My Platform, 2010, 61st State Assembly

GM Platform in roughly this order of importance.

IMMEDIATE ACTION:

1. BALANCE THE STATE BUDGET.
2. CUT TAXES, SPENDING AND REGULATIONS until we balance the flow of people in and out of the state. Our growth should be commensurate with that of other states. We should not lose any more representation in the House.
3. CONTINUE TO CUT TAXING, SPENDING AND REGULATIONS until we reach full employment

HOUSE KEEPING ACTIONS (So-called because they have been cussed and discussed ad nauseam and just need to be quickly finished off):

1. PASS School vouchers for Racine County.
2. PASS Concealed carry.
3. DUMP any vestige of Commuter Rail or High Speed Rail legislation or provisions and get on with sensible means of transportation.
4. PASS Voter ID. Maintaining an honest voting procedure is vital to peaceful co-existence. We don't need people going to the streets to choose their representatives.

LONG TERM GOALS:

1. Bring about a broad, statewide application of personal responsibility and freedom, enhanced and made possible through reduced taxation and government regulations.
2. Eliminate all direct taxes (includes income and property taxes). Use only indirect taxes: for example, sales and excise taxes.
3. Direct election of members of the State Senate by members of the county board. (Each county gets one State Senator - total of 72.)

Counties should take over State Senate

Recently County Executive Bill McReynolds and other County Executives started a movement to halt the State Government’s raids on the Department of Transportation highway funds through referendum and a constitutional change.

This is a worthwhile effort. I think it is time to take that change a step further, though. The counties need their own representation in the legislature and the natural place for this is the Senate. Having the county boards elect the State Senators would bring about a broader, permanent change in State abuse of a perfectly workable County System.

As an individual I have two votes in the state legislature, one through my assembly representative, the other through my state senator representative. Those two votes do me no more good than one vote would do in the Assembly.

Through a Wisconsin Constitutional Amendment we should expand the State Senate from 33 members 72 members. We would then also change the constitution so that each of Wisconsin’s 72 counties would have one senator elected by its county board. For example, the State Senator for Racine County would be elected by the 23 County Board Supervisors (not the County electorate).

With this change, the Wisconsin Senate, instead of an echo of the Assembly, would become a powerful second voice to control budgets and activities at the state level.

You can't get the Constitution back

People say they want their constitution back. That is fine. I hope they aren’t speaking literally. For if they are, then they don’t understand the constitution or what it is.

For they can’t get it back. Because it didn’t go anyplace. In fact it isn’t anyplace. It just isn’t.

Not today anyway.

The pseudo constitution under which we operate today in this country isn’t even a very good fake constitution. It doesn’t closely resemble the original.

So what does one do about it?

The first thing is to learn what the original constitution is. Learn how it works. You do that by going back to the documents written at that time about the constitution; read them, understand them, determine what the men meant by those words that were written down on that piece of parchment called the constitution.

And then you put the constitution into operation again.

The constitution is just words on a piece of parchment. That is all it is. That is all it can ever be. Those words can be nothing more by themselves. They need you to put life into them. The constitution must be within you and then you must put it into action in the physical universe. No one else can do it for you. Not a legislator. Not a president. Not a judge.

Only you.

No, you can’t get your constitution back. But you can put it there. For it is yours with which to so do.

What I am talking about is responsibility. What I am saying is that you can’t rely on someone else to do it. That’s what “getting it back” is saying. It is saying that someone else has it and you want them to give it back to you. It is saying that someone else must take responsibility for the situation.

I am saying you are responsible for the Constitution It is within you. And you must find it and know when you have found it. And then you must take that final step and give it life.

Start!