Wisconsin referendums explained: Giving a single Democrat the ability to blow through billions of taxpayer dollars however they want? What could possibly go wrong?!
This is an opinion piece.
Democrats are trying to trick people into voting no on the two state referendums on the Aug. 13 ballot. The conservative or just fiscally responsible position is to vote YES, unless you’re happy with the way leftist Gov. Tony Evers spends COVID (and other federal money) like a drunken sailor.
One shadowy group involved in pushing for the no votes has $115,000 to play with, and some of its money is coming from unions, according to its July campaign finance report.
The advocacy is coming from a cluster of liberal-aligned groups.
Again: Democrats – including the state Democratic Party – want you to vote no. Republicans – and independents and people who think there should be more voices at the table when it comes to spending billions of dollars in federal money – want you to vote yes. Voting yes would put Wisconsin in line with most other states which, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures, do NOT allow their governors to have this much power over COVID relief funds. Many states give their Legislatures some input over federal funding overall too.
For example, did you know that the state got billions of dollars in ARPA (COVID) money and, thanks to Evers, it was spent on everything under the sun, even a proposed public market in Dane County? Don’t take my word for it. That’s according to the liberal Cap Times.
Unencumbered by oversight, Evers blew COVID money on a railroad museum in Green Bay, an arts center and soccer stadium in Milwaukee, theatre upgrades in Door County, you name it! Not sure what any of that has to do with COVID or emergency health concerns.
Meanwhile, people can’t afford their groceries, they’re getting squeezed with rent hikes, insurance costs are soaring, and people’s kids can’t buy their first house.
As state Sen. Duey Stroebel, a Republican, dryly noted on X, “I struggle to see how any of these projects relate to pandemic relief.”
Stroebel told the Badger Institute, “If we (the Legislature) had something to say about it, we’d do this in a prudent manner. But this is Tony’s slush fund for him to splash around in, to buy love and to buy votes.”
Badger also noted that the governor’s administration has failed to document how it made the decisions to spend COVID money. Evers has also blown COVID money on projects the Legislature specifically rejected in the state budget process, usurping their authority. That included a Janesville Sports and Convention Center.
Bottom line: He’s not transparent in how he makes these decisions, he cuts out the elected legislators, and he’s thumbed his nose at attempts to provide oversight.
And it’s not just COVID money. There’s a lot of federal money that flows into the state – from roads to climate change funds – yet Evers thinks the people’s elected representatives shouldn’t have any say in a purple state.
The Democrats have launched a major marketing effort to fool people into thinking that voting yes threatens the checks-and-balances system (we’ve seen one misleading card a shadow group sent to Washington and Milwaukee County voters). Actually, it’s the OPPOSITE (where are the “misinformation” reporters or Politifact when you need them?)
Voting YES is the position that puts more checks and balances on the spending of federal cash. That’s because there are two referendums on the Aug. 13 ballot.
The first would prevent the Legislature from delegating its power of the purse, as it did in the 1930s, giving the governor the unilateral authority to spend some federal money.
The second referendum question, if you vote yes, would give the legislature the ability to have some oversight over the governor’s spending of federal money – an oversight he’s not been keen to give. He didn’t even want to cooperate with an audit of COVID money.
Even the often liberal-tilted Wisconsin Watch wrote, “The Legislative Audit Bureau said that Evers’ Department of Administration did not provide information it claimed the governor based his decisions on when handing out some $3.7 billion in pandemic aid over the past two years.”
How big is this marketing effort? They have a website. The shadow group is sending the misleading cards to conservative people in Washington County that hide the fact that it’s DEMOCRATS who want you to vote no, and REPUBLICANS who think you should vote yes. They’re holding press conferences. They’re even buying up Google searches. When you search for something on Google, if you see the little “sponsored” label next to the top result, that means someone paid to get it there. And that’s just the start of it.
As state Rep. Robert Wittke, a Republican, pointed out, delegating the Legislature’s power of the purse might have made sense in the 1930s when, in the case of emergencies, it took too long to trek to Madison from the farthest reaches of the state. In today’s Zoom culture, that’s just not true.
The Badger Institute noted that the governor’s position “assumed authority during the Depression without a vote ever having been taken.” The referendums would give the people’s elected representatives some oversight through constitutional amendments. According to Badger, the governor “is still sitting on $1.1 billion of this funding with no explanation for why and where that ’emergency’ money might one day go.” Why should only Evers get to decide?
In their latest “They’re trying to throw granny off a cliff!” hysteria, Democrats are trying to trick voters into thinking that voting yes would stall the state’s ability to respond to actual emergencies. But it’s bad faith to assume that legislators would refuse to respond to an actual emergency if it’s truly exigent. The catch, of course, is that some Democrats think pretty much everything is an emergency, even the climate change money that the feds are about to distribute.
The “voting yes would harm our ability to respond in an emergency!” lie obscures the fact that a lot of the federal COVID emergency relief money was spent by Evers on stuff that is not an emergency by any stretch of the imagination.
Heck, there’s probably little on the liberal wish list that Democrats do not consider an emergency. Some Democrats still think COVID’s an emergency, and we should all be forced to wear masks.
Democrats are freaking out over the notion of a little oversight – check and balance – because right now Evers gets to blow billions of dollars however he wants, which creates a system that is prone to partisan favoritism and woefully lacking in restraint.
Giving a single Democrat the ability to blow through billions of taxpayer dollars? What could possibly go wrong?!
If you want more control over spending, you would vote yes on the two state referendums on the August ballot. Spread the word.
