Wednesday, January 13, 2010

Now, That's A Rebuttal!

Supervisor Theo Lipscomb does much better than his colleague, Johnny Thomas, did in offering a rebuttal for Walker's State of the Campaign address. The whole thing can be read on the BizTimes blog, but here is a juicy excerpt:

No longer content to simply pretend that he has frozen the tax levy, when it has actually increased by nearly $45 million during his tenure, County Executive Scott Walker upped the ante during his State of the County address Tuesday by making an arbitrary and irresponsible bet when he promised to lower the tax levy next year.

This may say more about his perception of his political prospects than his management ability. Given the state takeovers and service deterioration that Milwaukee County has experienced, it’s clear that the County Executive’s managerial track record is lackluster.

There is no need to propose a responsible budget if you plan to skip town for a new job. The impending fallout will not manifest until later when taxpayers suffer the increasing consequences of service cuts, deferred maintenance and broken promises.

Walker’s $200,000,000 check to taxpayers, an insincere metaphor about savings, is really an example of “Enron-like accounting” since it is based on paper gains not yet realized but projected forward and multiplied for effect. When this check bounces, the rhetoric will fall flat.

The rest is good reading as well, but the Lipscomb really nails it at the end:
It is good to hear the County Executive singing positively about Milwaukee County, but citizens must look beyond the rhetoric to see the peril of short-term promises. Simply put, it must be an election year.
Of course, Lipscomb's reference to "Enron-like accounting" reminded me again of the similarities between Scott Walker and George Bush.

No comments:

Post a Comment