Find the truth before assigning the blame

It has happened again. An unarmed black man has been shot dead by a police officer. This time it happened Saturday afternoon in Madison. Before the victim’s body had assumed room temperature, hundreds of people, including communists and the usual race profiteers, were already marching in the streets and accusing the Madison police of gunning down a black man in cold blood.

Although facts are emerging as I write this column, let us examine the facts we know so far.

Police received a call about a man who was disrupting traffic and had allegedly assaulted at least one person by hitting and choking them. As the police were on the way to the scene, the police dispatcher informed the responding officers that the alleged assailant was named Tony Robinson (no relation).

We know that Robinson was on probation after pleading guilty to felony armed robbery last year. Why Robinson only received probation for armed robbery is a question for another time, but he clearly had a history of violent criminal behavior. It is unknown whether the responding officers knew of Robinson’s criminal history prior to contacting him.

When the officers arrived on the scene, Officer Matt Kenny, a 12-year veteran of the Madison Police Department, radioed that he was forcibly entering an apartment in pursuit of Robinson. Shortly after that, there was a struggle inside the apartment where Kenny was allegedly assaulted and injured by Robinson. Kenny then shot Robinson, who later died at the hospital from his injuries. Police have said that Robinson was unarmed at the time of the shooting. Robinson is black. Kenny is white.

The sensible and humane response to the events of Saturday is to pray and grieve. While Robinson’s poor decisions and behavior on that day were likely the cause of his death, his death is still tragic. His family is rightfully in mourning and deserves compassion. At the same time, Kenny deserves compassion too. Even if the investigation reveals that Kenny was fully justified in killing Robinson, it is no small thing to take another person’s life. Kenny will live with the consequences of his decision for the remainder of his life.

With those few details, and even before some of those details were known, some people have already tried and convicted Kenny and the Madison Police of murder and racism. Brandi Grayson, a spokesperson for a group called the Young, Gifted, and Black Coalition, a group that advocates for the police to have no interaction with black people in Madison, said at a protest, “we have a black boy, viciously murdered by MPD, they immediately framed it as if he provoked the murder — and as if he deserved the murder.”

Such inflammatory and irresponsible rhetoric is designed to take political advantage of Robinson’s death by stirring racial hatred. Subversive groups are also using Robinson’s death to foment hatred and discord in order to advance their ideological agendas. Signs from the Socialist Workers’ Party were prominent at the protests, which is not too surprising in Madison.

Since there will always be charlatans and unscrupulous people seeking to take advantage of tragedies, it is all that much more important for sensible and thoughtful people to call out and resist such chicanery. We must let the facts be our guide to the truth, and then let the truth inform our decisions.

Thanks to a law passed last year that requires an outside agency to investigate officer-involved deaths, the Wisconsin Department of Justice is charged with investigating the killing of Tony Robinson. Over the next few weeks, agents will be sifting through physical evidence and witness testimonies to gather the facts of what happened on Saturday afternoon in that apartment. From those facts, we will likely be able to discern the truth. Those seeking to make judgments before they know the facts are not interested in the truth.

Until the investigation is complete and the facts are clearly known, let us use our time to reflect and pray for those who have been directly impacted by the killing of Tony Robinson. All lives matter.

(Owen Robinson is a West Bend resident.)

Right-to-work should come to Wisconsin

by Owen | 0605, 24 Feb 1515 | Politics - Wisconsin | 8 Comments

My column for the West Bend Daily News is online. Here it is:

It has been a political roller coaster for several months, but it appears that Wisconsin will become the 25th right-to-work state, possibly as early as this week, as the Legislature moves into action. Enacting right-to-work legislation will help Wisconsin’s economy. More importantly, the state government will finally cease infringing on workers’ right of association.

Detractors excel at injecting fear and confusion into the debate over a right-to-work law, but it is an exceedingly simple concept that is rooted in universally recognized human rights and in the principles of our nation’s founding. All it does is forbid the government or employers from forcing workers to either join or not join a union. That is it. Simple.

Right-to-work legislation affirms the principle stated in Article 20 of the United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights that states, “(2) No one may be compelled to belong to an association.” It also affirms the principles of freedom of association and conscience enshrined in our national and state constitutions. Given how egregious our state has been infringing on these rights of workers, one wonders why we have allowed our government to get away for it for so many years.

Right-to-work opponents like to frame the debate in terms of an “attack” on unions and collective bargaining in general. It, however, does not do anything to diminish people’s right to collectively bargain. In fact, the legislation under consideration specifically reaffirms people’s collective bargain rights in Section 11.

Furthermore, the impact of right-to-work laws on unions is mixed. Both Michigan and Indiana passed right-to-work legislation in 2012. Since then, union membership in Michigan declined slightly, but union membership in Indiana actually increased.

The result in Indiana is widely believed to be because overall private sector employment has increased in Indiana, with its unemployment rate dropping from 8.3 percent in 2012 before right-towork was passed to 5.8 percent at the end of 2014. As more jobs are created in Indiana, more union jobs are created too. Clearly many of the private sector unions in Indiana still make a compelling case for workers to join them.

It is also worth noting that Wisconsin’s private union membership has been on the decline for many years. In 2004, almost 17 percent of Wisconsin’s private- sector workers were represented by unions, but only 12.5 percent are represented by unions now. Should Wisconsin pass right-to-work into law, it will only affect a fairly small minority of workers who are already in unions, but it will preserve the fundamental choice for all workers to join a union or not.

As of now, it appears as if right-to-work legislation will shortly be the law in Wisconsin. Gov. Scott Walker, despite once authoring a right-to-work bill when he as a legislator, has been trying to stave it off by deprioritizing it. But the legislative leaders of the Assembly and the Senate know that it is not going away.

It is a priority for elected Republicans and their constituents. The overwhelming election of Duey Stroebel in the 20th Senate District, who strongly advocated for right-to-work legislation, reconfirmed the mood of the Republican base regarding this issue. Last week, Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald and Assembly Speaker Robin Vos both said they would call their legislative houses into session for right-to-work passage and Walker publically declared that he would sign the bill when it reaches his desk.

As it looks like a right-to-work law is imminent, the Legislature should remember to keep it simple. As written, the right-to-work bill is less than five pages long. This makes sense because it does not take much to affirm such a simple principle. There has been talk recently of enacting certain carve-outs or exemptions for political reasons. The Legislature must reject all such notions and pass a simple, clean bill enacting right to work. Anything else is a recipe for political and legal trouble.

(Owen Robinson is a West Bend resident. His column runs Tuesdays in the Daily News.)

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Let the facts be our guide

Right-to-work should come to Wisconsin

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