The Milwaukee Post

As Gov. Scott Walker launches his cam- paign for a third four-year term this week, his biggest challenge is to explain to Wisconsinites what more he has to do. But the challenge for his Democrat opponents is much tougher. They need to explain why we should go back to the policies that cre- ated all of the messes Walker is fixing. Why change? Why go backward? The Democrats not only don't have a credible challenger to Walker. They don't have a credible argument. So far as anyone can tell, if the Democrats regained control of state government they'd go back to spend- ing way more money and giving power back to the government unions. If they stand for anything else, no one knows what it is. It is the political platform from hell. Walker has the ultimate rhetorical ace in the hole. He can say we tried it their way and we tried it his way. We are undeniably in better shape in 2017 than when Walker and legislative Republicans took office in 2011. The state economy is booming. The state budget is balanced. The taxpayer bur- den has gone from one of the worst in the nation to somewhere in the middle. We are about to become a global technology center. It is a stark contrast from seven years ago when taxes were skyrocketing, jobs were leaving and we had an international repu- tation for being a rotten place to start a business. None of this is a secret. The Democrats need to break with their failed past but can't bring themselves to do it. Their agenda is still the same old stale tax and spend, give the store to the unions, treat job creators like the enemy, keep chil- dren in failing urban public schools and build outdated trains. Wisconsin has moved on. That leftist junk remains popu- lar only in Madison and Milwaukee. The field of Democrat candidates is a motley bunch of has-beens and never- beens. Matt Flynn? My old TV panelist has been running for office since the 1980s. The eighties! He still hasn't won. Andy Gronik? He appears to be something of a nut and has lawsuit baggage all over the place. Dana Wachs? I guess he's a state assembly- man from Eau Claire. So they say. Tony Evers? The state schools superintendent is another Doug LaFollette. The voters know he's a lightweight and will only trust him in the irrelevant job he currently has. There might be some other Democrats run- ning. Seriously, I forget. They can't run Tom Barrett anymore, although I wish they would. I'd love to see him explain that streetcar to the people in Peshtigo. They tried inventing a candidate by running Mary Burke. She's already the impossible-to-answer question from a triv- ia quiz. I suppose they'd run somebody new and exciting if there was a Wisconsin Democrat that were new and exciting. The Democrats are stuck in a past that was a failure. That's a bad place to be politically. The radicals from Madison won't let go of the party they steered to the radical left until it fell off a cliff. Still, Walker does need a message and an agenda to run on. We are now seeing the real benefits to the reforms enacted earlier in the decade. The weakening of the power of both public- and private-sector unions has stabilized the state budget while mak- ing us suddenly a hot destination for job creators. Walker can argue he is now need- ed to steer all of this through. Nonetheless there are problems. The state corrections department is a mess as Walker has refused to get rid of the hack Madison bureaucracy that mismanaged Lincoln Hills and coddles Milwaukee crim- inals. Property taxes remain too high as voters keep wasting fortunes on ludicrous school borrowing referendums. The trans- portation budget isn't supporting current needs and is over-reliant on a funding source — the gas tax — that is becoming archaic. The UW System is a money-wast- ing blob of inefficiency that has failed to adapt to a changing economy and changing world. Crime in our part of the state is get- ting worse. The public schools in Milwaukee remain awful. But it is almost impossible for Democrats to argue they are better equipped to deal with the above problems than Walker. On crime, they want to do even more crook- coddling and want to make Lincoln Hills even more anarchistic. They want to spend even more on public schools, which will drive property taxes much higher. They are the ones that want to keep the UW in the 20th century rather than gut its useless and duplicative programs and expand into the areas relevant to the current world. They are the ones that actually like the Milwaukee Public Schools and want to force kids to keep going there. So, even in the areas where Walker needs to step up his game, the Democrats are clearly inferi- or. There are historical reasons to believe Walker will lose. In all but two elections for governor since 1966, the party that did not control the presidency won the Wisconsin governorship. The only politician popular enough to overcome that stunning trend was Tommy Thompson with his wins in 1986 and 1990. Thompson went on to become the longest-serving governor in state history and is already a legend. Scott Walker appears to be on the same track. In 2018, the Republicans will be running the most successful Republican governor in America against a seventh-string Democrat running on an agenda that this state has simply left behind. (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). 8 • Milwaukee County Post • November 10, 2017 MARK BELLING OPINION Last week's question What do you think of Milwaukee winning the contract to provide Waukesha with water, despite Milwaukee trying to originally block the sale of Lake Michigan water by Oak Creek to Waukesha? Or, in light of recent problems, what do you think of the 2017 cancela- tion of the South Shore Water Frolics? Is this a good idea or will you and your family miss the Frolics? What would it take to bring back the event? (Choose one.) This week's question What do you think of the shooting at the Sutherland Springs,Texas church? Or, what do you think of the budget passed by the County Board this week? (Choose one.) 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@conleynet.com. Question of the week Mr. Robinson, don't be so ecstatic over running Wisconsin like a business To the editor: In response to Owen B. Robinson's Oct. 27 column titled "Wisconsin's surplus good news for taxpayers": Really, Mr. Robinson? A conservative applauding being over- taxed? Yes, budget surpluses are bad. In case you missed it, the great state of Wisconsin is not a corporation that should be showing a profit. If government taxation is showing a profit, it is abusing someone; the teachers and public workers affected by Act 10 come to mind. How about we start paying back what current state government stole from them? A $100-per-person tax credit on next year's taxes? Spread out over a year's time, that will not be felt by anyone, a dollar a day for a family of four. What are you going to do with your quarter? Was the abuse really worth it? Yes, indeed, why were any Republicans even proposing a tax increase? "(Republicans) increased taxes on peo- ple who drive electric and hybrid vehi- cles," predictably, will be good news for the oil industry darlings of the Republican Party. Yes, "(Wisconsin) taxpayers are continu- ing to reap the rewards of the conservative revolution" in the form of abuse of teach- ers and public workers, bogus taxes that support big oil, and the desire to turn gov- ernment into a profitable organization. Michael Hundt South Milwaukee LETTERS TO THE EDITOR STANDING UP for MILWAUKEE Walker's biggest asset? The Democrats

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