Scott Walker's Appetite for Money Leaves Wisconsin Behind

Wisconsin people stand together against the reckless, absent Gov.
Scott Walker. Walker's political "Dept of All" crafted a budget coming
from out of nowhere, maybe the visions of Walker. Walker says
God and his Church put him in this position for a run for president
and that he prays on every major political decision, including
his budget proposal. Jobs and honest work apparently are not
high on Scott Walker's list of thing to pray for.
"They ... smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back
into their money or their vast carelessness or whatever
it was that kept them together, and let other people
clean up the mess they had made."
― F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby

Jobs, jobs, whatever happened to Scott Walker's 250,000 new jobs promise? A floor, not a ceiling, yes?

No.

Scott Walker proves jobs no longer matter. Neither do promises.

Scott Walker is plundering Wisconsin for his perceived self interests.

As Walker jets across the nation, Wisconsin residents are left behind, bringing up the rear in job creation and becoming the unwilling recipient of a Walker budget proposal, eviscerating the DNR, public education and the University of Wisconsin System. Crazy.

Walker didn't run on these ruinous measures. Even right-leaning newspapers and residents who have protected Walker in the past are wondering where Walker's budget of destruction is coming from. So, increasingly is business (Torinus, Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel).

So, Walker feels entitled to launch his shock-and-awe fire sale of Wisconsin to the special interests, funding his quasi-presidential campaign at the expense of small farmers, working families and the centers of rural communities called rural school districts.

All the while Walker takes the money to fund his project selling himself as a regular Wisconsinite and not a ideological zealot who doesn't know much about public policy.

"One hiccup in Walker selling himself as a regular guy is that regular guys don't have rope lines to keep reporters at a distance. During three public events on Thursday and Friday, he never was within earshot of national reporters following him. ... As Walker crisscrossed South Carolina, he never took questions in public from prospective voters, either. There were no town-hall style events, and when he met one-on-one with voters the media were kept from that room," notes John McCormick in Bloomberg.

That Walker speaks earnestly about making his political decisions after consultations from God is troubling, that Walker was caught on tape taking his orders from billionaires is disturbing.

But whatever happened to Walker's focus on jobs?

God must have told Walker to avoid question-and-answer sessions and questions about jobs as well because the few softball interview questions Walker entertains reveal a shallow and deceitful man.

The fact is Scott Walker is a pathological liar without a conscience, Walker is even targeting the disabled again.

I guess this utter lack of empathy for everyday people is God's will, if Scott Walker is to be believed.

Scott Walker Wants to Kill Runoff Mitigation

Water is worth protecting

Updated - It borders on deranged to poison drinking water and surface water intentionally.

Deranged policy is what Wisconsin, with its abundant fresh waters, gets from Scott Walker and his allies in the Dairy Business Association (DBA), Big Ag in Wisconsin.

That legislation protecting water would pass the Wisconsin GOP legislature is about as probable as Scott Walker holding a series of unscripted, no-holds-barred, town-hall-style listening sessions (see Bergquist, Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel).

The Scott Walker-proposed budget is an exercise in policy by bomb, bombs filled with poison, with unprecedented power grabs by Walker as he consolidates power in the Department of Administration (DOA), or as it is known in the Capitol, the "Department of All."

From George Hesselberg, Wisconsin State Journal (and Democurmudgeon):

Researchers and supporters of a program that helps farmers run cleaner and more efficient operations say they were “stunned” and “blindsided” by Gov. Scott Walker’s proposal to cut a third of the project’s funding. Discovery Farms, UW-Extension program that dates to 2001, applies science … to control runoff, calibrate fertilizer use and employ techniques to conserve land and water.

It has a $750,000 budget, of which $248,000 would be cut in the governor’s proposed state budget. … UW-Extension noted the loss affects longstanding projects and the ability of the small program to leverage crucial additional grants and funds.

Now, why would Republicans and Big Ag intentionally pursue policies that poison Wisconsin children? For the money.

The DBA has big pockets and that its members poison water is not their concern.

Word is out to Wisconsin Republicans in the legislature: Deny, deny, and cry, we're the Dairy State (Lundstrom, Peninsula Pulse).

Of course if their child is hospitalized and nearly killed by E-coli poisoning, or Blue Baby syndrome, even Republicans may feel differently.

Anyone who is not concerned about poisoning children is a sociopath or, as it turns out, a Republican.

The 'modern farming' model, or CAFO (for Concentrated Agricultural Feeding Operation) in Wisconsin is accelerating under the Scott Walker administration.

The Scott Walker response to poisoning and polluting water: Kill the science that would measure poison and pathogens, get rid of the Wisconsin Idea, make the DNR part of the Walker administration, and take the administrative law judges that adjudicate complaints on DNR operations and transfer the ad law judges under the authority of Walker's DOA.

Two notes worthy of mention.

Former Governor Jim Doyle

Former Gov. Jim Doyle (D-Madison) (2003-2011) deserves condemnation for carrying the DBA's poisoned-water agenda leading to his seven-point reelection in 2006.

Doyle took in a hefty sum from Big Ag, even a contribution from the infamous polluter James Wysocki, a financier of the National Potato Council who has been upping his contributions of late to the National Republican Congressional Committee in the GOP quest to kill the federal EPA as Scott Walker is proposing to do to the Wisconsin DNR.

Wysocki's proposed massive CAFO in Wood and Adams counties has now so killed property valuations in Wood and Adams counties—an ideal site for tourism and recreation if local officials ever got their act together—that realtors, banks and property accessors on background say the area surrounding the proposed Wysocki CAFO site has been red-lined.

Proposed Sand Valley Golf Resort
in Adams County in Central Wisconsin
borders area red-lined over concerns
about pollution and poison from
massive, proposed Wysocki CAFO

Hence, residents and small businesses attempting to relocate and sell their homes are screaming at local and county officials who take their marching orders from the DBA and Scott Walker, as Wysocki and the potato growers suck up aquifers with high-capacity wells and send back pathogen-laden waste directly into the environment.

White-knight developers are finding central Wisconsin, the bottom of an ancient glacial lake known as the Golden Sands, stuck in economic malaise as local Republican state representatives like Scott Krug remain in the pocket of Party and polluters while paying lip service to concerns about the proposed Wysocki CAFO.

Wisconsin Livestock Facility Siting Law

Secondly, the Wisconsin Livestock Facility Siting Law that CAFOs use in litigation is pure political payoff by the DBA, signed into law by Jim Doyle, and which became effective in May 2006.

A Wisconsin Soil Survey by the U.S. Department of Agricultural-Natural Resources Conservation Service concludes: Central Wisconsin's sandy soil is susceptible to blowing hazards, high seepage of sewage lagoons, runoff during rain storms and snow melt, and high susceptibility to concrete corrosion, among other concerns.

Wonder what Jim Doyle has to say about getting the monstrous CAFO-industry juggernaut moving and polluting Wisconsin waters.

Door County Republican Pummeled over Walker Budget

There is a point at which enough people are hurt by a slow-motion destruction project, a breaking point, that a change in the political culture results.

Freshman State Rep. Joel Kitchens (R-Sturgeon Bay) is finding this out.

Kitchens held listening sessions in Door and Kewaunee County in northeastern Wisconsin on Scott Walker’s 2015-17 biennial budget and was battered.

Reports Jim Lundstrom in the Peninsula Pulse:

Gov. Walker's biennium budget was a focus of a recent listening session held by freshman 1st District Assemblyman Joel Kitchens, which contains proposals that seem to confirm fears that Wisconsin is in a fight for its identity, with attacks on several sacred cows – public education, the UW System, the state parks, the Natural Resources Board, the Knowles-Nelson Stewardship Fund, and, yes, even the Wisconsin Idea.

As summed up by Dr. Peter Sigmann at the Feb. 27 standing-room-only listening session at the Sturgeon Bay Public Library, in his time at the Medical College of Wisconsin, talented people were recruited to the college from other states because of Wisconsin's quality of life, and now that is under relentless attack. ...

"The problems we've had in Door County we're not caused by CAFOs," Kitchens said.

"Yes they were," many voices responded.

Don Freix of Fish Creek (one of only three people who identified himself before asking a question) pointed out that in 2000, the state was spending 32 percent more on the UW System than on corrections. "That's what's eating up our budget," he said.

"As of this proposed budget, we'll be spending 17 percent less on education than we will be spending on corrections," he said. "We're at a pretty hypocritical place right now. What will this Assembly majority will do to cut these costs?"

Another man said it is the sentencing system that is wrong. "We're overcommitting too many people," he said.

"We do need to look at the court system," Kitchens said.

A woman pointed out that the elimination of SeniorCare would force her onto Medicaid, which will triple her premiums.

"I think we can save it. I'll be introducing an amendment," Kitchens said.

"A lot of representatives are hearing about that," [Rep. Michael Schraa of Oshkosh]  added.

Attacking constituents through the state budget is not playing well in Door and Kewaunee County.

CAFOs were reportedly the topic of heated commentary.

Kitchens must not have heard yet about his own constituents poisoned and hospitalized last year by pathogens in liquid cow manure vectored into the aquifers and surface waters.

As for Scott Walker, he's on his fundraising tour, pretending he'll be president one day.

Worth noting is a Wisconsin state representative is holding no-holds-barred listening sessions two months into his first term, and Scott Walker has yet to hold even one listening session with the people of Wisconsin, and Walker is telling Republicans around the nation how "bold" he is.