WI Assemblyman John Nygren Reports Survey Results
July 15, 2009 by Capt. Karl
Survey Results as Reported by Wisconsin Assemblyman John Nygren
I would like to send thanks to all of the individuals who completed my budget survey. I received hundreds of responses and they were very useful to me as I debated the biennial budget. These are the percentages of yes’s and no’s and the questions included in the survey.
1. Do you support increasing state government spending by nearly 8 percent and taxes by $3.2 billion as the governor is proposing in the 2009-11 budget?
Yes 2% No 93%
2. Do you support a new $270 million tax on oil that will be passed on to all consumers at the pump?
Yes 5% No 95%
3. Do you support the $1.2 billion increase in taxes that was passed by the governor and legislative Democrats this year without a public hearing? This tax increase has been cited as a reason hundreds of jobs were lost in our current economic downturn.
Yes 2% No 96%
4. Should the existing cost controls placed on local government spending that aid in keeping property taxes in check remain in place?
Yes 85% No 12%
5. Should automobile insurance requirements be changed, as the governor is proposing in the budget, if those changes will drive up the cost of auto policies by up to 43 percent?
Yes 2% No 97%
6. The governor is proposing in his budget to cut the use of active GPS tracking for violent child sex predators and use passive tracking to monitor these sex offenders. Passive tracking would notify law enforcement personnel only after a sex predator violated his or her parole, or after a crime had been committed. Do you support this cut to close the budget deficit?
Yes 13% No 85%
7. Should taxpayer dollars be used to provide health care and retirement benefits to unmarried domestic partners of state government employees?
Yes 8% No 92%
8. Do you support, as the governor has proposed in his budget, giving new mothers on state welfare benefits 24 weeks of paid leave when mothers not on welfare receive up to 12 weeks of leave that may or may not be paid? This change in Wisconsin’s welfare program will cost roughly $1.5 million over the next two years.
Yes 2% No 98%
Don’t forget to Recall Governor James Doyle. Sign up here: www.RecallDoyle.com
Be sure to read the fascinating comments below by clicking on “comments”, below, or clicking on the title of this post above and scrolling down to the comments.
Also, how many replies were received during this survey? This would allow us to see if a majority of the voters actually participated.
Remember… there are little white lies, big black lies and then those damn statisticians!!! Beware of numbers like these that do not have enough of a foundation for them!
Finally, if we want to cut the costs of government, let’s decide what we are willing to live without. I served on a Village Board for several terms. If and when people said “cut my taxes!” I asked them these questiojns?
Shall I cut the police department, reducing coverage in the village during the day between the hours of 9 am and 3 pm.
Everyone I talked to said, ” Of course not!”
How about the fire department, mostly volunteers anyhow? Again, a resounding “No!” And new fire trucks cost at least a quarter of a million dollars–or more.
Very difficult to cut costs for the water and sewer systems. Our wells have to go deeper and deeper because too many people are taking water from the lower levels of the Ogalalal aquifier. . . and it’s a major one here in the Middle West.
How about garbage and recycling costs??? It’s the biggest cost in our village’s budget. Shall we require people to do their own recycling???? Won’t work!
Libraries are protected by state law; we can’t do much with those costs, as little as they are.
The only “soft spot” in our budget were the summer recreation programs, ranging from the swimming pool to the various softball and hardball leagues. When I suggested cutting those, parents screamed bloody murder,
“What are we going to do with our kids all summer?” was the almost unanimous reply!!!
The problem is that we have all learned to live with a very high quality of public service, but the costs of same continue to increase. The only realistic way to solve the problem is to increase the states sales tax to six cents on the dollar, as I see it!
Samuel Adams quote
How many Socialists or Communists, who believe in Huge Government will take a survey with such overwhelming results and pervert it to spin its core into seemingly worthless value. The numbers on this Wisconsin citizen survey are so overwhelming that only a “Government man” could argue with its immense support for the end of Socialist and/or Communistic “for the Masses” spending and massive additional taxation on us individual citizens and Wisconsin small businesses, that now have little choice but to leave this State or just close up and layoff all their employees.
I don’t know how many of those in the survey voted in the last election, but I can guarantee you that many of them are up for signing the http://www.RecallDoyle.com petition. And I know that the State of Wisconsin Assembly will be changing dramatically at the next election.
Most larger Wisconsin towns have too many police striving diligently to give out speeding tickets to employers, businessmen and salesmen trying to build companies and create employment in the State of Wisconsin. Many of those police departments can certainly be trimmed down. The real small towns have just the right amount of police and do not tyrannize citizens trying to live in freedom and make a living. In fact in these towns many police are friendly, reasonable and we consider them our friends instead of out to get us and quotas. Yes cut the police departments. Police do not protect any homes or businesses from thieves or violent predators. That is what the Second Amendment is for besides protecting our cardinal laws that WE did establish and ordain on our Government as WE wrote in OUR Constitution. My home and family are protected by Smith and Wesson. How much more protection can you get than that? How can a policeman do better, unless he is from Smallville and his name is Clark Kent?
The fire department, IF reasonable in cost and not Union corrupt, is a very good thing if managed properly. No problem there as long as it is done without waste or excess.
Water and sewer systems! Oh my GOD, have you ever heard of MMSD (the “Gods” at the Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewage District). Have you ever heard of the “Big Flush”, The Deep Tunnel? Look what they have done to the taxpayers of Milwaukee and all the surrounding suburbs. Do you have any conception of how many BILLIONS of pure raw sewage they send directly into Lake Michigan? You have got to be kidding me about Water and Sewer! I worked for 14 years for a MAJOR underground utility contractor who did sewer work. One of the engineers and superintendents of this company wrote a MAJOR huge report and submitted it to MMSD to the effect that separated sewers with multiple point sewage treatment plants would not only be vastly cheaper, employ vastly more Wisconsin citizens (instead of the foreign companies and workers brought in), result in BRAND NEW ROADS throughout the city, it would have actually worked! But NO the Government Dictators and elitists know far more than our local businesses. You picked the wrong subject matter on this one Mr. Government man. I sure hope the Gods at MMSD and Doyle don’t think that the taxpayers from around the rest of the State should now pay for the separated sewers and multiple point treatment plants “needed to protect Lake Michigan” for the sake of the Government idiots who don’t know their head from a sewer manhole in the ground. Can you imagine how much our economy would have benefited from spending the money on local Wisconsin contractors and their hundreds of employees?
Recycling costs? Why the heck did we get away from the bottles and deposits? Right there we could have saved tons of money in recycling costs. I like beer and soda in bottles. Sure the cans are good when traveling but for home and most other locations the bottles are great. So what if we have to bring them back. I never saw that as so bad. BTW: I do pay for recycling and garbage disposal by Waste Management for my home and business (if I can stay in business here in Wisconsin?).
Pools??? What the heck. Given the choice my 5 kids and I all prefer to go swimming in any lake, quarry or river than in a city pool. You have to be kidding me! Take a survey for yourself. The vast majority of “KIDS” prefer a natural swimming venue. In my personal opinion any and all Socialist, Communist or Governmental elitist should try using a lake. When they do this they should try an entry called the “flying leap”. The parents, who think that they need a woosy “public” swimming pool can learn how to drive to a natural swimming area like a river, lake, pond or lake. When I was a kid we even swam in the wider part of creeks when we visited my Grandpa and Grandma on the farm.
Mr. Government man, you can take your taxes and spending with you on your flying leap into the lake.
BTW: Those income taxes and money going to sneaky fees and business killing sales taxes is our INDIVIDUAL earnings NOT yours. We are supposed to be free and live in liberty to INDIVIDUALLY spend our earnings the way WE SEE IT.
Have fun swimming! The only way to solve Wisconsin’s deficit, unemployment, economic, financial and business loss problems, Mr. Government Man, is to facilitate you and people like you with their entry into the water taking your Socialistic and Communistic policies with you, as I see it!