I really can’t say it much better than Brian and Owen. As far as I can see, there’s a lot of good and only two major problems with WTPA:
- The “second consecutive Legislature” requirement for a Constitutional amendment (first spotted by Owen) would be circumvented for anything relating to WTPA. There is a reason why the writers of the Wisconsin Constitution put it in there; so that no fad that doesn’t have the lasting power of a couple of years gets into the Constitution.
- The lack of a per-pupil foundation in the school-district portion of the amendment. As an anonymous commenter at Fraley’s Dailytakes pointed out, “Less kids should mean fewer expenses.” It only makes sense that if we let a unit of government grow with growth in the community and force that unit of government to shrink if property becomes abandoned and worth less, and we let a school district grow with the addition of students, we should make a school district shrink if it loses students.
Owen points out that the battle is more likely going to be to keep the good rather than fix the bad. It’s also pretty damn good; so count me in on the WTPA bandwagon.
Well…regarding the “less kids = less expenses,” it ain’t necessarily so.
Same goes for private industry. Adding and deleting workers is a “step” process, not a “curve” process; thus one simply cannot reduce real expense every time one drops a couple of children.
Similarly, one should not add expense simply because of an INCREASE of one or two (or 3-10) children.