Opinion

Wisconsin Dems fail on ‘change’

Where would we all be without hypocrite politicians? I don’t even want to imagine a world where we don’t have leaders claiming to be God’s moral crusaders while, in actuality, are some of the most stupid and corrupt people in existence. Luckily for us, this perpetual trend seems never ending, and we can all enjoy publically ridiculing them when it does happen. It just so happens our state congressional leaders are in the process of looking stupid and greedy — there is a God.

It seems as though everywhere you go you can’t escape depressing news about the U.S. economy, and all the finger pointing between parties has become the best way to show who’s to blame. Regardless of who is to blame, everyone can agree — something must be done. Our state leaders, trying to keep their jobs, will agree, and thus will make grandiose speeches stressing the importance of wise financial decisions, especially with the taxpayers’ money.

Now that the Democrats have successfully commandeered our entire federal government, you would assume the transparency, responsibility and accountability principles they stressed would translate into state governments. You know, things like not taking pay raises when our state budget is in a deficit and while people are having a hard enough time finding a job, let alone getting any kind of raise. But wait, our state leaders, mostly Democrats, are clenching, bare-knuckled to their raises. Good for them; God knows making sure our trusty politicians are paid appropriately is, of course, our biggest concern these days.

A trend (maybe too strong a word) to either return or not accept pay raises in Wisconsin’s state congress has begun in light of our states $5.9 billion budget deficit. However, this trend looks like it’s not even going to stick around as long as Zubaz did. Currently, only three of 13 state lawmakers returning their 5.3 percent pay raises were Democrats. While here in the southeastern region of Wisconsin, 16 out of 19 Democratic local lawmakers are not returning their pay raise. Amazing how an election cycle can change the sentiment of a politician, isn’t it?

The truth is when we voted the Democrats into federal power we assumed all Democrats would follow suit in terms of ideology. Sadly, we are not so lucky. State politics have not gone through the same reformation Obama and the federal government are attempting. We’re still stuck with the same condescending hypocrites we’ve all come to love.

It’s disappointing to have gone through an election with many of us supporting Democrats across the board, only to be fed the same rhetoric Democrats stood in direct opposition to. We were all lead to believe, foolishly, the Democrats were here to save our country, and it was only because Republicans ran the White House for the last eight years did our country fall into ruins.

How can our state leaders stand prominently in favor of reducing unnecessary expenses and spending while pocketing taxpayer dollars? Now it could be easily said these politicians do not make much compared to other professions and deserve a pay raise. State assembly and senator seats make slightly less than $46,000 a year. However, each of these politicians knew his earning potential prior to running for office and all presumably ran campaigns under the notion of helping their constituents, not themselves.

If no state lawmaker took this 5.3 percent raise, it would help reduce the state budget deficit. Seems like an easy place to start when looking through the budget for cuts. After all, politicians work for public not private desires, right?

It comes down to the message of accountability and responsibility that Democrats laid on thicker than Joan Rivers’ makeup. Where is it now? We gave the Democrats a shot and Republicans are already looking good again. Hopefully Mr. Obama can send a mass text on his new Blackberry to every Wisconsin Democrat, “Stop screwing me over!”

Ben Patterson (bpatterson@wisc.edu) is a senior majoring in political science.