Free money from Uncle Foolish in Washington?

Faster, pussycat! Faster!

Cause, meet effect. The City of Madison is hurtling toward a $27 million ask on the November referendum ballot. We’re told it would raise property taxes an average $284 on the average stately manor. The school district is on track for a $600 million spending referenda. Our guess is that famously blue Madison will just say no to these liberal over-reaches while voting Tammy Baldwin and Kamala Harris without ever making the connection.

Like hobo stew, the cost of living has many ingredients. Pumping increasingly worthless dollars into the economy is one of them. Democrats in Washington injected billions into America’s economic bloodstream in the name of Covid relief. Yet another casualty of the pandemic panic, along with closing schools and wearing masks on the bike path!

The National Bureau of Economic Research identifies the CARES Act and the National Rescue Plan as a prime contributor to inflation that peaked at 9% in June 2022. 

The federal government showered $350 billion on state and local governments. Gov. Tony Evers, a Democrat, spent most of the $5.7 billion federal largesse at his sole discretion.

 City will pay you to sue it

The City of Madison spent one-time money to paper over operational expenses and to avoid hard decisions, such as deep sixing the $509,000 Police Civilian* Oversight Board, which is now advertising for attorneys willing to be paid up to $15,000 for each anti-cop lawsuit they bring against the city. That’s right — the City of Madison will pay you to sue itself! ( * which the bid document misnames “Citizen” Oversight Board.)

Free federal money is catnip to politicians, who can shower beneficence from on high (talk about trickle down!) and bask in the gratitude of their supplicants, who don’t realize their pockets have just been picked. Which is why Wisconsin Republicans are asking approval for two referenda on the August 13 primary election ballot. They want the legislature to retain the power to approve spending before the executive distributes. That’s how it works in every budget. It’s called separation of powers, checks and balances.

This has Democrats — and now the increasingly progressive Wisconsin State Journal — huffing into a brown paper bag. This money “needed to be spent fast,” the State Journal editorializes, before admitting:

Transparency sometimes suffered, as a state audit determined. That was disappointing.

And wasteful. Audits are still uncovering scams committed in the panic to spend money. Besides, does anyone really believe that even those knuckle-dragging Republicans would hold up funds to restore, say, another Barneveld after the village was flattened by a tornado? In any event, whatever deprivations were wrought by the pandemic four years ago were exacted long-term. The relief can wait. 

→ 3,500 defendants charged with “widespread fraud” for losses over $2 Billion.

→ Madison man convicted of Covid relief fraud.

Blaska’s Bottom Line: The Covid cash wash puts us in mind of President Reagan’s prescription for good gummint: Don’t just do something! Stand there!

Or is it better to spend first and think later?