Score One for the Reasonable Guys

Ever since that useless health care summit a day or two ago I've been avoiding the news.  When I checked back in with my news reader again today I found hundreds of headlines that all said the exact same thing - summit was more show than substance.

At least the Republicans who were at the summit got a chance to speak out without being filtered.  McCain called the President out on the broken campaign promises and Paul Ryan, Republican Representative and Ranking Budget Committee member makes a very strong argument for decentralizing health care insurance and is set to blast the Democrats about before Obama steps in to silence him.

The Health Care Pony Show

It's no small surprise that many people in this country believe that the health care summit being held today is going to amount to anything substantial or allow the Republican party to finally have a say in a process they have been largely shut out of.

No, instead it's a chance for Obama to show some toughness on the camera.  Consider this exchange between McCain and Obama:

Spirited debate unfolds at health care summit - CNN.com

McCain, who lost to the president in the 2008 race, said candidate Obama had pledged eight times that the health care debate would be conducted in the open and televised by C-SPAN.

Instead, McCain said, the legislation was "produced behind closed doors ... with unsavory deals."

Obama tried to break in, but McCain asked to be allowed to finish.

After McCain was done, Obama seemed to flash some anger when he said, "We're not campaigning. The election is over."

I don't think that McCain was trying to campaign for the presidency here - I think he was trying to hold Obama accountable for his promises, something that Obama is apparently not used to.  Overall Democrats are going about this the wrong way - they are ignoring the voters, operating behind closed doors and preventing the Republicans from participating and doing the jobs they were elected to do.

Obama also seemed to take a shot at Cantor, the House Republican whip, who stacked the voluminous House and Senate health care reform bills on the table in front of him.

The president called the display "props." "These are the kinds of political things we do that prevent us from having a conversation," Obama said.

I think that instead of our President taking shots at people who come prepared to the meetings he should be listening to and addressing their concerns.  I know that if I was a politician going to a meeting about health care reform I would want to bring both bills with me so I could reference them during the meeting.  It's not "props"; it's being prepared.

Finally, there is this gem of a paragraph from the article about Pelosi:

Spirited debate unfolds at health care summit - CNN.com

Pelosi on Wednesday declined to give any specifics about how Democrats will proceed on the health care overhaul. She also sidestepped questions about Democrats' plans to use a controversial parliamentary shortcut to bypass GOP opposition and pass a health care bill.

Why is it that the Democrats want to keep the American people in the dark about this stuff?  Why not televise the debates throughout the entire process?  Why not release summary statements of the effects and disadvantages of the bill?

If I was a politician, and I'm not... yet, I would want to be up-front and honest with the people I was elected to represent.  No hiding behind procedure, no bullying the opposition and generally trying to make real compromises with the opposition. 

Now not every single line in the health care bills are bad, in fact I find great convenience with the page numbering and the date references.  Seriously, there are some good things that may come of this:  we may finally be able to crack down on insurance fraud, we may be able to finally eliminate frivolous suits so that doctor's don't have to order so many tests and we may finally be able to allow insurance companies to more effectively compete with one another, driving down the cost of premiums and increasing the quality of coverage.

Heck... who am I kidding?  The Democrats are in charge...

Mielke Identifies Reason Why Sean Duffy Will Win The Primary

Mielke For Congress

Sean Duffy is an Attorney, his father is an attorney, his grandfather was an attorney and a judge, his brother is an attorney and a judge.

Dan believes that attorneys serve a valuable and necessary part of our society. But Dan
also realizes that 43% of congress is already made up of attorneys. "There is a danger in
having too many attorneys in Washington. Sean was raised to think and reason like an
attorney. To insure a fair and impartial balance of thinking in the legislature we need
representations from all walks of life . Presently we are seeing the danger in too many
attorneys in Washington. The bills being voted on are confusing and legalistic in nature,
often leaving way too many legal loopholes and hidden agendas which come out after the
bill has passed. Bills need to be simple and clean without so much legalese in them. This is
why our founding fathers were concerned about the harmful influence lawyers could have
if they became too powerful in congress."

It seems that Mr. Mielke believes that since 43% of Congressman are attorneys that we shouldn't send another attorney, even a successful and respected one like Duffy, to Washington.  I'm going to leave this statement alone for just one second while I touch on one that I think is important.

First, the job of Congress is to pass legislature (aka laws).  In order to be effective at writing new laws one must first understand the old ones, right?  I mean, how can we create something if we don't understand what that something is?  If Mielke got sent to Congress he could, unwittingly, introduce legislation that would be struck down by the courts as illegal - or worse yet, let the Democrats pull on over on him. 

He said that 43% of Congressmen are lawyers and the Democrats have the majority so I say let's fight fire with fire.  Now coming back to Mielke's comments here lawyers are paid to argue the facts, present their case and persuade others.  Extremely similar to the role of politicians in Congress. 

Politicians in Congress must also argue the facts, present their case and persuade others in other to get legislation to pass.  Now that Sean has been raised to think like a lawyer, someone who makes a living persuading others, I would think that he would have mountains of experience over Mielke. 

In fact, experience is very abundant.  Duffy has been in office for four terms as a DA - an elected position.  What experience does Mielke have serving in public office?  I will give you this - he certainly knows how to lose an election.

Mielke Has a Snowball's Chance

Time Magazine – Republican Surprise: 10 More Scott Browns « Sean Duffy for Congress

In a normal year, Wisconsin Democrat David Obey, the powerful head of the House appropriations committee, would not have to worry. But normal years do not bring challengers like Sean Duffy, a successful district attorney who also happens to be a former star of MTV’s The Real World (the Boston season), a champion lumberjack competitor and an ESPN commentator. Obama won Wisconsin’s 7th District in 2008 by a decent margin, but Bush managed to win 49% of the vote in the largely Democratic district in 2004. Obey does not seem ruffled by Duffy’s harping on his role in the stimulus or statements that Obey is helping to create a “greater crisis” in terms of deficit spending. In fact, the Congressman’s campaign website isn’t even up and running yet. With plenty of media attention, strong fundraising and a very fresh face — he wasn’t even born when Obey first took office, in 1970 — Duffy will likely win the Republican primary, barring a surprise showing by the self-proclaimed Tea Party candidate Dan Mielke. Of course, that would mean facing the third longest-serving member of the House in the general election, a man whose smallest margin of victory in 18 elections was seven points.

I think it is safe to say that Daniel Mielke has no chance at winning the primary.  I mean, how many people are going to be willing to send a farmer up against Obey - especially one who has already lost once against him? 

In 2008 I was a Republican volunteer manning my county's headquarters.  During that election cycle Mielke's campaign appeared from the outside to be in a state of disarray.  All the materials, in my opinion, looked like they were made at home on a cheap inkjet printer.

Mielke's message didn't resonate with voters either - he failed to carry a single county during the 2008 election against Obey.  Not one single county was willing to say "Yes, I want Dan Mielke to represent me in Congress".  Now let's fast forward to today's race.

Mielke and Duffy are squaring off in a primary - something that Mielke did not experience in 2008, at least not from my perspective.  Now Mielke has to face a successful attorney in a primary, and one who is extremely well funded.  Duffy is getting national recognition, not to mention being the first House challenger to be endorsed by Sarah Palin.

What has Mielke been up to?  Not much... a Google news search for Daniel Mielke's name does not turn up anything that is very interesting, most of his mentions are alongside of Sean Duffy's mentions.  Conclusion:  Duffy is making news while Mielke is trying to be in the news.

A lot of people are saying that this is going to be an interesting primary but I don't see it happening.  I'm going to say that Mielke has as much of a chance as winning this primary as Congressman Ron Paul had of winning the 2008 Presidential primary.

To the anonymous commenter from the other day... please, wake up and take a look at reality.

The Reality of Mielke's Campaign

National Review Online – Could Obey Be Coakley’d? « Sean Duffy for Congress

Q: What does Senator-elect Brown mean for your race?

A: If Scott Brown can win in a state that President Obama won by 26 points, I can win in a district that Obey won by just 20 points against an unknown, underfunded challenger in the Democratic landslide of 2008. It means there is not a single Democrat in the country who is safe. And, as the author of the failed stimulus bill, David Obey will be at the forefront of the debate about jobs, the economy, and wasteful government spending. If he continues to tax and spend our country into bankruptcy, he’s going to get Coakley’d.

I think the above statement - the first sentence of the A: text - sums up Mielke's campaign very nicely. "Unknown, underfunded" are not two adjectives that describe a successful campaign for Congress.  The sad part is that Mielke had to have known before filing his candidacy papers for this race that he was repeating the same mistakes he made in 2008.

Sorry Mr. Mielke, but a political career is not something that just anyone can have.  From one campaign loser to another, please just go home, lick your wounds and figure out what you did wrong.  You can try again when you learn your lesson from your mistakes.

Walker Campaign Spokeswoman Jill Bader Statement on Walker's Plan to Bring 250,000 Jobs to Wisconsin

The following is a press release on Walker's plan to bring 250,000 jobs.  You don't see proposals like these coming from Barret or anyone else.  In fact, the Democrats are so afraid of this proposal that they are going to do everything they can to discredit it. 

Wauwatosa – Walker Campaign Spokeswoman Jill Bader today released the following statement on Scott Walker’s plan to bring 250,000 jobs to Wisconsin

“Under Governor Doyle, Wisconsin has become a tax hell that’s bleeding jobs monthly – last year alone we lost 170,000 jobs and that number will continue to grow unless we fundamentally change the way government functions.

When you see that over 250,000 people are out of work in Wisconsin, and the approximately 20% of our citizens who are underemployed or have given up on finding family supporting jobs it’s not only clear we need to reverse the Doyle-Barrett job killing proposals like combined reporting, but we must also jumpstart an aggressive plan to bring these jobs back to Wisconsin like Scott Walker has laid out.

Beginning on Scott’s first day as governor and in every single day in office he will be working to lower the tax burden on families and employers, and ease regulations on businesses to get government out of the way the bring back 250,000 jobs to Wisconsin by the end of his first term.”

Click here for more information more information on Walker’s plan for job growth: http://www.scottwalker.org/press-release/2010/02/scott-walker-unveils-plan-bring-250000-jobs-and-10000-new-businesses-wisconsin

If you have a job, and want to keep it, vote for Scott Walker come November. If you like to be unemployed, vote for anyone else.

Prevent Doyle 2.0 from Being Elected

This morning when I checked my email I found a message in there that scared me.  Obama's political machine has arrived in Milwaukee to set up shop and get Tom Barret, aka Tom the Taxer, aka Doyle 2.0 elected.  Haven't we had enough of Obama's Chicago style politics by now?  Haven't we had enough of the broken promises, the empty speeches and the overall lack of results from his administration?

I know one thing is for certain - we don't need more Obama politics in Wisconsin.  If we are going to take back our state we cannot allow Doyle 2.0 to be elected.  The last thing we need is for our state to be run like the federal government - into the ground.  If Doyle 2.0 takes office we can expect more of the same that we had for the last 6 years.

I've had enough.  Enough of the increasing spending, enough of the increasing taxes and enough of fat cat liberal politicians mortgaging our grand children's futures, distorting the truth and taking us for granted.  It's time we teach Madison that we will not sit idly by.  We will fight.  We will demonstrate.  And we will elect Scott Walker as our new Governor come November.

Mielke's Poisoned Poll

Northwestern Wisconsin congressional race headed for Republican primary | FOX 21 Online

But if Duffy is getting the limelight, Dan Mielke says the GOP is trying to force him off the stage, despite being the party's candidate in the last election. Mielke says he’s been excluded attending, speaking at, or handing out literature at Lincoln Day dinners. Mielke says he’s been a lifelong Republican, and wonders if he’s ruffled the GOP’s “feathers a little bit."

The socially conservative Mielke commissioned a poll of 7th Congressional District voters, and the results show him leading both fellow Republican Duffy and Democrat Obey. Mielke says he's in the race to stay, and that means a contentious Republican primary before Obey faces the winner in the general election.

I'm sorry Mr. Mielke but I don't trust any polls commissioned by any candidates. I'm sure that if I polled 10 of my best friends that I would find that I am leading both Mielke, Duffy and Obey in the race for the 7th Congressional district and I'm not even a declared candidate.

Why should we trust a poll that was commissioned by a candidate?  The notion of truth in this country has become synonymous with who ever pays the bill.  Therefore, since Mr. Mielke paid the bill the pollsters have a responsibility not to the truth but to Dan Mielke.  This includes only polling Mielke supporters with a few non-supporters thrown in to make it look legit.

In fact, the title of the document that reports the results says "Polling Results of the 7th Congressional District Produced for the Dan Mielke Campaign".  Note the key phrase "Produced for the Dan Mielke Campaign". 

I also take issue with a paragraph in this document that is highly subjective, emotionally charged and overall not conducive of a scientific method.  The paragraph copied from the document verbatim follows.

It is doubtful that Duffy will be able to overcome this strong of a lead by Mielke.  But it is possible that an aggressive fight between Mielke and Duffy could hurt Mielke's run against Dave Obey, if Duffy's supporters choose to vote for Obey over Mielke.  We see this as unlikely, but it could happen if emotions run high during the primary race.

For run thing, Mielke is not going to have a run against Dave Obey despite what this "poisoned poll" says.  Second, it is still too early to say that Duffy is definitively going to lose the primary.  He's not - not with the qualifications he has over Dan Mielke.  I know I would rather have a successful DA in Congress than an organic farmer who's lost every election in the last 5 years that he has run in.

Finally, the last issue I have with this poll is that it polled 35% Democrats and only 37% Republicans.  I know that if I was being polled and the questions were asking me to compare two Democrat candidates against a Republican candidate that I would show strong support for the weaker Democrat candidate in hopes of making the general election easier for the Republican candidate.
 
Click here to read the results for yourself and you will see how one sided this poll really is.

Another Politician That Gets It

The Daily Press - Ashland, WI > News > Political newcomer Sean Duffy eager to battle Dave Obey

"There are several messages," he said. "First off, we need to bring fiscal sanity and responsibility back to Washington," he said. "We have a debt that is $12 trillion. We had a deficit last year of $1.4 trillion. This year we are looking at $1.3 trillion. We are mortgaging our children's future; we need to balance our budget. We can't keep spending, there are dire consequences for our children."

Maybe it's just me but looking over the campaign messages of all the candidates that I will have the opportunity to vote for in November the only ones I see with values that most align with Wisconsin are the conservative Republicans.  Perhaps the effects of higher taxes and higher spending for the last however many years are finally catching up to us and people are getting a rude wake up call.

Perhaps people are just tired of the arrogance of the Democratic party.  In the 2008 election cycle I worked with people in Wisconsin's 8th congressional district and came across quite a few videos of Rep. Kagen's arrogance and disregard for the voters.  Working in the 7th congressional district I see the same thing with Obey.

I don't know about you but I think that the person who signs the check would ultimately be responsible for how the money is spent.  The easiest way to prevent the administration from making poor spending choices: DON'T GIVE THEM THE MONEY IN THE FIRST PLACE YOU IDIOT!

People - Grow Up!

Chris Matthews "Forgot He Was Black" Comment Sets Internet Ablaze [VIDEO]

Despite posts to the contrary, Matthews was not seeking to make a racially derogatory comment in any respect, but perhaps he should have chosen his words more carefully. Later on in his ruminations, he himself goes on to say: “It’s so hard to even talk about; maybe I shouldn’t talk about it, but I am. I thought it was profound, that way.”

Here we go - another media circus about another reference to skin color.  When the $%^& are people going to grow up and stop making such a big deal over these things?  If we keep making a big deal about racist remarks then racism will never go away!  Besides, should we as adults be mature enough to not let the opinions and remarks of other people affect our emotions?

I think that anyone who wants to make a big deal about someone making a remark about a person's skin color is immature, unreasonable, and unwilling to let go of the past where the real racism was.  As a political blogger I'm used to having people say and write some very mean things about me.  I don't let it bother me - I sure don't lose any sleep over it.

Face it people - as far as mature responsible adults go the race card is a dead card.  God created us all equally and we all bleed red so if someone makes a remark you don't like you ignore them like any other mature adult would do.  In fact, when I watched the following video I simply laughed and clicked on to the next one - if though our President is making anti-white statement after anti-white statement.

I'm sorry but if no one calls President Obama on racist comments than no one else should be called out for them either. I thought we all wanted equal treatment for all in this country, not special treatment for some and worse treatment for others.

Mielke Having Hard Time Selling Voters

It appears that, at least according to campaign finance reports, that Daniel Mielke is having a difficult time selling his story to the voters.  In the summary report from the FEC it is stated that Mielke has total receipts of $366,863 with $332,750 of that total amount coming from his personal contributions.

Mielke so far as had to contribute 90.7% of his total campaign funds while only raising 9.1% from individual voters and less than 1% from the party committees.  For those that don't know the Republican Party will fund candidates that it believes has a strong chance to beat a Democrat incumbent.

Looking at these hard numbers really paints an interesting story.  First, it says that Mielke's story is not resonating with the voters.  Second, it shows that Mielke is almost completely self-funding his campaign.  Finally it shows that he does not have the ability to raise funds to generate needed cash to kick up the campaign in high gear to challenge Obey.

Sean Duffy, on the other hand, has raised 99.8% of his total cash from individual contributions.  Digging deeper we see that Duffy raised an average of $850.43 from each of the 164 individuals who contributed to his campaign.  People don't spend that much money on something they don't believe in.

In comparison Mielke was only able to garner contributions from 30 people for an average of $1,112.37 per contributor.  Not only does Duffy gather more individual contributors than Mielke but the average is also lower.  This says, at least to me, that Duffy is gaining more traction with middle class and lower middle class working people than affluent citizens like the crowd Mielke solicits from.

A History of Failure

Since 2004 Dan Mielke has not won a single election.  In my research I have come across hard evidence concerning three different elections that Dan Mielke has participated in and soft evidence (a news piece at Fox News) for the Town of Linwood (population roughly 1,000).

Dan Mielke has lost all four elections.  This guy has been told by the people on four separate occasions that they don't want him.  Let me explain...

In 2004 Dan Mielke ran for Wisconsin's State Assembly District 70 against Vruwink (Democrat).  The results of that election as reported in the 2005 Wisconsin Blue Book were 18,120 for Vruwink and 10,622 for Mielke.  In percentage terms, Mielke only got 36.95% of the vote.

In 2006 Mielke ran for the Portage County Executive, a position that he claimed he was instrumental in creating, on a write-in campaign.  A write-in campaign!  Meaning that Mr. Mielke couldn't be bothered to qualify for the ballot any other way.  Needless to say he lost, only gaining 21% of the vote.

In 2008 Mielke ran for Congress against Dave Obey, a long time incumbent and well entrenched Democrat.  I would say it was a case of David vs. Goliath, only with David being a mosquito and Goliath winning single-handedly.  Mielke only gained 39% of the vote in that election.

Mielke's average for these three elections was 32% of the vote.  No matter how many re-counts you ask for you are not going to win with only 32% of the average vote.  No matter how many times I look at the contenders in this year's Congressional match-up I don't see Mielke going to Washington. 

The guy just doesn't get it - the people don't want him.  They have said so at least 3 times in the last 6 years and one unconfirmed time.  However with Wisconsin's open primary law I feel that some Democrats may vote for Mielke in the primary to give Obey a shoe-in. 

A Politician That Gets It

Scott Walker is a politician that gets it.  He understands what is important to us and what we need, as a State, to thrive in this new economy.  The tax and spend strategies that have become the hallmark of the Democrats has lead to Wisconsin being one of the worse states to do business in.



In November, let's get Wisconsin back on the right track. I'm urging you to vote for Scott Walker for Governor.

We Wanted Hope... This is What We Got

Cartoon of the Day



Thanks to the Lakeshore Laments blog for this one...

Dan Mielke: Is He or Isn't He a Politician?

It's not small secret that I have Google Alerts setup for all participants in the 7th Congressional District race, including Dan Mielke.  This morning I found this little gem in my alerts folder and I just had to point a few things out.

In the first quote below, Mielke goes on to stress that he's not a politician, he's a concerned voter.  Nothing wrong with that per se but let's look a bit deeper.

Farmer seeks rematch for congressional seat | Superior Telegram | Superior, Wisconsin

“I’m not in this for the politics,” Mielke said. “I’m in this because I am one of those voters and I’m frustrated and … I’m a strong Constitutional supporter and really, the idea behind government elected officials, is that they’re supposed to be of the voting public. They’re not supposed to be some professional that was put in place, and went to school and was trained to be some politician. So I’m kind of the anti-professional politician.”

Now let's take a look at the next quote from this same article.

Farmer seeks rematch for congressional seat | Superior Telegram | Superior, Wisconsin

“I’m more of a tea party, give-us-our-country-back politician I guess you could say,” Mielke said. “I don’t believe in career politicians. They should be doing they’re tour of duty and getting out of the foxholes and get back into life.”

Did any one else catch the immediate contradiction, the obvious waffling with identity.  Is he a politician?  Is he a concerned citizen? 

Perhaps it's this lack of conviction that led to his miserable performance against Obey in 2008.  As a conservative watching this race unfold I can honestly say that sending Mielke out to do battle against Obey would be one quick ticket to another Obey term. 

Barret: The Disorganized Candidate

When I ran for city council in my community, I had things organized.  I had a system in place for identifying likely voters, I had mailing lists, walking lists and campaign literature neatly stacked and organized.  I even had a website with my cell phone number all over it (and people used it).

Is there any question that a gubernatorial race is a much bigger affair than a city council race?  I would hope not!  But Barret doesn't seem to get that message.  In a WSAU blog post that was shared with me via email it is evident that Barret doesn't have his game together.

The post went on to explain the lengthy search that the news room went through to locate campaign contact information.  They tried searching for Barret on Google and could not find a campaign website.  They tried the yellow pages, other news agencies, and finally they found a phone number.

A phone number... that was all.  No issue statements, no press releases and no information.  No schedules, no addresses for sending contributions to and no hint of a credible campaign to be found anywhere.

If this is how Barret is taking the race, which is well underway, how much attention is he going to afford to the job if he somehow wins the election?  Wouldn't we rather have someone we know is organized and ready for the task?

BC5MM6DZCBB5

Funny Video About Health Care

The following video, while done in jest, adequately sums up the general feeling about Obama in my opinion.

Scott Brown Wins Race for Senate

Last night voters in Massachusetts told Barack Obama where to shove his health care plan by electing Republican Scott Brown to the Senate.  The media is acting like this is a big deal and a huge upset.  I don't know why though - any one with an ounce of common sense knows that if politicians don't represent the way the voters want them to then they are going to get replaced.

Voters are sick of the Democrats disregard for their opinions.  People don't send politicians to Washington to have them ram some mangled piece of legislative excrement down their throats - they send them to Washington to represent them.

The country is finally waking up to the shortcomings of the so-called "Party of Change" that they are starting to take action and do something about it.  If the Democrats don't wake up to reality, and it is a very good chance that they won't, then come November we are going to see a major shift into the right at almost all levels of government.

However, we are not out of the woods yet.  There are still several methods that Democrats can use to continue to undermine the American people on the health care bill.  First, Nancy Pelosi could reverse her position and accept the Senate bill as is.  Second, the Democrats could keep demanding re-counts until they win.  Third, the Democrats could stall the seating of Scott Brown until after the health care bill is passed.

However, I think even the Democrats would realize how much of political suicide either three of those options would be.

Barret Says Jobs Are No. 1 But Won't Give Specifics

Tom Barret, that Democratic runner for the governor's job in Wisconsin, and a member of the same party as Doyle, the governor that failed Wisconsin, has said that job growth is his top priority.  And that is pretty much all he said in an article published on the LaCrosse Tribune.

Great... do you want a cookie Mr. Barret?

Mr. Barret gave few details about he intends to use the governor's office to create more jobs in Wisconsin.  In fact, I think he only gave one details - he's going to give tax credits to companies that create jobs.  Again, the idea is applaudable but there is the other side of the coin that needs to be examined.

Rather than reduce taxes on just the big corporations let's cut government spending.  This will allow taxes to be lowered across the board for both individuals and corporations which will give people more money to spend.  The more money people spend the more the state collects in sales tax revenues.

In fact, the sales tax revenue could more than make up for the difference in income tax revenues.  After all this country does not save well and if we have money we are going to spend it.  

Also, if taxes are reduced across the board companies have more money to invest in growth.  This allows companies to grow at their own pace rather than hire a bunch of people, collect the tax credits and then lay them all off.

I'm Sick of Taxes

The following blog post is a letter I am preparing for the Antigo Daily Journal.  In case they did not publish it I wanted to post it here to make sure that people had the chance to read it.  Post your feedback below.

Tuesday, January 19, 2010

Dear Editor:

I'm sick of taxes.  Furthermore, I'm sick of taxes being raised.  At all levels of government it seems that officials are all to eager to tax us into bankruptcy.  If a politician would offer up a plan to fix the issues with our country, state, county and city without raising our taxes I would be ecstatic.

Raising taxes is an easy way to plug a budget gap.  It allows the politicians to avoid having to make cuts and risk not getting re-elected.  It's also a coward's way of addressing the issues.  Rather than correct the symptoms politicians seem content to hide the symptoms.

Except Scott Walker.  He has the courage to propose budgets and solutions that do not include a tax raise.  In fact, when he was elected Milwaukee County Executive he promised to spend taxpayer dollars as if he was spending his own money... a promise that he has continued to fulfill to this day.

Scott Walker was also able to save almost $200 million in tax payer dollars with his 2010 budget.  This is a significant demonstration of his ability to work hard to find solutions that do not include a tax hike - unlike Democratic challenger Tom Barret.  In fact. Barret's final budget required furlogh days for police officers. 

I don't want a governor that is going to use those kinds of tricks to appear to solve problems.  I want a governor that will bring real solutions to real problems to the table.  I want a governor that will stand by his promises to not raise taxes. 

Sincerely,
Jesse Seymour