Legislators at the Feeding Trough Again (by Albus)

Wisconsin legislators are giving themselves a 5.3% salary
increase to celebrate their competence and devotion to duty,
just like the Wall Street executives collecting bonuses for their
finely-honed financial acuity. While it’s nice to see someone
making out all right in these trying times, my enthusiasm for
supporting our legislators is tempered by my unfortunately
fondness for rational thinking.

These well-over-paid legislators are the same folks who kow-tow
to the misguided tavern owner’s league and think they are
standing up for Second Amendment Rights by refusing to pass
smoking bans for Wisconsin’s public-access businesses. It’s
interesting to note that Wisconsin is surrounded by states that
have already enacted such bans, putting us once again at the
lonely end of the science, health, and enlightenment train.

This is the same gaggle of clowns who, in 1998 sold our 25 year,
$5.9 billion tobacco settlement payment in exchange for an
immediate $1.3 billion cash deal to squander on inept budgeting
and administration. That’s right, folks – you voted for a gang of
idiots who gave away four-fifths of a bird-in-hand for a one-fifth
transitory chirp in the bush.

But, after all, the well-dressed and carefully neck-tied legislature’s
salary increase is nicely packaged, carefully worded, and
completely legal, proving once again the truth of Voltaire’s
assertion that, “To succeed in today’s world, it is not enough to
be stupid. One must also be well-mannered.”

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