Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, March 25
Holding a constitutional convention is too risky
There’s a move afoot in the Wisconsin Legislature to join 28 other states in calling for a constitutional convention to write a balanced budget amendment to the U.S. Constitution. It’s a bad idea for two reasons: First, the amendment is a political gimmick; nothing more than a trick. Second, such a convention could create a path to essentially rewrite the Constitution, as Karen Hobert Flynn argued in an online commentary the other day.
That’s just too risky a path to start down.
On the first point, Republicans who argue that the federal government needs to be more fiscally responsible are absolutely right. On Friday, the federal government owed $19.8 trillion, according to the U.S. debt clock. We agree: that’s not good or sustainable. And Congress, despite all its bellyaching, hasn’t done much to fix it.
So now state legislators are trying to force the issue with a call for a constitutional convention. That’s never happened but is allowable under Article V of the U.S. Constitution if two-thirds of state legislatures make the call. That means 34 states need to do so. So we’re six away.
Here’s the rub on the national debt issue: The United States has pretty much carried debt since before there was a United States. The colonies had to go into debt to win their freedom from the British. The highest national debt occurred just after World War II, when it stood at 119 percent of GDP in 1946, according to usgovernmentspending.com. Without that debt, the United States would not have won World War II and might still be part of the British Empire. God save the queen.
Since there are times when it is necessary to incur debt, as any family knows, of course there will have to be an escape clause in any balanced budget amendment: in case of a national emergency, the country can go into debt.
And that’s why this is a trick. What constitutes an emergency? Anything Congress says is an emergency. And anyone who believes that Congress would declare an emergency only in the case of war or an asteroid strike also may be interested in any other snake oil politicians like to sell.
In the end, there is no guarantee the amendment would ever work as intended.
On the second point, supporters will tell you that the convention would be limited to writing an amendment on a balanced budget. But once assembled, those in attendance might find they have an appetite for more changes. Maybe there’d be a temptation to curb all those annoying protests by limiting the freedom to assemble. Or to make this a more Christian nation by messing with the freedom to worship. Or to act against mass shootings by taking out any right to bear arms. Or to move against what the president has labeled as “the enemy of the people,” a free media.
Ridiculous, you say? Maybe and maybe not. The fact is no one can predict what would happen. And why run that risk? Why come even close to running that risk?
If supporters of a balanced budget want to amend the Constitution, let them try the route of all previous amendments: get Congress to pass one and then get the states to agree. But let’s not go down a path fraught with dangerous unintended consequences.
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The Journal Times of Racine, March 26
Immigration crackdown stirs dairy state fears
“The cows will die.”
We thought that would get your attention; it certainly caught ours.
The quote came from Rosa Jimenez, 26, whose husband works on a Pepin County dairy farm, as she talked about the difficulties and fears facing undocumented workers in Wisconsin’s dairy industry in the face of President Donald Trump’s increasing crackdown on illegal immigration and his effort to move ahead with plans to build a wall at the U.S.-Mexico border.
“Yes, we need the work, but the farmers also need us because there are farms where 20, 25 or 30 people work, and nobody has papers,” Jimenez said, “Imagine if they got rid of all or them, if they did a raid and took everybody. What are the farmers going to do? The cows will die.”
Jimenez is not the only worrier these days. Dairy farmers across the state are nervous about the future of their farms and their state’s $43 billion-a-year dairy industry which relies heavily on immigrant laborers, many of whom are here illegally, according to the news report by Wisconsin Public Radio and the Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism.
Even as state legislators last week were busying themselves with the honorific job of naming cheese the state’s official dairy product at the behest of fourth-graders at Mineral Point Elementary School, there is talk in America’s Dairyland of selling off herds to cut losses before the labor market dries up and farms are forced to shut down.
“If ICE came in here and checked my employees and found they were undocumented and those 10 people left, my next option of course is to close down … and try to find a market for my cows and sell out,” John Rosenow, a farmer in Buffalo County with about 550 cows, told reporters. “I wouldn’t be able to farm anymore and it would just about kill me. I mean the cows have to be milked. I know of no other source of labor.”
The decline in recent immigration numbers has already pushed up wages for dairy farm work. While laborers used to command wages of $8 an hour, shortages have pushed it up to $11 to $13 an hour, and in some places as high as $15, according to a USA Today report this month.
That, too, puts pressure on dairy farms to survive.
Statistics in the news story from the dairy industry lend credence to Rosenow’s fears. An estimated 51 percent of all dairy workers in the United States are immigrants and, of those, more than three-fourths are undocumented.
According to the news report, researchers estimate that eliminating immigrant labor in the dairy industry would “reduce production by 23 percent or 48 billion pounds of milk.” Shedding immigrant labor would cost the U.S. economy $32 billion and eliminate more than 208,000 jobs in dairying and related industries.
And, yes, that would cost consumers, too. The WPR-Wisconsin Center for Public Journalism story posited it would drive up milk prices by 90 percent - pushing the cost of a retail gallon of milk from $3 to about $6.
There are possible solutions for the dairy state’s looming immigrant worker shortage. Seven years ago, a survey showed 85 percent of Wisconsin’s dairy farmers backed a proposal for a guest worker program for the dairy industry - but that has not happened. There are such programs for seasonal crops like blueberries and sweet potatoes, the news report said, but not for year-round employment like dairy farms. Cows are not seasonal - they need to be milked.
The dairy industry is not alone in facing immigrant worker anxiety. As Oconto Falls dairy farmers, Tim O’Harrow told reporters, “This country cannot produce enough food to feed its own people without foreign labor. It isn’t just dairy. It’s workers in slaughterhouses, it’s workers picking fruit. It’s all aspects of food is being supplemented by foreign labor. Because American citizens will not, will not do the work. It isn’t a matter of how much money. It’s a matter of they will not do it.”
Those are the fears that crisscross America’s Dairyland. There is some irony in the fact that Trump, who has steadily pushed for an immigration crackdown, was elected in part because of strong support in rural Wisconsin.
Some dairy farmers, like Jason Vorpahl of Random Lake, make a distinction for their workers. “We need some way to keep our (immigrant) labor force that’s here intact. I am OK with deporting the felons. And I am OK with deporting people who are looking for a handout and aren’t working. But I am not OK with deporting the hard-working, tax-paying immigrants who are here right now,” Vorpahl said.
There is irony, too, in the fact illegal immigrants have helped build the current $43 billion state dairy industry which accounts for half of all the state’s agricultural revenue as the number of dairy farms has decreased steadily, but their size has increased. Immigrant labor has allowed that to happen.
The question now is whether Trump and Congress can parse a solution to campaign promises versus the state’s need for a reliable dairy workforce. Otherwise, the cows will die.
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Leader-Telegram, March 26
Road funding falls short
Few of us want to increase our tax burden, but Wisconsin’s transportation infrastructure is in need of our support.
Gov. Scott Walker’s 2017-19 proposed budget, according to a Wisconsin Public Radio story, “would increase local road aid, it would delay some state projects and borrow roughly $500 million to close out a roughly $1 billion deficit.”
During a visit to Eau Claire, Lt. Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch said the proposed transportation budget features a “low level of bonding” and added that “they didn’t elect us to raise taxes.” That may be true, but the plan does not provide a long-term, sustainable solution for transportation needs.
“I would not be surprised if they kind of start over,” said Craig Thompson, Transportation Development Association of Wisconsin executive director, who described transportation funding in the budget as “woefully inadequate” and less than what was allocated in the last biennium.
It’s time for our representatives to strongly consider increases in user taxes and fees to fund transportation needs.
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The woes of roads and bridges in this state are well documented. In rankings by U.S. News & World Report, Wisconsin was 49th in road quality as 42 percent of them (more than double the national average) were deemed in poor or mediocre condition in 2016.
“Transportation revenues have increased modestly in recent years, while the cost of state highway projects has grown from original estimates,” reads a Wisconsin Taxpayers Alliance news release. “State road aids to local governments have increased little over the past decade, leading to a decline in local road quality.
“The governor’s proposed budget addresses some of these issues but not others. He requests no increases in major taxes and fees.”
That’s a mistake. Neither the gas tax in Wisconsin nor vehicle registration fees have kept up with inflation.
The public is mixed on the issue, but only 3 percent of respondents to a Marquette University Law School poll released last week favored more borrowing for transportation, a significant component of Walker’s proposed budget.
The Legislative Fiscal Bureau found the state was spending 18.2 cents of every dollar of transportation revenue to pay off old borrowing, reads a WPR story, which likely will “grow even higher in the next budget.”
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According to a 2014 Wisconsin Taxpayers Alliance report, “Filling Potholes: A New Look at Funding Local Transportation in Wisconsin,” the average annual growth of gas taxes and vehicle registration fees averaged just 0.3 percent over the previous five years.
“Changing driving patterns and rising fuel efficiency makes future prospects even more dim,” states the report, which said transportation funding could be short between $2 billion and $6 billion over the next decade. That’s particularly troubling in what the report calls a “transportation-dependent economy.”
“Manufacturing, farming and trucking claim a larger share of employment and wages here than in any other state, save Indiana,” it says. “In addition, good roads boost Wisconsin’s $11 billion tourist industry.”
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Other options include implementing toll roads and collecting sales tax from vehicles and automotive parts. However, the former would require clearing some legal hurdles, and the latter would take money away from the state’s general fund.
Thompson anticipates some changes in the transportation budget before the proposed measure becomes law.
“I think they’ll probably come up with more money to throw at it,” he said, “but my fear is it will be a one-time thing.”
That’s a concern for us as well.
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