Archive for March, 2010

Trouble Brewing in Iowa County

MacIver News Service -A $6.5 million building project in Iowa County has residents up in arms, but the County Board leaders say they arre too late to do anything about it.

The Board approved a new Health and Human Services building back in October. Board members who support the project say it’s been in the works for years.

“We had to discuss it back in July or August, full board meeting, to decide to go ahead and rebid it. No one came the following month to say we really shouldn’t, or knew that the bids would be reopened in September and that we were going to be voting on it in October. No one came until we passed it to go ahead and build it,” said Eric Anderson, County Board Supervisor.

One County Board Supervisor who opposes the project, John Meyers, says the board used illegal procedures to pass the project. He and others filed a lawsuit against the county.

While a judge dismissed the case, but has not yet filed a formal order. When the county told a bond company there was no pending litigation against the project, Meyers says it lied.

“The judge has not yet filed his final statement on that, and there’s still time for us to file an appeal. None of that’s been completed, and corporate counsel represented that everything was complete,” Meyers said.

Additionally, a petition collected two thousand signatures calling for a referendum. The county board said the petition was not done properly and the project has already been approved.

However, there will still be a referendum of sorts on the project next week, when voters go to the polls to vote for candidates for the Iowa County Board of Supervisors.

MacIver’s Bill Osmulski has more details and filed this report from Iowa County:

 

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Posted in News | March 31, 2010 | | No Comments

Wisconsin’s Tax Freedom Day Not Until April 12th

MacIver News Service - 11:00 am Wisconsinites need to work from January 1st through the twelfth of next month, for a total of 102 days, just to pay for the annual taxes assessed by their government.

The Tax Foundation just announced on that Wisconsin’s Tax Freedom Day for 2010 will be  April 12th.  For the nation on average Tax Freedom Day is April 9th. Wisconsin has the 13th latest Tax Freedom Day in the country.

Calculated annually by the Tax Foundation, Tax Freedom Day  determines the day on which taxpayers will have earned enough money to pay this year’s tax obligations at the federal, state and local levels.  

According to the Tax Foundation:

“The shift toward a lower tax burden since 2007 has been driven by three factors: (1) The recession has reduced tax collections even faster than it has reduced income; (2) President Obama and the Congress have enacted large but temporary income tax cuts for 2009 and 2010, just as President Bush did in 2008; and (3) Two significant taxes were repealed for 2010 as part of previous legislation, the estate tax and the so-called PEP and Pease provisions of the income tax.”

The calculation does not include deficit spending, the impact of the national debt, or the recently approved spending and taxes associated with health care reform bill.

The Tax Foundation noted that in general, Tax Freedom Day is coming later this year despite a continued slowdown in the economy and the deficit spending.  Last year’s National Tax Freedom Day was one day earlier, April 8, 2009.

“If Americans were required to pay for all government spending this year, including the $1.3 trillion federal budget deficit, they would be working until May 17 before they had earned enough to pay their taxes—an additional 38 days of work,” the Tax Foundation announced Tuesday.

We will have updates, including local reaction to this announcement, later.

For additional information from the Tax Foundation, click here.

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Posted in News | March 30, 2010 | | 1 Comment

Race to the Top Scorecards Public –
Wisconsin Falls Way Short

Revised 7:30pm

MacIver News Service – Wisconsin’s reluctance to tie student performance to teacher evaluations, and the lack of cooperation from local teacher union leaders have cost the state perhaps hundreds of millions of dollars in one-time federal education grant money.

Today we know a little more about why Wisconsin failed to make the first cut among applicants for nearly $2 billion in Federal “Race to the Top” education grants.

Applicants were judged on a 500-point scale that looked at the states’ commitment to improving teacher effectiveness, data systems, academic standards and low-performing schools.

Wisconsin scored a 341, which ranked 26th among the 41 applicants

Why didn’t Wisconsin make the cut?  Wisconsin lost points in the area of improving student outcomes, noting specifically the racial achievement gap–the disparity between the performance of students of color and their white peers.

Wisconsin also lost points for its failure to fully implement a longitudinal data system, but the biggest knock against Wisconsin, according to the reviewers’ comments, was improving teacher and principal effectiveness based on performance.

“How the plan will deal with compensating, promoting and retaining principals and teachers is not clear nor is information regarding the granting of tenure and full certification or removing ineffective principals and teachers,” read the official comment of a grant reviewer.

Another reviewer noted that “teacher union support for RTTT [Race to the Top] at the local level [is] lacking.”

Clearly the reviewers were looking at how states tie teacher evaluation to the performance of their students. Wrote one:

“Partly because the application is vague about the nature of these evaluations and partly because the connection between evaluation and professional development appears so tenuous in this application, very limited credit can be given for the first element (D2iv.a.) of this criterion. The application does not address at all the use of evaluation results to compensate, promote or retain teachers and principals. There is no discussion of using evaluation results to make tenure or full certification decisions. There is no mention of how evaluation results might be used in removing ineffective teachers, nor what opportunities these teachers should be give to help them improve.”

These comments seem to confirm the fears of critics who warned that earlier efforts to reform Wisconsin law were tepid. They blamed WEAC, the state teachers’ union, for the failure to enact stronger measures.

As we reported in November:

 

Here is a link to the reviewers’ comments and scores for Wisconsin.

Tennessee (444.2) and Delaware (454.6) were the winners of this first round of the Race to the Top competition.

Colorado, the District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Kentucky, Louisiana, Massachusetts, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and South Carolina were the other finalists.

You can read the applications from all the states, and read the reviewers’ comments here.

A roundup of MacIver’s previous coverage of this controversy can be found here.

We’ll continue to follow the “Race to the Top,” as the process for secondary grants unfolds in June. The states that did not win this round are free to reapply.

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Posted in News | March 29, 2010 | | No Comments

Letter Comes Back to Haunt Barrett

Health care, global warming, education, even property taxes…

For hundreds of thousands of motorists, business and home owners in Southeast Wisconsin, those issues took a back seat to a more pressing concern as of last Friday.

Residents of the area quickly began calling it the Barrett Bypass.

Already the subject of a costly and temporary repair job due to deteriorating bridges, part of the Zoo Interchange was closed early Friday morning out of fear that a bridge over Interstate 94 could collapse.

The Zoo is the most heavily traveled interchange in the State of Wisconsin. More than 350,000 cars a day use it, with more than 42,000 motorists using the bridge that was abruptly closed.

The saga of the Zoo Interchange has many players and has seen many twists and turns over the last decade or so. However, this fiasco can most clearly be laid at the doorstep of two public officials. The current Governor of Wisconsin, and Milwaukee’s Mayor who is running to replace him.

In recent years, Governor Jim Doyle’s budgets have transferred $1.3 billion from the Wisconsin’s transportation fund for other uses.

His Department of Transportation also fast-tracked other construction projects at the expense of reworking the Zoo Interchange.

Doyle said the delay in the Zoo was done, in part, because there was not a local consensus on the size and scope of the project.

He’s right, and one of the leaders in the way? Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett.

In 2005, bowing to the concerns of environmentalists who opposed the creation of an expanded east-west corridor between Milwaukee and Waukesha counties, Barrett wrote a breathtaking letter to Governor Doyle.

It is a letter that will haunt Barrett for years and could very well doom any chance he has to succeed Doyle as the state’s Governor.

“I am writing in opposition to funding preliminary engineering of the Zoo Interchange.” Barrett wrote in the letter’s first line.

Ouch.

If that wasn’t bad enough, the last line of the correspondence is even more damning for Barrett.

“Unlike the Marquette Interchange, the Zoo Interchange will stand long enough for us to resolve these issue.”

Apparently not.

For the next 60 days or so, several things are certain. More than two million cars will navigate onto city streets and alternative freeway routes. Commuters, truckers and emergency vehicles will face detours and delays because of an avoidable bridge closure in the most-used interchange in the entire state.

One thing that isn’t certain? Which are deteriorating faster, the bridges of the Zoo Interchange, or Tom Barrett’s gubernatorial hopes.

By Brian Fraley
 A MacIver Perspective

Copy of Barrett’s 2005 letter, here.

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Posted in mi perspectives | March 29, 2010 | | No Comments

Kind’s Vote Leads to Higher Co-Pays for Seniors in His District

When President Barack Obama signed the federal health care reform bill last Tuesday, one Democratic Congressman from Wisconsin was notably absent. Rep. Ron Kind (D-La Crosse) was elsewhere. Or as his spokeswoman told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, “He’s just not there OK.”

Kind might be forgiven his absence considering candidate Obama’s promise during the presidential campaign to allow the American people five days to review non-emergency legislation prior to signing it. Kind was probably looking forward to attending the ceremony on Saturday.

Of course, until eight days ago there was a chance that Kind would not have been at the bill signing because he voted in opposition. Kind’s Hamlet routine leading up to the vote was well documented by the MacIver Institute. As far as Democrats were concerned when doing their whip counts, Kind was “just not there.”

Prior to the vote, Kind signaled what it would take for the Democrats to get the vote home. Kind wanted changes in the Medicare reimbursement formulas that would benefit Wisconsin. Under the Senate bill, Medicare reimbursement would change in 2013 after recommendations by the Institute of Medicine and approval of Medicare officials.

At the last minute, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi made a change to the bill to increase Medicare payments by $800 million over the next two years to hospitals and physicians in Iowa, Wisconsin, Oregon and several other states. Section 1109 provides $400 billion in additional payment to hospitals located in counties in the bottom quartile as ranked “by risk-adjusted spending per Medicare enrollee.” Section 1108 also adds $400 billion.

Politico reported on the eve of the vote Pelosi’s change brought in at least three votes for federal health care reform, including Reps. Peter DeFazio of Oregon, Bruce Braley of Iowa, and Ron Kind of Wisconsin. As many as ten members total may have changed over to the “yes”column as a result of the changed reimbursement rate.

However, some critics are already questioning whether increasing Medicare payments is a step in the right direction since the federal health care reform law is supposed to reduce the federal deficit. The law accomplishes this by reducing Medicare spending by $400 billion over the next ten years. Increasing Medicare reimbursement in the short term is certainly counter to that goal, and sets the precedent for dismantling the future reductions in Medicare called for in the law.

Stephen Zuckerman, a senior fellow and health economist at the Urban Institute, questioned why low cost hospitals in the Midwest were receiving increased reimbursement. Zuckerman, who previously testified before Congress in favor of regional disparity of Medicare reimbursement, said, “The question is whether low-cost hospitals should be rewarded with higher payments or whether high cost hospitals should be penalized with lower payments.”

But of special concern to Wisconsin’s seniors is the change to Medicare part B as a result of Section 1108. Republicans on the House Ways and Means Committee say the increased reimbursement comes at a steep cost to seniors. Part B premiums will cost seniors $100 million more. Seniors living in the areas of the increased reimbursement, including seniors in Kind’s district, will have to pay a 20% copayment on the higher reimbursement rates.

The price of Kind’s vote for the federal health care law is increased Medicare costs, a precedent in dismantling any possible deficit reduction from the law, a reimbursement policy that does not encourage lower costs, and a nice chunk out of the fixed budgets of the seniors living in Kind’s district.

With his absence from the signing ceremony, Kind’s constituents didn’t even get one of President Obama’s pens.

On the other hand, Kind’s constituents may think he saw enough of the White House before the bill passed.

By James Wigderson
 Special Guest Perspective for the MacIver Institute

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Posted in mi perspectives | March 29, 2010 | | 1 Comment

Lord Monckton on Climate Change Battles

What comes now that the UN Climate Conference in Copenhagen has come and gone? Internationally known global warming skeptic, Lord Christopher Monckton, sat down with the MacIver Institute to share his thoughts on states like Wisconsin enacting their own climate laws and the effect that could have on national policy.

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Posted in mi perspectives | March 29, 2010 | | No Comments

25 by ‘25 Vision is Only a Dream

As you read this, the fate of the Democrat’s global warming bill is uncertain and the bill is being reshaped without public scrutiny.

Crafted from several of the recommendations of Governor Jim Doyle’s task force on global warming, the bill, which proponents are calling the “Clean Energy Jobs Act,” was loudly and forcefully panned since its unveiling earlier this year. 

As this graphic  notes, a lot of the components within the original proposal would impact your daily life.

And the MacIver Institute has raised several questions  that the bill’s supporters have yet to answer.

Over the last several weeks, the bill’s authors have been conducting closed-door, private meetings with fellow lawmakers and special interest groups to revise the bill.

However even if most of the more inane proposals are stripped out when a new, slimmed down global warming bill emerges sometime this spring, the most egregious element most likely will survive: the 25 by ‘25 provision.

The bill proposes that Wisconsin draw 25 percent of its energy by renewable sources by the year 2025. Right now the renewable portfolio standard (RPS) mandate is 10 percent by 2015. Currently it is estimated Wisocnsin gets five to six percent of it’s energy from newable sources

Moving to twenty percent certainly will be expensive for homeowners and manufacturers, and it may not even be possible. 

Howard Hayden is a professor of physics emeritus in the Physics Department of the University of Connecticut. 

I spoke with him recently to get his take on Wisconsin’s global warming bill. 

Despite his academic background and scientific bona fides, Hayden is plain spoken and to the point. Take for example, his initial review of the proposed 20 in 20 RPS Mandate: 

“It appears Wisconsin is trying to follow the stupidity of Colorado,” said Hayden, who also serves as the editor of The Energy Advocate, a monthly newsletter promoting energy and technology.

Earlier this week, Colorado Gov. Bill Ritter (D) signed into law a new requirement calling for Colorado to draw 30 percent of its energy from renewable sources by 2020.

No one can doubt that such requirements will increase the cost of energy.

To make matters worse, it is highly debatable that such requirements can actually be achieved.

“In Wisconsin it’s not windy enough, often enough and the sun doesn’t shine strong enough, long enough,” notes Hayden.

As we’ve noted in the past, Wisconsin is not wind-power friendly. Hayden agrees and further notes that neither are we home to enough powerful sunlight for enough of the year to make solar a feasible alternative to the fossil fuel capacity that this state has in abundance.

“They say that solar energy is forever; then why does it get dark at night?” jokes Hayden. 

Turning serious, Hayden particularly derides the Wisconsin bill’s provision that “by 2030 each newly constructed residential or commercial building will use no more energy than is generated on-site using renewable resources.”

Solar requires “A monstrously large storage facility to compensate for loss and you can only store it for a short period of time,” Hayden notes.

An energy neutral, mainly solar-powered home isn’t practical in Wisconsin.

“It isn’t going to be work for a number of practical reasons,” Hayden says. “The economies of scale evaporate when used on a micro level. It would have to be heavily subsidized in order for individuals” to use it.

It may sound nice, but the science doesn’t mesh with the politicians and activists’ dreams.

“To have purely solar powered home [in Wisconsin] would require such a large battery bank, and the juice just isn’t strong enough,” said Hayden.  “For example I certainly wouldn’t want to run a clothes dryer on it.”

All is not lost for Wisconsinites who wish to conserve energy, however. As Hayden points out, we don’t have to rely upon onerous and expensive government mandates to make a difference. 

“The best way to save energy is to have a very-well insulated home and smaller windows, since that’s where the most energy is wasted,” Hayden says. “You can do this at a much lower cost than renewable energy mandates and without government intrusion. People in Wisconsin are smart enough to know this, that’s why they’ve insulated their homes forever.”

Well said.

By Brian Fraley
 A MacIver Perspective

You can subscribe to The Energy Advocate or purchase one of Hayden’s many books, here.

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Posted in mi perspectives | March 26, 2010 | | 1 Comment

Wisconsin Attorney General Seeks Approval to Join Federal Suit Against Health Care Act
Doyle Says No, Now up to Legislature

MacIver News Service – Updated 11:40pm  Wisconsin Attorney General JB Van Hollen is seeking authority to join the federal lawsuit to block implementation of some aspects of the recently signed health care reform law.

“Based on my preliminary review of the Act, I have concluded that a sufficient legal basis exists to contest the individual mandate to carry health insurance or pay a penalty under the Act.” Van Hollen (R) wrote in a letter to Governor Jim Doyle (D), Senate Majority Leader Russ Decker (D-Wausau), Assembly Speaker Mike Sheridan (D-Janesville) and the minority leaders of the legislature.

In Wisconsin, the Attorney General must receive approval from the Governor or one house of the legislature in order to join a suit against the federal government.

He’ll need to get the approval from the legislature, because on Thursday afternoon, Governor Doyle denied Van Hollen’s request.

“As the state’s lawyer, I take very seriously my duty to protect our State’s sovereignty,” Van Hollen wrote. “Although several states have initiated legal action and there are likely to be more challenges to the Act made by other states and individual citizens, I believe that Wisconsin must act to protect its sovereign interests and the interests of its citizens of this State by bringing an action to contest the constitutionality of the Act.”

A bipartisan group of 13 attorneys general filed suit on Tuesday, claiming the sweeping reforms violate state government rights granted by the U.S. Constitution. It was filed electronically with a federal court in Pensacola, Florida, according to the office of Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum.

States joining the suit include: Alabama, Colorado, Idaho, Louisiana, Michigan, Nebraska, Pennsylvania, Texas, Utah, Washington, South Carolina, and South Dakota. That suit contends: “The Constitution nowhere authorizes the United States to mandate, either directly or under threat of penalty, that all citizens and legal residents have qualifying health care coverage.”

See more in our exclusive one-on-on video with Wisconsin Attorney General JB Van Hollen:

 

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Posted in News | March 25, 2010 | | 5 Comments

On Education, Florida Again Serves as Role Model for Wisconsin

On Education, Florida Again Serves as Role Model for Wisconsin

New Data Reaffirms Conclusions of MacIver Institute Report 

[Madison, Wisc…] New test scores reaffirm conclusions from a MacIver Institute study that Florida’s education reform policies should serve as a model for the state of Wisconsin.

“Florida has established a blueprint for success that Wisconsin should follow,” said MacIver Institute President Brett Healy. “Set high academic standards, expect students to work hard, support innovation and make it easier for talented individuals to pursue a career in teaching.”

The National Assessment of Educational Progress released the 2009 4th and 8th grade reading scores this morning. Wisconsin students, especially those in the disadvantaged subgroups, continued to do poorly. In Florida, they are seeing continued success.

Nationwide, the scores were flat, but the gains in Florida were impressive. Florida’s Hispanic students outscored or tied 30 statewide averages for all students (including Wisconsin) for students on 4th grade reading, Florida’s African Americans outscored or tied eight statewide averages. Those numbers are up from 15 and 2 states respectively in 2007.

Florida also made strong gains in 8th grade reading, led by big improvements for all the disadvantaged student subgroups.

“Eliminating the racial achievement gap is doable,” said Healy. “It is merely a matter of political will.”

Fourth-graders in Wisconsin posted an average score of 220 on the 500-point reading test, for a proficiency rate of 33 percent and a decline of three points from 2007.

With an average score of 266, Wisconsin’s eighth-graders surpassed the national average by four points, yet only 34% of Wisconsin’s eighth-graders were considered proficient in reading.

Last year, the MacIver Institute released a report by Dr. Matthew Ladner that compared Wisconsin and Florida’s position on three key issues: Academic Standards, Alternative Certification and School Choice.

Wisconsin lags the sunshine state in all three areas.

The MacIver study found that the gap between the achievement of minority students in Wisconsin and their counterparts is among the widest in the nation. To close the achievement gap, the MacIver Report suggests Wisconsin follow Florida’s lead in three areas:

• On School Choice, the comparison between Florida and Wisconsin actually involves what Florida did right, rather than what Wisconsin did wrong. Both states have pursued expanded parental choice options, but Florida has simply done more.

• Alternative certification opens whole new pools of talent for entry into the profession. When judging the racial and ethnic composition of the teaching workforce compared to that of their population over the age of 21, Florida, which has embraced genuine alternative certification for teachers, has one of the most racially integrated public school teaching forces in the nation. By contrast, Wisconsin schools have only half the number of minority teachers as there are minority adults, aged 21 and older, in the population.

• The report finds the largest gap comes when comparing the states’ academic standards. In fact, Wisconsin’s accountability standards are embarrassingly far off from Florida’s; with what might be the most lax academic standards in the country.

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Posted in News | March 24, 2010 | | 2 Comments

What Would Wisconsin’s Global Warming Bill Mean for You?

Attention in Madison now turns to controversial issue of “Global Warming.” This interactive graphic shows some of the ways Wisconsin’s Global Warming Bill, dubbed the ‘Clean Energy Jobs Act’ by its proponents, would impact you.

 

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Posted in News | March 23, 2010 | | No Comments
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