2018 | Week of October 15 | #1277
With the midterm election now just three weeks away, it’s time to think about what’s at stake. In my opinion, the liberal progressive elected officials in our state legislature made it pretty clear what’s at stake when the legislative session closed early this past spring.
Shortly after the floor periods were done, State Representative Chris Taylor, a Democrat from Madison, held a press conference. Surrounded by others who share her worldview, Taylor, the immediate past legislative director for Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin, laid out a laundry list of items that she and her friends will do if they win in November.
The document is actually a bill that Rep. Taylor introduced late in the session. It is a series of amendments to the state constitution. The form tells me that Rep. Taylor was just using the bill to put people on notice.
The Wisconsin liberal progressive manifesto consists of 18 individual items, each of them worth noting.
We begin with undermining the Second Amendment of the US Constitution by allowing local governments to regulate the carrying of arms. We proceed to unfettered right to an abortion, which would mean undoing existing restrictions on abortion such as a waiting period, parental consent, 20-week ban, and a required ultra-sound, to name just a few. Of course, Taylor talks in terms of “the right to reproductive freedom.”
The third amendment would guarantee a right to, in the words of the proposal, “access quality, affordable health care services,” which essentially means, single-payer, universal health care.
Next is a proposal to guarantee a right to a living wage. Here Taylor zips right past raising the minimum wage to $15. To get where Taylor and company want to be we’d have to have a minimum wage of over$25 in places like Milwaukee, which of course would close many businesses and ultimately result in significant numbers of people being unemployed.
Three other amendments deal directly with education, one guaranteeing a right to the “highest quality” education. Taylor doesn’t explain what that means, but past track records would indicate it has little to do with test scores and much to do with unlimited funding, meaning undoubtedly significant tax increases for Wisconsin citizens
Another amendment would stop any state funds from going to private religious schools, which would shut down the school choice voucher program, that has time and again proven to do a good job in educating students. And the third education amendment would have the State Superintendent of Public Instruction determine funding levels for public schools rather than the state legislature. Talk about the fox guarding the hen house.
Other proposals include eliminating the residency requirement to vote. Currently, you need to live in a district for 28 days before an election and not have any intent of moving afterwards. Taylor wants to remove the word “resident” and require only that a person reside in the district 10 days before an election.
This roadmap would also reinstate the now defunct and reorganized Government Accountability Board that brought us numerous bogus but expensive and personally intimidating John Doe lawsuits. Taylor also wants unelected, partisan-appointed GAB officials to be in charge of legislative redistricting, rather than the state elected officials.
Summarizing the remaining proposals, Taylor and her merry band would reinstate straight-ticket voting; require the state to use a progressive income tax, rather than the flat tax we’ve been moving towards; eliminate tax exemptions that liberal progressives deem unnecessary; guarantee a right to “clean air,” whatever that may mean to those supporting this idea; redo who gets a say in DNR and how the DNR Secretary is appointed; and finally restore all public and private collective bargaining, essentially undoing the cost savings of Act 10 and the current Right to Work law, which assures people the right to work in our state without being forced to join a union.
To me, just this one very public declaration of what liberal progressives want Wisconsin to be makes this election very high-stakes. These proposals are consistent with socialism and humanism, not with capitalism and free enterprise, not with the right of people to live freely and to enjoy the fruit of their own labors. The bottom line is “we the people” are the ultimate decisionmakers. May God grant us wisdom as we cast our votes in Election 2018.
This is Julaine Appling for Wisconsin Family Council reminding you the prophet Hosea said, “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge.”
