Wisconsin Wednesday: The All-In-One Post

No One Listens to Me
Not that I could have gone to a daytime meeting, anyway (and I have a meeting until 6:30 tonight so I can't even go to the evening part of the program), but if state legislators care what anyone in the state's largest urban center thinks about the next biennial budget, it will only come from people willing and able to drive an hour or so to Watertown.

I mean, it's not like I don't have things to say. I do. Like, I think Jim Doyle blew it by slipping in a proposal to tax internet downloads. The idea just seems riddled with holes (Stacie [née and again] Rosenzweig has a good run-down). On the other hand, I think the Republicans are also crazy to want to hamstring everyone from your sewerage district to your school district with a tax freeze.

Not that I could have said anything, 'cuz, you know, they don't seem to want my opinion.

Belated Sympathy
to Russ Feingold. His mother Sylvia passed away last week.

Tommy Scores
How many damn jobs can one former HHS secretary hold? Looks like two three. Who's a lucky ducky now?

Why We Don't Need TABOR
You often hear Republicans and conservative bloggers whining about the "liberal media" presenting slanted news. From where I sit, all I hear is the TABOR drumbeat. (If you want me to re-hash my opposition to it, I will. Later.) Why do we need TABOR?, you might ask them. They say, Our taxes are stifling! It's a Tax Hell!

Yeah, I guess that's why Wisconsin's economy--unfrozen taxes and all--is kicking butt. To wit:

The weaker dollar and stronger corporate profits mean that demand for capital goods made in Wisconsin will be extremely healthy in the United States and abroad this year, he said.

Wisconsin produces more than its share of such goods, so the boom will help it more than the rest of the nation. The weaker dollar in particular means that the machinery and industrial parts made in Wisconsin can be sold overseas at competitive prices, Nichols said. That will lead to a boom in manufacturing in the state.

Now, I don't know that Jim Doyle deserves all the credit--Bush and his high-deficit, weak-dollar policies have a hand in it--but I think that Republicans' complaining about how dismal our economy is are starting to ring pretty hollow.