VRUWINK: LET'S WORK ON IMPORTANT ISSUES, NOT 'NOISE'
Monday, January 16th, 2006 -- 11:04 AM
One central Wisconsin lawmaker is hoping 2006 will be the year legislators will take up important issues? not just divisive ones. 70th District assemblywoman Amy Sue Vruwink of Milladore has outlined her legislative priorities for 2006. Absent: anything to do with ?God, guns or gays?.
"Those are the 'noise' issues," Vruwink says, specifically pointing to a proposed Constitutional amendment that would ban same-sex marriage and civil unions. "People are using those issues as wedge issues. Sticking with those divisive issues (prevents) us from furthering the agenda of the people."
Vruwink highlights four assembly bills she wants passed, including AB 834, which would require the legislature pass a comprehensive health care plan by the end of 2007 that reduces costs by fifteen-percent and ensures 98-percent of all state residents have health care coverage.
"The costs keep climbing. When a business has healthcare costs, it eats out of their bottom-line. They can't hire people."
Also highlighted is the so-called HOPE plan (AB 565), which would make exempt from school taxes the first $60,000 dollars of taxpayers' property value; the hole would be filled by eliminating what Vruwink says are hundreds of tax loopholes.
"One way to pay for it is to make sure the seventy companies that haven't paid property taxes in the past three to five years pay their fair share," Vruwink says.
"That's real. That's a real issue that could help a lot of people in Wisconsin."
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