Curmudgeon's Corner

This is very dry but is, unfortunately, a required base of knowledge.

MATC has four locations: downtown Milwaukee (2 Million + square feet), Mequon (200,000 square feet), Oak Creek (318,500 square feet), and West Allis (177,000 square feet). It is one of the 16 state technical colleges in Wisconsin. It offers some 200 degree, diploma, certificate and apprentice programs, and is the largest technical school in the Wisconsin system.

MATC has a board of directors consisting of nine appointed members. That board, coupled with the MATC administration, is responsible for preparing/approving the annual budget and negotiating the several union agreements under which it operates. There are three unions representing full-time and part-time employees.

The study by CRG and GTG (which we’re using for this series) cited a total of 1,484 full-time equivalent (FTE) employees in the 1998/1999 school year with 1,412 FTEs in the 2006/2007 school year. The number of employees has gone down; a good thing. There were, in the 2006/2007 school year, 81 administrators, 723 other staff, and 608 teachers/specialists on staff. For every teacher there are 1.3 administrators and other staff; not such a good thing.

From the 1991/1992 to the 2006/2007 school year, the consumer price index (CPI) rose 55% while the MATC property tax levy increased 151%, nearly three times as much as the CPI. Had the MATC budget increased only at the pace of the CPI, the taxing district would have saved some $800 Million in revenue from all sources including property tax.

This runaway spending has occurred in the face of a declining number of FTEs with only a slight increase in student enrollment (only 2% over the past ten years). Spending has outpaced the CPI by about a 3 to 1 margin.

How is this possible?

It is quite simple. An unelected board with no taxpayer accountability appears to have catered to the whims of the special interests on campus; the educational literati and the unions.

It is assumed that our village board will pass its own resolution on October 1st to petition for removal from the MATC district and to be reassigned to the WCTC district. That is great and ought to be applauded by each of us.

The Germantown school board has already begun the process of working with the Quarles and Brady law firm following its 7-0 vote. It will develop the arguments supporting our petition. That effort is expected to be completed by November 12th.

It has already become very clear that we Germantown citizens face a daunting task. We are up against “the system”. We are about to see the true nature of MATC. It will pull all the stops to save the $5 Million that you and I give them annually. It will spend taxpayer dollars to lobby each and every member of the state technical college board. It is almost farcical that our own money can be used against us in our battle to regain control of some of our own money. If MATC wants to spend more for lobbying, it just raises our tax load.

But, that is “the system”.

The king, however, has no clothes; there are very significant issues that far surpass mere dollars (although these issues involve the waste of millions of our dollars). These issues have been pointedly made in a study released in 2006 by the Citizens for Responsible Government (CRG) and the Greendale Taxpayers Group.

We’ll take a careful look at that study. I think you’ll be as troubled as am I over these revelations. I’ll wager that you’ll get to the point of saying, “I’m fed up and I’m not going to take it anymore”!

We are being subjected to an unmerciful political debate over “The Budget”. That needn’t have been going on for so long, absent the logjam between Democrats and Republicans. Who is at fault?

First, there is now a gag order placed on the continuing debate by the Governor; he wants no leaks from now on. Was that issued in order to promote agreement? Was it issued so that the Democrats could try to avoid being branded as the culprits?

Second, the Democrats in the Senate finally admitted that they would give up the Healthy Wisconsin initiative that would’ve added $1.5 Billion to our state’s grab from our pockets. Was this in the budget simply as a future ‘give-away’ during the extended debate?

The Democrats conditioned that display of ‘statesmanship’ on the fact that the Republicans in the Assembly had to agree to accept the rest of the Governor’s budget intact…a mere $1.7 Billion grab from our pockets. The Republicans refused, so apparently Healthy Wisconsin is back in the mix along with its $1.5 Billion cost, even though the Governor has stated he didn’t want it.

The Republicans, instead, passed two Assembly bills that effectively eliminated the threat of $600 Million in property tax increases. These bills agreed to the Governor’s original budget requests for significantly increased funding. The Assembly sent those on to the Senate in order that the citizens of Wisconsin could be spared the property tax increase.

State Superintendent, Elizabeth Burmaster, made her feelings known by stating that the impasse needed resolution by September 28th. If not, she said she would have to authorize the $600 Million in property tax increases by letting school districts and local governments add to their tax take in that amount. I may be mistaken, but I thought that state law stipulated October 15th as the actual deadline for that decision needing to be taken.

The final act has unfolded with the Senate, controlled by Democrats, refusing to even look at the two Assembly bills that would resolve the $600 Million property tax increase. If they did so, they would then lose any remaining leverage over the Republicans on the much larger $1.7 Billion dollar tax increase them and the Governor desire.

This appears to be a real life definition of Hobson’s choice: choose any budget you want, as long as it goes up by too much!

We are pawns in what has become a huge political game. We are pawns because the Democrats seem to have gotten themselves snookered by the Republicans. If there is anything a politician can’t stand, it is being outflanked by the opposition; especially when the opposition has fewer seats in government.

Forget that there are real people who will be grievously damaged by their antics. Forget that we will become known for taking the highest single tax increase ever for any state in the union. Forget that we will drive businesses from our state, both existing as well as those that might have chosen to be here in the future. Forget that we’ll drive fixed income retirees from our state. Forget that we’ll move ever-closer to the “nanny state”.

Forget all that; the game is the important thing!

Really?

The invitation extended by Columbia University to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, President of Iran, to speak to its student body was simply wrong in my opinion.

He gained; Columbia and we lost. That could’ve been avoided had the brilliant leaders of Columbia University simply not invited Ahmadinejad to speak. Our intellectual elite seem to think they can debate this man. They cannot for several reasons. He has no morality about him to which we can equate. He states outright lies over and over again. He denies things we’ve heard come from his mouth before. He insists Iran has no interest in nuclear weapons, and yet he brags of the tens of thousands of centrifuges that can only be producing weapons grade materials. He insists that Iran is not active in Iraq, yet we capture his operatives on a regular basis. Iranian-produced weapons are used to kill our troops weekly in Iraq, and now even in Afghanistan.

He made no surprising statements. He admitted to nothing. He belittled the introduction/accusation delivered by the Columbia University president during his introduction; and Ahmadinejad won loud applause from the assembled audience for having done so.

Fortunately, he was not permitted to go near the site of destruction, ground zero, on 9/11. Had that been permitted, we would’ve seen the photos appearing all over the world with him reciting his thoughts about the martyrs while he stood on that hallowed ground.

In short, Ahmadinejad scored, what for him was, a huge PR victory. He scored that at our expense.

I have long been one of those “crazies” who wonder why we’re still involved with the United Nations given its total and complete ineffectiveness. The only two things the UN is good at are consumption of huge amounts of money (the majority of which seems to come from us), and scandalous corruption.

Maybe we should simply use the laws of eminent domain to reclaim our land. Let the UN go someplace else without our money with which to pay them. That would’ve caused Ahmadinejad to never have been invited to set foot on our soil. Columbia would not have invited him if he weren’t going to have been here. That would’ve been good.

Building Needs:

IF we are successful in being able to move from the MATC tax district to the WCTC tax district, the approximate savings to taxpayers would amount to about $1,650,000. Remember that number when we next confront a referendum seeking money for building maintenance and repair to correct the decade of forced neglect. Maybe it is time for us to put something back into physical plant and maybe this would be a relatively painless source for that money.

Technical College Boards:

Our 16 local technical college boards must be responsive to the electorate and the only way for that to be accomplished is if they are elected. Today, our local technical college boards are appointed. These are the boards, by the way, that have been granted taxing authority. The appointees have no real obligation to the public. They may instead feel obligated to the person or people who appointed them. That doesn’t equate to a system that is responsive to the taxpayer. The state board discussed below has no taxing authority. Bills have been introduced in both the Senate and the Assembly that would correct this local board problem. Senator Darling was instrumental in developing and bringing this bill to life, and I believe the Assembly version is supported by Rep. Jeskewitz, as well. Let them know you are supportive, too.

State System Board:

The big IF in my first subject is borne out by looking at the current state technical college board. The board is comprised of appointees of the sitting Governor and consists of:

-one employer representative: Allan Kehl, Kenosha County Executive
-one employee representative: Phil Neuenfeldt, State AFL-CIO
-one farmer representative: Ann Greenheck of Lone Rock
-the State Superintendent
-the Secretary of Workforce Development
-the President of the University of Wisconsin System
-six public members: Michael Rosen, MATC Professor & Union Officer/ Brent Smith, attorney and UW Board of Regents Member, La Crosse/ S. Mark Tyler, President of OEM Fabricators, Neillsville/ Jose Vasquez, Director of Operations, Next Door Foundation, Milwaukee/ Peggy Rosenzweig, Member of UW Board of Regents, Wauwatosa
-one student member: Vanessa Pickar, Western Tech, La Crosse

It appears that every member has the requisite credentials. The simple political reality, however, is that Germantown has a significant disadvantage as it attempts to move from the MATC district to the WCTC district.

You, the taxpayer and voter, need to assert your feelings and desires with your elected representatives (both are supportive of this move, by the way) and you need to interact with the state board members to let them know your feelings. If they do not hear the cries for redress, they will likely not honor our petition.

You can access the state board site at:

http://www.wtcsystem.edu/board/members/bios.htm

The Germantown school board voted tonight to approve a resolution to petition the state technical college board to be moved from the MATC taxing district to the WCTC taxing district. This petition is felt likely to be echoed by the Germantown village board when it takes action on a similar petition, even though it had originally talked about a move into the Moraine Park Technical College taxing district.

If this were to be approved by the state board, it likely would take effect on July 1, 2008.

The impact in today’s dollars would be the difference between tax rates of $1.77 in the MATC district, as compared with $1.11 in the WCTC district.

There would be no impact on students who would still be eligible to attend any technical college in the state without penalties.

A bill in the Wisconsin legislature would have all technical college boards elected rather than appointed. That bill is felt to be a direct result of the Germantown secession movement.

Driving past McDonalds this morning on my way to the Post Office, I noted the signage on the South side of their building:

2 For 3 on McGriddles

This has to be one of the very first times that this marketing giant has chosen to extract a price increase of 50% by posing it as a sale.

Marketing genius, pure and simple…very simple I fear.

I read of the settlement between MATC and the American Federation of Teachers Local 212 in the morning Journal Sentinel. As I reread that article, I began to better understand the “disconnect” between the MATC leadership and the taxpayers that support that institution.

Bobbie Webber, MATC Board Chair, is quoted as saying, “I think it is huge. Clearly it shows we are moving in a direction to address some of the fiduciary issues. We’re in an arena where there’s a shared liability.”

I must agree that it seems this is a very significant settlement, but it still has a long way to go before it gets into the neighborhood of where the taxpayers supporting MATC have been for years.

This is indicative, to me at least, of the systemic issues that continue to exist at MATC. Bloated compensation and bloated benefits budgets appear to begin to explain the tax rate differences between the three systems involved in the current discussions with our village and school officials.

If we look at the private sector, we see that, in virtually every instance, there has long been a sharing of premium costs and not just a co-pay on an office visit and on prescriptions. The “huge” breakthrough now has the union members paying a whopping 4.4% of the total costs. The private sector averages are 20% or better. And, that is for the employees who even have health insurance provided by their employer.

We’re not privy to what those co-pays were compared to what was just approved. We’re told that “nobody on either side got everything they wanted”. That’s expected in a contract re-negotiation. But who started where, compared to who ended where? That would be at least as informative, if not more so.

The old canard (that held that public sector employees deserved better benefits due to the differences in pay rates) lost much of its impact years ago. Especially so, when one looks at the compensation levels inside MATC even today after this “huge” breakthrough.

We need to push the move toward a different technical college taxing district in spite of the fact that our Superintendent is now a member of the MATC board.

Sexual offenders will be limited to fewer areas of Germantown as the result of action taken last evening.

And, only sex offenders who were previously residents of Germantown will be permitted to be placed here upon their release.

That is more like it should be, although there is certainly the potential for a court challenge as we go forward. Other communities in Wisconsin have enacted or are actively considering such actions.

With our weak-kneed laws concerning sexual offenders, this is a step in the right direction. The idea that those classified as repeat offenders can be given such easy access to our children is foreign to what any right-minded citizen would advocate. And, the idea that such people can be placed anywhere, not just where they lived, is equally as distressing.

Remember that the new sexual offender locator system is available here on the Germantown Now website.

Over the past two months, I have probably gone through the drive-thru lane on the order of five times including this morning.

Each of those times has been intended to yield one hot cake and sausage breakfast and one big breakfast. None of those trips has yielded what I ordered (and paid for, by the way). I received two hot cake and sausage breakfasts one morning. I received no potatoes on three mornings, including today. I received no plastic ware on two occasions. I received jelly on only three of the five days.

On one of those days, I thought…”I’ll show them”… and actually looked inside the bag, took inventory and told the young lady what she needed to do to fix the shortages. She handed the bag back to me and I, fool that I am, didn’t bother to rub her nose in it by re-checking, but simply drove away. You already know the outcome, don’t you?

Right, she’d found another way to screw up my order while “fixing” it.

And, insult being added to injury, the morning manager has been the guy filling each of those orders.

When will I ever learn? It is my burden because it has become painfully aware to me that they’re unlikely to ever get their act together.

I attended the meeting held at the Germantown School Administration building on Friday afternoon. The participants included the Presidents of Waukesha County Technical College (WCTC), Moraine Park Technical College (MPTC) and Milwaukee Area Technical College (MATC) along with their senior staff members. Additionally, Village Board President Kempinski, Village Administrator Schornack, School Board Director Warnimont, County Supervisor Brady and Representative Jeskewitz were in attendance along with other village officials and citizens.

Mr. Kempinski led the way with most of the early questioning and discussion. He queried each of the college presidents on a number of things mainly relating to numbers of Germantown students, courses offered by each college, courses unique to MATC and overall tax rates for the three schools.

The primary point established seemed to be that, without regard to which taxing district we’re placed in, Germantown students have equal access to any of the technical colleges anywhere in the state at identical tuition rates to any other student. Second, there are major programs that are unique to each of the three colleges represented at the meeting. Those include Liberal Arts and Sciences, Health Occupations, Technical and Applied Sciences, and Business and Information Technology programs at MATC, Nanotechnology in the WCTC system and Nuclear Medicine in the MPTC system. Beyond these, there is a general similarity of course offerings based upon the needs expressed by the communities.

Mr. Warnimont followed with what he called “a more direct discussion”, and proceeded to cut to the heart of the matter. He asked MATC President Cole how he would answer the question, “What makes MATC worth as much as some 60% more than WCTC, and nearly 30% more than MPTC to Germantown, when its students can go to any college without any cost differences?” Warnimont indicated that he meant no disrespect, but this is the question he and other elected officials had to answer from their voter constituents.

Mr. Cole appeared hesitant to answer, but finally said, “I don’t think I can give you an answer that will change your mind.”

If we take the hand-outs from this meeting at face value, MATC served a total of 286 students from Germantown in 2006. We send some $5 Million to MATC for a mere cost of $17,400 per student (whether or not they’re enrolled full time, or are simply picking up a course or two that might be of interest) without taking into account the tuition being paid by the students. As a fellow Blogger pointed out a week or so ago, we could be sending these students to a four-year college without spending much, if any, more.

The student enrollment from Germantown has steadily decreased from 1998 to 2006. MATC students from Germantown decreased by nearly 40% over that period; WCTC decreased by a much lower 18% and MPTC by about 20%. I have no way of knowing what has driven that trend. It may be that we’re sending more students to four-year schools; it may be that our high school curricula have improved during the period and thus dampened the need for MATC; it may be that MATC is not as convenient, or it may mean that the curricula from the technical colleges hasn’t kept pace with the needs of the community. More likely it is a combination of these factors.

Finally, MATC has voted to add Superintendent Rossetti to its nine member board. From my perspective, that is both too little too late, and a very thinly veiled attempt to make us think that MATC has “seen the light”. More likely,what MATC has seen is the potential for the loss of significant amounts of funding if Germantown is permitted to secede (move to another taxing district). As an aside, I was also troubled by Mr. Rossetti’s statement of total support for MATC during the meeting that led to the 15-1 vote in his favor earlier in the week.

Apparently Germantown trustees will vote on a resolution sometime within the next month. I am not aware of the School Board’s plans, but hope that it will get a similar vote scheduled for a near-future meeting. It is important that this issue continue to be moved along with all deliberate speed.

Bloggers for MyCommunityNow were invited to a meeting last Monday evening that was hosted at the relatively new Milwaukee Journal Sentinel printing facility on West Burnham south of the stadium in West Milwaukee.

I attended and was treated to a tour of that facility opened in 2003. It is truly a state-of-the-art newspaper printing plant covering three stories and some 470,000 sq. ft. The presses had just finished the run for the evening so we didn’t hear the roar of a newspaper being printed, but it was still quite an experience.

Robotic fork lift vehicles move silently back and forth picking up huge rolls of newsprint and moving each variety to the right printing press which stands three stories tall, by the way. Everything is highly automated with bar coding used extensively to manage the various functions.

An old saying holds that one should never pick a fight with a newspaper since it buys ink by the barrel. This facility receives its ink by tanker trucks. All of that is automated, as well.

The sections to be inserted into various editions are already run and kept ready in large diameter bundles that are transferred to machines where the individual inserts are fed automatically into the proper newspaper section. The inserts are tailored to the individual recipient by codes so that we each receive only those that are pertinent to our geographic area. The papers are not touched by human hands from the start of the process until handled by the carriers who make home deliveries.

This plant prints several newspapers including the daily and Sunday editions of the Journal Sentinel and others including USA Today. None of the printing is done at the downtown Journal Sentinel building although some of the old presses remain there unused. All copy layouts are received electronically and are converted to aluminum plates that ultimately produce the finished newspapers.

Those who work in this facility are very proud of the fact that they run a “green” operation on top of what used to be the largest single brown field area in Wisconsin. The newsprint is composed of at least 34% recycled material, and the inks are soy-based in keeping with the “green” ethic.

This was quite the learning experience for a former paper boy from a small town in Western Wisconsin. That wasn’t in the era of the Heidelberg Press, by the way, but close.

We’ve all gone through the question of…”Do you remember where you were when you learned about the attack?” Most of us can still answer it very specifically.

We are observing the sixth anniversary of an attack upon our country and our way of life such as we hadn’t witnessed since December 7, 1941. Do we really remember or have we gone on from there with only a faint recollection and a twinge from our conscience?

We came together as a people for weeks and maybe even months following the Trade Towers being toppled, the Pentagon being attacked and the crashing of a loaded airliner into a Pennsylvania field that together took the lives of some 3,000 of us. Our differences were put behind us where they belonged.

We began to be more aware of the threat we really faced. It took us longer to board airplanes. We took notice of things that seemed to be out of the ordinary. We saw our police and fire fighters and first responders practicing new tactics and techniques to thwart whatever our “enemy” would throw at us next.

Do we really remember?

The shock wore thin and we awoke one day to such a wide political division in our country that we have become largely ineffectual about our security except for our frontline defenders. We quarrel over every detail. Some have rewritten our history. Some have our own country being responsible for what befell us. We now see that division being played out before our eyes with an American General being called a liar by the same politicians who only months before had voted unanimously to approve his new post in Iraq. We see a full page advertisement in the New York Times calling the same General a betrayer…actually intended to make the reader think “traitor”.

Do we remember?

Our enemies must take great delight and strength from our internal bickering and political infighting. They must have moments of disbelief as they see us in our self-destruct mode. They must gain even greater satisfaction as they see our politicians pandering for votes at the expense of the citizenry. They must feel completely victorious as the political strife and inaction reach down to the level of our states.

Do we remember?

Our young men and women who have sacrificed their lives certainly remembered. Those who’ve lost limbs certainly remember. Those who are serving multiple tours in harms way certainly remember. Many of us citizens certainly remember. But many of us do not appear to have taken any lasting lessons from the experience, the horror, and the loss of life and suffering of 9/11/01.

Do we remember?

I fear that the answer is “not enough of us remember sufficiently to be willing to take the actions necessary to cause our politicians to once again do what we expect them to do for us while in those positions.”

I want to believe that “we the people” have not lost our will to defend ourselves, but that, instead, our elected officials now take more delight in besting one and other than doing our will. They do so at our expense.

On a beautiful almost-Fall day, I found myself at Friedenfeld Park watching Germantown’s Youth Football League in action.

The expanded parking area was nearly full when we arrived at 8:45AM and was brimming when we left again at about 10:15AM. I’m sure that continued for most of the day.

Each game had its share of people on the sidelines watching and cheering the youngsters on. I saw friends and neighbors coaching. I saw innumerable citizens volunteering their time in many different ways. I saw boys and girls of nearly all ages enjoying themselves as either participants or spectators.

There was flag football and tackle football. There was appropriate music during the warm-ups and, of course, the National Anthem before the main game. New Berlin was the visiting team and had their fans along to provide support, as well.

The play-by-play announcer was in fine form. The cheerleaders were in uniform and doing their utmost to encourage the team. The bratwurst smelled delicious when we arrived. Maybe a “breakfast brat” would be a good idea.

The fields bear the names of the various contributors who have provided funding. The teams proudly wore their “jerseys” bearing the names of many Germantown and area firms that were sponsoring each team.

I was reminded that we have a very vibrant program that serves as the “feeder system” for our tremendously successful Germantown Varsity football program. We live in a true community and our friends and neighbors are working hard to keep us just that…a community.

Smaller communities have a certain something about them that just isn’t often found in larger cities. Small town America has taught us well since our founding as a country, and those small towns continue to fill that role. Would that everyone could grow up that way!

We need simply look at the gyrations occurring in Congress as the “great debate” over SCHIP and Medicare Advantage takes place to see exactly where we’ll be if Healthy Wisconsin were to become the law in Badgerland.

SCHIP is being re-engineered to bring in more and more adults and to permit families of four earning over $80,000 per year to join. This is a very obvious expansion of government-run healthcare.

Medicare Advantage funding is being threatened because it represents an incursion of the private sector into the world of government-run healthcare (Medicare) that is a threat to all those whose goal is just that…government-run healthcare.

Doctors in Medicare would be favored by much of the money freed up by the reductions in Medicare Advantage while SCHIP would get the rest plus the huge increase in tobacco taxes at the federal level. Why is this happening? Because there simply isn’t enough money to go around to do everything the politicans want to do. Medicare Advantage could disappear as the direct result of this move. In this instance, oldsters who had selected Medicare Advantage would be forced back into Medicare parts A & B with lesser benefits available to them at higher costs. This subtle form of rationing should give us all pause. Future forms of rationing promise to be far less subtle.

Politicians running healthcare is oxymoronic. They will be unable to resist the temptations of all that power…and you and I will suffer…just as those on Medicare Advantage programs are about to suffer. What will it be next? Will it be mandatory health prevention as suggested by one presidential aspirant? What will happen with all that data that is collected? And then where will healthcare go? Will we ultimately see consciously controlled death rates since death is less expensive than living with and treating a disease? That happens in single payer countries around the world today. What makes us think that it wouldn’t happen here as well?

I’ve written of John in an earlier Blog and am saddened to advise that he is in the final stage of his life on earth. He has a strong faith and both he and his family are dealing with this change with a level of courage that is wonderful to witness.

I have been aware of the hospice movement that has blossomed over the past decade or more, but I’ve not seen it “up close and personal” as the saying goes. That has changed, however, as I have spent countless hours with my buddy as we’ve talked about everything and nothing.

The first hospice selected by John didn’t work at all well for him. He can be a bit of a rascal, but not so that I placed any blame for a bad relationship on him. The first hospice was neglectful, the people assigned were changed seemingly every few days, promises made were not kept and medicines were not delivered on a timely basis, etc., etc.

John finally had had enough and “fired” that organization. One of his caregivers suggested another hospice company, and John said that he’d have a try with one more but it had better be a much better experience or he’d fire them, too. The second will go unnamed, as well, except that John’s wish would be for his nurse to receive personal recognition.

John’s second experience has been one that has redeemed the hospice movement from my perspective. His nurse, Tina, is a wonderful person; she is there when she says she’ll be there. She is available whenever John or his family calls her. She soon became a member of the family…virtually from day one. And, she ministers to John as his needs dictate.

John’s journey through the wilderness of a terminal disease has certainly been no picnic. He has, however, no more concerns over his care for he knows that Tina and her whole support group are with him. As his needs change from day-to-day, those needs are met. I told Tina that I didn’t know how a person could do the good work she does, and she told me that it became her mission following a serious accident where “angels of mercy” miraculously appeared to help her and her family.

Thank God for those angels of mercy.

Junk mail is driving me nuts. How about you? Is there a real solution that we can use or are we doomed to continue to wear out our delete keys? I’ll be happy to pass along your recommendations.

Perpetual campaigning is robbing us Americans of our rightful expectations of government. This is vividly clear when we look at the federal government. It seems to be getting more rampant on the state level, as well. Every move at the national level is one of posturing, rather than governing, for the majority of our elected officials. And, too many moves on the part of our elected state representatives smack of the same.

General Petraeus, the commander of our forces in Iraq, delivers his assessment on conditions there in a week and one-half. However, both sides appear to not have the courtesy to let us decide what to think of his report. Instead, they have been positioning for weeks to tell us what he’ll say and what it’ll mean. No matter your persuasion, you can make up your own mind; I doubt that many of us need such assistance.

The Presidential candidates for both parties will likely be chosen by very early in 2008, and maybe even before the coming New Year’s Day. On the heels of the “perpetual” campaigning mentioned above, we have this rush to decision being thrust upon us by a handful of states. Would we be further ahead to have a single national primary to be followed in 120 days by the national election, as I’ve begun to hear discussed?

Governor Doyle’s hand has appeared as expected in the budget debate. Unfortunately, he is resorting to fear-mongering by citing this and that calamity about to befall all us Badgers because there is no compromise as yet, on a terrible budget I would add. According to him, our schools won’t be able to run, our state Medicaid system will fail the folks who depend upon it and the Republican’s failure to acquiesce will cause your property taxes to rise precipitously. His budget, even without the addition of Healthy Wisconsin which he does not support, has us paying 23% more than before. With Healthy Wisconsin, it only doubles! What a choice we have. The opposition must not cave in, but instead must continue to work to advance its more rational version of our next biennium.

Our Warhawks football team ran into the seventh-ranked team in the state last evening and came away with a much better understanding of its own weaknesses. Coach will build on this experience and our players will improve having gotten such a solid lesson so early.

Our new motorcycle patrol is having the desired effect. I have been amazed at how invisible that cycle and officer can be, and also marvel at my good fortune to have been at or under the speed limit each time…so far. If you’ve not given thought to the effectiveness of this unit, do so before you pay good money for a transgression.