Mayor Needs to Get Religion

Lots of good stuff in the papers this morning. Let’s get to it.

She’s not a believer. Mayor Satya Rhodes-Conway continues to duck issues. The city has a very good plan to marry transportation with land use by providing for higher development densities along corridors that will soon be served by Bus Rapid Transit (BRT). Give the Mayor credit for getting that BRT system across the finish line. But there’s an important detail in the new zoning proposal: whether or not to include some historic districts in the higher density overlays. In Dean Mosiman’s typically thorough story about this, the mayor says she’s “agnostic” about the question and the City Council should decide. She also hasn’t gotten religion on police body cameras, on the public market, on violence in the public schools, on the size of the county jail, etc. I’m not clear why anyone would want that job if they don’t have an opinion on much of anything.

They don’t really want to know. Legislative Republicans want to know how you feel about work requirements for welfare recipients, never mind that the state’s main welfare program already has them. They need to know that in April. As it turns out (and what a happy coincidence!) putting an advisory question on welfare work requirements on the April ballot will coincide with a crucial state Supreme Court race. Who knew?! A cynical person (and we are not cynical here at YSDA!) might suspect that what the GOP really wants to do is run up the conservative vote in the court race. If you’re a Democrat you might want to check your hypocrisy, though. In November the Dane County Board just had to know how voters in the most liberal county in Wisconsin felt about abortion and legalizing marijuana.

Flat out wrong. Republicans never run out of ideas about how to give handouts to rich folks. It looks like they’re going to take another run at a flat income tax. Under their plan, if you’re an individual earning between $40,000 and $50,000 you can look forward to a $290 tax break. Earn over a million dollars? You get $112,000. Gosh, seems fair to me. Oh, and the GOP plan blows a $5 billion hole in the budget, turning a big surplus into an ongoing budget crisis, which I suppose is part of the plan. Gov. Tony Evers vows a veto, but it’s not clear how or if he can do that since it will be part of the budget and he’ll have to use his line item veto authority. Also, this is the same governor that went along with a billion dollar tax cut heavily weighted toward the rich in the last budget.

Enough for a Saturday. The Badgers take on Indiana at noon. Let’s see if they can get back on the winning track.