You may have heard that UW-Whitewater’s in line for thirty-five million in construction spending. All those millions, but still a march of UW-Whitewater professors to Madison to protest the governor’s budget. (I posted on the trek, as reported in the Janesville Gazette, on March 23rd at Daily Wisconsin.)
Why would they walk all that way?
Because construction spending doesn’t compensate for changes in employees’ conditions and rights. Gov. Walker’s proposed around a billion in public works spending (so much for fiscal restraint), but if he thought he’d get a political lift from it, he’s sure to be wrong. (If he thinks Wisconsin will get a meaningful economic lift out of it, then he’s sure to be wrong about that, too.)
I’m not sure any amount of capital spending will help the Walker Administration to win over those who aren’t die-hards. Nor should it — employees sensibly won’t accept a pretty building as a substitute for an ugly reduction in association rights, or cuts to classroom programs.
What’s odd is that these die-hards pride themselves on fiscal restraint and prudence while they flack for millions in pet-project spending. What they derided in the Doyle Administration, and in the Obama Administration, they celebrate in themselves.
It’s not principle, but opportunism and incumbency, that motivates these would-be defenders of the public purse.
In any event, in the short time of the Walker Administration, these party-line men have alienated so many Wisconsinites that all this spending is so just much political water on sand.