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3/5/2008
How hard is it anyway, to shut down a government program?
Quick comment on Mark Rahmlow’s piece posted yesterday morning on FoxPolitics.net: Rahmlow argued the governor might do best to forget traveling to Ireland and concentrate on Wisconsin during the coming days and weeks and lo and behold, the guv is sticking around – a wise decision on his part. This state is in one heck of a huge fiscal mess; if the state’s top honcho isn’t losing sleep over it, he best be getting a little more serious about the ledgers.
If the answer to the budget is not the hospital tax (and it’s not – Senator Ellis has it right), it’s big tax increases for you and me. Or maybe, just maybe, we really do some serious soul searching (read “prioritizing”) and make the tough decisions to eliminate less effective programs.
Yup. Cutting programs. Anathema to governments everywhere. A 200-word article in yesterday’s NY Times shared a federal court ruling that HUD, in eliminating an ineffective program, “failed to comply with the Administrative Procedures Act [wuz that??] requiring a ‘reasoned analysis’ in trying to reverse a 10-year-old federal policy.”
What?
So the program, per the Bush administration, does the very opposite of what it’s intended to do and “leads to higher housing prices and a disproportionate number of foreclosures.” But to get the program closed down, the sponsoring agency must do headstands and back flips. How many government programs do you know that have ever been discontinued? Always goring somebody’s ox….
Senator Cowles touted the benefits yesterday of having sent AB 741 to the governor. He described the bill as
Increase[ing] accountability and efficiency in the government’s various economic development (E.D.) programs… eliminate[ing] a number of unfunded or inactive economic development programs and consolidate[ing] a number of duplicative programs to make the programs more efficient.
Wow. If that’s for real, I’m all for it.
According to the bill’s Fiscal Estimate, a prior audit identified 87 (!!!) E.D. programs at Commerce.
Now, these programs did not simply magically appear but were created at some point by the very legislature now complaining about them. Whenever you read about the governor galloping around the state, bestowing money for this community or that corporation – this is where all that money is coming from.
Anyway, of those 87 programs, an amazing 4 - !!!! are eliminated by this bill. Wow. 4 - !!!!. We’re talkin’ some really big numbers here. To be fair, The Audit Bureau identified an additional 6 of the 87 as already repealed, 5 as unfunded [??], and 10 as inactive.
Ok, so a major agency by hook or by crook drops from 87 programs to 62 programs. Still a huge number of programs that the legislature is asking the agency to be accountable for with goal-setting, benchmarking and verification responsibilities to the tune of 3 additional F.T.E.’s plus 1 F.T.E. for one-time only development work over a year and a half. Wow.
There is a huge cost to all these government programs. Wouldn’t it be great if any new government program had to pass the legislature with a 2/3 vote? Or for any new program to be enacted, a similar-sized program would have to be chosen for the chopping block?
Dream on.
Here’s the deal. Our state is in desperate financial straits. Huge political will is critical to giving a huge trimming to the number of existing government-financed programs in Wisconsin. Is the governor staying home from Ireland to do just that?
COMMENTS
As we approach a crossroads in dealing with this disastrous state debt, we the people of this fine state should look back about 20 years into recent New Zealand history, before we allow entrance to increased taxation indenture.
Finding themselves crushed with government programs and government employee costs, the people of New Zealand were able to reduce the entire state apparatus by a mind-bending 40%. It can be done; it needs to be done.
A true serendipity occurred; former government employees trained, becoming the vital cog in economic productivity and the liberating freedom that follows economic increase. Herding paper became herding sheep; building the prosperity of creative capital replaced building government programs and the dignity of being a producer replaced the dead-end management of another duplicitous government programs.
Richard (Wed Mar 05 09:05:50 2008)
New Zealand is a great example, particularly in their elimination of agriculture subsidies. Their farmers grew so productive, Wisconsin's innovative farmers turn to the Kiwis for guidance on grazing, nutrition, etc.
How much more competitive would Wisconsin's dairy farmers be if Uncle Sugar didn't subsidize the dairies in Arizona? (Yes, Arizona; let alone California.)
Brian Heyer (Wed Mar 05 10:36:45 2008)
It may indeed be time for a Golden Fleece Award such as Proxmire had for national government to be an annual event in Wisconsin.
The thing that is not being looked at here is the relationship between government, and business and it's lobbyists. In all these programs which are targeted, who has benefited? None of the program names are given so it's hard to say what is wheat and what is chaff. Who winds up benefiting?
Somebody originally voted for the targeted programs. With a conservative legislature as majority and their lobbyists being in control who has ultimately collected on program results?
I looked at the link and couldn't make much of it. A brief scan looked like economic opportunity programs are to be reviewed and some positions put in place at as much as $80,000 with some other factota ringing in at about $60,000. So some new Grover Norquist wannbe comes in and slaps the knuckles of who? Would it be the businesses who were the recipients of the economic opportunity monies? Or their scammer and flim flam lobbyists?
Maybe the programs which have become "inactive" were put in place as economic opportunity for some corporation that moved out of state despite the enticements and _in spite_ of Wisconsin workers.
You tell me.
Lon Ponschock (Wed Mar 05 13:02:49 2008)
Pretty good Lon. Except for the stuff about flim flam lobbyists. Hmmm.
AB 741 is supposed to be creating an extensive network of benchmarking, reporting and accountability. That's why all the new FTEs. But you're right - after all this accountability stuff, then what? And that's just the point. Legislators must find the courage to CUT programs shown to be less effective than others - or perhaps not effective at all. We shall see.....
Jo E. (Wed Mar 05 13:54:45)
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