Each December, the staff at Radio Free W.O.W. selects the biggest Political Winners and Losers of the past year. 2017 has been an incredibly busy year in the political arena. We had little difficulty in identifying Losers in this Walker/Ryan/Trump era. Winners were a little harder to come by. Here are our nominees:
Losers- The 8,900,000 American children who count on the Children's Health Program (CHIP) to access medical care and the 700,000 Dreamers who face deportation to countries they don't know. All are still waiting on Congress to do something about their situation.
Winners-The children of Wisconsin after Tony Evers won the State Superintendent race with 70% of the vote. The only areas carried by his wack-a-doo opponent, Lowell Holtz, were (sadly) my own Washington County and adjacent Waukesha County.
Loser- Former Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke. Clarke was a regular fixture at far-right events. Known for a chest full of cereal-box medals, cowboy hat, and deaths at his jail. Clarke gave definition to the term "snowflake" when he had his deputies detain a man who looked at him meanly.
Winners- Lovers of the English language. 2017 politics popularized a number of formerly obscure and interesting terms like emoluments, dotard, collusion, narcissist, the Dunning-Kruger effect, and cofeffe.
Losers-The 58 people killed in October's Las Vegas shooting. The 26 people killed at a church in rural Texas in November. The other 14,683 Americans killed by gun violence in 2017. The 29,893 Americans injured in 2017 by gun violence. Still, Congress only offers thoughts and prayers instead of real solutions.
Winners- Foxconn executives for getting an unsophisticated rube of a governor to give them a cool $3 billion to locate a plant in southeast Wisconsin. This is the largest public subsidy to a foreign company in US history.
Loser- American leadership in world. We alienated our closest allies (Canada, Mexico, UK, France, Germany, Australia) while sucking-up to dictators (Russia, China, Turkey, Philippines). We ceded moral leadership by dropping-out of the Paris Accord. We alienated Arab friends with the move of our embassy to Jerusalem.
Winners- All of the comedians who have given us a bit of comic relief in these trying political times. Special kudos to Stephen Colbert, Jimmy Kimmel, Samantha Bee, Alec Baldwin, Anthony "the Mooch" Scaramucci, Melissa McCarthy, Omorosa Manigault, and Randy Rainbow.
Losers- The tiki-torch-carrying, polo-shirt-wearing Nazi wannabes who marched in Virginia in August. Of course, Trump thinks that some of them are good people.
Winners- Billionaires. The ultra-rich usually win, but their wholesale purchase of Congress is paying-off big-time. They are getting a huge tax break, despite what it will do to the middle class and to the national debt.
Losers- All of the politicians who betrayed the public trust by acting in sexually inappropriate ways. US Senator Al Franken, Senate candidate Roy Moore, Rep. John Conyers, Rep. Blake Farenthold, Rep. Trent Franks, and Rep. Joe Barton are the latest examples to come to light. One of the worst violators still occupies the Oval Office.
Winner-Robert Mueller, for assembling a top-notch team of investigators. They are carrying-out a thorough and impeccably honest investigation of interference in US elections by a hostile foreign government. Four solid indictments down and many more to follow.
Losers-The hardworking taxpayers of Wisconsin who were forced to pay $245 million for school vouchers and another $12 million for tuition tax credits to send other people's children to private, mostly religious, schools.
Winners- Democrats in deep red regions. Whether in W.O.W. counties, Indiana, or Texas, dedicated Democrats everywhere are making a difference. We always have an impact on purple-state statewide races. Sometimes, we can even pull-off an upset, as in the Virginia and Oklahoma legislature elections or the Alabama US Senate race!
Loser- Donald Trump, who showed that he has very weak political influence. His heavily-endorsed gubernatorial candidate in Virginia lost. His heavily-endorsed primary candidate for Alabama Senate lost. His heavily-endorsed general election candidate for Alabama Senate lost. Is there a pattern here?
Winners- The Washington Post, The New York Times, Politico, and the few other media outlets that still conduct investigative reporting. You are needed now, more than ever.
Losers- The 3.5 million people of Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands who suffered from September's Hurricane Maria. FEMA's weak response was a national disgrace. The islands did, however, get badly needed paper towels. We also were amazed to discover that they are islands in the middle of the ocean.
Winners- People of the resistance. Millions of American patriots who were awakened by the most granny-starving, hate-filled, rights-restricting agenda the country has ever seen. They raised their voices through the Woman's March, the March for Science, airport rallies, taking a knee during the National Anthem, calling Congressional offices, knocking doors for candidates, and participating in town halls. America is now woke.
The GOP scheme to give giant tax cuts to billionaires and corporations is well on its way to becoming law. The plan will blow an unprecedented $1.4 trillion hole in the National Debt. In order to make-up for the Republican largess to their rich donors, huge automatic cuts in spending will likely kick-in. An estimated $25 billion per year will be taken from Medicare alone.
But that is not enough punishment for those retired or near retirement. After finishing their job of enacting the largest ever transfer of wealth from the middle class to the rich, Republicans will just be hitting their stride. Next on their agenda? A total and complete gutting of both Social Security and Medicare.
Much buzz has been made over Paul Ryan's interview yesterday on Denver right-wing radio. Most of the conversation centered on Ryan's next plans for his GOP majority. Ryan boasted, “We're going to have to get back next year at entitlement reform, which is how you tackle the debt and the deficit. ... Frankly, it's the health care entitlements that are the big drivers of our debt, so we spend more time on the healthcare entitlements — because that's really where the problem lies, fiscally speaking.”
The interviewer asked if Ryan was making an impact on Trump when talking to him about the importance of Medicare "reform". Ryan responded, "This is my big thing for many, many years. I think its the biggest "entitlement" that's got to have reform."
It is no big surprise that, with Republicans now in power, Ryan plans to gut the Social Security and Medicare benefits you have earned. After all, this has been a central feature of Ryan's "Path to Prosperity" manifestos for years. In these documents, Ryan has advocated the privatization of Social Security and replacing Medicare with discount coupons for private insurance.
Ryan claims that even as a college student, he was dreaming about gutting the safety net. While everyone around him was thinking about dating and classes and parties, young Paul was pondering the block-granting of Medicaid. He was wondering how he could deny healthcare to millions of Americans.
But Ryan cannot destroy Social Security and Medicare all by himself. He needs the complicity of the entire Republican Party. How does the rest of the Wisconsin Congressional delegation feel about taking a wrecking-ball to your retirement security? Do they share in Ryan's youthful fantasy?
Certainly, Jim Sensenbrenner is on-board. In a 2016 statement, he said, "Every day that goes by, the situation grows worse and will require more drastic changes to the Social Security and Medicare programs. The time to act is now. The health and security of all Americans depend on it.”
Sensenbrenner's record on the two crucial programs for retirees leaves something to be desired. He has earned an abysmal 5% Lifetime Rating from the Alliance for Retired Americans (AFRA). Jim got a "thumbs down" rating on 10 of 11 key Medicare votes, as reported by MedicareVotes.org. He is certainly not an advocate for his district's older constituents.
Glenn Grothman is no better on strengthening these programs for retired Americans. He has a 0% lifetime rating from the AFRA and "thumbs down" on all three of his three key Medicare votes.
Senator Ron Johnson just admitted that he is OK with adding 2 to 3 trillion dollars to the National Debt to fund GOP tax cuts for the wealthy. Yet, he claims that we cannot afford the programs that keep so many of our elderly out of poverty. He famously compared Social Security to a giant Ponzi scheme. He voted for Paul Ryan's plot to turn Medicare into a discount coupon plan. Johnson has certainly earned his failing 2% lifetime rating from the AFRA.
In stark contrast, Senator Tammy Baldwin and Representatives Gwen Moore, Mark Pocan, and Ron Kind have earned 100%, 100%, 100%, and 89% Lifetime ratings, respectively from the AFRA. The four Democrats in Wisconsin's Congressional delegation are 7/7, 9/10, 4/5, and 10/11 for "thumbs up" on key Medicare votes since 2003. Wisconsin Democrats stand with our state's seniors.
There is no more clear cut difference between the two major parties than on Social Security and Medicare policy. Wisconsin Congressional Democrats consistently vote to preserve the programs, while state Republicans vote to demolish them. We know which party is looking-out for the interests of retired Wisconsinites and those who plan to retire someday. We know which party's candidates deserve to be sent to Washington in 2018.
Wisconsin politicians continue their crusade to endanger your family's health and safety. In October, we reported on the GOP legislators' push to slash training and educational requirements for state-issued professional licenses. In August, Walker signed the so-called REINS Act into law, which allows corrupt politicians to kill critically-needed environmental, safety, and health regulations.
Now, in their latest attempt to make you sicker, Republican legislators are taking a meat cleaver to state air pollution rules. Assembly Bill 587 will repeal any state air pollution standards that go beyond Federal EPA rules.
The Federal standards cover 188 pollutants. That sounds like a lot, but it is only a small fraction of the tens of thousands of hazardous chemicals used or produced in America every day. According to a 2004 Legislative Audit Report, the Wisconsin DNR monitors an additional 293 hazardous air pollutants. If all enforcement of state standards ends, this will constitute a 61% reduction in the number of toxic pollutants monitored in the air you breathe.
The noxious bill has widespread support among the GOP majority. Thirteen Republican Representatives and four State Senators are listed as sponsors. A brief hearing by the Assembly Committee on Federalism and Interstate Relations was held on the bill on November 21. The hearing lasted about an hour and forty-five minutes, with a handful of people testifying. The entire proceedings can be seen on WisconsinEye.
During the hearing, the bill's primary authors, Duey Stroebel (R-Wheezetown) and Jesse Kremer (R-Gasp City), kept repeating that if regulation of a hazardous air pollutant is deemed necessary by DNR scientists, then they could conduct the studies to re-regulate that pollutant. There are three problems with this idea.
First of all, the bill would instantly end state regulation of many state-monitored air pollutants. In order to reinstate a toxic compound on their list, the DNR staff would need to conduct an entirely new set of studies and hearings. This would take a great deal of time, possibly years. During this lengthy process, there would be no monitoring of that air toxin. In the meantime, you might just have to live with the emissions of o-chlorotoluene, dioxins, or hydrogen cyanide in your town.
Secondly, recent budget maneuvering by Walker has led to a much smaller DNR. Department scientists have been especially hard-hit by the staff reductions. A decreased scientific staff will lead to unacceptably long wait periods for reinstatement of noxious compounds on the monitoring list.
Finally, it may simply be politically impossible to reinstate a bad-actor compound on the monitoring list. With the Wisconsin REINS Act now in place, any regulation deemed to cost businesses at least ten million dollars over the entire state must pass through the legislature. If legislative leaders or committee chairs refuse to bring up the regulation for a vote, it will die. Big industry polluters need only "convince" one leadership politician of the righteousness of their cause to kill the DNR monitoring of a hazardous compound.
Wisconsin has long been on the forefront of environmental protection policy. It is sad that our state legislators now want to roll back state rules to the much weaker Federal ones. At the same time, the US EPA is being destroyed from within. The current EPA Administrator, Scott Pruitt, is a man on a mission to weaken the organization. For example, while Oklahoma Attorney General, Pruitt sued the EPA fourteen times.
The organizations that have come-out against AB587 include environmental groups like the Sierra Club, Clean Wisconsin, Inc, and the Wisconsin League of Conservation Voters. As a defender of public health, the American Lung Association is also against the bill.
Who is for the bill? A pack of polluters and polluting-industry advocates, such as the American Petroleum Institute, Wisconsin Energy Group, Inc., Wisconsin Paper Council, and Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce (WMC). WMC is certainly getting their money's worth with this legislation. On their website, the business lobbying group states as one of their goals -"...conforming Wisconsin regulations to those of corresponding federal laws like the Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act. "
AB 587 is a brazen GOP attempt to roll-back the quality of Wisconsin's air. Anyone who lives, works, or breathes in our state should be angry about this bill. If we permit it to become law, AB587 will allow more air pollution, thereby endangering our health, and lowering our quality of life.
