Wednesday, December 2, 2015

As Barrett Takes The Field, GOP Throws Donovan A Hail Mary

Unsurprising to anyone, Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett announced that he is running for his fourth term.  I have no doubt that Barrett will easily win again, not that he deserves it, but because the rest of the candidates are just that poor.

But on the day that Barrett formally announced his campaign, the GOP legislators in Madison threw a Hail Mary bomb to Bob Donovan, one of Barrett's opponents.

The futile attempt to help their fellow conservative came in the form of an announcement that they want to pass a bill that would prohibit any state funding for Barrett's streetcar folly.  This announcement is purely political and has no real purpose other than to try to stir up their Teapublican base.

The bill is pointless since no state funding is going to the streetcar and the state already banned money from going to it anyway:
"There's been no state funding so far, and this would ensure there would not be," Kremer told the Journal Sentinel.

Kremer said Wisconsin taxpayers have already helped to contribute millions in federal tax dollars.

"As such, I do not feel that taxpayers outside of the City of Milwaukee should be responsible for any future operational costs that may arise," Kremer said.

The proposal aims to prohibit the state from incurring any expenses associated with a commuter rail system.

Kremer said the measure would essentially be an expansion of a provision in the 2015-'17 state budget that created a transit safety oversight program. That provision was aimed at preventing a county containing a first-class city — that would only be Milwaukee — from incurring any expenses linked to the operation of a commuter rail system, unless the county would be fully reimbursed by the city.
So it's a redundant solution to a problem that doesn't exist.

Your tax dollars at work, folks.

To add to the bill's inanity, it won't help Donovan anyway.

Besides Donovan's criminal record and his blatant racism, Donovan is already a failure at being a leader.  He tried twice to get a petition drive going to stop the streetcar.  The first time he couldn't get enough signatures.  The second time proved to be so lame that it was stopped before it started.

Someone needs to explain to the GOP that one fights fire with fire, but fighting boondoggle with boondoggle doesn't work so well.



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