The Kenosha News is reporting that Rep. Garthwaite has agreed to lead the way in the Assembly for a piece of legislation that is to be introduced by State Senator Bob Wirch. The legislation would mandate that state government (primarily the UW and prison systems) purchase at least 10% of their food goods from Wisconsin producers. This mandate would increase to 20% in 2020.
While "feel good" legislation like this mildly annoys me, I really don't have a problem with this particular bill other than that I don't necessarily agree that prisoners deserve to eat the fine products produced in our state. At the end of the day, however, I doubt that this bill will accomplish anything at all. I predict that Wisconsin's prisons and the UW already procure more than 10% of their food goods from Wisconsin producers. If this bill passes, it will probably just mandate what is currently standard practice in our institutions.
In other news, the payday loan scandal continues. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports that the Assembly Democrats' payday loan bill narrowly passed committee today on a 6-5 vote. Rep. Dean Kaufert, a Republican supporter of payday loan reform issued a warning to Democrats stating,"Don't pose for holy pictures. You're in the soup. You're trying to find your way out of this. . . . Trying to rush this through, get it by, get the stories over - I don't know; it's not pretty."
The Associated Press is reporting that Majority Leader Tom Nelson continues to deny his support to ethically challenged Democrat Speaker Mike Sheridan. Payday Gate is becoming a case study in public relations mismanagement and continues to threaten the reelection chances of vulnerable Democrats like Phil Garthwaite.
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This could potentially bring more jobs to WI because of increased food production needs. I don't see a problem with that.
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ReplyDeleteI don't really have a big problem with this bill. It does add some minor costs to state government by creating a new bureaucracy within the Department of Agriculture and by mandating that each state department conduct a pointless review of its food purchasing. This will ruin the week of some pour bureaucrat in Corrections and 26 or so in the UW system but who really cares.
The point is, this bill won't create a single job (unless the UW actually has to hire a temp to do this BS work). Both the UW system and DOC reported this week that they already purchase far more food from within the state than would be mandated under Garthwaite's bill.
Thus, at the end of the day, the state will not purchase 1 ounce more of Wisconsin products if this bill passes.
I don't really have a problem with this this bill either, but it is just that I think that Mr. Phil Garthwaite and his Democratic friends should be more concerned with lowering the taxes on families and small business. On the Up Front show this past Sunday they said that WI has lost something like 6,000 + business in the last few years. This bill is small potatoes and I think we need to focus on the big picture. This seems like the wrong thing to be pushing at a serious time like this.....thanks for the discussion....
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