Sen. Mike Ellis in his Neenah office.
We should tip our hat to Sen. Mike Ellis for being consistent. As he states, the governor and the Republican Party have justified almost every change that they have legislated with the argument that those changes would increase competition, and therefore improve the product and/or keep costs in check.
They have gone so far as to convince the majority of Wisconsin's citizens that establishing a second publicly funded educational system will better prepare the children for the modern world and control costs for the taxpayers. Republicans have maintained that if open market forces are left to operate, those free-market-driven forces will control the cost of health care. History flies in the face of that notion, but that's what they say.
So how does the governor explain his neutral stance on a new casino? To say that the other tribes must agree to the new casino is nothing more then a cop out. While he compares it to Solomon's decision to split the baby in half, I compare it to the action taken by another biblical character, a guy who "washed his hands" of the whole affair.
It was unfortunate that the story about how lawmakers managed to slip a $500,000 grant into the state budget -given to a group that had supported Gov. Scott Walker in his recall fight and earmarked it for establishing a facility dedicated to conservation education - appeared around the same time that he announced his neutral position on the casino question. (Walker later revoked the grant.)
Had the Menominee nation leaders known, they could have incorporated a wildlife area into their landscaping plans, donated a million to the governor's re-election campaign, and presto, he might have signed the OK the same day that the Menominee received the go-ahead from the federal government.
Such is the sad state of politics in Wisconsin.