PERSPECTIVE
GREEN BAY PRESS-GAZETTE, SUNDAY, MAY 2, 2004

Proposal has not been tested enough

By RICH EGGLESTON

Rep. Frank Lasee (R-Bellevue) is working hard to clear the land mines that his proposed constitutional amendment, known by the seductive nickname "The Taxpayer's Bill of Rights," would place between Wisconsin citizens and their ability to obtain police and fire protection for their homes, an education for their children and help for their elderly parents and grand parents.

His proposal goes by the acronym TABOR in Colorado. It's an effort to trim government with a meat ax rather than a scalpel. Public officials and the media in Colorado describe it as a train wreck and a disaster. Political scientist Donald Kettl says it is part of a "tightly coordinated crusade of national conservatives to 'starve the beast' they see as government spending."

Supporters hail TABOR as a move toward ballot-box democracy, but critics worry that it would lead to government by 30-second television ads, bumper-sticker sloganeering and appeals to emotionalism rather than old-fashioned common sense.

Of course,  innocent civilians are the most likely victims of land mines like TABOR, so in his latest rewrite of the amendment, Rep. Lasee is prudently making a number of improvements in the unwieldy package.

But still lacking is a homework requirement for voters, and mandatory study halls on the workings of government. I write this only partly in jest, because the decision over new public works projects, highway spending, student-teacher ratios and a host of other important things that TABOR would delegate to voters is not to be taken lightly. These are decisions that voters now elect people to make.

If we don't like the decisions our elected representatives make for us, we are free to unelect them. It's easier to second-guess these decisions than make them in the first place.

In Colorado, voters rejected a multi-billion dollar project to provide water for future generations. Oh well, let them drink beer.

Rep. Lasee has responded to the most obvious and significant flaws in Colorado's TABOR amendment. But even after a few beers, TABOR is still a very bad idea.

• We shouldn't put fiscal policy in the constitution.  There isn't a formula in state law that isn't changed with regularity. Put an untested formula into the constitution, and it takes many, many years to change. Rep. Lasee has dealt with problems that we have identified, but as sure as the sun will rise tomorrow, there are other problems we haven't dreamed of. That's why the constitution should be the place for basic principles about human rights, and basic rules to guide government, not micromanagement.

• We shouldn't rush something like TABOR through the legislative process without full and informed debate and discussion. So far, the debate and discussion has been taking place behind closed doors. Legislators slam the door in the face of reporters who try to get into these meetings. Assembly Republicans met last Tuesday on this issue. Every reporter in Madison should have attended, and they shouldn't have left except in handcuffs.

• It's an idea whose time has passed. State and local officials have heard the message of voters that taxes are high enough.  Gov. Jim Doyle signed a no-tax-increase budget. Local officials across the state adopted a levy freeze as part of their budgets. Municipal levy increases this year were the lowest in 14 years, and school district levy increases were the lowest in a decade. Government is slimming down in response to the public. Government will continue to respond to the public. That's its job.

I work for the Wisconsin Alliance of Cities, a group that is dedicated to making local government work better and more efficiently. We're dedicated to reform that saves the taxpayer money. We're dedicated to regional solutions that save the taxpayer money. We're dedicated to eliminating duplicative layers of government that waste the taxpayer's money.

We come up with original ideas, we don't import broken down, dysfunctional ideas from other states. Professor Kettl's Blue-Ribbon Commisson on the State-Local Partnership for the 21st Century came up with 139 ideas for improving and slimming down government. TABOR wasn't one of them. Once upon a time Wisconsin embraced homegrown ideas like Unemployment Compensation and Worker's Compensation and exported them to the rest of the country. If we embrace ideas like the Wisconsin Alliance of Cities and Professor Kettl's, not TABOR, we will truly prepare Wisconsin to thrive in the 21st Century.