You are here: Home » News » Business & Economics » THE REST OF WISCONSIN’S TEA PARTY AGENDA

THE REST OF WISCONSIN’S TEA PARTY AGENDA

02-25-2011 by L. S. Carbonell

The Budget Repair Bill forced through the Wisconsin Assembly last night is 144 pages long. It rescinds laws that stand in the way of Gov. Scott Walker’s budget, due to be presented next Tuesday. So much attention has been paid to the union-busting and debt restructuring portions of the bill, that the rest of what the Republican-dominated Wisconsin assembly and Walker have done has gone completely unnoticed. It’s a Tea Party manifesto for the future of America, coming soon to a state near you.

Medicaid would be put completely in the hands of Health and Human Services Secretary Dennis Smith, a man who makes Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer look like a welfare advocate. The bill would give him the authority to change state Medicaid law as he sees fit and “institute sweeping changes” to reduce benefits and limit eligibility.

A no-bid “firesale” of Wisconsin’s power plants, which would free Wisconsin from dealing with the fact that many of those power plants are in violation of Federal environmental laws. The Governor, with his hands in the Koch brothers’ pockets, could sell them to the Kochs for an amount way below their real value.

Rescind the new municipal clean drinking water laws, which require disinfection of water supplies. In 1993, 104 people died and 400,000 became ill because Milwaukee’s water supply became infected. The new rules only effect 12% of Wisconsin’s municipalities, but even at just $10,000 per well, the GOP says the price is too high.

Wetlands would cease to be protected. There would be no more public hearings on proposed wetland development, no standards for maintaining water quality, nothing to prevent the rapid approval of projects that destroyed wetlands in Wisconsin, and with them, the state’s entire water system.

A two-thirds majority in both houses of the Wisconsin legislature will be required for the passage of any tax increases. GOP lawmakers are now mulling over an amendment to make that rule permanent. A similar law in California is created with being responsible for that state’s budget crisis.

A law being moved forward by Republican lawmakers would require a DMV-issued identity card for people to vote. This would disenfranchise the poor who don’t own cars, the disabled who are barred from driving, and those who choose not to drive. The GOP insists the bill is necessary to prevent voter fraud, though there have been no instances of voter fraud in the state. The whole “ACORN committed widespread voter fraud” fraud has been a Republican/Fox News mantra for the past twelve years. While a few cases of registration fraud were uncovered, there has never been an ACORN-related case of real voter fraud anywhere. By disenfranchising the poor, the disabled and the liberal-chic the GOP hopes to cut into the Democratic base.

Walker has killed the $810 billion federally funded high-speed rail project which would have provided 130,000 new jobs for Wisconsin. When the Spanish company, Talgo, pulled out of Wisconsin because the rail project had been canceled, a spokeswoman for the company told The Daily Reporter that “the state’s decision to back away from the high-speed rail project sends a terrible message to businesses considering locating in the state.”

At the moment, Walker’s plan to kill wind energy projects is dead. The bill he introduced in January would have increased the state’s dependence on out-of-state coal and eliminated $1.8 billion in wind power investments, jeopardizing eleven proposed wind projects.

In a flagrant violation of the concept of separation of powers granted in the Constitution that Tea Partiers wrap themselves in, the Wisconsin legislature ceded to Walker the power to draft agency rules which the legislature must either approve or deny. The law grants Walker the power to set the rules for the Government Accountibility Board, Wisconsin’s ethics watchdog, in addition to the state departments of justice and education. They have effectively made it impossible to start any kind of investigation into Walker’s actions.

A provision of the budget repair bill grants Walker the power to convert from civil service to political appointment 37 state management positions, expanding his power to “hire, fire and move key employees to carry out his agenda.”

This is the agenda of the Tea Party – destroy all social programs, destroy all pesky environmental regulations that get in the way of corporate profits, destroy all oversight within government over the actions of government, destroy the right of all Americans to vote, turn the United States into the dictatorship that Bush and Cheney only dreamed of. Only 25% of American adults identify themselves with the Tea Party, and not all of them support these kinds of overreaching laws. But they won the last election. They won because so many liberals and moderates didn’t vote. They won because they were brainwashed and programmed to vote for these particular candidates by a barrage of right-wing fear mongers. They believe they have the power to dictate to the mainstream Republican Party and they appear to be doing so in Washington. They believe they have the power to steamroller their anti-American agenda and destroy anyone and anything that gets in the way of the desires of the millionaires and billionaires who bought and paid for their services. They believe this is their country and they have taken it back – though God knows where or when they have taken it back to.

Are they right? Does this minority really control all our lives and the destiny of our country? Must we permit them to turn us into an oligarchy? The silence from moderate, even conservative Republicans and Democrats is deafening….and terrifying.

Related articles

• Wisconsin Is Part of a Nation of Laws (lezgetreal.com)
• Wisconsin Update (lezgetreal.com)
• Wisconsin GOP wins Round 1 over unions, but final victory still eludes (csmonitor.com)
• Leo W. Gerard: In a Democracy, Freedom of Assembly Trumps “Free Enterprise” (huffingtonpost.com)
• What The Republican Assembly Did To Wisconsin; Don’t Let The Do It To America (alan.com)
• [Re:Wisconsin] It’s Time to begin converting Teabaggers! (curmilus.wordpress.com)
• Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker and the Union Busters are Winning the Public Relations War (thornecommunications.wordpress.com)
• Wisconsin Union Facts (chicagonow.com)