N.E.W. Libertarian

Promoting clean, honest, open, and limited government in North East Wisconsin

Saturday, February 25, 2006

The Minutiae of Government

We’re coming up on the end of this legislaive session. You can tell, just by looking at our agenda.

The Legislature sets its two-year schedule in January of each odd-numbered year. We’re in session this week, and next week, and the week after that. Then we’ll be back for a few more weeks in April and May (for a limited calendar) and…that’s it, unless we’re called into session the last couple days in December.

End-of-session agendas fill up with the minutiae of government. There will be a few highlights – the Taxpayer Protection Amendment, we hope, will land on an agenda between now and May. Medical malpractice caps, preventing illegal aliens from obtaining drivers’ licenses.

Other than that, well, take a look down the agenda we’re considering today:


Removing a requirement that schools report student absences to the state (because that information is already collected elsewhere), and adding a requirement that schools report the number of hours of instruction;

Specifying when a school bus must activate its warning lights to load and unload passengers;

Details of nonprobate transfers of real property;

Technical changes in the way school districts have to mail copies of reorganization orders.

The minutiae of government.
Granted, there are a few more interesting (some would say more important) items on our agenda today: resolutions honoring Coretta Scott King, and two Wisconsin servicemen. A bill to allow school districts to fire employees with felony convictions – that could be controversial.

And it’s not that minutiae doesn’t make it onto the agenda earlier in the session – it does. Never so much as near the end of session, though. Over the next several weeks, we’ll have a flurry of activity – the Legislature will scramble to put seemingly minor bills on the agenda, whether or not those bills have any chance of being signed into law.

This is what the Legislature does – we deal with the rules of the game. More to the point: we change the rules of the game.

For example:

Twenty-two players are on the field during a football game. The game lasts one hour on the clock – more like three in real life. Seven offensive players have to line up on the line of scrimmage before a play – no more, no less. A touchdown is worth six points, a field goal three, and an extra point one.

We don’t question those rules – those are simply the rules. Every now and then, the NFL will consider a major rule change, like allowing the coach to challenge a ruling on the field.

Much more often, they tinker with things. They’ve tinkered with the challenge rules ever since it was enacted. They tinker with pass interference. They make minor changes to the rules.

That’s what the Legislature does – sometimes we make a big change, or try to. Much of the time, we tinker with the minutiae.


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Lasee’s Notes is a weekly column by Representative Frank Lasee, 2nd Assembly District, covering events in the Legislature and statewide.

Wednesday, February 15, 2006

Heating Homes

The Governor needed an issue – something that would catch the public’s imagination, and end the tough couple months he’s been having.

He picked one – home heating assistance. Keeping people warm in the winter is a noble cause, and Governor Doyle is a little late to the party.

Wisconsin already has a program to help lower income people pay for home heating, if they need it. It’s partly federal funded, partly state funded through the Public Benefits Fee – an extra charge (a fee, not a tax) you’ll find on your electricity bill every month.

This year, we’ll spend about $70 million on home heating assistance. Last year, we spent $54 million (a nearly 30% increase), meaning each eligible family is already receiving more assistance.

And we’ve already tried to increase it further: a bill authored by Rep. Honadel and Sen. Cowles (both Republicans) will increase the program to $80 million – a nearly 50% increase over last year – if it is ever signed into law.

Many states don’t spend anything other than federal money on home heating assistance. In Wisconsin, we can never do enough.

That bill passed the Assembly in December (oddly, over the no votes of most Democrats), and now awaits action in the Senate. Perhaps Governor Doyle could urge action on that, instead of re-inventing the wheel.

Governor Doyle’s plan is to spend $6 million (instead of $10 million) from the PECFA fund – the fund used to clean up petroleum-contaminated land – instead of already-existing heating assistance funds.

Plus, he wants to increase the eligibility levels. Currently, only those at or below 150% of the federal poverty level – about $30,000 for a family of four – are eligible. He would raise this to 206%. Families earning up to $41,200 will be eligible.

Six million dollars isn’t enough to cover all those new applicants, meaning that his plan will take heating assistance away from the poor, and give it to the middle class. All part of his “affordability agenda.” We’ll take more from you, so you’ll feel better about paying taxes and taking what the ` Wisconsin government gives you.

And he wants all this right now. This week. Governor Doyle demanded that the Legislature hold a special session this week to authorize that money.

He could have demanded it last week, when we were already meeting. He could demand it next week, when we’re scheduled to meet again.

As a matter of fact, he could have demanded it six months ago, after Hurricane Katrina woke us all to the reality of rising gas and fuel prices. That was in August – we’ve known ever since then (if not before) that heating our homes was going to cost more this winter. Higher energy costs aren’t a new phenomenon – except, it seems, in the Governor’s office.

In both of his budgets, Governor Doyle has robbed the Public Benefits Fund to support other spending. In the 2005-07 budget, he took (and, to be fair, the Republican legislature approved) over $35 million out of the $130 million fund, and transferred it to the General Fund.

If we needed more money for home heating assistance, we could simply have used the Public Benefits Fund, instead of sending it to the General Fund, and now looking for another source to rob to make up for our lack of foresight.

In the end, this is simply another attempt at grandstanding – just another meaningless attempt to look good.


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Lasee’s Notes is a weekly column by Representative Frank Lasee, 2nd Assembly District, covering events in the Legislature and statewide.

Wednesday, February 08, 2006

Nanny Government

Lassee's Notes

“Good intentions will always be pleaded for every assumption of authority. It is hardly too strong to say that the Constitution was made to guard the people against the dangers of good intentions. There are men in all ages who mean to govern well, but they mean to govern. They promise to be good masters, but they mean to be masters." - Daniel Webster
"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive.” - C.S. Lewis

Have you bought your booster seat yet?
If you have kids under 8 years old, you’ll want to. Because the state just passed a new law (over my objections) – now every child under 8 years old has to be in a booster seat while riding in a car.

Governor Doyle may not have used the line “if it only saves a single child…” but the phrase has been on everyone’s lips, nonetheless.

Really, it’s not saving lives that got the bill passed, it’s federal transportation money. Because we passed the bill, we get another $2.5 million which we wouldn’t have gotten, otherwise.

That’s worth it, right? A little less personal responsibility, a little further reach for Big Brother government’s fingers, for $2.5 million?

Wonder what else we’d do for $2.5 million?

Wisconsin law doesn’t require motorcyclists to wear helmets. Perhaps that’s next – the feds will dangle more transportation money in front of us, if only we pass that requirement.

Of course, wearing a helmet won’t help a motorcyclist who hits a car broadside at 40 mph. Maybe it would be better if motorcycles weren’t allowed on our roads at all. Put everybody in a car, where they can wear seatbelts and be protected by air bags. Hey, if it only saves one life.

Better put helmets on them, too, just to be safe.

It seems innocent enough – just an attempt to keep kids a little safer, and to bring in a little more federal money at the same time.

And, yes, it means the Nanny Government taking just a little more control over our lives. Why not? It’s what’s best for us. We all know it.

Given that motive, is it ridiculous to place video cameras into every home? Imagine the child abuse we could prevent, just to name one outcome. Imagine how much better we could make the lives of the children and the women who would, otherwise, be abused.

Not abusing your children? No worries, then. We’ll only use the footage to prosecute a crime. We won’t even look at it, unless a crime’s been alleged.

Just like Social Security numbers were not going to become national I.D. numbers.

Of course, that’s taking things much too far. Government never takes things too far: government only moves a little bit at a time. An inch here, an inch there…

As long as we’re acting with good intentions, with the good of the people in mind.


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Lasee’s Notes is a weekly column by Representative Frank Lasee, 2nd Assembly District, covering events in the Legislature and statewide.