Brookfield (R)s in the 98th: Hmmm?

The Waukesha Freeman's Brookfield edition ran a story about the Zipperer District's candidates.

I don't know that I liked what I saw from either of them.

Paul Farrow is Margaret's son. He sees the economy and 'creating jobs' as priorities. He wants to decrease regulation burdens (YES!) and repeal the combined reporting tax enacted last year.

But now he gets into code-speak: he said "the reliance on the property tax is an unrealistic approach...[and that the State] should look at a more balanced approach while reducing Government spending." Actually, Paul, what a legislator SHOULD work towards is getting the State out of local education altogether. It's called "subsidiarity."

Moreover, don't you wish you had seen "reduce spending" long before you saw "balanced approach to revenues"? I do.

Farrow also wrote an incomprehensible response to a question about the ChooChoo: "...there's a significant discourse toward high-speed rail...and he is concerned the federal government isn't putting forth money to support the system after it's built."

Looks like he might hurt the family jewels if he slips off that straddle the wrong way.

Well.

Tom Schellinger is the other candidate.

He would "devise a plan to fund schools properly and achieve property tax relief" by [among other things] "consider[ing] merging some school districts to cut costs...and review benefits packages."

(In regards 'benefit packages,' it would be nice to see the approved minutes of the Waukesha County Board meeting of July 27th, where Mr. Schellinger voted on Ordinance 165-O-035. But the County Board did not see fit to publish them yet.)

Schellinger wants to look at allowing tolls. He says "it would shift the cost burden onto infrastructure users." Evidently Mr. Schellinger never heard of the gasoline tax.

He doesn't like unfunded mandates and rambled on about everything EXCEPT SPENDING.

Both candidates were clearly responding to a formatted set of questions.

Neither was impressive.

Worse, both gave answers vaguely reminiscent of the "Wisconsin Way" blather being pitched by WEAC, the Roadbuilders, Realtors, and Local/County Gummints lobbies. And if you think that "Wisconsin Way" people are in touch, then read this:

...most of us consistently report being willing to support current spending levels and even say we would support spending more in a number of areas which suggests that our problem with taxes isn’t so much about what we spend tax revenues on or even how much we spend. It’s about more basic issues like affordability and fairness and how efficiently government manages the tax dollars they collect from us.

Most of WHO? Teachers, RoadBuilders, Realtors, and Local/County Gummints?