Author Archives: dave cieslewicz

Here’s a modest idea: what if we took schools off the property tax? I mean entirely. Doing that would address multiple problems while creating one big new one. First, the good news. Here are the problems it would address. High property taxes. Wisconsin has the 10th highest property taxes in the nation and schools makeContinue reading “Let’s Do Something Radical on Property Taxes”

The State of Wisconsin has a projected $3 billion surplus. Here’s the YSDA plan for it. Put $1 billion toward state parks. Our parks and natural areas have an estimated $1.3 billion in deferred maintenance. That’s everything from deteriorating roads and trails to failing waste treatment facilities at campgrounds. Parks are important for tourism, butContinue reading “Here’s How to Use $3 Billion”

Strategic plans are always a waste of time and resources. Because they are always written by committees they read like what committees write. They say nothing. And often at great length. Nobody ever looks at a strategic plan after it is finished. Employees hate these exercises because they see them for what they are andContinue reading “MMSD’s Five Clouds”

Today I want to explore a question I raised in passing yesterday in my piece on data centers. It goes to the “soul” of artificial intelligence. In recent months there has been this growing concern that AI has loosed its chains and is now running rampant. And the assumption is that it intends to doContinue reading “Why Does AI Want to Kill Us?”

Data centers have become central to election campaigns all over the country this fall and that’s certainly true here in Wisconsin. So, let’s think about them. Like most pols, both David Crowley and Tom Tiffany were all over data centers as recently as a year ago. Both touted them as job generators and harbingers ofContinue reading “Sorting Out Data Centers”

One of my summer projects was to do some ideological remodelling. I ripped my convictions down to the studs and then rebuilt them. But I left the foundation in place. I never questioned being a moderate. The question was whether I wanted to build back as a nonpartisan, moderate Democrat or a conservative independent.  So,Continue reading “Notes on Conservatism”

Okay, folks, let’s take a deep breath. Even though we’ve dodged the bullet of a Francesca Hong nomination, the predictable breathless babbling is oozing up from both sides. To hear the partisans tell it this will be yet another “most consequential election of our lifetimes,” never mind that we’ve already had a couple dozen ofContinue reading “How Much Does it Matter?”

Welcome back to regular installments of YSDA. I took the summer off — except for far more frequent check-ins on the Wisconsin gubernatorial primary than I had anticipated as the Democrats were a lot more entertaining than we had a right to expect. The idea was to spend time on book projects. That was prettyContinue reading “We’re Back”

Back in May I decided to once again take the summer off to focus on book writing projects. But I added one fateful caveat: I would occasionally write about the Wisconsin governor’s race. How was I to know that the Democrats would turn their primary into a demolition derby? I couldn’t look away. Now thatContinue reading “A Crazy Idea”

This is a day of thanksgiving in more ways than one. When it was revealed last week that Francesca Hong had Tweeted about her desire to cancel Thanksgiving because it is a “colonizer” holiday, I thought that was the least of the troubles ahead for the presumptive Democratic nominee. Instead, it may have been theContinue reading “Thanksgiving”