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The Capital Times
The crisis and cure for Wisconsin politics
An editorial - 8/27/2008 5:20 am
John Wiley is leaving his post as chancellor of the University of
Wisconsin-Madison with a bang.
A political bang.
In an article penned for Madison magazine, Wiley takes on the Wisconsin
Manufacturers & Commerce corporate lobbying machine in language that
rocked the state's political scene.
It wasn't that Wiley said anything new. There has for a number of years
now been a dawning consciousness among thinking Wisconsinites that WMC
is leading a race to the bottom that would have this state define being
competitive as being "among those states with the lowest taxes, lowest
wages, and least regulation in the nation."
It was that Wiley, the generally well-regarded outgoing leader of the
great state University of Wisconsin, was saying it. And, even more
importantly, he was challenging WMC's calculus.
"According to 2007 U.S. Census Bureau numbers, Wisconsin currently has
the 11th-highest per-capita state tax revenues in the nation, and WMC
cites the statistic as evidence that Wisconsin is a 'tax hell,' " Wiley
wrote. "But look at the 10 states with higher per-capita taxes than
Wisconsin: Hawaii, Wyoming, Connecticut, Minnesota, Delaware, Vermont,
Massachusetts, New Jersey, California and New York. Nine of the 10 have
higher per-capita income than Wisconsin.
"In particular, Minnesota, our demographic twin, has the fourth-highest
per-capita taxation, and they're knocking our socks off economically.
They are currently ninth in the nation in per-capita income while
Wisconsin has slid to 21st. And of the 10 states with the lowest
per-capita taxation in the country -- Arizona, Georgia, South Carolina,
Tennessee, Missouri, Alabama, New Hampshire, Colorado, South Dakota and
Texas -- eight have lower per-capita income than Wisconsin," argues the
outgoing chancellor.
"So which economies should we aspire to: the dynamic, high-income,
high-tech, 21st century economies of Minnesota, Delaware and
Massachusetts, or the economies of South Carolina, Tennessee and
Alabama?" Wiley asks. "Would raising Wisconsin's existing tax rates move
us toward the former? Clearly not. State economies involve lots more
parameters than the rate of taxation, and Wisconsin's current tax system
is so unbalanced that simply raising rates would drive us in the wrong
direction. But it is equally clear that higher taxation, by itself,
hasn't hampered the economies of states that are outperforming
Wisconsin, and lower taxation hasn't made the economies of Tennessee and
Alabama any better in ways that benefit the citizens of those states."
Even more importantly, Wiley makes the essential connection between
WMC's multi million-dollar campaigning and the dysfunctional politics of
a state that once was hailed as America's "laboratory of democracy."
"For the last 15 years of Wisconsin's declining fortunes, the candidates
WMC has supported for elective office have been the very ones who, when
elected, have concentrated their efforts on opposing stem cell research
and domestic partner benefits, pushing a cleverly named but economically
devastating 'taxpayer bill of rights,' fussing over the definition of
'marriage,' hauling universities before staged hearings to defend our
efforts to prepare ethnic minority students for the work force, railing
against the personal views of otherwise-obscure instructors, resisting
any form of gun control, proposing mandatory arming of teachers,
demanding the illegal summary firing of named state employees and
proposing the elimination of the state's only public law school. What do
any of these ideological diversions have to do with 'making Wisconsin
the most competitive state in the nation'? It's Wisconsin's equivalent
of fiddling while Rome burns," writes Wiley.
"Because of my respect for WMC President Jim Haney and many of the WMC
board members, it pains me greatly to say this, but I believe (and many
former WMC board members agree) that WMC has, somehow, passively allowed
itself to be hijacked by highly partisan, ideologically driven staff.
WMC has evolved from being a strategically focused business organization
to being a partisan political lobbying organization. This, combined with
WMC's wealth and undeniable political influence and effectiveness, has
made WMC the single biggest driver of our toxic political environment
and, thus, the single biggest obstacle to the recovery of Wisconsin's
economy."
The notion that WMC is the single biggest obstacle to the recovery of
Wisconsin's economy is beginning to be accepted, not just by longtime
critics of the organization's thuggish political gamesmanship but by
responsible business leaders, who have begun to distance themselves from
the group.
The demonization of WMC is surely satisfying to those who care about
Wisconsin's future.
But as Wiley notes, WMC is a part of the problem -- not the whole of it.
The current effort to identify WMC as a damaging force in the state's
politics and governance is appropriate -- not because it promises a
repair of the system, but rather because it identifies a symptom of the
crisis.
The cure is campaign finance reform, and not just any reform.
Wisconsin needs a smart, flexible system of public financing for
campaigns. Such a reform is outlined in the Impartial Justice Act. That
bill has been proposed to clean up court races, in which WMC has a long
record of meddling. But reform cannot stop there. As Wiley notes, the
real problem is in the state Legislature. "The hyper-partisan political
environment at the State Capitol is toxic," argues the outgoing
chancellor.
That's the diagnosis. The cure is a new system for financing campaigns
that replaces toxic special-interest money with the clean money of a
publicly financed system.
An editorial - 8/27/2008 5:20 am
--
David Newby, President
Wisconsin State AFL-CIO
6333 W. Blue Mound Rd.
Milwaukee, WI 53213
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