Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Dec. 22
Take a close look at the UW System
The University of Wisconsin-Madison, long one of the nation’s most highly regarded research institutions, is a little less well-regarded these days. For the first time in 44 years, UW-Madison fell out of the top five U.S. research universities.
The reason for that has something to do with a university system that during the Walker era has had a tin ear when it came to playing the music of politics. And a lot to do with a hostile state government led by Gov. Scott Walker, Assembly Speaker Robin Vos and Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald, who seem to think the system is merely a large job-training center.
The Madison campus fell to sixth place in the National Science Foundation rankings. It was among only four universities in the top 30 and the only one among the top 10 to report a decline. The 3.6 percent decline was the biggest among elite universities, according to NSF data. The Madison campus declined in worldwide measures of scientific papers as well.
All of this should be troubling for anyone who cares about the economic well-being of the state. Innovation through research, much of it conducted in academic settings, is a path forward as Wisconsin’s manufacturing economy provides fewer good-paying jobs.
But to stay on that path, universities have to hang on to their best faculty, the ones who can do the research that powers innovation, and they have to attract new talent. UW-Madison Chancellor Rebecca Blank says the campus has been more vulnerable to the poaching of talent after years of well-publicized state budget cuts. As the university replaced senior researchers with other, younger academics, some measure of clout was lost, she said.
In an article on the UW’s problems last weekend, Journal Sentinel reporters Karen Herzog and Kathleen Gallagher cited as examples the loss of two all-star researchers: Susan Smith, a nutritional scientist investigating alcohol damage to fetuses who moved on to the University of North Carolina, and Jan Edwards, who researches communication sciences and disorders, and moved to the University of Maryland. Their combined research expenditures were more than $1.7 million last year.
Blank argues, as do we, for more state money for top academic talent.
Instead, the UW has faced harsh cuts. Its budget was sliced by $250 million over two years in the last state budget, and when combined with an ongoing tuition freeze, that led to layoffs and other cost-cutting. Since 2012, state funding to the system has been cut by $362 million.
This is not to argue that the UW cannot make better use of the tax dollars it receives. In fact, we’d favor a top-to-bottom look at how the system operates - a deep dive that hasn’t been done in decades. Walker should appoint a blue-ribbon commission to do just that.
A longer, deeper look at the system and how it fits with the state’s technical school system, works with business and performs in other areas is overdue. The governor’s idea of tying dollars to performance is not a bad one, but a world-class university like the UW is not simply about job training. It’s about educating citizens to reach their full potential in a global market and a global society, a concept that Walker and key legislators haven’t grasped.
For their part, UW officials, including Blank, would do well to figure out how to work more closely with the state’s businesses. This has long been a UW failing.
Wisconsin citizens will benefit from close collaboration between state government, its university system and business. Right now, that’s not happening to the extent that it should.
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Wisconsin State Journal, Dec. 21
Wisconsin needs immigrants to fuel growth
When Congress and the Trump administration begin work on immigration reform, Wisconsin’s congressional delegation should make clear our state’s position: Wisconsin needs more legal immigration, not less.
A key word is “legal.”
The race for president focused intently on the millions of people living in the United States illegally, and whether to let most of them stay. It’s a complicated problem. Mass deportations aren’t realistic or humane.
But President-elect Donald Trump also has suggested he might make it tougher to immigrate legally to the United States, out of concern that immigrants take jobs away from American citizens.
Wisconsin’s experience contradicts some of Trump’s assumptions. In fact, restricting immigration by making it tougher for foreign-born people to gain visas to work here would hinder the state’s economy in ways that threaten growth. Consider the evidence.
One of Wisconsin’s highest barriers to economic growth is a limited supply of skilled workers. Since 2010, the state has been losing 10,000 people per year in net domestic outflow as our residents move to other states and we fail to attract new residents. Add a declining birth rate, and Wisconsin businesses cannot find the employees they need.
Seventy percent of Wisconsin companies responding to a Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce survey reported difficulty finding employees this year. The Metropolitan Milwaukee Association of Commerce projects that over the next 10 years, 100,000 jobs in the Milwaukee metro area will go without workers to fill them. Jobs in science, technology, engineering and math fields (known as STEM positions) are especially difficult to fill.
Wisconsin’s chief open avenue for new workers has been immigration from other countries. And opportunities exist to take even greater advantage of legal immigration - if the right policies are in place - because Wisconsin has assets attractive to immigrants.
A chief asset is our university system. About 4,500 foreign students attend UW-Madison. Statewide, the total is more than twice as large. That’s brainpower that could fill and create jobs in the state. One of every eight STEM workers in Wisconsin with an advanced degree is already an immigrant.
Currently, visa requirements to retain foreign students in Wisconsin are costly, restrictive and self-destructive. In 2011, 51 percent of patents awarded to the University of Wisconsin System included at least one foreign-born inventor with no clear path to gain citizenship. As former Google chairman Eric Schmidt put it: “Of all the crazy rules in our government, the craziest bar none is that we take the smartest people in the world, we bring them to America, we give them Ph.D.s in technical science, and we kick them out to go found great companies outside America.”
Another Wisconsin asset attractive to immigrants is the dairy industry. To find the skilled labor they need, dairy farms recruit from foreign countries. Four of every 10 dairy farm workers is now an immigrant. But visas are geared to seasonal farm labor, not full-time dairying. Without more flexible policies, the industry’s efforts to legally fill jobs will be at risk.
Reform is required to make it easier for Wisconsin to attract immigrants to fuel our economic growth. Without more immigration, the workforce will be unable to meet demand, businesses will look elsewhere to expand, and Wisconsin’s prosperity will be in jeopardy.
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Beloit Daily News, Dec. 24
More incentives to go get a job
Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker wants President-elect Donald Trump to make the federal bureaucracy back off so state leaders can do more of what they want.
With a Republican in the White House and Republicans in control of Congress, Walker may get what he seeks. Total Republican control in Madison has cleared all barriers except those erected by the federal government.
Walker’s letter to Trump was a bit vague, but he did list certain details. We think he’s right on some, maybe a bit off base on others.
But it’s a debate worth having and goes to the heart of federalism, the system envisioned by the Founders in which the states were not supposed to be vassals of an all-powerful federal behemoth.
Take Walker’s proposal to require drug-testing of able-bodied public aid recipients. He wants the feds to get out of the way so Wisconsin can move ahead with tests.
For the moment, set aside the specifics of such testing and look deeper at the rationale. It’s hard to say testing alone would accomplish much, and it might even cost more to test than the state likely would recoup in limiting benefits for anyone found to be an offender. But that’s not the point.
What the governor is really trying to do is push able-bodied adults without child dependents to get into the workforce and off the dole. The objective is to remove an incentive not to work, and to create an incentive for individuals to acquire marketable skills, keep their conduct clean and find gainful employment.
We believe most people - who are paying the taxes to provide those benefits - agree in principle with the governor. A compassionate society should provide sustenance to individuals who, through no fault of their own, are not physically or mentally capable of carrying their own weight.
But those who ought to be able to do for themselves should not be allowed to ride in the wagon while taxpayers pull it. That should be the baseline for every taxpayer-backed social program.
The governor also wants Trump to shift control to states on whether to admit refugees from troubled countries. This one is more complicated.
Foreign affairs and immigration are federal responsibilities. The Constitution is clear on the point. At the same time, in the age of terrorism, the governor would be derelict in his duty if he shrugged and said, “not my problem.”
Still, the idea that 50 different states might be taking 50 different approaches sounds eminently unwieldy. A reasonable compromise would be giving states more of a voice in the resettlement of refugees - but not veto authority.
As for the governor’s plea for the feds to get out of the way of wolf hunters, that makes sense. States are in a better position to decide what’s proper within their own boundaries. Moreover, if a farmer is dealing with a wolf with an appetite for calves, he shouldn’t need a Washington bureaucrat’s permission to solve the problem with a rifle.
It’s a sure bet Republican officials all across America, seeing the red tide sweep over the nation’s capital city, are drawing up long laundry lists for incoming President Trump to approve.
Elections matter and Republicans mostly will get their way. Even so, a little restraint and humility should guide Trump as he finds himself buried in wish lists. Governing a big, diverse country works best when reforms are incremental and radical lurches left or right are avoided. After all, while Trump won the Electoral College more than half the country did not want this government and he lost the popular vote by about 3 million. Set a conservative direction - but step lightly.
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