Editorial cartoon

Published: March 12, 2010
Tags: cartoon, Google

Politics at heart of Wood fight

Published: March 12, 2010
Tags: democrat, Jeff Wood, Legislature, Pommer, Republican, Steve Nass

By Matt Pommer
Veteran state Rep. Steve Nass wants to kick state Rep. Jeff Wood out of the Legislature over Wood’s multiple arrests for driving while impaired.
The effort by Nass, a sharp-tongued Republican from Whitewater, has added a touch of soap opera drama in the Capitol as the Legislature nears the end of its two-year work [...]

Letter to the editor: One bad idea after another

Published: March 12, 2010
Tags: City of Milwaukee, Milwaukee County, preference

To the editor:
Financial incentives funded by the taxpayer for where a business is located? Financial incentives funded by the taxpayer for the geographical area in which employees live?
Neither is the right answer.
Incentivizing commercial enterprise to perform unnatural acts through hiring by geographic boundaries or domiciling their business in the city of Milwaukee are not the [...]

Editorial cartoon

Published: March 5, 2010
Tags: bidding preference, cartoon

Simple answer for road woes

Published: March 5, 2010
Tags: filibuster, gas tax, Jim Bunning, surface transportation, Transportation

To the editor:
The filibuster is over but the lesson lives on.
Incredible as it seems, the nation’s most important source of surface transportation funding lapsed this month for the first time in its history due to a bizarre argument in which, somehow, both sides were simultaneously right and dead wrong.
On one side of the argument, a [...]

Tax debate fuels GOP campaigns

Published: March 5, 2010
Tags: election, GOP, governor, Mark Neumann, Pommer, property tax, race, referendum, Republican, Scott Walker
Comments: 3

By Matt Pommer
Republican gubernatorial hopeful Mark Neumann contends his GOP opponent Scott Walker is “promising the world to get elected” to avoid a focus on his years as Milwaukee County executive.
Truth rings in Neumann’s assessment that Walker is making a lot of promises about taxes. Walker’s latest promises include freezing the property tax and exempting [...]

Editorial cartoon

Published: February 26, 2010
Tags: cartoon, labor

Letter to the editor: Fed up with wage reporting

Published: February 26, 2010
Tags: editor, Kamin, letter, letter to the editor, prevailing wages
Comments: 1

To the editor:
The onus of providing proof of prevailing wages paid by nonunion contractors is verging on ridiculous.
We currently fill out form WH-347 to show that prevailing wages are paid, as well as the affidavit of compliance with prevailing wage on form ERD-5724. Now we are required to duplicate all of this information yet again and provide this to the [...]

Wall rolls out income tax plan

Published: February 26, 2010
Tags: Brett Favre, flat tax, income tax, Pommer, Russ Feingold, tax, Terrence Wall, Tommy Thompson, U.S. Senate

By Matt Pommer
Republican U.S. senatorial candidate Terrence Wall says he favors a flat-rate federal income tax system to make it easier for Americans.
His comments came in a newspaper story in which the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel put his net worth between $58 million and $130 million, including income last year between $2.3 million and $14.2 million.
Wall [...]

Ryan offers health care alternatives

Published: February 19, 2010
Tags: health care, insurance, Medicare, Paul Ryan, reform, retirement, road map, Social Security

By Matt Pommer
Congressman Paul Ryan, R-Wisconsin, is promoting an economic road map that would dramatically affect those younger than 55.
It includes major changes in Medicare and Social Security, including increasing the age of Medicare eligibility in “gradual steps” to age 69 and six months. Medicare eligibility is now at age 65.
Ryan’s road map maintains the [...]