LETTER: What’s Walker really done

To the Telegram:

Once again Wisconsin politics has been brought in to the national spotlight with nearing recall elections. While much of the local and national debate is over the removal of collective bargaining rights for state worker unions, I do not believe that is the only thing we should be discussing during this democratic recall process.

It is no secret that Walker’s administration came into office during poor economic times, and I will be the first to agree that some cuts and changes needed to be made. That said let us take a look at the types of cuts he made.

He turned down the federal money to build the high speed rail that would have created 5,000-7,000 jobs; set regulations on wind farms to the degree that many clean energy wind farm businesses left the state, cut funding to Focus on Energy, a program that created nearly 25,000 jobs, and rolled back the standards of phosphorus that can run off our lawns into local ground water and sewer systems.

Ask yourself a simple question. How did these help Wisconsin recover and grow?

Wisconsin has a long history of being a clean, environmentally-conscious state. I hope the challengers to Walker realize the economy cannot grow when the environment is treated so poorly.

Julian Holtzman,

Madison

Tags: opinion, letters