That Explains It
Gin and Tacos reads long and boring budget bills, so you don’t have to.
The fact that buried in that bill is a provision that allows the Koch Industries vice president for Wisconsin, Scott Walker, to sell the publicly owned energy facilities on a no-bid basis to private industry pretty much shows the real purpose of this whole problem. Koch Industries, an energy company, wants to steal from the people of the state of Wisconsin, and the Republicans are rushing to help them.
The union busting was ancillary, but designed to cover the real purpose of the bill. Walker wants everyone focused on the attempt to screw over the workers, so they don’t notice that he intends to give away the assets of the state.
Here’s the official marked-up bill in PDF format. The relevant text is on page 24 identified as “16.896 Sale or contractual operation of state-owned heating, cooling, and power plant.” It is included as Section 44 of the bill, and is created, not an amendment of existing law. This is the real purpose of this mess, corporate theft of public property, there is no other reason for hiding this in the bill, and demanding quick passage without any debate over the bill. They wanted to rush it through before people found out.
12 comments
I am SHOCKED!! SHOCKED, I tell you!!
LOVE the name of the blog! Where is the outrage at the blatant stealing of anything benefiting the public? I am so angry. I am so depressed. Where the hell is the country my grandparents fled Finland for?
The big difference between the two parties, Ame, is with Democrats you are always wondering if they are corrupt, but there is no doubt about Republicans any more. You know from the start that the Republicans are corrupt, so you can concentrate on how they are doing it, not if.
The only reason people find out about this stuff, Jill, is” OCD” bloggers willing to read all of this crap.
I would have had no idea how truly bad the so-called “health care” bill was if Hipparchia hadn’t been willing to slog through it, and along with others, point out the low points hidden within.
I would note that Gin & Tacos left off the location information, and I personally checked it to ensure it wasn’t some sort of mistake. That’s why I have the link to the official version, and the location information. Don’t take my word for it, read it yourself.
” ‘OCD’ bloggers willing to read all of this crap.”
They may also be known as “blawgers”.
Bryan, can this government be set on track again, or are we done for? I am very encouraged by the young people of Wisconsin, but it’s not clear to me that they have any actual leverage. Where do we go from here?
The only way of doing it that I can see, is by a summer of demonstrations to make the politicians aware that people know what they are up to, and are totally fed up with a government that only works for the wealthy.
It is also time to protest a media that has failed to do its duty and report the facts, not just opinions and conventional wisdom.
thanks for the kind words. it was a slog, and i didn’t get into it nearly as much as i wanted to, but some days it was just too depressing. thank goodness there were many others willing to take
penkeyboard in hand and blog on.Just the facts, Ma’am. People willing to do the heavy lifting are appreciated, even if we don’t always mention it at the time.
I hope more people pick up on the Koch give-away, because that makes what is going on a good deal more logical than simply destroying unions. They hate unions, but they love money more. The stench of greed just oozes off them.
i wasn’t depressed about any lack of recognition or acknowledgement or anything like that, i was depressed about the depth of corruption and idiocy in those who were [more or less] elected to represent we-the-people in washington.
as it turns out, those were the halcyon days indeed, as the health whatever bill was relatively benign compared to the avalanche we’re in for now.
about the koch mess, i was just reading dday [too lazy to go back and reopen the window] talking about how they have to get the bill passed by friday or some of the debt refinancing can’t be done. having also read [somewhere at fdl] that the koch empire is into derivatives and a fair amount of other finance hankpanky, one wonders if they’re also expecting to profit from that provision.
Well, I was feeling guilty about not acknowledging the amount of work other people put into these laws, work I would love to do if real life didn’t intrude so often.
I have to assume at this point that most of the bill was written by Koch employees and has a lot of hidden “treasure” for their masters.
Up until this latest crew Wisconsin has been in too good of shape for refinancing to be time critical for the state, so that is totally bogus. The timing issue may have to do with market manipulation in anticipation of the Wisconsin move. That wouldn’t surprise me in the slightest. There are all kinds of games that you can play if you have advance knowledge of something that will affect the market. Martha Stewart got jail time for that, but the Koch Brothers are certainly immune from those sorts of annoyances.
yeah, market manipulation sounds plausible. i admit to not having read the whole post. there might have been an explanation in there.
I have to assume at this point that most of the bill was written by Koch employees and has a lot of hidden “treasure” for their masters.
no! they would never do that! 😈
also, you are hereby absolved of any guilt you may think you have, as you wrote about other things that *i* sure didn’t have the time to go looking for on my own and might never have found otherwise.
I would like to find time to do more longer stuff, but the day is pretty chopped up, and I don’t like to break up writing time. I prefer writing in a flow, and then editing later.