posted 3/28/09
 

Your Chance to Affect the State Budget

by Carl Soderberg
of The Inside Scoop

A friend told me about a great opportunity taking place in Appleton next week.  The State Legislature’s Joint Finance Committee is holding hearings on the Governor’s proposed budget (Assembly Bill 75) around the state, and one is coming to Lawrence University in Appleton.  Not only is the Hearing open to the public, but our state legislators want our comments, criticisms, and suggestions about what is good, bad, and ugly in the Governor’s budget.  This is our chance to tell our legislators what real people think about their plans to spend our money!   

The Hearing is at Stansbury Theater in the Music-Drama Center of Lawrence University, 420 E. College Avenue, in Appleton. It starts at 10 a.m., but if you arrive at 8:30 – 9:30 a.m., you may register to speak for 3 minutes directly to the legislators.  Registering gets you a numbered slip (just like the “take a number” at the grocery store deli counter) and speakers are then called in numerical order.  Committee staffers suggest you bring a written copy of your testimony, one copy for each of the 16 members plus a few extras, as an aid to memory-impaired and/or temporarily absent members.

The Governor’s proposed budget calls for an increase in spending of almost 8% over two years.  It raises almost every tax & fee in the book, and creates new ones, too.  It increases auto insurance rates, it repeals the 1995 “joint & several” liability reforms, it doesn’t lay off or furlough any state employees, it repeals the QEO (Qualified Economic Offer) which keeps public school costs stable, it ends Truth in Sentencing by creating “early release” – parole – for 3,000 felons, it forces unionization on home health care workers, and it requires more government contracts use “prevailing wage” (i.e. union only).  And it has social/public policy provisions that should be debated and discussed in public hearings, not hidden away as riders in the budget (e.g. the gay marriage “registry”, “domestic partner” benefits for state employees, embryonic stem cells research funding, and more).

If you prefer not to speak, you can still tell the legislators what you think about this budget by picketing the Hearing.  I am going to be outside the Music-Drama Center building holding up my sign protesting the part of the budget which I detest the most.  And somehow, I suspect that I will not be alone.  With all the loathsome provisions contained in this budget, there will be members of all sorts of groups expressing their views.  There have been at every other city where these hearings have been held.  So come and join me, and make your opinion heard! 

A great Assemblyman always says: “Every day I have people come to my office, and ask that tax money be spent on a project important to them.”  But I haven’t had one person come to my office and ask me to NOT spend more money.”  This is your chance to do exactly that.  Make your voice heard in our State Legislature!  I will be participating, and I hope you do too.

Soderberg is a veteran campaign worker and volunteer, most recently working on Jo Egelhoff's campaign for State Assembly.
Email Carl at carl@theinsidescoop.us.