Uppity Wisconsin

My Dear Republican

"While each member of the Senate caucuses with his Party, what each of us hopes to accomplish is distinct from his party affiliation. The American people do not care which Party solves the problems confronting our nation. And no Senator, no matter how loyal he is to his Party, should or would put party loyalty above his duty to the state and nation."  ---Arlen Specter, on changing from Republican to Democrat, April 28.

April 27, I mail this letter to to the Republicans of the Joint Finance Committee.
April 28, Senator Specter resigns from the Republican Party.

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Dear Republican Elected Official


I am a small-business owner of a nationally known service located in downtown Milwaukee. For over 30 years, I have observed your allegiance to the larger corporations and their needs, while generally you are condescending to us small business owners.

Your party puzzles me, locked into old issues that are evaporating as fast as stimulus funds from Washington.

My impression is that to a Republican a "small business" has revenues from 10 million and upward to the value of Marquette Electronics when it was sold to GE. (By the way, the former owner of that business is someone you should spend time with: he understands the connection between public transportation and local economies; his streetcar plan is a homerun for our city. )

But $10 million? Not my company. Quality dictates our size, not capital. We work; and our trips to Madison are few, maybe about health, education and safety, but never whiney pleas for tax breaks.

Yes, I pay attention to the Republican platform, but between your religious fanatics and the large corporations there is no place for me or my business. Your commitment to small government has given us the dictatorship of large corporations.

Today, I write you about the brain-dead politics of public transportation.

You say you support businesses. Since business needs workers and customers, how is public transportation simply off the table? Small business depends on people who come from a distance. To think everyone uses a car to shop and work is naive. Scott Walker's remarks about everyone having a car was probably the death of his political career.

• Blind people work, too;
• fifteen year olds have jobs;
• no matter what Scott Walker believes, we seniors will not be driving ourselves to our own funerals;
• workers cannot change homes as often as they may have to change jobs;
• kids change schools at least once every four years and
• households sometimes have several children in distant schools;
• no plan to reduce Temporary Assistance to Needy Families can work without the bus.

I quote our brain trust: "The higher the percentage of families below the poverty level in a given block group, the higher the percentage of households with no vehicle available." (UWM Study)

Walking to work died before my Daddy was born.

If you believe we don't need transit, wait a couple of years to see what Milwaukee looks like then.

• Today 40,000 jobs are inaccessible to public transportation in Milwaukee due to the Walker bus cuts.
• If our buses do not get dedicated funding, the number of inaccessible jobs will rise to something over 100,000.

I live in Bay View. If the bus system fails, our local business district will go on life support. Restaurants and small shops depend on workers and customers from more than 3 miles away.

Did you know that Milwaukee County voters asked you to fix this? And that included a tax swap to reduce our property tax? Why did you fight this? I thought reducing property taxes was YOUR issue.

I note that one of your club is gleefully rubbing his hands that Senator Lehman will do a "Petak" on Regional Transit and there will be a recall in Racine. This is not an economic plan for our state. I take it, however, it is the Republican Plan to get control of the next budget.

It is, however, the same brain-dead politics that ties Dems in knots; they are poised to sacrifice Milwaukee's economy so Russ Decker can remain majority leader.

It is to cry.

My dear Republican, I plead with you: just vote for to allow us our Regional Transit Authority, the tax we want imposed on ourselves, and sweep the issue out of the hands of the Dems who seem ready to abandon it.

To your credit you will not have abandoned your base, you will not have abandoned Scott Walker. (Indeed you will have saved his behind. And even given Gov Doyle a race.)

You will not have abandoned the large corporations; the Milwaukee Chamber (MMAC) wants this regional transit authority.

And you will have made the Democratic base of this city sit up and take notice.

To me, running my little business, the RTA (access to Racine, Kenosha and Chicago; city-wide buses restored) is more important than the career of Mr. Decker. For me I doubt that Wisconsin's elected Democrats are smart enough to grasp the great truth: Our sun does not rise and set on their personal careers.

Nor do they understand that if Mr. Lehman does the right thing they can count on us to come down to Racine in hordes and fight for his seat in the Senate. We are not talking "Sunday in the ball park." This is our city, our future. And we know the difference between Sunday games and weekday jobs.

My question, however, is: where are you?

Sincerely,

William Sell
2827 S. Lenox, Milwaukee 53207
414-744-3970