One Wisconsin Now
All tracking of the lies, hypocrisy, and broken promises from conservatives can be found at OneWisconsinNow.org. Thanks for following!
Northeast Wisconsin is my home and always will be, and that fact has made serving the people of Wisconsin more meaningful than words can describe… I said last year when asked from time to time about this issue that the Constitution doesn’t care where I sleep at night — and with my schedule that’s about all I’m doing at that house … sleeping.
Billionaire says “Stop Coddling Super-Rich”
Warren Buffett, the second wealthiest individual in the U.S. ($50 billion) had this to say today:
OUR leaders have asked for “shared sacrifice.” But when they did the asking, they spared me. I checked with my mega-rich friends to learn what pain they were expecting. They, too, were left untouched.
While the poor and middle class fight for us in Afghanistan, and while most Americans struggle to make ends meet, we mega-rich continue to get our extraordinary tax breaks.
Walker, GOP to blame for Green Bay raising taxes
Several Green Bay-area school districts will be asking taxpayers to dig deeper this year, as the impact of state-aid cuts and a stumbling economy hit home.
The budget proposed by the Howard-Suamico School District would have taxpayers provide $22.17 million in 2011-12 — an increase of 7.6 percent over the previous year’s budget.
Hopper had nothing to do with Mercury Marine staying in FdL
Mark Zillges serves as president of IAM Local 1947 at Mercury. He is a 26-year employee at Mercury.
The upcoming recall elections are about many things, with a lot of the attention being focused on jobs.
And with Mercury Marine again hiring, it’s created an opportunity for politicians to take advantage of the situation, twisting the facts to bolster their record in office.
Nowhere is this more blatant than with state Sen. Randy Hopper. His campaign shamelessly has been exaggerating on television ads his role in the fight to keep Mercury Marine in Wisconsin.
Mercury Marine’s decision to stay in Fond du Lac was fundamentally dependent on two issues. The first was how much in concessions the company could extract from its employees. The second issue was how much money they could get from Wisconsin taxpayers.
Despite his campaign ads, Mr. Hopper had little to no formal role in either of these two issues.
With regard to employee concessions, that was a very difficult debate internally among the workers. Tensions were high and we were asked to make large sacrifices. Some of us who had been with the company for decades had to swallow pay cuts of 30 percent. In the end, it was a decision we workers made ourselves. As someone who was there during those tense times, I can guarantee Mr. Hopper did not play a major role in the outcome of that final vote. He did not, as he claims, “bring together business and union leaders.”
As for what government could give to Mercury Marine to keep them here is another thing. Mr. Hopper cannot claim credit. Of the $123 million in public subsidies for the company, $70 million of it came in the form of state aid. These incentives were part of Gov. Jim Doyle’s 2009-11 budget — a budget Hopper voted against and publicly condemned.
When talking about it, Mr. Hopper would have you believe Mercury Marine should serve as a model of how to treat companies. If true, let’s see what lessons we can learn.
Publicly funded subsidies for Mercury Marine will cost state and local taxpayers $123 million. One of the incentives was an increase in the local sales tax exclusively benefiting the company (where was Randy Hopper’s anti-tax rhetoric then?).
The factory jobs being created today pay about $10 to $13 per hour, not exactly a salary you can raise a family on. Existing employees absorbed major concessions while management got large bonuses.
In short, the Mercury Marine model Randy Hopper is trying to take credit for is to grant giant public subsidies, raise taxes give workers lower wages while granting bonuses for executives.
Keeping Mercury Marine in Fond du Lac was difficult and it took a lot of work by many people, from former Gov. Doyle, the employees and local elected officials. One person who should not claim credit though, is state Sen. Randy Hopper.
It’s disingenuous to say otherwise and shameful to distort the record for political gain and he should stop.
Watch Matt Damon shut down David Koch’s libertarian/corporate front group and its skewed perception about public education.
