Progressive Thinking

America has some king-sized challenges, and Wisconsin is showing more severe symptoms than most states. Here are seven ways to shake things up, starting close to home.

ALTOONA, WI - America has some king-sized challenges. Economic insecurity born of simultaneous deindustrialization and globalization. Stagnant wages. Grotesque and growing inequality. Nagging fear that the nation’s children will end up worse off than their parents. Strained social relations. Political parties that offer empty promises and false choices when they are not pointing fingers of blame at the other side. Collapsing public confidence in those parties and the democratic process.

No part of the country is immune to these conditions, but Wisconsin is showing more severe symptoms than most states. Wage and job growth in Wisconsin is lagging behind the U.S. average. The state’s poverty rate has reached its highest level in 30 years. Wisconsin leads the nation inshrinkage of the middle class.

When major change came to America in the past, it’s fascinating how often Wisconsin led the way. There’s no time like the present for Wisconsin to get back out there in the lead. With the enormity of today’s challenges, this is no time for pussyfooting.

Because most people have lost faith in the political system and are thoroughly disgusted with the politicians who continue to happily operate within that system, and because most of the general public sees big political donations as nothing more than legal bribes, the law should be brought in line with the broad public consensus that has formed. Any political donation over $200 should be legally defined as a bribe and therefore treated as a felony. Any spending by interest groups benefiting a candidate for office should be legally considered a donation.

Because wages are stagnant and economic inequality has reached alarming levels, the minimum wage should be turned into a living wage. The Fight for $15 is gaining traction in hundreds of cities across the country, the more the better, but it is far less likely to catch on in small towns and rural areas where the cost of living and average worker earnings are considerably lower than in big cities. So how about a Drive for 55, setting the wage floor at 55% of the average wage workers earn in a community or region? This would produce minimum wages at or near $15 an hour in large metropolitan areas and would substantially boost the minimum wage everywhere while flexibly accounting for differences in local economies.

Because the balance of power has been tilted against workers, rewrite the law to make forming a union a civil right for all employees in every sector of our economy.

Because the poorest of all Americans pay double the tax rate paid by the country’s richest few when all state and local taxes are factored in,taxes on the rich should be raised and taxes on the poor and middle class should be lowered until the rich pay taxes at a rate that’s at least on a par with the rate paid by everyone else if not higher.

Because feed-the-rich policies inspired by the “trickle-down” economic theory have been a miserable failure, never producing more than a trickle for the masses and causing grotesque economic inequality and the slow but steady extermination of the middle class, Wisconsin should lead the way in ending crony capitalism and put the state’s corporate welfare office — the failed Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation — out of business. Use the tens of millions of dollars saved each year by abolishing the WEDC to far better use, like paying to bring high-speed Internet and mobile phone service to areas of the state without access to these 21st Century necessities.

Because education is our best hope for building a better and more prosperous future, and our best weapon against economic and social decline, Wisconsin should blaze a trail for the nation in making education as accessible and affordable for future generations as past generations made it for us. Such a lofty goal won’t be reached overnight, but the state could fast-track the pursuit by ending the failed 25-year experiment with taxpayer-subsidized private schooling and using the savings to restore funding stolen from public schools and buy down college tuition in pursuit of the goal of debt-free higher education.

And because having government as close to the people as possible and having decentralized decision making at the community level is preferable to top-down rule with authority in just a few hands,Wisconsin should restore local control by repealing all 128 laws enacted since 2011 giving state officials more say and local communities less.

There you have it . . . seven ways to shake things up, starting close to home. And here’s hoping they inspire 70 more and create a ripple effect across the country.

The VA is America’s largest single payer and single provider system. VA healthcare is NOT broken. Congress and presidents must step up to the plate and fund the staffing and facilities needed to meet the escalating demand for veteran care.

MADISON - In order for the Veterans Affairs Department to “fix” the significant problems at many of the 1,700 VA hospitals and clinics across America, it needs nearly $18 billion more for additional staff and new and remodeled facilities said the acting VA Secretary in 2014.

He did not get the money from Congress.  Thus the VA limps along with ever growing number of veterans to serve, not enough staff and not enough facilities to meet the needs.

Additionally, the VA has weak management in some areas and drastically needs stronger whistleblower protections.

Conservatives have pushed for privatization of veterans’ healthcare for decades.  Recently, the Koch brothers recharged the effort to PRIVATIZE the VA.

Why?  They conclude billions can be made by closing down the VA and sending 7 million veterans into private healthcare.  How?  As private care merges into ever larger corporations, as health insurance and drug companies do the same, the costs for services and drugs increase due to the companies having to pay back the hundreds of billions in loans the CEOs borrow to buy each other’s companies.  Stock holders, Wall Streeters and CEOs make billions while patients pay ever increasing costs.  As the 1%ers know, monopolies are very profitable.

Those who support ill-advised PRIVATIZATION cover their pure, simple GREED with big tears about, “We just want to “help” our wonderful veterans!”

Privatizers listen up:

• Fact:  64% of us 22 million vets DO NOT WANT THE VA PRIVATIZED.
• Fact:  72% of us who use VA hospitals DO NOT WANT THE VA PRIVATIZED.
• Fact:  VA healthcare costs 20% LESS than Medicare.  Medicare is 10% less costly than private care.  Jumping from VA healthcare to private care may cost taxpayers 30% more.
• Facts:  VA care is peer ranked among the best healthcare systems nationally.  Vets are just as satisfied with their VA care as are patients in private care.
• Fact:  Between 2009 and 2016 the number of veterans served by the VA increased 22% to nearly 7 million.
• Fact:  The VA was overloaded and understaffed in 2009.  With all the praise Congress heaps on veterans, they continue to underfund the VA. Result:  Staffing and facility shortages continue.

The Koch propaganda machine marches on deaf to facts.  Their front group, Concerned Veterans of America, preaches privatization.  Dutiful media keep cranking out the stories about poor vets and the efforts to help them by privatization.  Obama, Sanders and Clinton all support No Privatization of the VA.  The major Republican candidates and Trump support privatization.

The VA is America’s largest single payer and single provider system.  VA is a massive high quality, cost efficient, proactive healthcare system that stands as a threat to all insurance companies and for-profit and non-profit hospital systems.  It provides 115 million outpatient visits plus surgery, RXs, therapy, mental health and nursing homes for a cost of $65 billion per year.  If VA healthcare was shut down today this amount of care would cost 30% more, private care hospitals could not accept the additional patient load and veterans would likely receive lower quality care.

VA healthcare is NOT broken.  Congress and presidents must step up to the plate and fund the staffing and facilities needed to meet the escalating demand for veteran care.

We served because presidents and Congress members sent us into combat or peace time forces.  We get injured, permanently damaged, our lives are impacted with some of us never being able to work again.  We demand presidents and Congress members pay the VA costs and help us they promised!

PRIVATIZATION OF THE VA WILL SOLVE NOTHING.  It will exacerbate America’s problem of supporting veterans and their families when in need.

The American Federation of Federal Employees (AFGE) is holding press conferences across America to help the public understand the VA’s problem and successes.  AFGE is one of America’s largest unions with nearly 700,000 workers of whom a third are VA workers.

It is AFGE members who have been risking their careers making whistleblower complaints against bad management practices in the VA. Whistleblowers have stood up for quality care in the VA and real rather than fake appointment lists.  They have personally payed for their courage with damaged careers as a result of retaliation by VA managers in many hospitals across the nation.  Congress must enact a powerful whistleblower protection act!

Wednesday, June 22, 2016, at noon AFGE and other leaders will speak out for VA healthcare and against Privatization in front of the Madison VA hospital.

The emergence of a new major party is unlikely, and it appears American voters are doomed to a choice between the two most disliked major party nominees in polling history. They both will play on fear of the other. But what can we do?

ALTOONA, WI - In case there are some out there who still need persuading that the U.S. is on the verge of political system failure, look no further than this year’s presidential election, where it appears American voters are doomed to a choice between the two most disliked major party nominees in polling history.

The Democratic establishment has been hellbent from the get-go to nominate one of the world’s best-known political figures who also happens to be one of the least trusted and most unlikable politicians around. The silver lining to her unpopularity is that Republican insiders have so far proven incapable of preventing an even more unpopular and distrusted character from capturing their party’s nomination.

Elections are, by their nature, popularity contests to one degree or another. This presidential election is shaping up to be an unpopularity contest.

The greatest danger in continuously forcing voters to determine who they fear and hate the least is how nose-holding steers the public’s thinking away from what America’s future should look like and diverts our attention from what we all hope for and dream about. The badly corrupted and unresponsive government we have today is the product of decades of voters choosing the lesser of evils.

The continuation of the American experiment has depended on some good luck along the way. The U.S. could have come apart at the seams on more than one occasion. In our darkest moments, gifted leaders like Lincoln and FDR emerged to light a path forward. We are again at a moment of truth. The major parties have grown calcified and estranged from the masses and incapable of replacing growing darkness with light. As one commentator observed, “the elites have grown so complacent and arthritic that the existing parties are having difficulty containing the conflict and both parties seem on the verge of nervous breakdowns.”

What might come from such a breakdown is uncertain. The emergence of a new major party is highly unlikely because America has a two-party system that actively discriminates against this outcome, but it is no longer inconceivable that either or both of the major parties could splinter or even disintegrate. The only thing that is sure is that parties deserve this fate when they no longer appeal to your hopes and dreams but rather can only play on your worst fears to gain power.

It is up to us to refuse to go where the ruling elites want to take us. It is up to us to look for chances to unite when they see endless opportunities to divide. If you are alarmed by Trump, you need to realize that obsessing over the horrors of a Trump presidency won’t prevent one. It actually helps him. Likewise, if you can’t stand Hillary, you also need to understand that being consumed by how much you despise her and can’t trust her won’t stop her from inhabiting the White House.

Fear will figure prominently in both parties’ campaigns this fall. They will play on it. They will count on it. Now more than ever, the American people need to prove once again that this is the land of the brave. When they tell you what you should hate, say what you love. When they tell you what is going to be destroyed, say what you want to see created. In this oppressive darkness, it is up to us to shine light.

Madison Activist and Bernie Supporter wants a Constitutional amendment.

MADISON, WI - I woke up on June 14, 2016, and accepted that Bernie was not going to be our next President.

It was sad and hard because Bernie is for real. You know he isn’t lying to you when he speaks. We haven’t had a politician that honest since Proxmire. Bernie Sanders is hope.

We children of the sixties were a generation of hope. We were going to fix the world. We had real expectations that poverty, injustice and war would all be a thing of the past. Since then the world just got uglier.

We need hope. This thing we call Democracy just isn’t working. We have to make it work.

So what is the next step to sustain hope?

Let’s make Democracy work. Let’s make an amendment to the Constitution. Since the President is the most powerful politician in the country and the only one elected by the whole country, let’s make electing a president a democratic process. Call it the 28th Amendment.

The President and Vice President shall be elected by all of the people of the United States voting together with one vote to each qualified person. To be voted upon for President, a candidate must be supported by a petition of 100,000 citizens from anywhere in the United States, presented to the Federal Election Commission. All of the states shall have the same list of candidates supplied by the Federal Election Commission. The Presidential candidates shall supply to the Federal Election Commission the names of their respective Vice Presidential candidates. In the event that no candidate receives a majority of the ballots cast, the Federal Election Commission will hold a runoff election between the two top contenders. The Electoral College will be eliminated.

That is a short and simple solution to some big problems. Let’s send petitions to our U.S. Senators and Representatives to make this change to the Constitution. Let them know this is a one-issue voting requirement for us to continue to support them and reelect them. If we get behind it, it will work. We need hope for the future. This is our immortality. We live; we die. But something greater continues. We must contribute to it.

The IRS has witnessed a significant increase in email scams using the IRS name to lure people into giving up important personal information.  Sen. Kathleen Vinehout shares information about what the IRS won’t do and how to report a scam.

ALMA, WI - In my inbox was an official looking email from the “Internal Revenue Service”.

The subject line was: “Tax return request submitted”. Without thinking, I clicked on the attachment to the email.

“Did you file our taxes by email?” I asked my husband. It was a silly question. He would no more send our tax return by email than bank by email. The computer was a dragon to be tamed. You only woke the dragon when absolutely necessary.

“NO!” came the answer from the other room. “Delete it! It’s a scam!”

I hurriedly clicked “cancel” on the downloading email attachment. Then I noticed the attachment was a .zip file – a big file zipped-up. “Oh, dear,” I muttered under my breath.

Even though tax season is over, scammers are still using official looking emails to lure unsuspecting, honest taxpayers into their evil web. I did some research and learned that scammers have many ways to use the IRS name to lure unsuspecting people into their net – phone calls, faxes, emails, fake websites, and even text messages and Short Message Services (SMS).

Scam phone calls are familiar to many people. If you receive a call from the IRS, document the caller’s badge number, name, call back number and caller ID. Then call 1-800-366-4484 to determine if the person is a legitimate IRS employee and really needs to talk with you about your taxes.

IRS email scams are becoming much more common.

The IRS witnessed a 400% increase in email scams this year. A February 2016 IRS alert warned, “The emails are designed to trick taxpayers into thinking these are official communications from the IRS or others in the tax industry, including tax software companies. The phishing schemes can ask taxpayers about a wide range of topics. Emails can seek information related to refunds, filing status, confirming personal information, ordering transcripts and verifying PIN information.”

The IRS also noted there are more email scams seeking personal tax information. When an unsuspecting person clicks on the email, it takes them to official looking websites that masquerade as IRS.gov. These sites ask for personal information like social security numbers. The emails also contain malware or nasty programs that track your keystrokes and allow criminals to impersonate you on-line.

It is important to know that the IRS does not initiate communication with taxpayers by email. Unless that first communication with the IRS is a letter, you can be certain that email message or phone call is a scam.

In a recent new release, IRS Commissioner John Koskinen stated, “We continue to say if you are surprised to be hearing from us, then you’re not hearing from us.”

Commissioner Koskinen listed a few of the actions the IRS will NEVER do: call to demand immediate payment; threaten to send local police or other law enforcement to arrest or deport you; require you to use a specific method to pay your taxes (like a debit card); ask for a credit card or debit card over the phone.

The real IRS warns that an email claiming to be from the IRS is a phishing attempt and should be reported at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

In Wisconsin, the hardworking consumer protection specialists at the Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection (DATCP) protect us from scammers. A few weeks ago, they released a warning about the IRS scammers.

“Fake IRS callers are hitting Wisconsin residents hard,” the summer 2016 alert reported. Aggressive callers are “demanding immediate payment for (fake) back taxes.”

In a strange twist, telephone scammers in Wisconsin are accepting payment for fake back taxes with PayPal, Amazon and iTunes gift cards. In addition, the scammers will try the usual methods of asking you to wire money through Western Union or MoneyGram.

DATCP officials remind Wisconsinites the IRS will never call you demanding payment or making threats. They will always send a letter by postal mail – not email or phone.

Don’t be fooled. If you do receive an email, fax or phone call demanding payment, make sure to report it by calling 800-366-4484 or at IRS.gov. You can contact the Wisconsin Consumer Protection staff at the Consumer Protection Hotline at 800-422-7128.