Email to Governor Walker

Just sent this:

Governor Walker,

First off, thank you for staying on course and removing some of the union's conflict of interest powers. This is why we elected you. Keep up the good work!

In that vein, I've got a few suggestions to help our budget problems.

First, why not close the "Handgun Hotline" bureau? Besides being an infringement on our Second Amendment rights, this department is a duplication of effort. The FBI operates their "E-Check" website that Wisconsin gun dealers must use for background checks for long guns, and our federal taxes pay for it. To operate a duplicate state bureau to do this, and charge Wisconsin residents $13 per check is just wrong.

You could also advocate removing the waiting period on handguns - this only affects the law-abiding again infringing on the Second Amendment. Removing this would not cost the state one cent.

Back to the budget - Do we really need the hundreds of upper management school superintendents and associated staff? Our schools did quite well back in the days of one-room schools, without all the bureaucracy. Perhaps we should think about moving back to simpler methods?

The Wisconsin law requiring registration of septic systems by homeowners is another place you might find savings. The bureaucracy involved in maintaining records of every cesspool in the state, and requiring homeowners to provide proof of maintenance periodically is an intrusion on privacy, and likely has little effect on the health of the state. People who own septic systems know when they need service, and maintain them without state interference in other states - are Wisconsin residents less intelligent that their neighbors?

Mandatory recycling - if local governments want to impose this, let them charge the full cost to their residents. If recycling is profitable, as the people pushing for it have always claimed, we should not be using tax money to support it. Let the free market show demand, and let the communities profit.

End the subsidies for wind and solar power. Grid-connected wind power is technically unworkable, and will never replace one fossil fuel plant. As an electrical engineer, I know a bit about this, and can provide research if you want it. If people want to put up wind turbines for their own use, this should be a matter for their immediate neighbors and their own investment.

Repeal the law requiring a fixed amount of power to be obtained from "renewable" sources. Arbitrary numbers in laws are always a bad idea. If industry sees a way to make an honest profit with renewable energy, they will build plants - if the state stays out of their way with sensible regulations, not obstacles.

Repeal the de-facto ban on nuclear energy. Federal rules make this hard enough to work with already.

Once the heat dies down, and the teachers and other public workers see that the world has not ended because their collective bargaining "rights" have been removed, perhaps you could extend this to the rest of the public unions. Police, fire, and prison workers should not be able to hold the people hostage with union demands.

Make Wisconsin a right to work state.

How about a ban on state funding of "roundabouts" or traffic circles - one of my major pet peeves? If a local area really wants one of these monstrosities, let the people in that area pay for it - and pay for the resulting traffic problems and injuries. Those in the Whitewater and Beloit areas are accidents waiting to happen, and a huge waste of our highway funds. Wisconsin is not Europe, however much our "liberals" may wish it to be.

I thin that's enough for now. Again, thank you for your efforts so far.

Regards,
Chuck Kuecker