A group of big business lobbyists is pushing a radical change to Wisconsin’s tax structure — one that would give huge tax cuts to the wealthy and powerful while shifting the responsibility of paying taxes to people with lower incomes. The change would also require significant cuts to the critical services that Wisconsin businesses, schools, and communities need to thrive. This one-two punch would make it more difficult for Wisconsin families to get by, while funneling additional resources into the pockets of the top 1%.
Showing posts with label WMC. Show all posts
Showing posts with label WMC. Show all posts
Wednesday, December 29, 2021
Only The Little People Pay Taxes
Proposal Cuts Taxes for 1%
Sunday, April 26, 2020
Stick To Manufacturing & Commerce
WMC Unveils It's Plan To Reopen Wisconsin Business
Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce (WMC) - the name says it all. WMC are not infectious disease experts. Why should anyone care what their pandemic-opinion is?
They're more worried about their bottom-line (which is understandable) than the people who help make that possible for them. The WMC is fighting to make it harder for police and fire fighters to get workers compensation. I've had my issues with the pay-structure of police and fire departments. But using a pandemic to suppress others while lobbying for your own pocket-book, that's pretty low.
WMC, stick to manufacturing and commerce. We'll let the scientists, doctors, nurses and experts handle the pandemic. We'll let them decide when things can get back to "normal".
Saturday, January 13, 2018
So Much For The Local Control Republicans Are Always Preaching
Here they go again. Republicans love to say one thing and do another. They love to accuse the Democrats of doing something that the Republicans are actually committing. Republicans are always giving lip-service to local control, the will of the people and localities being able to govern as they best see fit. I guess what I'm trying to say is that the Republicans are opportunistic, duplicitous, self-serving liars.
Republican Bills Prohibit Local Labor Rules
In Wisconsin, especially the administration of Scott Walker, the state feels an endless need to meddle in local control. Again, the exact opposite of the bullshit they spout when they're in front of the camera, stumping during campaigns or writing their opinion pieces in the local papers.
Just as they meddled in Milwaukee's residency requirement (against their supposed dogma), they now want to forbid local rules for wages, hours, overtime, benefits and discrimination for businesses being contracted by those localities.
This only benefits labor exploitation. This suppresses wages. As usual, this gives the upper hand to those who've already got too much hand.
For Further Reading:
What Will Local Control Hypocrisy Cost The GOP In North Carolina?
Local Control Takes Backseat To Power For State GOP
GOP Abandons Local Control For Top-Down Governance
Hypocrisy In GOP-led State Government Overreach
Conservative Hypocrisy On Local Power
States Rights For Bathrooms, But Not For Marijuana
Blue Cities Want To Make Their Own Rules. Red State Won't Let Them.
Republican Bills Prohibit Local Labor Rules
In Wisconsin, especially the administration of Scott Walker, the state feels an endless need to meddle in local control. Again, the exact opposite of the bullshit they spout when they're in front of the camera, stumping during campaigns or writing their opinion pieces in the local papers.
Just as they meddled in Milwaukee's residency requirement (against their supposed dogma), they now want to forbid local rules for wages, hours, overtime, benefits and discrimination for businesses being contracted by those localities.
This only benefits labor exploitation. This suppresses wages. As usual, this gives the upper hand to those who've already got too much hand.
For Further Reading:
What Will Local Control Hypocrisy Cost The GOP In North Carolina?
Local Control Takes Backseat To Power For State GOP
GOP Abandons Local Control For Top-Down Governance
Hypocrisy In GOP-led State Government Overreach
Conservative Hypocrisy On Local Power
States Rights For Bathrooms, But Not For Marijuana
Blue Cities Want To Make Their Own Rules. Red State Won't Let Them.
Saturday, June 7, 2014
Sunday, March 1, 2009
Hey, Private Sector, Get Away From My Health Care
Torinus is at it again.
The public sector can't do health care right and is at fault for high costs, yet the private sector (as usual) is a bastion of efficiency.
Just a curious aside ... Has Torinus ever mentioned Serigraph's lack of paying taxes in his column? As I have noted in an earlier post, "He is the chairman of Serigraph Inc., which paid nothing in Wisconsin corporate taxes in 2003 and 2004. He is also a board member of Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce (the lobby for Wisconsin big business), an organization where even when it's members pay no taxes at all still feel taxation is too high." Anyways...
The ever-increasing cost of health care has nothing to do with inflated Medicare charges by private insurers? Nor does it have anything to do with the ridiculous gouged prices charged by pharmaceutical companies? As I expanded upon previously (here and here), "Medicare is a quandary, but not because of it’s entitlement issue. It’s because of managed care and the pharmaceutical industries skyrocketing profits. Seniors consume the most medical care and prescriptions -- private companies are gouging the government through Medicare reimbursement with inflated charges (yet another, in essence, subsidy to big business). We don’t even use our numbers to negotiate prescription drug-price deals for buying in volume (in fact, this was strictly prohibited in Bush’s Medicare bill)."
Public sector costs do not, as Torinus implies, "demonstrate the inability of public sector payers to purchase health care effectively." The public sector tries to pay the cost rather than passing it onto it's employees or making them go without, which happens to be the private model. So much for actually respecting and valuing your workforce.
Nowhere does he mention the overcharges and fraud taking place at the Medicare/caid systems expense (private insurers falsifying documents to steal from the government). Nowhere does he mention the inflated charges the pharmaceutical companies demand and how this inflates our overall medical costs. Both of these factors add billions to the cost of our medical care each year.
Torinus, regarding the private sector, states, "...employees are offered plans with high deductibles and offsetting personal accounts by employers. It becomes their money." This is the grand ole trick - it's your money (except when it's needed to bailout AIG, Citibank, et al). Employers are going to pay less and cover you less, but you can use your money to find health care, and because we're so nice we've gathered a few options for you to choose from. Again, by extension, playing up the ownership society and pretending every American is an actuarial/investment wizard, which is delusional. This is similar to the arguments we've heard about privatizing Social Security. The same thing that would happend to retirees 401Ks during a bust in the market is exactly the type of care we could expect from this private sector model.
And, for Torinus to have this holier-than-thou preachy tone about the efficiency and accountability of the corporate community and the private sector is laughable. These guys just drove the economy off a cliff, and now they have the audacity to try and tell us how to put things back together. Since we've adopted managed care, medical costs have exploded. Since we've adopted defined-contribution (rather then defined-benefit) retirements plans, our retirements have become more volatile.
The private sector is based on profits. They make those profits by only insuring the healthiest people and denying care to the others. Health care is a right not something to be rationed by the dictates of monied interests. We should not be moving toward a caste system of health care in America.
Until federal restrictions cap cost growth, until the government reestablishes its control over the health care system, more money will be needed. Making workers pay more or going without can hardly be considered sound management.
We have deregulated and privatized up the wazoo in this country. It hasn't worked. It's time to have some other motives driving our public policy rather than just profit and greed by private companies.
The public sector can't do health care right and is at fault for high costs, yet the private sector (as usual) is a bastion of efficiency.
Just a curious aside ... Has Torinus ever mentioned Serigraph's lack of paying taxes in his column? As I have noted in an earlier post, "He is the chairman of Serigraph Inc., which paid nothing in Wisconsin corporate taxes in 2003 and 2004. He is also a board member of Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce (the lobby for Wisconsin big business), an organization where even when it's members pay no taxes at all still feel taxation is too high." Anyways...
The ever-increasing cost of health care has nothing to do with inflated Medicare charges by private insurers? Nor does it have anything to do with the ridiculous gouged prices charged by pharmaceutical companies? As I expanded upon previously (here and here), "Medicare is a quandary, but not because of it’s entitlement issue. It’s because of managed care and the pharmaceutical industries skyrocketing profits. Seniors consume the most medical care and prescriptions -- private companies are gouging the government through Medicare reimbursement with inflated charges (yet another, in essence, subsidy to big business). We don’t even use our numbers to negotiate prescription drug-price deals for buying in volume (in fact, this was strictly prohibited in Bush’s Medicare bill)."
Public sector costs do not, as Torinus implies, "demonstrate the inability of public sector payers to purchase health care effectively." The public sector tries to pay the cost rather than passing it onto it's employees or making them go without, which happens to be the private model. So much for actually respecting and valuing your workforce.
Nowhere does he mention the overcharges and fraud taking place at the Medicare/caid systems expense (private insurers falsifying documents to steal from the government). Nowhere does he mention the inflated charges the pharmaceutical companies demand and how this inflates our overall medical costs. Both of these factors add billions to the cost of our medical care each year.
Torinus, regarding the private sector, states, "...employees are offered plans with high deductibles and offsetting personal accounts by employers. It becomes their money." This is the grand ole trick - it's your money (except when it's needed to bailout AIG, Citibank, et al). Employers are going to pay less and cover you less, but you can use your money to find health care, and because we're so nice we've gathered a few options for you to choose from. Again, by extension, playing up the ownership society and pretending every American is an actuarial/investment wizard, which is delusional. This is similar to the arguments we've heard about privatizing Social Security. The same thing that would happend to retirees 401Ks during a bust in the market is exactly the type of care we could expect from this private sector model.
And, for Torinus to have this holier-than-thou preachy tone about the efficiency and accountability of the corporate community and the private sector is laughable. These guys just drove the economy off a cliff, and now they have the audacity to try and tell us how to put things back together. Since we've adopted managed care, medical costs have exploded. Since we've adopted defined-contribution (rather then defined-benefit) retirements plans, our retirements have become more volatile.
The private sector is based on profits. They make those profits by only insuring the healthiest people and denying care to the others. Health care is a right not something to be rationed by the dictates of monied interests. We should not be moving toward a caste system of health care in America.
Until federal restrictions cap cost growth, until the government reestablishes its control over the health care system, more money will be needed. Making workers pay more or going without can hardly be considered sound management.
We have deregulated and privatized up the wazoo in this country. It hasn't worked. It's time to have some other motives driving our public policy rather than just profit and greed by private companies.
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
Buying The Law
Sunday, February 15, 2009
Development Needs Research
In Sunday's Journal-Sentinel, John Torinus has a bullet-pointed, long-winded sermon on the beauty and stimulative-nature of entrepreneurship (whatever that means). Even his title has it backwards.
There is a tone when he states, "...a heavy dependence on its historic manufacturing sector." As if we should divest ourselves of our large market share, our competitive advantage, and a continued focus of the success of one of our most lucrative sectors. Manufacturing is generally a higher paying, high value-added industry. This should be a prime focus of our research and development efforts. The hits to employment in this industry over the last few decades have more to do with trade politics (and slave labor) than with efficiency or productivity.
He also feels we should capitalize on our research and development capabilities and stengthen them. OK. Sounds good. Although, typically this type of activity is either heavily subsized by the government, or directly funded by the government through the university system and organizations such as the National Institutes of Health. Has Torinus suddenly become a tax-and-spender? Or is he just citing another example of where government and bureaucrats can be highly effective and actually improve society?
Much of his opinions regarding UWM -- it's construction projects, and it's innovative leadership, and the giant strides it has made in recent years -- are spot on. And, hopefully UWM will choose a downtown rather than a suburban location. As a former student and employee at UWM, I'm proud of their progress and their scholarship.
[Mr. Torinus mentions, "The R&D has to be turned into patents, licenses, and start-up companies." Here are numerous articles by Dean Baker that disprove the economic efficiency of patents: A, B, C, D, E, and F. The money is made being the first to create the idea, not holding that creative capacity from others to build upon it. That causes long-term inefficiency.]
But after the public sector nurtures these industries and ideas, Torinus feels we should, "...transferring the basic technology to commercial applications in the real world of business." If public entities are producing technologies and products the market wants, aren't they applying their know-how in the real world of business? And, competing quite effectively it seems. We should turn over the innovative capacity to the private sector so they can make highly leveraged bets, create gains for a select few, watch them mismanage and corrupt the endeavor, and see the whole thing collapse...to then have to be cleaned up by taxpayers (the public sector)?
It seems taxpayers' money is actually better managed and spent by the government than the private sector. The Republican propaganda campaign over the last 35 years to dispute this fact and muddle the discussion about such seems impervious to reason and clear-thinking. We'd all be better if we just ignored them.
Other than that, I'm all for Torinus' bullet-pointed research spending ideas. But, lets keep them state- or local(ly)-run centers, having well-paid jobs with health care and funded retirement plans.
"Sharing is caring," as Mr. Rogers said. If a select few would share just a minuscule amount (pay their fair share of taxes), they could initiate massive change and end the impoverished conditions of the majority on this planet. The only thing standing in the way of this is political cover, masking greed and entrenched interests.
Obviously all the ideas Mr. Torinus feels should be funded would have to be public programs. If this was "easy money" wouldn't private corporations already be making the investment? Of course, they only care about short-term gains. How we fund our societal institutions and the priorities of such, how we reach for sustainability and prosperity, these are long-term policy issues. Concerns rightfully addressed and managed by the public sector.
But WMCers and the right-wing bow to a different savior. They must keep their shareholders happy. You don't want to piss off Wall Street. Wall Street it now seems has become our defacto government. How about the change we believe in is taking our government back.
With some populist spin struggling to conceal the underlying conservative positions and giveaways to the private sector, this piece seems nothing more than typical WMC rhetoric from Torinus.
There is a tone when he states, "...a heavy dependence on its historic manufacturing sector." As if we should divest ourselves of our large market share, our competitive advantage, and a continued focus of the success of one of our most lucrative sectors. Manufacturing is generally a higher paying, high value-added industry. This should be a prime focus of our research and development efforts. The hits to employment in this industry over the last few decades have more to do with trade politics (and slave labor) than with efficiency or productivity.
He also feels we should capitalize on our research and development capabilities and stengthen them. OK. Sounds good. Although, typically this type of activity is either heavily subsized by the government, or directly funded by the government through the university system and organizations such as the National Institutes of Health. Has Torinus suddenly become a tax-and-spender? Or is he just citing another example of where government and bureaucrats can be highly effective and actually improve society?
Much of his opinions regarding UWM -- it's construction projects, and it's innovative leadership, and the giant strides it has made in recent years -- are spot on. And, hopefully UWM will choose a downtown rather than a suburban location. As a former student and employee at UWM, I'm proud of their progress and their scholarship.
[Mr. Torinus mentions, "The R&D has to be turned into patents, licenses, and start-up companies." Here are numerous articles by Dean Baker that disprove the economic efficiency of patents: A, B, C, D, E, and F. The money is made being the first to create the idea, not holding that creative capacity from others to build upon it. That causes long-term inefficiency.]
But after the public sector nurtures these industries and ideas, Torinus feels we should, "...transferring the basic technology to commercial applications in the real world of business." If public entities are producing technologies and products the market wants, aren't they applying their know-how in the real world of business? And, competing quite effectively it seems. We should turn over the innovative capacity to the private sector so they can make highly leveraged bets, create gains for a select few, watch them mismanage and corrupt the endeavor, and see the whole thing collapse...to then have to be cleaned up by taxpayers (the public sector)?
It seems taxpayers' money is actually better managed and spent by the government than the private sector. The Republican propaganda campaign over the last 35 years to dispute this fact and muddle the discussion about such seems impervious to reason and clear-thinking. We'd all be better if we just ignored them.
Other than that, I'm all for Torinus' bullet-pointed research spending ideas. But, lets keep them state- or local(ly)-run centers, having well-paid jobs with health care and funded retirement plans.
"Sharing is caring," as Mr. Rogers said. If a select few would share just a minuscule amount (pay their fair share of taxes), they could initiate massive change and end the impoverished conditions of the majority on this planet. The only thing standing in the way of this is political cover, masking greed and entrenched interests.
Obviously all the ideas Mr. Torinus feels should be funded would have to be public programs. If this was "easy money" wouldn't private corporations already be making the investment? Of course, they only care about short-term gains. How we fund our societal institutions and the priorities of such, how we reach for sustainability and prosperity, these are long-term policy issues. Concerns rightfully addressed and managed by the public sector.
But WMCers and the right-wing bow to a different savior. They must keep their shareholders happy. You don't want to piss off Wall Street. Wall Street it now seems has become our defacto government. How about the change we believe in is taking our government back.
With some populist spin struggling to conceal the underlying conservative positions and giveaways to the private sector, this piece seems nothing more than typical WMC rhetoric from Torinus.
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