Uppity Wisconsin

Water Panel Weak On Specifics

The Politics of Water. Thursday, May 21.

A panel ensconced by the Public Policy Forum in a Wauwatosa hotel, was strong on the language of cooperation, happy about the International Water Compact, and true believers in the new "work together" mood of our nation.

Michael Murphy,  Alderman from Milwaukee, spoke of the issues on which Milwaukee would like cooperation: affordable housing, transit, and economic development of distressed areas. What he might have added is some conceptual material - how all of these things work together in a healthy city. Unfortunately he did not bring to the table The Now Issue: why it is that Transit, today as they spoke, could be the most effective signal of cooperation from Waukesha (County and City). Nor did he suggest, and reasonably he could have, why Milwaukee officials are looking to a private, international water corporation for serious money after being rebuffed on many fronts in Madison over school funding, dedicated transit funding that brings federal dollars, and health care costs.

I warned against Pabst Farms back in February 2008. Another retail wonderland is the last thing Wisconsin needs to be publicly-funding at this - or for that matter, any other - time. Such subsidization merely realigns spending away from existing shopping destinations toward the newer, shinier destination. A colossal waste of public (and private) resources if there ever was one.

But wait a minute, things aren't going as planned.

I thought this was a slam-dunk economic development initiative?

One of those unstoppable catalysts that was necessary, creates jobs, and spurs further development.

So why can't the developers even sign tenants?

Maybe it has to do something with the duplicative, sprawling, inefficient, environmentally unsound, and bribery-laden path of our urban planning & economic development. Sites compete for capital, subsidizing businesses to locate in less

I guess somebody had to take up the anti-Wisconsin rantings in place of WMC, and it looks like Governor Jim Doyle's former co-chair of the Economic Growth Council is up to the task! The Wisconsin State Journal thinks his point of view has enough credibility to publish this OpEd, "State of Wisconsin still a welfare magnet," without so much as providing numbers to substantiate any aspect of his argument.

"Wisconsin had one of the five worst migration patterns in the United States from 2000 to 2006. Higher income individuals left Wisconsin. Individuals on the lowest rung of the economic ladder migrated to Wisconsin."

Are these statements, or facts? Who knows!

A few questions for Mr. Hefty:

Is the word "migration" your quaint, racist euphemism for non-white people moving here from Chicago and other parts south?

Why don't you use real numbers from Wisconsin and neighboring states rather than relying on some Brookings Institute and Princeton studies? And why don't you name these studies, or link to them in the article? Do they exist?