I respectfully disagree with Buzz Davis and Paul Caravella. Writing in the Capital Times, they claim that what Wisconsin needs is “public service jobs, community meetings, [and] job clubs”. Wisconsin definitely needs jobs but we need them in the private sector. Temporary, government WPA-like jobs that are based solely on government handouts is not the solution, nor are meetings and clubs. These are short term band-aids at best. How many private-sector jobs has the Democratic leadership in this state run out in the last year? How many more do they want to run out with future legislation such as Cap n’ Tax? Wait, we’re going to replace those with “Green” jobs - or at least a couple of them anyway. Perhaps a topic at a future meeting could be “How losing your job is saving the environment”.
This is the fundamental difference between conservative (there’s that ugly word) thinking and progressive, liberal thinking. Conservatives would look at this situation and say “what can we do to bring more employers to Wisconsin?” or, perhaps, “what can we do to encourage business growth?”. Those questions address the underlying problem and create a positive situation for long term success. If you’re asking those questions, you don’t pass combined reporting or consider the atrocious liability changes proposed in the last state budget.
Conversely, liberal-think says “let’s have the government should hire everyone” or “let’s have more community meetings to discuss how unemployment feels”. Neither lays a foundation for a health, long-term job situation in this state. Government might be able to hire people short term, but what happens when the state can’t afford (can we afford it now?) to continue to employ people on ‘public works’ projects? We go back to the meetings about how that feels? I can save them a trip. Worrying about your family’s future when the Democrats are doing everything they can to kill good jobs is awful.
Lest I be accused of being cold-hearted, I do agree that there is a real problem here and it is difficult for families. Letting people know about the programs that already exist to help them through this difficult time is not a bad idea by itself. However, unless we address the underlying problem then we are just setting families up for longer term struggles and longer term anxiety – that is the bigger crime.
So what does this have to do with flies? Another way to think about this problem is whether or not we’re swatting at flies. If you have a problem with flies in your house, you can either keep swatting at them or close the window (PETA-approved method*). We need to close the window here, look at the root cause of the job problem, and then focus on creating an environment in this state where jobs are plentiful. Sooner or later we’re going to run out of money for fly swatters if we don’t.
*For the record, PETA has nothing to do with the current job situation that I am aware of. It just occurred to me that I might be venturing into a politically-sensitive area when I started talking about killing flies. I have no defense for this. It’s just the way I’ve always heard that saying.