The Milwaukee Post

8 • Milwaukee County Post • June 24, 2016 The Wisconsin Department of Transportation says several major ongoing state road projects are several hundred mil- lion dollars over budget and the depart- ment's explanation doesn't pass the smell test. The DOT is blaming the overruns on project delays that have resulted in inflated costs and on needed design changes. It is more likely that the DOT has simply mismanaged projects, lowballed their origi- nal cost and rolled over to the big road con- tractors who keep presenting the state with change orders that inflate the bill. The announcement of these overruns comes at the same time the road builders lobbying group is pushing to raise funds by either jacking up the gas tax, auto registration fee or something else. NO. Wisconsin, even with the progress made by Governor Walker and the Republican Legislature, still has the 43rd highest tax burden in the nation according to a recent estimate. The ongoing orgy of multimillion- dollar school referendums is making matters worse and a big increase in transportation taxes threatens to move us right back to the bottom of the list. Whatever the reason for the DOT shortfall, raising taxes and fees has to be off the table. Instead of jerking the Wisconsin knee toward higher taxes, a better response is to figure out what is really happening and who screwed up. The Transportation secretary for all of Walker's governorship is Mark Gottlieb. If projects have spiraled upward under Gottlieb's watch it is incumbent on Gottlieb to explain what happened. His excuses are not credible. Gottlieb starts by claiming that the deci- sion to slow down some major projects (in part to proceed with the ongoing Zoo Interchange work) has resulted in cost increases because of inflation. But com- modities prices haven't been inflating the last four years. They have crashed. Labor costs are governed by the contracts the road builders have with the construction trade unions and they haven't spiked up either. So much for the inflation argument. Gottlieb's other excuse is that some proj- ects have had increases because of needed changes in design and lousy early estimates. He blames this on the Doyle administration leadership of the DOT. Two projects in par- ticular have exploded in price. The widening of I-39/90 from Madison to the Illinois state line, going from four lanes to six, is several hundred million over and the interchange on Madison's Beltline with Verona Road (that's a huge route to the booming southwest part of Dane County) has increased 40 percent. Even if those projects were lowballed in the Doyle era — highly plausible — Gottlieb and the DOT bureaucrats haven't gone pub- lic with the news until now. Gottlieb claims the information was given to various boards and committees but there wasn't a big press release until a few weeks ago. Besides, com- petent management would have controlled some of those costs. Instead, road designers and the road builders know that every time they tell the DOT they need more money, the DOT pulls out a checkbook. The relationship between the DOT and the road-building industry has been too cozy for decades. Governor Walker is tight with the industry, as are many Democrats in the Legislature. I reported exclusively on my radio pro- gram last week that the I-39/90 project is actually even more over budget than Gottlieb is betting on and that he is using budgetary tricks to conceal it. A large portion of the project are the big interchanges where the Beltline meets the interstate southeast of the city of Madison and near Beloit where I- 39/90 merges with I-43. But the DOT has pulled both of those interchanges' costs out of the overall project budget. This could be as much as $300 million. The plan is to create a separate appropriation for these inter- changes. Do the math. I-39/90 is already $450 million over budget. But it's really $750 million if you include the cost of the two interchanges. This is mismanagement covered up by budg- etary tricks. Gottlieb does point out that the two huge ongoing southeast Wisconsin projects, the Zoo Interchange and the I-94 widening from Milwaukee to the Illinois line, are both com- ing in under budget. That's great, but those savings aren't making up for the other over- runs. The road-building industry wants a gas tax increase. It has a vested interest in letting project costs go overboard because: a) they get the money; and b) it helps create pressure for a tax increase. A better idea would be to expand the repeal of the prevailing wage law to state projects to allow non-union contrac- tors with lower costs to bid on projects and break up the road builders' cabal. I've invited Gottlieb on my radio program to answer specific questions about these cost overruns. He has refused. He instead is pro- viding me written responses. The only other Walker Cabinet member to refuse to answer my questions was former Corrections Secretary Ed Wall. I warned Walker for years that Wall was incompetent. Wall's incompe- tence has now been exposed by the Lincoln Hills scandal and he's gone. Gottlieb is still there. (Mark Belling is the host of a daily WISN radio talk show. His column appears weekly in the Milwaukee Post. Send your personal correspondences to Mark Belling at Clear Channel Communications, c/o WISN, 12100 W. Howard Ave., Greenfield, WI 53228). MARK BELLING STANDING UP for MILWAUKEE Excuse-making, DOT style:Transportation cost overruns are indefensible OPINION Last week's question What are your thoughts in the aftermath of the shooting at the Orlando nightclub that killed dozens and injured dozens more, making it the deadliest mass U.S. shooting? When I was a young girl I wondered how people in Israel and Palestine could possibly endure the shootings and sui- cide bombings that erupted without warning. Now that I'm old I've seen mass murder attacks in my own country hap- pening at an alarming frequency. Most have nothing to do with ISIS or terrorist groups.They are homegrown.What they all seem to have in common is hatred — hatred so deep that it destabilizes indi- viduals to a point where they can no longer recognize the humanity of oth- ers. The government cannot fix this — we need to fix this ourselves in our thoughts, words and actions. For there to be peace, we need to live peace. While trying to find that path, a wise move would be to ban the sales and possession of semi-automatic weapons that were made for use in war. No one needs these for hunting or self-protec- tion.The ban would not stop attacks but lessen the magnitude of the carnage and aid our police force. The National Rifle Association will fight even this minimum effort — there is money to be made in weaponry, but it comes at a horrible cost to our country — we shouldn't be willing to pay it. We need to wake up and begin the journey back to sanity and peace. We can begin by repudiating hateful rheto- ric, violent entertainment and weapons of war. We can begin today or we can wait for the next Orlando or Sandy Hook. — Sandy Sue Szanderek Bay View *** We never believed these slaughters were "workplace violence" or "lone wolf" or a deed of a mentally ill, angry person.And yet our commander in chief looked us in the eye and insulted us with this rhetoric. ISIS has claimed responsibility for this attack and yet it took two transcripts to get it right.The first transcript out of the Justice Department never mentions Omar Mateen pledging allegiance to ISIS. It is totally misguided to legislate on more gun laws. If a terrorist needs weapons, he need not purchase one. This distraction on guns does nothing to address Islamic ideology and stopping the terrorists from infiltrating the refugees program — as in Paris. If you think restrictive gun laws will stop the terrorists, then also restrict knives for beheadings and shovels for burying dissenters alive. — Suzanne McKinney Cudahy *** What can a Muslim do to get respect from the liberals? The shooter in Orlando was yelling the Islamic phrase "Allahu Akbar," which some liberals will blame Christians for. The shooter pledged his alliegiance to ISIS, but the left blamed the NRA. There were 37 killed and 186 ignored shootings so far this month in Chicago, a city of 2.7 million with very strict gun- control enforcement, but the left will demand another law to harass the law- abiding people so they feel good. How frustrating it must be to be an Islamic jihadist and not get respect from liberals for your dedication to religion because of the fact they have to politi- cize everything. — Edward Sobczak Cudahy *** President Obama's policies have done nothing to cause ISIS attacks in the U.S. and other areas of the world.The cause of uprising of ISIS is due to former President George W. Bush and vice pres- ident Dick Cheney and the invasion of Iraq, which caused the longest war in U.S. history. Someone is making billions from the war, which should be used to help wounded military members and their families and to pay off the war, not in their pockets. — Marilyn Faucett Bay View This week's question What are your thoughts on the historic Great Lakes water diversion approval for Waukesha? Editor's note: When responding to the Question of the Week, please include your full name with spelling, phone number and city where you live. Phone numbers will not be published. Anonymous responses are no longer accepted by the publication. Call 744-6370, Ext. 15 and leave a brief answer. Readers may also send an email with a brief answer to: dmuck@con- leynet.com. Question of the week

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