Thursday, August 29, 2013

Abele Continues To Use Veterans As Political Pawns

A couple of days ago, I pointed out that even the editorial board of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel - which just adores Milwaukee County Emperor Chris Abele - had to tell Abele to grow up, suck it up and just sign off on the deal between the War Memorial Center and the Art Museum.  The agreement would allow the two entities to finally address some long neglected maintenance and repair issues.

Just about everyone in the entire community is behind this agreement but Abele.  And instead of just doing the right thing, Abele keeps showing himself to be an overgrown spoiled brat.

The latest from the Emperor is how it would be better to spend the disputed $300,000 on direct services for the veterans instead of repairing some old building meant to honor them.

This is a false choice.  There is no need whatsoever that it has to be either the War Memorial Center or services.

First of all, because of his excessive gouging on the workers - more than twice what Scott Walker is doing to state workers (and that's still not enough for him) - and cutting vital services, Abele has a "surplus" of tens of millions of dollars.

In other words, Abele's got more than enough money.  He just doesn't think that the vets are worth spending it on.

Secondly, even if he doesn't want to touch the surplus, he wouldn't have to.  He could first rescind the exorbitant pay raises he gave to his staff.  Hell, just the raises that he gave to his Chief of Staff, Amber Moreen, and his Director of Human Resources, Kerry Mitchell, alone would cover 20% of the $300,000.

And if you throw in the fact that he can't keep half of his office and department head slots filled for more than a few months at a time, there is surely a lot of unspent money that could go to fill the gap.

The other problem with Abele's attitude is that even if all the parties that had made the agreement stipulated to his demands and gave up that money, you know damn well that Abele wouldn't spend a dime of that on the veterans.  He would use that money to help pay for his plutocratic pals develop some county land or to pay for the courthouse fire and all the damage it caused.

Now if Abele was smart, he would sign the agreement and then match the amount in funding for services for veterans.  He's got more than enough money to do so.

But Abele is not smart.  He will continue to pout and have his temper tantrums about being told "no" again.  And when it's said and done, the agreement will be approved, whether because he finally signed it or because the County Board overrode his veto.

The only thing that this will accomplish for Abele is to prove once again that he is a self-serving plutocrat who doesn't care about the veterans unless he can use them.

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