Quick Hits

On the Milwaukee County Budget:

The budget that passed a couple of weeks ago was a complete travesty and the worst example of policy-making in recent memory.

When it came to the pools, the County Board basically had this choice:

Imagine you have a Winnebago motor home from the late 1970s. You used it a lot in the past before the kids moved out to go to school, and now it’s in a state of disrepair. Fixing it up would cost a boatload of money – new tires, shocks, engine, transmission, the works. Say the repairs would come to about $15,000. You have the option to simply replace it with a new camper that would be cheaper to operate (it’s a trailer instead of a gas-guzzling motorhome) and is smaller to accommodate just you and the spouse with no kids, and comes complete at about $10,000.

The Board inexplicably chose to repair the Winnebago. Whether it was really out of cold political calculation just to deny Scott Walker any kind of positive victory, or whether it’s a symptom of their complete and total inability to cut any County service in any way, it was perhaps the most idiotic policy decision this side of invading Iraq.

Then there was the restoration of the parks positions. The Board continued the County’s tradition of protecting its workforce at all costs. Regardless of any concessions DC 48 makes – and they won’t make any because they know they have plenty of Supervisors in their back pocket anyway – the funds included in the budget cannot cover the cost of those positions. How about showing some – get ready for it, because we haven’t seen any in a long time – leadership and telling the union that enough is enough? We’re not going to pay you $40 an hour in total compensation when the taxpayers can receive the same level of service for $20 an hour? The majority of this County Board apparently never considers that kind of calculus, or rather basic counting.


On the elections

The hacks have been at it the past two plus weeks trying to decipher the results of the election. The GOP majority wasn’t conservative enough, the GOP majority was too conservative, it was the mainstream media, Iraq sucks. As usual, they miss the forest for the trees (though that last one is unquestionably correct).

Here is specifically what the voters said on November 7:

“We’re sick and tired of the incompetence that results when hacks put partisan interests ahead of good government. GOP, you’re fired. Democrats, you’re our only other choice, so here you are, you give it a shot. “

Anyone who thinks the majority liked the Democrats’ message or even the Democrats themselves is dreaming. This was no landslide – the electorate did not gravitate towards anything they liked. It just so happened that a few more clear thinkers like me decided enough was enough, while a few others thought (like I also do) that the Dems would actually do worse and went with the devil they knew. This is why so many Dems won with 50, 51, or maybe 53 percent of the vote if they were lucky.

In other words, the electorate literally went, “Democrats? Well, I guess.”