Conflicting views on state’s economy
The two candidates for the 14th state Senate seat were in Waupaca Saturday, Oct. 26, for a Get Out the Vote Rally. In addition to speaking to a small crowd in front of city hall, both candidates discussed their hopes and values with the County Post. Sen. Luther Olsen is seeking a third term in the state Senate. The Republican incumbent overcame a recall challenge last year with 54 percent of the vote. It was the first time Olsen had faced a Democrat in a Senate race. Olsen serves on the Joint Finance Committee and on the Senate Committee on Education and Corrections. Prior to his first election to the Senate in 2004, Olsen served 10 years in the Assembly and 21 years as a member of the Berlin School Board. Olsen’s professional career included part ownership of Olsen’s Mill Inc., a fertilizer and feed mill business started by his grandfather. The company closed due to financial troubles in the spring of 2009. Margarete Worthington lives in Buffalo, a rural township in Marquette County. Although she has never held an elected office, Worthington has served on her town’s planning commission and is currently on the Member Advisory Group of Adams Columbia Electric Cooperative. "I come from a military family as my father, uncle, brothers and husband all served in the U.S. military," Worthington said. "I grew up believing you have to give back to your country and give back to your community, My father was in the service for 30 years. After he retired, he became very active in local politics. I grew up expecting local politics to be a big thing in my life." After putting herself through college, Worthington worked a number of jobs, including as manager of an art supply store, where she supervised 50 employees. She also worked 12 years as the coordinator of the IT department of a construction company in the Madison area. "The company I worked with was hit hard by the recession in 2008," Worthington recalled. "They laid off 135 people in December, right before Christmas, and basically laid off people every quarter after that." Worthington lost her job nearly two years ago. "When the crash came, construction companies couldn’t get loans and clients couldn’t get bonds," Worthington said. "This is just a slice of what has been happening to the economy throughout Wisconsin." Technology and rural economies Worthington noted that while urban areas, such as Madison, are now rebounding, rural areas are still struggling. She believes the problem is due to a lack of adequate infrastructure. "The roads are in poor shape and Internet speeds are slower," Worthington said. "It’s harder to start a new business in a rural area if you have to rely on dial-up." Worthington said Gov. Scott Walker’s decision to return $23 million in federal stimulus funding intended for broadband expansion was "a huge blow to rural areas." The funds Walker gave back to Washington would have been used to install 200 miles of fiber optic cables and provide high-speed Internet access at libraries, schools and government agencies in areas currently without broadband service. "Rural areas don’t even have good cellular service, so companies will not move here," Worthington said. She is also concerned about how a 2011 telecommunications bill will affect rural areas. Co-authored by Olsen, Act 22 eliminates pricing regulations on telecommunications, deregulates intrastate access charges, exempts voice over Internet protocol (VoIP) service from regulation and eliminates many Public Service Commission oversight activities, according to the State Bar of Wisconsin. "This deregulation won’t hurt people and businesses in Madison or even in Waupaca, where you have choices, but it will hurt rural communities," Worthington said. "Most people living in rural areas rely on one phone company to provide landline service. Cell service is spotty and for most people in rural areas, their landline is their lifeline." After April 30, 2013, no telecommunications companies will be required to provide service to rural areas. "The phone companies that own the lines in rural areas can now pick and choose which customers they want to keep," Worthington said. "If you live in a sparsely populated rural area and you have a heart attack or your barn burns down, you may have no way calling for help." Taxes, budgets, business growth Olsen said the 2011 telecommunications bill was a response to changing technologies and market conditions. "Hardlines have been a regulated monopoly," Olsen said. "Now, telecommunications service is no longer a monopoly because there are cell phones and voice over Internet protocols. The telephone companies were seeking relief because they were regulated, but their competitors were not regulated." Olsen said the purpose of the law was to create a level playing field for competing telecommunications companies. "Wisconsin has more mom-and-pop phone companies than most states," Olsen said. "The law allows both large phone companies, such as AT & T, and small phone companies, such as rural communications cooperatives, to compete against cellphone and Internet companies. If we hadn’t passed that bill, I don’t think some of these smaller companies would still be around." Olsen agrees with Worthington that Wisconsin’s biggest challenge is to create more and better paying jobs. However, he believes that lowering taxes and deregulation is the key to growing the economy, "We need to make this a good place to do business in," Olsen said. "We can be competitive by lowering taxes, but a lot of it is the attitude of the agencies like the DNR and the DOT who need to be willing to work with businesses and help them solve their problems rather than being a problem." Olsen points to some positive economic signs that are currently emerging in Wisconsin. "We will probably have a surplus at the end of this biennium," Olsen said. "For a number of years, we were bringing in less revenue each year than we had the previous year. In this biennium, we are looking at $1.6 billion to $1.8 billion in more revenues than we had in the prior budget." Olsen said the state is starting to see an increase in its sales and income tax revenues. The Wisconsin Department of Revenue is projecting a 5 percent increase in income tax revenues and a 0.6 percent increase in sales tax revenues for the first quarter of 2013 over the same period last year. Olsen said, taken together, Act 10 and Gov. Scott Walker’s first biennial budget changed how state government ran its finances. "Always, in the past, we used one-time money from outside the state to fix the budget. We relied on tobacco settlement money, transportation fund money or federal stimulus money to fill the hole. This year, there were no options left except to raise taxes on everybody in the state or to make changes in spending that recognized that most people living here are making less money," Olsen said. Olsen said the state’s budget reductions were made possible by ACT 10’s changes in public employee costs.
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