WI Budget and Education - Great Things...

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Great Things are Happening in Wisconsin!

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September 12, 2011

Dear Tea Party Supporter:

In addition to our championship Packers football team and winning Brewers baseball
team, Wisconsin citizens can further count their blessings with the news that great
things are happening in Wisconsin! For several months now, tea party supporters
all over the state have anticipated the positive results of the hard work of our
conservative legislators and Governor Scott Walker. Now the rest of the state can
also see the undeniable progress that has been made in removing power from the public
employee unions and restoring freedom and liberty to Wisconsin taxpayers.

Hat tip to several Wausau Tea Party supporters for sending us the following great
news in an email:

- Ashland School District - saved $378,000 on health insurance;

- Kimberly School District - saved $821,000 by dropping WEA Trust Insurance;

- Edgerton School District - dropping WEA Trust, expecting to save at least $500,000;

- Baraboo School District - dropping WEA Trust, expecting to save at least $660,000;

- Dodgeland School District - dropping WEA Trust, expecting to save $260,000

- Elmbrook School District - changing health care provider, savings estimated at
$878,000;

- Mequon-Thiensville School District - saving $49,000 on dental insurance coverage;

- Marshfield School District - saving $850,00 by dropping WEA Trust;

- City of Sheboygan - Mayor Bob Ryan says collective bargaining reforms will provide
enough savings to make up for the reduction in state aid;

- Wauwatosa School District - tax levy decreasing, no programs will be cut, class
sizes won’t increase, thanks to the reforms in collective bargaining;

- Manitowoc - Laid-off city workers may get their jobs back due to the wage/benefit
reforms contained in Walker’s budget. Changes to overtime rules saving the county
$100,000;

- Pittsville - will see a 9% decrease in the school portion of their property tax
levy. “This is the first year we have not needed to short-term borrow,” stated Board
President Strenn;

- Appleton School District - will save $3.1 million just in health insurance costs
due to being able to bid out the coverage and being able to drop WEA Trust;

- Racine County - inmates can now be used to perform tasks such as landscaping,
painting and shoveling sidewalks. Executive Ladwig states this is a “win/win for
the inmates and the county. It frees up county employees for other tasks, gives
the inmates a sense of value, and helps the county maintain property that has been
neglected.”

- Kaukauna School District - hiring additional teachers, reducing class sizes, enacting
a merit pay system, and due to Gov. Walker’s Budget Bill. Kaukauna’s operating
budget has moved from a negative $400,000 to a positive $1,500,000. Much of this
savings was due to being able to drop WEA Trust.

- Hartland School District - switched from WEA Trust and saved $690,000;

- Hudson School District - saved $832,000 on health insurance due to ability to
bid the insurance.

- KSTP did a study of the savings in Sheila Harsdorf’s 10th Senate District. They
found that Ellsworth, Prescott, Menomonie, Somerset and Hudson school districts
are all reporting large savings due to the changes signed into law by Walker.

(Keep in mind, WEA TRUST is a union insurance company, a company that has obviously
been ripping off the school districts for years, thanks to collective bargaining
that prohibited school districts from seeking insurance coverage from any company
other than WEA Trust. How much tax money would we have saved if school districts
had been “allowed by the unions” to bid out their insurance over the years?)

WANT MORE GOOD NEWS??

Governor Walker and our conservative legislators:

- just signed an Unemployment Insurance extension adding 13 weeks of UC benefits.

- Passed a state budget on time, without tax increases, that leaves WI in the black
for the first time in over 10 years.

- Turned a $3 billion deficit into a $300 million surplus.

- Cut bonding by nearly 20%.

- Cut more than 1,000 government jobs, including 735 long-term vacancies.

- In the first 6 months of 2011, Wisconsin showed job growth more than twice the
national rate.

- Protected our votes by requiring a picture I.D. at the polls.

- Assured that Wisconsin was the 49th state to recognize our 2nd Amendment right
to carry concealed weapons.

- Paid off WI’s $60 million debt to MN under the former tax reciprocity agreement.

- Paid back over $200 million to the Injured Patients and Families Fund. This is
money that Gov. Doyle unconstitutionally raided from the Patients’ Compensation
Fund.

- Gov. Walker expanded the prohibition against tax money being used to subsidize
abortion.

Finally, I would like to share a letter that Wausau Tea Party supporter Dave Luepke
submitted to several area newspapers today:

To the editor:

I attended a Tea Party event in Oshkosh on Sept. 10. I arrived early and stayed
late so I could mingle with the crowd and find evidence to support the ugly accusations
against them. I’m happy to report that the accusations are baseless and apparently
made by those who cannot compete in the arena of ideas and civil discourse.
I did hear several teachers discussing their gratitude to Governor Walker for ending
the tyranny of forced dues where much of the money went to support ideology they
disagree with. Every speaker on the stage was terrific, and. Senator Ron Johnson
and Lt. Governor Rebecca Kleefisch further established themselves as courageous
leaders that are much needed for times like these. Both have worked tirelessly to
get our economy going in the right direction and have had some success already.
I would like to issue a challenge to their detractors. Why don’t you divert the
energy you spend on trying to destroy successful people and channel it towards helping
EVERYONE be more successful? So far all you have done is slander good people and
demand more of other peoples money. You have not created or saved even one productive
job or business, unless you count paid protesters. But they aren’t very productive,
are they?
And Sunday Morning I watched the Lt Governor lead the 9-11 Memorial at the Capitol.
I can sum up the whole weekend by confirming that I have never been prouder to be
from Wisconsin.

Dave Luepke

Edgar, WI

Thank you for your continued support.

Meg Ellefson, Founder

Wausau Tea Party

Union Thuggery Is Not Confined to Wisconsin

LONGVIEW, Wash. (AP) — Hundreds of Longshoremen stormed the Port of Longview early Thursday, overpowered and held security guards, damaged railroad cars, and dumped grain that is the center of a labor dispute, said Longview Police Chief Jim Duscha.

Six guards were held hostage for a couple of hours after 500 or more Longshoremen broke down gates about 4:30 a.m. and smashed windows in the guard shack, he said.

No one was hurt, and nobody has been arrested. Most of the protesters returned to their union hall after cutting brake lines and spilling grain from car at the EGT terminal, Duscha said.

The International Longshore and Warehouse Union believes it has the right to work at the facility, but the company has hired a contractor that’s staffing a workforce of other union laborers.
Thursday’s violence was first reported by Kelso radio station KLOG.

Police from several agencies in southwest Washington, the Washington State Patrol and Burlington Northern Santa Fe responded to the violence to secure the scene that followed a demonstration Wednesday.

“We’re not surprised,” Duscha said. “A lot of the protesters were telling us this in only the start.”

One sergeant was threatened with baseball bats and retreated, Duscha said. “One officer with hundreds of Longshoremen? He used the better part of discretion.”

WEAC on the Wane

August 17, 2011

We can’t recall anyone looking at a state budget one month after it took effect and remarking on how it had worked. But the current budget is no business-as-usual tax and spending plan. At the beginning of August, one month in, changes were already measurable.

For instance, Democrats said school districts would suffer terribly. Let’s check that out:
Appleton—saves $3.1 million through competition among health insurance providers.
Ashland—saved almost $378,000 thanks to being free to choose its health insurance provider.
Baraboo—switched insurance providers to save $660,000 next year.
Edgerton—anticipates insurance savings of $500,000.
Elmbrook—estimates savings through health insurance changes at $878,000.
Fond du Lac—will save enough to offset a $4.4 million budget shortfall.
Kaukauna—will hire more teachers, reduce class sizes and introduce merit pay.
Kimberly—saved $821,000 by changing insurance providers.

This represents only one aspect of the budget bill’s positive impact, breaking the teacher union’s near-monopoly status as health insurance provider to school districts,

It may be only the beginning. For decades WEAC, the statewide teacher union, has been the 800-pound gorilla of Wisconsin politics. WEAC and affiliates directed almost $900,000 against Republican senators in last week’s recalls, and that’s just what legally has to be reported.

But just as school districts are now free to choose insurance providers, public employees are now free to decide annually whether their union is doing them any good and whether to pay the dues government employers will no longer automatically withhold.

School districts can recognize a chance to save money. We’ll bet their employees can too.

Right About Rail

It’s impolite to say we told you so, but in today’s political environment it seems constantly necessary.

So next time someone says Governor Walker was unintelligent to reject federal money for high-speed rail, clue them in about how wrong they are.

There’s proof in last Tuesday’s San Jose Mercury News.

We’ll summarize.

California is planning a high-speed rail project that differs from the rejected Milwaukee-Madison line chiefly in that it would traverse a total of about 800 miles. Three years ago California voters authorized $9 billion in bonding for the project and the federal government has ponied up about $3 billion of your money to help out.

One small problem: Overall costs are estimated at $43 billion and the state’s nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office says there’s no certainty where the bulk of it will come from.

This is especially troublesome in light of anticipated massive cost overruns. Even though nobody has yet turned a shovel, estimates are ballooning north of $60 billion and heading higher.

It’s especially revealing that the California High Speed Rail Authority acknowledges higher cost figures, because it just recently figured out how many bridges it will need to build—years after producing the cost estimates it used to sell the project.

If this sounds hauntingly familiar—like the city of Milwaukee feigning surprise over multimillion-dollar expenses for digging up and relocating electric transmission lines to accommodate Mayor Tom Barrett’s streetcar project—it’s because that’s the way these things invariably turn out.

Walker smelled boondoggle and made the right call. But for some people, spending big money on big projects directed by big government is an objective in itself. Whether the projects are useful or perform as advertised is irrelevant; for Liberals, they’re almost a biological imperative.