Thursday, July 21, 2005

Rants and Letters


No specific story captures my imagination this evening and so I am going to serve up Doghouse Rants because he is writing provocative posts about the Wisconsin political scene. I think he captures the frustration in the electorate that neither political party is doing anything to prevent the fiscal disaster of our continuing government spending.

This is the second blog this week making a case that Dane County Executive Kathleen Falk is emerging as the next strong Democratic candidate for the Governors Office. Just in case anyone believes Kathleen is not a pure government spending liberal, it is worth a quick look what she wants Jim Doyle to veto in new budget. The first is a Word File and the second a PDF file and both come from the Dane County website.
Kathleen Falk Letter to Jim Doyle: Please veto the following budget provisions as adopted by the Legislature: Provide adequate funding for W-2 services and administration. Veto the repeal of Comprehensive Planning and Smart Growth. Veto changes to the Land Information Office--$45,000 grant cap; lapse of LIO appropriation ($900,000) to general fund; and switch from a continuing appropriation to an annual appropriation. Veto the property tax freeze. Veto the TABOR provision.

Kathleen Falk Letter to Jim Doyle 2: We are writing today to express our opposition to AB 437 - Conveyance of publicly-owned property to a public utility for construction of transmission lines. This bill is detrimental to parklands and we urge you to veto this bill. … Introduction of a plan to make it possible for a private company to condemn local parkland, preserved environmental corridors, or even those identified for future purchase from willing sellers flies in the face of the public interest.
Kathleen Falk is pleasant, articulate and holds true progressive values, but those values are based on the principle that government is good for the population. Restraints on the government’s ability to raise tax revenue, and limits on the government’s control of the land are, therefore, bad. Politicians resistant to limits on money, control and power concern me.