Jay Weber Show transcript 3-6-24 7:12am
It’s an assault on taxpayers.
I haven’t talked about the latest, massive, school referendum that MPS is asking for yet-
In part-because Milwaukee voters perpetually want to punish themselves by voting to raise their own taxes-
And after 20-some years of trying to talk some sense into them-I stopped trying. If Milwaukee voters don’t have the sense or the stones to start saying ‘no’ to these things- let them be crushed under the weight of the government, they deserve.
But- yesterday’s op-ed in the Milwaukee Journal from the CEO of Northwestern Mutual grabbed my attention.
This is the head of Milwaukee’s largest downtown employer. NML is a company that is-vitally important- to the city and its tax base. Massive job creator. A payer of massive taxes.
Has a corporate leadership that isn’t ‘political’.
And so-
When CEO John E. Schlifske the need to write an op-ed to the city’s newspaper saying: voters, reject this referendum,
I’m all ears.
Schlifske says-reject this mess- because MPS hasn’t made its case for why we need yet another massive referendum. He writes:
That’s from John Schlifske-the CEO of Northwestern Mutual...and he’s right, of course.
Folks- you know its’ a bad idea when corporate leaders who don’t normally get involved in politics start to speak out. Especially those leading NML-who have made ‘long term commitment’ after ‘long term commitment’ to the city of Milwaukee-as other major corporations have abandoned their headquarters here.
You know it’s bad when ‘reasonable democrats’ like Dan Adams start to- on their own- start organizing efforts against their own party’s leaders.
Dan Adams has been on the show several times before. He spent years as a panelist on Charlie Sykes' radio and tv shows. He’s proven himself -to conservative audiences- to be both a) a genuine democrat and b) more reasonable and rational than your average democrat today.
Well-last week- Dan Adams, who is a defense attorney by trade- started to use his own money to organize an opposition effort against MPS’ latest and ‘never ending’ referenda.
The J/S had a story about it-in which Adams said:
Milwaukee attorney Dan Adams launches opposition to MPS referendum
Meanwhile, former Lt Governor Mandela Barnes is helping mayor cavalier Johnson push for approval of even more MPS spending.
You wondered where Mandela ended up?
Here., I guess. He’s always been a politically talented guy, even if he’s also been a liar and a deadbeat.
What’s more dire than a 50 percent graduation rate-that’s a falsehood-because you’ve started to give diplomas to all sorts of kids who can’t read or write-or do math at a decent level?
What’s more dire than an MPS that ten percent testing at grade level in math and 16 percent in reading?
What, exactly, is Mandela Barnes suggesting will be ‘more dire’ if MPS doesn’t get this money?
As the CEO says: what gives us any sense that we can expect better results from a permanent hike of 26 percent in everyone’s property taxes?
What improvement in our children’s skills or education are we going to see for that?
MPS officials won’t say. Mandella Barnes won’t say. Cavalier Johnson won’t say. Because they don’t know, either. MPS leaders haven’t told them, either.
They’re just playing the same old game of crying poor and blaming their failures on a lack of funding.
At this point- approving more funding for MPS is simply tossing more down a rat hole.
Milwaukee taxpayers-and leaders like Cavalier Johnson-need to demand to see a serious reform and ‘resizing’ plan from MPS, instead.
Both Johnson and David Crowley, the county exec, -along with Tony Evers for that matter-should be demanding a plan to finally ‘right size’ and refocus MPS on its core missions. This is a terribly bloated school district, with all sorts school and central administrators that it doesn’t need-and with all sorts of real estate and classroom space that it doesn’t need. Between population declines and driving families into the choice schools for a better product-
MPS has all sorts of overhead that needs to be seriously addressed, first.
And yes- part of that should be ‘offloading’ any MPS buildings that are still in good shape and set up for learning-to the choice and private schools who are turning out a better educational product.
Yes. Bowman and Johnson and Evers and-every-Milwaukee leader should be more interested in educating the kids and turning this cesspool around on behalf of Milwaukee families and children. Screw MPS and screw the teacher’s union. They’ve had decades to prove they can improve their product and it’s only gotten worse.
Moreover-
They’ve had decades to prove to us that they can ‘shift their focus’ and stop worrying primarily about themselves instead of the kids they’re supposed to be educating. They’ve proven over and over again- under numerous boards and superintendents-that they can’t do that, either.
And so, at some point, it needs to become a matter of- we- the rest of us in the community and the other community leaders- to demand change. Demand better.
And it’s pathetic that -to this point-Cavalier Johnson, David Crowley, and Tony Evers are, instead, siding with ‘failure’.
Cavalier Johnson wants to grow the population of the city of Milwaukee by 40 percent?
How? By raising taxes by 26 percent every few years?
By begging for more state funding-then immediately giving himself and useless city alderman raises.
This this government? Or a grift?
And why to city voters insist on continually voting for-and reinforcing- the failure?
story credit: J/S online
photo credit: Fox 6 News Milwaukee