Phil Wilayto
December 31, 2000

Tommy Thompson Prepares to Bring "Wisconsin Model" to Washington

While 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 & Welfare

Tommy 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 & Vouchers

Under 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 Foundation

Thompson'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 & Abortion

As 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 Tobacco

HHS 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
Associated Press reports (12/30/00)
Business Week (12/29/00)
Isthmus, Madison, WI (November, 1997)
Planned Parenthood Federation of America fact sheet on Tommy Thompson.
The New York Times (12/30/00)
Welfare Warriors, Milwaukee, WI