Monday, December 31, 2012

Frank Lasee's Late Entry For Idiot of the Year

Although it's going to be damn near impossible for anyone to top Glenn Grothman for the Idiot of the Year, Senator Frank Lasee has put up a respectable entry to be the king of fools.

Last year, Lasee's entry for this dubious title was claiming that windmills are a health hazard.

This year, he's taken his game up a few notches with this piece of utter stupidity:
Recently, there have been reports that the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation misplaced a $56 million dollar loan portfolio because of a problem with their software and borrowers have fallen $12 million dollars behind on loan payments to the state.

Thankfully the software problems are being fixed and the WEDC is under new management.

Unfortunately, some of the $12 million in late loans, like the $2 million left on a loan made to Flambeau River Biofuels by the old Department of Commerce, probably won’t ever be recovered by taxpayers. We need to be more careful about how we spend taxpayer money.

Next session there will be talk about a venture capital bill in Wisconsin, and even here there are people that want to give a small appointed committee the ability to dole out (I mean “invest”) hundreds of millions of taxpayers dollars to get in the business of picking winners and losers with our money. This is a bad idea.

There are private venture capital firms in Wisconsin. One solution could be to partner with them on projects they are willing to risk their money on, under the same terms and conditions they have.

This is a lot different than what some in the legislature want to do, which is give that committee of appointed officials the ability to risk taxpayer money like the Federal Government has.

Either way, making a venture capital board with the ability to dole our money as they see fit is not a good idea. People have biases and they are going to push their own agendas, just like the President did by investing in Solyndra and the Chevy Volt. A select committee shouldn’t ever have the power to write checks for private businesses on the taxpayer’s dime.

You might be wondering, “Seeing how the government has wasted money playing venture capitalist, why would you vote for it at all?” The reason I would be willing to vote for a 60-40-percent split is because venture capital firms have a vested interest in making sure that they invest their money wisely and making a profit. If there truly is a lack of venture capital available in Wisconsin, then we the state, can and should make a profit, not lose money on poor risks.

Venture capital firms have to do their homework before they invest, otherwise they go broke, and that isn’t the case for members of an appointed government committee that can vote money to their friends and not pay any real consequences.
First of all, Walker's Economy Destroying Cronies (WEDC) did not "misplace" the tens of millions of dollars. One misplaces their car keys, but not that large sum of money.

What they did is give that money away to their friends and to Walker's campaign contributors and walked away without intending to keep track of it. And it should be noted that Walker himself is the Chair of this board, and the reins of the agency was given to Walker's hand-picked political appointee. I don't recall Walker stepping down from the governor's seat nor do I recall him being arrest in the Walkergate investigation - yet. So there is no new management.

And if Lasee was really concerned about being responsible for taxpayer dollars, making sure they weren't doling out the money to their friends, he would be calling for WEDC to be dissolved and abolished, since these private/public ventures never worked and never will.

And now this moron is suggesting we give even more taxpayer money to vulture venture capitalists. He's correct in saying that they do their homework and only go where there is a profit. But the way that Lasee and company can't even wipe their arses without screwing it up, I think we all know where the profit will be coming from and who will be collecting it.

The real kicker comes in at the end:
Conservatives need to show that we are serious about letting the free market work, and that it will create private sector jobs. The answer lies in getting government out of the way, not by throwing more of our taxpayer’s money at it.
If Lasee wants the free market to work and to get the government out of the way, let them do it without any taxpayer money. We'll see how long that lasts.

1 comment:

  1. "People have biases and they are going to push their own agendas, just like the President did by investing in Solyndra..." I presume you are referring to President Bush, as the Solyndra fail was his doing, and not President Obama's. Most people think Obama is the culprit in that because it went down on his watch, when actually, it was Bush who had made the decision to invest in Solyndra, and that decision carried over into Obama's first term.

    ReplyDelete