Tuesday, November 17, 2009

Stats, Numbers, And Now Pesky Facts

Last week, I mentioned that Scott Walker's bragging about winning the straw poll in the GOP's 8th District was less than impressive, due to the simple fact that there were only 39 people that bothered to vote.

After having had a chance to further read the article in question in further detail, it became less impressive. Said straw poll failed to include fellow Republican gubernatorial hopefuls Mark Neumann and Tim Michels. The only other Republican gubernatorial candidate that was there was Mark Todd, the first person to enter the race. With no name recognition or budget to speak of, Todd was still able to get 7% of the vote.

The article goes on to have a little chat with each candidate. Walker's piece was the usual misleading confabulation that we have all come to expect from Walker, with little, if any, resemblance to reality.

What I personally found much more interesting was the piece on Mark Todd. It was one of the few pieces I've found that went anywhere near him to let people know who he was and what his ideas are. I will transcribe that section of the article here, since the Waupaca County Post neglected to post it on their website (emphasis on last line mine):
The first candidate to announce his bid for the governor's mansion is also the only candidate to propose turning the governor's mansion into a bed-and-breakfast as a way to generate income for the state.

Todd is an Appleton business owner who says that part of his personal income comes from credit card processing.

"All our money in credit card processing goes to four banks on the East Coast," Todd said. "My suggestion is that we do our own credit card processing here in the state."

Todd said that no private bank in Wisconsin is currently generating revenues from credit card prcessing, so he believes the state should set up its own financial institution to prcess credit cards.

"It would make us less reliant on taxes," Todd said.

He also proposes that the state establish a gift card program that can be used at stores throughout Wisconsin, with the state government collecting transaction fees.

The state could also sell less expensive bonds "that grandma can buy for the kids to go to college," Todd said. "We need to make our government self-sufficient."

Todd also sees opportunities to generate revenues by selling sewage to make fertilizer.

"We don't need to cut jobs or cut wages," Todd said. "We just need to develop incomes and make ourselves self-sufficient.
In other news from the same issue of the paper, it was noted that the Waupaca County government approved a 6% tax hike. Waupaca is a very conservative county, and like most other counties in the state, they found it necessary to raise taxes by even more than the Milwaukee County Board had proposed. This shows how out of touch Walker and his thug enforcers at CRG are with the rest of the state.

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