Scott Walker Still Targets Wisconsin Idea, Rural Wisconsin Resources

UW Extension is the Wisconsin Idea in Action

Updated - The University of Wisconsin Extension held a workshop in  December informing Bayfield and Ashland county residents of the health risks of the proposed swine CAFO. (Mullen, Ashland Daily Press (Wisconsin)) (Mal Contends)

The workshop was well-attended, northern Wisconsin communities used scientific findings to make local policy informed by the implications of the proposed swine factory, a 560-acre operation that could be sold to China (which owns one-fourth of the American pork industry and is anti-green on pollution).

Former Wisconsin attorney general J.B. Van Hollen subsequently rushed out a formal advisory opinion the Friday before Christmas Day stating agricultural operations could be sold to foreign countries, as long as the industrialized agricultural site is less than 620 acres. (Mal Contends)

Now, we learn that Scott Walker wants to eliminate myriad UW outreach and environmental programs in Walker's proposed budget, as reported in a column written by a UW graduate student studying the budget.

Such UW programs and institutions effectively blow the whistle on the destructive industrialized farming operations that have proliferated the last 10 years.

Walker's budget would terminate all manner of manifestations of the Wisconsin Idea, and environmental outreach institutions.

Targeted for defunding by Walker are the acclaimed College of Natural Resources at UW-Stevens Point (offering a water quality symposium March 19) and myriad UW Extension and environmental institutions.

Walker's Budget language is full of language such as "delete" appropriations, a radical policy move that Walker did not run on during the 2013-14 gubernatorial campaign.

"[Walker's] new budget dilutes or terminates the public interest and the public sector in Wisconsin so Republican corporate donors and Tea Party advocates who have funded his campaigns can appropriate public resources," notes The Political Environment.

Wisconsin Idea

The Wisconsin Idea remains under full-scale attack should Scott Walker's budget be passed through the GOP-gerrymandered legislature. See Walker Budget. (pp 472-473)

Walker mandates that his notoriously partisan Department of Administration would by statute "interrogate UW System Authority employees publicly or privately regarding the books, accounts, and matters examined. Provide that the UW System Authority would be required to cooperate with the DOA Secretary and comply with every request of the DOA Secretary related to his or her functions." (p.494)

After Scott Walker is humiliated in his faux run for president, Walker will move back to Wisconsin and target the state. One hopes most Wisconsinites will be awakened from their political slumber.