Our Tax Dollars Hard at Work
Written by Daniel on July 25, 2007 – 6:19 pm - Welcome, if you're new here, you may want to subscribe to our RSS feed or subscribe to our email newsletter. Thanks for visiting!
The Wisconsin Conference on Homelessness (held at the Ho Chunk Casino in Wisconsin Dells of all places) included the announcement of $7.3 million in grants to local agencies to fight homelessness.
“My priority as Governor is to create opportunity for all Wisconsin citizens,†Governor Doyle said. “By providing more emergency shelter and transitional housing services, we can help more Wisconsin families struggling to find a home, and put them on a path to a better life.â€
While much of the money went to many good and worthy causes that do great work to help Wisconsin’s homeless population, one grant did catch my eye as not providing “emergency shelter and transitional housing services.” Three grants actually, all to Legal Action of Wisconsin, Inc., totaling $318,000. LAW also gets federal tax money from the Legal Services Corporation, by the way. And money from the Lawyers Trust Account Foundation, which is state-mandated.
Legal Action of Wisconsin, in addition to helping low-income and senior individuals with divorces, help appealing denials of state and federal welfare benefits, explusions and suspensions from school for bad behavior, forcing bilingual education, and migrant workers, also lobbies the State Legislature. In addition to three of its own staff members, LAW also hires two freelance lobbyists from The Hamilton Group in Madison.
It lobbies on the budget bill for “funding for civil legal services to the poor” - i.e. We spend government grants lobbying government to give us more money please.
It also lobbies on substinative policy questions, like Assembly Bill 30, “permitting an educational agency [i.e. school] to refuse to employ or to terminate from employment an unpardoned felon.” Or, along similar lines, AB 260 “permitting an employer to refuse to employ or to terminate from employment an individual who has been convicted of a sex offense or a violent offense and preempting cities, villages, town, and counties from adopting provisions concerning employment discrimination based on arrest or conviction record that prohibit activity that is allowed under the state fair employment law.”
Our tax dollars, hard at work making sure felons can continue to work in schools.
Last 5 posts by Daniel- Remember when he was lampooned? - September 4th, 2008
- The Media has it both ways - September 3rd, 2008
- New MULS Law faculty blog - September 2nd, 2008
- Concluding Convention Thoughts - September 1st, 2008
- Another Nixon Observation - August 30th, 2008
Posted in Beyond the Facade |
July 26th, 2007 at 9:25 am
Beyond that, the issue of “the homeless” deserves a very critical examination, which has been kicked off by Clay Cramer.
See: http://www.claytoncramer.com/weblog/labels/deinstitutionalization.html (which is his entire file of blogs on “deinstitutionalization.”)
A very large percentage of homeless people should be institutionalized; but (ironically) Wisconsin was the first State to make involuntary committment almost impossible.
Thus, we seem to be spending money on what are literally hopeless cases.
July 26th, 2007 at 11:34 am
Legal Action of Wisconsin does some really great work, and I wish they were supported by more government grants.
Daniel, you say “helping low-income and senior individuals with divorces” like it’s a bad thing. While some people might not think the process of getting divorced is something worthy of public support, the fact is that many low-income people are stuck in abusive marriages and need public support in order to get out of these marriages.
You also make reference to Legal Action’s work with regard to representing people who have been denied welfare benefits and children who have been expelled from school. I would counter that standing up for familes in terrible situations who need some help just to feed their children and standing up for the right of children to receive an education are actually very worthy causes.
I wish you wouldn’t attack the work of legal aid attorneys. They approach their jobs with compassion and a desire for justice, and they really do stand up for those people who need it most.
July 26th, 2007 at 3:29 pm
Who would Jesus help, Dan?
July 26th, 2007 at 3:38 pm
Wow. You’re going after Legal Action now? These are attorneys who are willing to work ridiculous hours at very low pay (when I graduated from law school a few years ago, it was less than $30,000 per year) to help the poorest of the poor. The case load is so everwhelming that the only divorces they can do are those in which serious acts of domestic violence are involved.
To Dad 29: you’re all for “institutionalilzation” because it will help save tax dollars. Brilliant!! Except, how do we pay for the institutions? Ummm….. Tax dollars! Doh! Dollar for dollar, these programs help to minimize the tax burden by providing safety, ensuring educational opportunity, protecting employment.
I try to give you all a break because you are so damn young and naive, but this crosses the line to demonstrate pure idiocy. Your Republican filters are so strong that you fail to see when they interfere with what you claim to stand for in your religious beliefs. WWJD indeed.
July 26th, 2007 at 4:31 pm
Matt and Voice of Reason:
I appreciate much of the important work done by Legal Aid attorneys. Marquette has a long-standing relationship with legal aid programs here in Milwaukee, and while I do not personally participate I salute those who do. Helping low-income individuals not get screwed by slum lords or securing restraining orders for battered women is noble and worthy work. I am not sure it should be supported by our tax dollars, but it is noble and worthy work, for certain.
I am, however, attacking lobbying done by Legal Aid attorneys. I think it is important to expose the cycle between many government grants (we could insert here earmarks as well) and groups lobbying for more and bigger grants with that grant money. Moreover, I think it is crazy that LAW takes tax money to lobby on bills like the felons in schools law.
I am also attacking Governor Doyle’s administration. The Governor said these grants go to help homeless people get emergency shelter and transitional housing. I gave a list of activities LAW engages in to illustrate that they do not provide emergency shelter.
I am also continuing a long tradition, which was particularly prominent in the Reagan years if memory serves, but also including the 1994 Republican Revolution, of attacking the Legal Services Corporation for giving grants to groups that use that money for left-wing causes.
And yes, absolutely, I choose those examples of LAW’s work FROM THEIR OWN WEBSITE that are most likely to inflame a conservative Republican audience. So sue me.
July 26th, 2007 at 4:47 pm
Are you saying you’ve researched whether no one else has ever raised this question, and that there aren’t walls of accountability between LAW’s lobbying and the services that might be paid with this grant? You’re assuming they’re together. Can you think of any other organizations that you support who receive tax dollars or subsidies, yet perform lobbying or proselytzing in some other aspect of their organization?
Who would Jesus help, Dan? How old were you when Reagan ran for president?
July 26th, 2007 at 4:53 pm
John:
There may be a wall between LAW’s lobbying and their services paid for by the grant. But all of last week there was a major discussion around the PENCE Amendment on this very point. Government gives tons of money to Planned Parenthood in grants every year. That money does not directly fund abortions, but it frees up other money to do so.
Second, while Jesus did and would help homeless people, I do not know that Jesus would force me to help them by taking my tax money and spending it on legal services for low-income people. (I do not know what percentage of LAW’s clients are what we would traditionally consider as “homeless” versus low-income or poverty-level).
Third, I was born in 1984, that great and wonderful year when Ronald Reagan was reelected.
July 26th, 2007 at 5:14 pm
Yes, this sword cuts both ways. Today’s president has made great hay by promoting “faith-based” initiatives where he handed out grants preferentially to religious organizations who explicitly promoted their particular brand of faith to the people who came to them for other charitable services. Is it fair to question this? Do you see any good in what Planned Parenthood does in terms of family planning and health, apart from the hot-button of abortion?
July 26th, 2007 at 6:45 pm
I think it is the responsibility of every citizen to examine how the government is doing its job in investing taxpayer money. We all have a vested interest in what is being done in the name of and with the resources of us the citizens. I applaud Daniel for doing such a good job.
After reading the post I share a few concerns about the grants. In a few of the examples I would personally make a distinction between helping people who need it most and alleviating an individual of the responsibility of a situation they put themselves in at taxpayer expense, like being expelled from school. Despite possible other worthy work, those instances don’t legitimize spending tax payer money on other cases. I think many more people with problems not of their own making could be helped with the time and resources being spent on 1) those in situations for which the individual is responsible for putting themselves in and 2) lobbyists.
July 27th, 2007 at 6:18 am
Little Danny should spend a little time practicing what he preaches. Exactly what charitable activities do you personally undertake, young man? If you want government out of the business of helping homeless people, what are YOU doing to eliminate that burden?
July 27th, 2007 at 7:55 am
Voice of Reason, I did NOT propose that ‘institutionalization would save tax dollars.’ I don’t know whether it would or would not save money. That’s not the issue.
To me, and likely to a lot of genuine conservatives, having people literally living on the streets is indefensible. Institutionalization (we have to find an abbreviation for that term) is FAR better than having them on the streets. No real Conservative can approve a system which treats human beings that way, period.
That’s why I pointed to the website and its research; the question deserves some examination.
Of course ‘institu’n’ will have a cost; but then, there may be offsets along the lines of Goodwill Industries’ programs, which allow people with minor disabilities to be productive.
The point is that we do not know WHAT, precisely, is the solution.
So at this time, we also don’t know what, precisely, is the “cost.”
August 14th, 2007 at 2:29 pm
I couldn’t understand some parts of this article Our Tax Dollars Hard at Work, but I guess I just need to check some more resources regarding this, because it sounds interesting.