Do The Right Thing - Observations from Mark Block

Congressman Paul Ryan has introduced his Roadmap for America’s Future.

Many people say it has no chance of becoming law and being implemented.

In 1977 I was a legislative aide to the late Congressman Bill Steiger. He introduced legislation that rolled back the capital gains tax rate from 39.9% to 28%.

Everyone - including then President Jimmy Carter siad it had no chance to becoming law. However the country was demanding change. The country was in trouble. It passed.

Bill Steiger, then a young 37 year old Congressman from Wisconsin made history by doing the right thing and beating all odds.

Can history repeat itself with a 36 year old Congressman from Wisconsin 31 years later? Will Paul Ryan’s Roadmap for America’s Future become law?

America is in trouble. If the American public demands change - history can repeat itself.

In 1976, when Gerald Ford was President, Governor Pat Lucey appointed Shirley Abrahamson to the Wisconsin Supreme Court.

Justice Abrahamson has served the state a long - long time. Perhaps too long.

This week she gave a speech heavy on the need for the judical branch to be non-partisan and above all else non-political.

When approached after her elequent remarks by an admirer that congratulated her on the remarks she said:

“IT WAS JUST A SPEECH”.

Perhaps the voters of the great state of Wisconsin will Do The Right Thing and retire Justice Shirley Abrahamson in Spring of 2009.

Stevens Point Wisconsin was the place to be this weekend if you wanted to observe the Wisconsin Republican Party and here are some observations.

Congressman Paul Ryan rocks!!! I have said it many times-I hope to live long enough to see him President of the United States or at least my kids will be able to vote for him.

Congressman James Sensenbrenner told it like it should be told. In blasting Speaker Mike Huebsch he make it clear that Republicans will could be in the minority in the Wisconsin Assembly with leadership that governs like the GOP Congress did prior to the elections of 2006.

“Unfortunately, Speaker Huebsch decided to push it [the budget repair bill] through the Assembly.  And he did so in a manner which does not fix the problems of overtaxing, and replaces transportation fees with more state borrowing - exactly the same move which helped destroy the Republican brand.  Everyone can see this is a political shell game that simply postpones the hard decisions.  Sometimes, leadership consists of saying “NO” to bad policies, rather than going along to get along.”

Congressman Tom Petri did not attend the convention. He was only Republican Congressman from Wisconsin that voted with the Democrats this week for a tax increase.

County Executive Scott Walker is Doing The Right Things to prepare for a run for the Governor’s office in 2010.

Chairman Reince Priebus is one of my heros. He is doing an incredible job in rebuilding a party that lost “it’s brand”, and not only talks the talk - but walks the walk.

However as you looked around the convention hall you had to wonder why the Waukesha County delegation seats were almost empty -

McCain will carry Wisconsin.

The Wisconsin Department of Revenue recently sent over 1,000 letters to people that buy cigarettes on the Internet and told them to cough up the tax owed.

I predicted last year that raising the tax on a pack of cigarettes would decrease the total amount of taxes the state collected due to people buying on the Internet and the dramatic increase in smuggled products to escape paying the absurb tax that hits the poorest of people.

(side bar: I have a very biased opinion cause I smoke)

I hope to write in the next couple months how much tax revenues went down because of the tax increase. Perhaps our legislature will actually repeal the tax increase - right

What group is next to get letters from the State Department of Revenue??? Do you buy anything over the Internet??

p.s. If you don’t think that smuggling is taking place - here is a good article from the Wall Street Journal.

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel or more appropriately Dave Umhoefer recently won the Pulitzer prize for investigative journalism.

Looks like another great piece of investigate reporting by AP reporter Ryan Foley.  He uncovered more cronyism in the Doyle administration and totally unethical behavior by lawyer, former Governor Tony Earl. 

Political hire costs Wisconsin taxpayers $346,000

Editorial - Don’t be bluffed by budget fear - Go ahead., make the taxpayers’ day.

Beloit Daily News, 5 5 2008

ACCORDING TO THE Doyle administration, unless Wisconsin decision-makers come up with a plan to fill the $527 million budget hole soon, there will be no choice but to cut state payments for schools, municipalities, construction projects and more.

OK. So what?

Not that we’re supportive of the dilly-dallying taking place in Madison, mind you. Those full-time elected legislators - you know, the ones who only spent about four weeks in session last year - have few responsibilities more pressing than establishing the state’s budget.  The failure, again, to manage the state’s finances in a timely and responsible way just adds to the mounting evidence that the people have been poorly served.

THE POINT is that if it becomes necessary to cut … then cut!

That’s what responsible budget managers do, from coast-to-coast, in the private sector, which does not have the luxury of coercively adding revenue (read: raising taxes) or resorting to the kind of accounting legerdemain that is a staple of government.

One need look no further than last week’s announcement that General Motors is shelving the second shift in Janesville, putting some 750 workers out on the street. That is a painful process that will reverberate across the Stateline Area. Does anyone think General Motors’ managers wanted to make that truly tough choice?

By comparison, state government’s challenge is modest.

WE’VE SAID IT before, we’ll say it again. So long as every government employee - state workers, school teachers, city staffers and so on - can expect job security, annual raises and the kind of benefit packages that are rare as snowballs in Miami, stop trying to tell taxpayers how hard decisions are being made.

They’re not. And government does nothing for its sinking credibility by claiming otherwise. The answer is smaller government, coupled with an attitude adjustment by the people.

The Founders did not intend for government to meet every need or touch every corner of citizens’ lives. In fact, the Founders surely would be mortified by today’s bloated bureaucracies and endless demands on the people’s purse.

I have been travelling the state in past couple weeks and have heard quite a few stories of people that want to do the right thing and some stories of people that think they want to do the right thing - but seem to be totally clueless.

Case in point - Representative Kagen from the Green Bay area. Seems he told a group of loggers that are in serious financial hardships for a variety of reasons that he needed to check with his friends with butterfly collections on the impact to their hobby before commenting on restrictive policies of the federal government on the logging industry.

I heard this story sitting a restaurant in the early morning in the most northern part of Wisconsin. The restaurant - usually empty at this time of day - was packed with loggers that didn’t have work to do because of the extreme actions of the environmentalist.

What a perfect commercial - Congressman Kagen checking with his friends on the impact of their butterflys while the north woods of Wisconsin sees jobs lost - businesses closed - families unable to make ends meet - while his friends are trying to determine the impact of their butterfly collection. 

In my opinion Kagen has no clue on Doing The Right Thing.

James Troupis, a friend and Great American is teaching law in Russia.

Fascinating reading on his blog. Brings tears to your eyes to realize how much our freedom means to the Russians.

From Russia With Law

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Court elections give voters needed voice

By Maureen Martin

The polls had barely closed in Wisconsin ’s judicial election — in which the conservative beat the liberal for the second time in a row — when liberals began calling the election a “tragedy ” in a “broken ” judicial system and vowed to fix it. But the system ain ‘t broke. Actually, the election was a stellar example of democracy in action.