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ORIGINAL RESEARCHPhil Wilayto Tommy Thompson Prepares to Bring "Wisconsin Model" to WashingtonWhile John Ashcroft may be the most outrageously right-wing of Bush's Cabinet nominations, his choice for Secretary of Health and Human Services may well have a larger impact on the lives of poor and working people, especially in the areas of welfare, reproductive rights and health care in general. "More than any other state, Thompson's Wisconsin fundamentally changed the way government aids its poorest citizens - writing and strictly enforcing rules that make it tough to qualify for and keep welfare...," according to a Dec. 20 Associated Press article. "If confirmed, he would lead one of the biggest government bureaucracies, a department that oversees Medicare and Medicaid, the Food and Drug Administration and other agencies that see to the needs of the old, the sick and the poor." Thompson & WelfareTommy G. Thompson, 59, was first elected governor in 1986 on a viciously anti-welfare platform. Since then, the state's welfare rolls have been slashed 92%, the sharpest reduction in the country. President Bill Clinton was impressed. "Wisconsin has the makings of one of the boldest [welfare reform plans] yet attempted in America," Clinton said in a National Radio Address in May of 1996, "and I'm encouraged by what I've seen so far." That was the year Clinton signed the national welfare reform act that effectively eliminated the 61 year-old entitlement program of welfare. Even Ronald Reagan didn't dare to go that far. Thompson's main program, Wisconsin Works, or W-2, basically eliminated Aid to Families with Dependant Children (AFDC), replacing it with a draconian system that forces virtually all recipients to work, regardless of their circumstances. Thousands of mothers on AFDC, many of them with severe obstacles to working, never transferred over to the new system. For those able to find jobs -- many of them at temp agencies -- the average wage is just over $7.00. For those unable to "succeed" under the new rules, there is no more safety net. The results have been devastating. Homelessness has skyrocketed, as has the number of children taken into the state's foster care system. In the first year of W-2, the Black infant mortality rate in Milwaukee city shot up an incredible 37%. Far from being a program to reduce poverty, W-2 creates a low-wage, captive work force that means super-profits for private businesses. It opens wider the door to massive privatization of government services and it helps to obliterate the concept that the government has any inherent obligation to "promote the general welfare." And those achievements - not the elimination of poverty - were the real goals of W-2. Thompson & VouchersUnder Thompson's leadership, Wisconsin has also taken the lead in the area of school vouchers, in which public funding is used to pay the tuition of students attending private and religious schools. Critics charge this is a thinly disguised effort to privatize public education, along with its $350 billion annual budget. Milwaukee has the country's oldest and largest voucher program and the only one to hold up against court challenges to including religious schools. Bush has pledged to try and introduce vouchers on a national level. His choice for Secretary of Education is pro-voucher Rod Paige, the superintendent of schools in Houston. Thompson & the Bradley FoundationThompson's national rise is due primarily to his close relationship to prominent right- wing foundations and think tanks. Of the fifteen or so largest right-wing foundations in the U.S., the richest and most politically influential is the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, based in Milwaukee. Bradley plays a leading role in funding the myriad right-wing think tanks, publications and organizations that prepare public opinion for programs like welfare "reform" and school vouchers. Bradley money also paid for the state task force that developed W-2 and underwrote the Milwaukee "community" movement for school vouchers. As governor, Thompson has allowed Bradley to develop pilot projects in areas like welfare, vouchers, "faith-based" initiatives and more that are then promoted nationally. The result has been to turn Wisconsin, which had been known for progressive innovations in government policy, into a kind of laboratory for right-wing social experiments. As head of HHS, Thompson could work to implement these programs as federal policy. Thompson & AbortionAs HHS Secretary, Thompson would also be in charge of the Commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the U.S. Surgeon General, both of whom have the power to either protect or restrict reproductive rights. He would oversee the administration of the Title X family planning program, which has provided millions of women with a wide range of reproductive health services, including pap smears and breast cancer screening. Thompson has said that abortions should be legal only in cases where a woman's life is endangered, or after a pregnancy resulting form rape or incest. As governor, he has used his power to increasingly restrict a woman's right to choose. Thompson & Big TobaccoHHS is also the federal agency responsible for tobacco control, prevention and treatment. The world's largest producer of tobacco products is the Philip Morris Company, which also happens to be the largest private employer in Wisconsin. By 1997, Thompson had received more than $60,000 in campaign contributions from the tobacco giant. In return, he has strongly defended tobacco industry interests, regularly vetoing legislation it opposed. It turns out that the goals of Tommy Thompson, the Bradley Foundation and the Republican Party are basically the same as the present goals of the entire U.S. ruling class: complete deregulation of corporations, privatization of public services and an entrenched social stratification. The Democrats work towards the same goal in a slower, more diffuse way, while the Republicans are more aggressive and focused. Opposing Thompson's nomination won't stop their agenda, but it could be a factor in reigniting a mass movement against the agglomeration of power by private, unaccountable interests as a whole. Sources:A Job is a Right Campaign, Milwaukee, WI sign in, or register to email stories or comment on them.
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MORE ORIGINAL RESEARCHBill Berkowitz PERC receives Templeton Freedom Award for promoting 'enviropreneurs'Right Wing foundation-funded anti-environmental think tank grabbing a wider audience for 'free market environmentalism' On the 15th anniversary of Terry Anderson and Donald Leal's book "Free Market Environmentalism" -- the seminal book on the subject -- Anderson, the Executive Director of the Bozeman, Montana-based Property and Environment Research Center (PERC - formerly known as the Political Economy Research Center) spoke in late-January at an event sponsored by Squaw Valley Institute at the Resort at Squaw Creek in California. While it may have been just another opportunity to speak on "free market environmentalism" and not the kickoff of a "victory tour," nevertheless it comes at a time when PERC's ideas are taking root.
Bill Berkowitz Neil Bush of Saudi ArabiaDuring recent visit, President’s brother describes the country as a 'kind of tribal democracy' In late February, only a few days after Saudi Arabia beheaded four Sri Lankan robbers and then left their headless bodies on public display in the capital of Riyadh, Neil Bush, for the fourth time in the past six years, showed up for the country's Jeddah Economic Forum. The Guardian reported that Human Rights Watch "said the four men had no lawyers during their trial and sentencing, and were denied other basic legal rights." In an interview with Arab News, the Saudi English language paper, Bush described the country as "a kind of tribal democracy."
Bill Berkowitz Newt Gingrich's back door to the White HouseAmerican Enterprise Institute "Scholar" and former House Speaker blames media for poll showing 64 percent of the American people wouldn't vote for him under any circumstances Whatever it is that former House Speaker Newt Gingrich has come to represent in American politics, the guy is nothing less than fascinating. One day he's espousing populist rhetoric about the need to cut the costs of college tuition and the next day he's talking World War III. One day he's claiming that the "war on terror" may force the abridgement of fundamental first amendment rights and the next he's advancing a twenty-first century version of his Contract with America. At the same time he's publicly proclaiming how "stupid" it is that the race for the presidency has already started you know that he's trying to figure out how to out finesse Rudy, McCain and Romney for the nomination. And last week, when Fox News' Chris Wallace cited a poll showing that 64 percent of the public would never vote for him, he was quick to blame those results on how unfairly he was treated by the mainstream media back in the day.
Bill Berkowitz American Enterprise Institute takes lead in agitating against IranDespite wrongheaded predictions about the war on Iraq, neocons are on the frontlines advocating military conflict with Iran After doing such a bang up job with their advice and predictions about the outcome of the war on Iraq, would it surprise you to learn that America's neoconservatives are still in business? While at this time we are not yet seeing the same intense neocon invasion of our living rooms -- via cable television's news networks -- that we saw during the run-up to the invasion of Iraq, nevertheless, a host of policy analysts at conservative think tanks -- most notably the American Enterprise Institute -- are being heeded on Iran by those who count - folks inside the Bush Administration.
Bill Berkowitz After six years, opposition gaining on George W. Bush's Faith Based InitiativeUnmentioned in the president's State of the Union speech, the program nevertheless continues to recruit religious participants and hand out taxpayer money to religious groups With several domestic policy proposals unceremoniously folded into President Bush's recent State of the Union address, two pretty significant items failed to make the cut. Despite the president's egregiously tardy response to the event itself, it was nevertheless surprising that he didn't even mention Hurricane Katrina: He didn't offer up a progress report, words of hope to the victims, or come up with a proposal for moving the sluggish rebuilding effort forward. There were no "armies of compassion" ready to be unleashed, although it should be said that many in the religious community responded to the disaster much quicker than the Bush Administration. In the State of the Union address, however, there was no "compassionate conservatism" for the victims of Hurricane Katrina.
Bill Berkowitz Frank Luntz calls Republican leadership in Washington 'One giant whining windbag'On the outs with the GOP, legendary degrader of discourse is moving to California He doesn't make great art; nothing he does elevates the human spirit; he doesn't illuminate, he bamboozles. He has become expert in subterfuge, hidden meanings, word play and manipulation. Frank Luntz has been so good at what he does that those paying close attention gave it its own name: "Luntzspeak."
Bill Berkowitz Spooked by MoveOn.org, conservative movement seeks to emulate liberal powerhouseFueled with Silicon Valley money, TheVanguard.org will have Richard Poe, former editor of David Horowitz's FrontPage magazine as its editorial and creative director As Paul Weyrich, a founding father of the modern conservative movement and still a prominent actor in it, likes to say, he learned a great deal about movement building by closely observing what liberals were up to in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
Bill Berkowitz Ward Connerly's anti-affirmative action jihadFounder and Chair of the American Civil Rights Institute scouting five to nine states for new anti-affirmative action initiatives Fresh from his most recent victory -- in Michigan this past November -- Ward Connerly, the Black California-based maven of anti-affirmative action initiatives, appears to be preparing to take his jihad on the road. According to a mid-December report in the San Francisco Chronicle, Connerly said that he was "exploring moves into nine other states."
Bill Berkowitz Tom Tancredo's missionThe Republican congressman from Colorado will try to woo GOP voters with anti-immigration rhetoric and a boatload of Christian right politics These days, probably the most recognizable name in anti-immigration politics is Colorado Republican Congressman Tom Tancredo. Over the past year, Tancredo has gone from a little known congressman to a highly visible anti-immigration spokesperson. "Tancredo has thoroughly enmeshed himself in the anti-immigration movement and with the help of CNN talk show host Lou Dobbs, he has been given a national megaphone," Devin Burghart, the program director of the Building Democracy Initiative at the Center for New Community, a Chicago-based civil rights group, told Media Transparency.
Bill Berkowitz Institute on Religion and Democracy slams 'Leftist' National Council of ChurchesNew report from conservative foundation-funded IRD charges the NCC with being a political surrogate for MoveOn.org, People for the American Way and other liberal organizations If you prefer your religious battles sprinkled with demagoguery, sanctimoniousness, and simplistic attacks, the Institute on Religion and Democracy's (IRD) latest broadside against the National Council of Churches (NCC) certainly fits the bill.
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Don t look to Wisconsin as model for welfare reform
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