Radio talkers Mark Belling and Charlie Sykes have been leading the chorus of conservatives claiming Gov. Jim Doyle couldn’t possibly get re-elected. Doyle is acting in “such a politically self-destructive manner” that he must have a death wish, Belling has fumed. Doyle’s budget is “a grotesque fiscal, economic and political monster,” Sykes has written. And the conservative publication Wisconsin Interest has delighted in the alarming drop in Doyle’s approval ratings, as charted by Web site fivethirtyeight.com.
So is Doyle doomed? One veteran Wisconsin Republican scoffed at this theory. “I’m not convinced Doyle is vulnerable,” he told me. “I think it’s a good re-election budget for him. There are a lot of taxes, but how many are you paying?”
Doyle has certainly cherry-picked his targets: The top 1 percent of Wisconsinites will get an income tax increase. Smokers will pay a higher cigarette tax. Oil companies will pay a tax on their profits. The state capital gains tax will be increased.
Most voters won’t be directly affected. Their concern would be a general increase in the sales or income tax, and Doyle hasn’t proposed this. Nor can an opponent accuse him of doing much to increase the most hated levy, the property tax: To keep a lid on this local tax, his budget allows schools to raise per-pupil spending by no more than $200 in each of the next two years.
Meanwhile, Doyle wants to lay off 1,000 state workers, cancel a pay raise for all state workers, and further require them to take an unpaid leave of eight days per year over the next two years. On balance, his general operating budget will actually decline, the first time this has happened since almost forever. Doyle will argue he made tough choices while facing a horrible economy; his opponents will blast him as a big taxer.
The only poll done to date matching Doyle against his possible opponents, by the conservative MacIver Institute, showed Doyle beating Scott Walker 50 to 43, and beating Mark Neumann by 49 to 42.
No, that’s not very impressive. Nor are Doyle’s sagging approval ratings. But Doyle had weak ratings going into the election against Mark Green and won pretty handily. Elections are about contrast between two candidates, and Doyle’s task is to look better than his opponent. Something my Republican source feels Doyle is likely to do.
“The Doyle people know how to run a campaign,” he says. “I think the only thing that can hurt them is if they get overconfident and beat themselves.”
Perhaps. But one issue where Doyle could be vulnerable is his proposal to loosen the requirements for W-2 assistance. Challenger Tommy Thompson upset Gov. Tony Earl in 1986 by painting the incumbent as pro-welfare. You can expect a Republican attack on this issue. Doyle had better have good answers.
The Clock is Ticking for MPS
Wow, is Milwaukee Public Schools in trouble.
Back in 2004, I did a story for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that found Milwaukee Public Schools was spending 51 cents on benefits for every dollar spent on salaries in 2003. That was projected to increase to 55 cents in 2004. Recently, JS reporter Alan Borsuk did a story noting (toward the back) that MPS was now up to 60 cents on benefits for every dollar in salary and this was expected to increase to 63 cents next year.
That’s a mind-blowing trend. If it continues – and it will, unless major changes are made in its benefits structure – MPS will be forced to gut its staff, impose annual double-digit tax increases or both. The heart of the problem is health care: The plan for employees has few cost controls. And the plan for retirees (many of whom get lifetime health insurance) is funded on a “pay-as-you-go” basis. The latter is an actuarial nightmare: Each year there are more retirees covered by the health insurance and ever-higher premiums, but the system hasn’t put any money aside to pay for this growth, as a government pension plan normally does. So the costs have started to mushroom.
Business leaders have been putting some pressure on Mayor Tom Barrett to get involved with this issue. Recently, an informant tells me, Barrett was meeting with someone who suggested he take over the schools. His reply, I’m told, was, “Why should I take control of the car before it’s going off the cliff?” Barrett Chief of Staff Patrick Curley says the mayor actually said that “No matter who’s in charge of the schools, the car is going to go off the cliff unless significant changes are made.” Or, to put it another way, it would be risky for Barrett or any politician to take over such a drastically imperiled system.
And so, instead, Barrett has gingerly proceeded (along with Doyle and lame-duck state Superintendent of Public Instruction Elizabeth Burmaster) to appoint an advisory council to suggest improvements in MPS. In essence, we have a new committee overseeing another committee (the school board) overseeing school Superintendent William Andrekopoulos, who oversees the MPS bureaucracy, which oversees the schools. It’s a rather diffuse way to accomplish any change.
And that’s the point. The new advisory committee may or may not achieve some results. But either way, it will be difficult to blame Barrett – or anyone, really – for what it does or doesn’t do.
The Buzz
-Former JS reporter and Milwaukee Sentinel columnist Ken Lamke called car dealers “lying, thieving slimeballs” on Charlie Sykes’ May 17 Sunday morning TV show. No one can say Lamke is not opinionated. In what appeared to be damage control, Sykes went on the radio, and on TV the following Sunday, to declare that he disagreed with Lamke. Sykes also posted a letter from the Automobile Dealers Association suggesting Lamke was off base and shouldn’t be invited on Sykes’ show. In response to my e-mail asking whether Lamke is no longer welcome on the show, Sykes replied, “He’s on the list of people I invite from time to time. The list you used to be on.” Ouch.
-Talk about editorializing in a news story. A JS story last week told readers in the first graph that funding for the proposed SEED school “appears doomed by politics in Madison.” By politics? This is a proposal to spend an incredible $30,000 per pupil for a boarding school, or about three times more than the average expenditure of a public school in Wisconsin. Given that most schools in the state are struggling to meet their budget, is this the best use of tax dollars? Gov. Jim Doyle (who called the proposal “a wonderful thing” but unaffordable right now) and the state teachers union are among those who said no. I daresay many conservatives might agree. There is clearly a disagreement over policy on this, yet the story flatly asserts – without bothering to offer any proof –the governor and teachers union are playing politics.
-On the other hand, a JS story rightly spotlighted a legislative proposal to give wealthy seniors in retirement homes a property tax exemption. As a Milwaukee Magazine feature by Barbara Miner found, Milwaukee is getting slammed by such exemptions. By 2006, she found, almost 20 percent of the city’s non-governmental property value was exempt from taxes, compared to just 10 percent in 2000. As more property becomes exempt, everyone else’s taxes go up.
-And the Sports Nut considers: Will surgery on Brett Favre’s arm cause even more interceptions than usual?
