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The past month has seen some major steps forward toward re-opening of our state. The efforts to vaccinate our population over the past four and a half months has been impressive. Then the CDC’s new, less restrictive guidelines were promulgated which was welcome news, albeit done in a rather clumsy manner that caught many mayors, small business owners and parents off guard. Businesses that were seriously hurt by the restrictions and shutdowns—including restaurants, bars and coffeeshops—are now struggling to find employees as their businesses begin to grow.
On an individual level, many people who abided by the COVID-19 restrictions and stayed COVID-free over the past 15 months are still a little reluctant to step out. Medical professionals find this very normal, so you can gradually ease into your individual comfort level. As the science has shown, the vaccine is safe and highly efficacious, but, of course, it is not 100% protection. However, if you do contract COVID after having been fully vaccinated, the medical community says you should not end up hospitalized in critical condition. Some COVID vaccines have as high as a 94 and 95% efficacy whereas in comparison, the annual flu shot that most of us get has about a 50% efficacy in a good year, but it still provides tremendous protection.
The Federal Stimulus Money is Working
In addition to the loss of nearly six hundred thousand fellow Americans over the past 15 months, the pandemic has caused a lot of damage to almost every part of our community. The COVID-19 Stimulus Package signed into law in March 2021 provided monies to states, counties and cities to try to mitigate some of the damage done. Some of this money given to the local units of government, for example, went to help the very small businesses that received little or no money from the PPP dollars and are hoping to stay alive until most of their customers return. Unfortunately, we did lose some of our beloved small businesses including some of our favorite restaurants, bars and coffee shops.
The COVID money that went to our city and county is being used judiciously. We now have both our city and county governments focused on doing what’s good for our citizens and not being hampered by a lot of petty politics. For the first time in the past 20 years, we have a county executive who is not either positioning himself for higher office or is terribly insecure and trying to win friends by doling out county favors. County Executive David Crowley and County Board Chairwoman Marcelia Nicholson work well together and have the county’s elected officials all pulling in the same direction. That’s refreshing to see.
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Addressing the Real Problem
The federal stimulus money is limited and must be spent by the middle of next year. When this money is spent, both the city and county government will be back to its untenable financial situation. The residents of the city and county want more services including simple things like filling potholes, and this costs more money. In Wisconsin, most of the tax dollars such as our income taxes and the majority of the sales taxes go directly to the state. In return, the state is supposed to send money back to communities on a formula basis. Over the past dozen years, the state has been cutting back on the shared revenues it sends to local government and at the same time, hindered the ability of local units of government from raising its own taxes even if their voters want to raise their own taxes. We now need the state legislature to pull in the same direct as the voters and quit listening to a small group of rightwing campaign check writers, many of whom don’t even live in Wisconsin.
With redistricting before the 2012 elections, the legislative districts were gerrymandered so that even when Democrats win hundreds of thousands more votes for legislative districts statewide, the Republicans still get 60% of the legislative seats. As a result of the gerrymander, our state legislature is currently controlled by Republicans who are trying to strangle their golden geese, Milwaukee city and county, along with Madison and Dane County, that disproportionately fund much of the rest of the state. These two counties are the major engines of the state’s economy.
Milwaukee and Dane Are Major Donor Counties
Why are the Republican legislators always trying to punish Milwaukee and Dane counties? Instead of appreciating the tax revenues that Milwaukee County and Dane County send to state government, they attack. They conveniently set aside the traditional Republican tenet of local control and pass laws that prevent both the city and county of Milwaukee from doing what their voters want.
Milwaukee is not asking for money from the state, as much as they are asking to raise their own local sales tax by a penny to repair the streets and parks and pay the police and fire fighters as a majority of the Milwaukee voters want. This money is desperately needed since the city and county see all their costs going up and their revenues remaining basically flat.
Milwaukee City and County governments have gotten their acts together. They are well functioning local governments. What we need now are honest legislative districts for next year’s November elections so the voters can elect legislators that are responsive to what most of our state residents want not what their rightwing check writers tell them to do.
