Real Debate Wisconsin

Racine County Executive Bill McReynolds Statement On Cory Mason's Activity

2009-11-08T01:38:00.002-06:00

Actions speak louder than words. Representative Cory Mason says he opposes child care fraud. Last week, he twice helped vote down fraud investigation funding for counties, including his own. For good measure, he refused to close loopholes in the program.

Representative Mason told fellow legislators not to give Racine County any funds to investigate child care fraud, saying, “Racine County, under the leadership of Bill McReynolds, has really failed to take full responsibility for the child care fraud that’s been going on in Racine.”
He’s flat wrong about that; we’ve stepped up. But here’s the real point: even if there were mistakes early on, blocking funds to Racine County only punishes county residents and hampers anti-fraud efforts. Why did he do it?

A recent Journal Times series showed that our welfare fraud investigative resources declined over time, because state funding kept dwindling. In 2010, the state is giving us nothing, leaving county property taxpayers to pay the costs of investigating fraud in a state program. That’s why Representative Mason’s actions are as puzzling as they are troubling.

Equally troubling is his breathtaking ignorance, or disregard, of what Racine County and the Wisconsin Department of Children & Families (DCF) are doing. In a Journal Times commentary last week, the Sheriff, the District Attorney, and I announced a multi-agency county fraud task force with DCF. Our Human Services Department (HSD) is hiring a seasoned investigator.

Sheriff Carlson and the Racine and Mount Pleasant Police Departments promise investigative resources. DCF promises data and analysis, and the DA promises to prosecute provable cases.
But the commitments of the DA and three law enforcement agencies apparently aren’t good enough. Representative Mason refused to give Racine County any fraud investigation funds without adequate “oversight and … assurances that it won’t just be more of the same and we’ll get better fraud investigations from Journal Sentinel reporters than we will from Racine County.”

But why punish Racine County taxpayers? If he thinks some part of county government won’t investigate cases properly, why not direct funds elsewhere—to the Sheriff, the DA, or even DCF—where they can still help combat fraud? Don’t we all want to end fraud?

And why not vote to change the child care program to close loopholes that look wrong and invite fraud? Although Representative Mason speaks of “child care fraud that’s been going on in Racine,” no case has been strong enough to be criminally charged. What he calls fraud are practices that we all agree are unacceptable, but permitted under current rules; e.g., child care providers sending their own children to other providers, and child care provider employees caring for their own children. For months, we’ve told our legislators those loopholes must be closed. We’ve also urged a “card swipe” system to prove attendance and rules to permit quicker termination of benefits when provider infractions are discovered.

Each of those items was the subject of an amendment to the child care reform bill. They would have cost little or nothing and would have sent no extra funds to Racine County. But they would have weeded out “bad actors,” strengthened the program, and helped restore public confidence. So why did Representative Mason vote against every one of them? Don’t we all want to make the program accountable?

Some disputes in government seem like “inside baseball,” but these facts are clear to everyone.
We’re all outraged by child care fraud; but ending it requires closing loopholes and conducting sometimes expensive investigations. Representative Mason explicitly refused to help his county fund investigative resources, and he systematically voted against measures to close loopholes.
Actions speak louder than words.

That they do Mr. McReynolds. Cory Mason voted for every single tax increase in the latest budget, he also voted to allow every single piece of pork in that bill. Cory Mason never met spending he didn't like until it came time to fight fraud in his own district.

It is official

2009-11-07T22:43:00.002-06:00

The House of Representatives passed a health care bill designed to lead to a government takeover of 1/6th of the economy.

This is pure politics folks. For all of their posturing and whining about the uninsured this bill is not scheduled to kick in until 2013.

Then, after the next Presidential election, all the bad stuff starts to happen.

If this "crisis" was half as bad as the Democrats say it is, why in the hell would you wait 4 years for it to kick in?

The American people are not stupid, in a little less than a year these people will be removed from power. I just hope we can make it that far.

Hopefully we can undo all the damage that is being done.

Democare

2009-11-06T21:23:00.002-06:00

Comply or go to jail.

Racine County Officials Call Out Assemblyman Cory Mason.

2009-11-06T18:26:00.003-06:00

Amazingly the Racine Journal Times and the Racine Left Post have still not covered this story. Both have had puff pieces on Mason on recent days. Cory Mason is playing ridiculously partisan games instead of voting to get the people of Racine the resources they need to combat fraud.

The only conclusion one can reach is Cory Mason favors fraud.

Amazingly when Racine residents hired an airplane to fly a banner telling citizens about Mason's record of voting for tax increases the paper and the Racine Left Post went nuts demanding to know who paid for those banners. Mason's refusal to fight fraud has warranted exactly zero words from the local leftist media.

I asked Dustin from the Racine Left Post why he has not covered this, he has not responded. I also spoke with a reporter at the Journal Times, I have no idea where that will go.

MEDIA RELEASE
November 6, 2009

RACINE COUNTY OFFICIALS DEMAND STATE REPRESENTATIVE
EXPLAIN VOTE AGAINST FRAUD INVESTIGATION FUNDS

Racine-Six Racine County elected officials today demanded that State Representative Cory Mason (D-Racine) explain why he voted against additional state funds to help Racine County investigate welfare fraud. Expressing serious concern about Mason’s actions were three County Board Supervisors--Chairman Peter Hansen, Vice Chairman Bob Miller, and Health & Human Development Committee Chair Mike Miklasevich--as well as County Executive Bill McReynolds, District Attorney Mike Nieskes and Sheriff Bob Carlson.

On November 3rd, the Wisconsin Legislature’s Joint Committee on Finance, of which Representative Mason is a member, considered legislation to address problems in Wisconsin Shares, the state’s child care assistance program. Representative Mason voted against an amendment to the bill that would have appropriated $500,000 in each of two years, to be distributed to counties to help them investigate welfare program fraud.

During committee deliberations on the amendment, Representative Mason went out of his way to criticize Racine County government, saying:

I have real concerns about allocating additional monies to Racine County when they clearly have some problems with their human services on enforcement, whether it’s on the Shares program or even being out of compliance with the Child Long-Term Care waivers. Clearly, there is [sic] some real problems with the way that Racine County implements these programs and without more oversight and more assurances that it won’t just be more of the same and we’ll get better fraud investigations from Journal Sentinel reporters than we will from Racine County, I’m not inclined to release this money today.

After Representative Mason’s diatribe against Racine County government, the amendment was defeated by a vote of 10-5. Voting for the funding in committee were Senator John Lehman and Representative Robin Vos, Racine County’s other Joint Committee on Finance members.

On Thursday, Representative Mason repeated his opposition to fraud prevention funding for counties on the Assembly floor, where a similar amendment also failed to be adopted, 49-44. In explaining his vote, he said:

These amendments coming from the Racine County Board are hard, very hard to take in good faith, because Racine County, under the leadership of Bill McReynolds, has really failed to take full responsibility for the child care fraud that’s been going on in Racine.

County Board Chairman Peter Hansen reacted to Representative Mason’s statements by saying: “We expect our state legislators to advocate for Racine County, not to criticize it in front of people from around the state. But Representative Mason has made serious charges, and the County Board is not ignoring them. On the contrary, the board is inviting him to appear before it to explain in detail what problems he perceives. We look forward to a frank discussion of these matters and his views on them.”

“Racine County is committed to weeding out child care fraud, but we need help in Madison,” affirmed Vice Chairman Bob Miller. “Senator Lehman and Representative Vos understand that county taxpayers shouldn’t have to cover the costs of investigating fraud in a state welfare program. Representative Mason’s votes are disappointing, and his attacks on county government are inexplicable.”

Sheriff Bob Carlson pointed out that, only two weeks ago, he stood with the County Executive, the DA, RCHSD Director Debbie Jossart, Wisconsin Department of Children & Families (DCF) Secretary Reggie Bicha, and local law enforcement officials to announce a child care fraud task force. Noting that Racine County HSD will hire at least one retired officer to do “front end” investigations, he stated that, to build prosecutable cases, the Sheriff’s Department and the Racine and Mount Pleasant police departments will contribute investigators’ time. Carlson added: “We’d hoped there might be some extra funding from Madison, but we’ll do the job with or without more money. It’s just very disappointing that a Racine County state legislator has stopped that funding.”

To that, District Attorney Mike Nieskes added: “I’ve said that my office will prosecute any public assistance fraud case that can be proven beyond a reasonable doubt, and I mean that. I’d have told Representative Mason the same thing, but he’s never spoken to me on this issue—nor, to my knowledge, has he spoken to HSD or the Sheriff’s Department on the efforts that have been and are being undertaken.”

County Executive Bill McReynolds observed: “If this story weren’t such bad news for county taxpayers, it would be funny. We had to tighten our belts on fraud investigations because the state reduced our funding. Despite that, we put together an anti-fraud task force, with no additional funds.”

McReynolds continued: “But Representative Mason isn’t satisfied. He seems to think that he knows better than our County Board, our Sheriff, our DA, and our HSD director. Maybe he’s entitled to his opinion. But he’s not entitled to stick it to Racine County taxpayers by blocking state money to help cover the county’s costs of investigating fraud in a state program.”

Guess the number game

2009-11-06T13:04:00.000-06:00

15,000,000,000

Obama owes an apology.

2009-11-06T12:35:00.001-06:00

This statement was just released from Americans for Limited Government. I agree with it completely.

Mr. President, You Owe an Apology – and an Explanation

By Bill Wilson

Yesterday, in an unspeakable act of domestic terrorism, a Fort Hood psychiatrist with a long history of erratic and anti-American behavior systematically murdered 13 American soldiers.

As a stunned nation hung its head in sorrow, it was told that the President of the United States would emerge from the White House to make a statement.

And, indeed, he did make an obligatory statement of regret – but only after spending three full minutes in front of the camera clowning with his fellow cabinet members and those who had shown up earlier for his hastily convened Indian Summit. The President even went so far as to do a fun-filled "shout-out" to one Summit attendee.

Then, and only then – at the conclusion of his self-serving stand-up routine – did Barack Obama get around to deploring the massacre and extending sympathy to the bereaved families and a grieving nation.

Mr. Obama's behavior was entirely inappropriate, and deplorable. He showed that he is eerily detached from events that do not directly involve his own personal ambitions and chillingly disinterested in the feelings of those he is supposed to represent.

One year ago, good and decent Americans entrusted this President with their health and welfare, their very lives and limbs. And he has now demonstrated that they cannot even trust him to share and convey their innermost feelings in their times of deepest need.

Barack Obama owes the American people an apology – and an explanation.

New unemployment numbers....

2009-11-06T12:29:00.005-06:00

The new unemployment rate is out today, a stunning 17.3%.

Wow.

How many of those are government workers?

(Highlight the whole post to reveal the secret message)

Hey, if Obama can make up number of jobs created or "saved" why can't I make up the unemployment number?

Obama Shout Out "Medal of Honor" Winner Who Didn't Win the Medal of Honor

2009-11-06T08:33:00.003-06:00

Obama apparently doesn't know the difference between our country's highest military honor, and a lesser award - even when he himself awarded it.

The difference, zer0, is that most Congressional Medal of Honor winners are not around to hear your "shout out" - whatever the hell that is - just like the 12 soldiers at Ft. Hood, who were already dead, while you were making inane comments at the podium yesterday before finally getting around to mentioning the most serious terrorist attack on American soil since 9/11.

Fort Hood Tragedy...

2009-11-05T19:32:00.001-06:00

For once I am at a loss for words.

Our condolences and prayers to the victims and their families.

What a tragedy.

It's been a long time, but...

2009-11-05T16:45:00.003-06:00

So it's been a long time since I posted here (ten months?). But, to be fair, it's been a long time since I posted on my blog, too (five months). I've been busy.

But I was hammered by inspiration today and threw off one of my patented 1,000,000-word posts (okay, slightly less than that) about Andrew Jackson, Sarah Palin, and Barack Obama.

If you're interested, or insomniac, you might enjoy reading it.

Job Creation Fail

2009-11-05T07:33:00.003-06:00

When we had month after month of job creation under President Bush lefties repeated the meme that they weren't real jobs.

Now that the Obama administration is in charge these same left wingers want to pretend that a pay raise to people working off the government dime already is a "job saved". (a brand new made-up category)

The country wants real new jobs, not imaginary ones.

Keep it up though, only 363 days until the mid-term election.

Pay Increases = ?

2009-11-05T07:24:00.001-06:00

Why an Obama statistic of a job saved of course.

Are these people telling the truth about anything? The sad thing is, I think they actually believe their own BS.

The Prez in Madison....

2009-11-04T11:48:00.001-06:00

If you could ask him a question what would it be?

Mr. President I'm curious if you will be able to free up any time in the next year to come back to Wisconsin and campaign for Jared Christensen?

It is official

2009-11-04T11:43:00.000-06:00

Global Warming zealotry is now a religion.

Thanks Cory Mason.

2009-11-04T11:19:00.002-06:00

Racine Assemblyman Cory Mason has never seen a tax increase he didn't love. However, when it came time to vote for resources for Racine to combat child care fraud, he finally found something he could vote against.

Representativ Vos put out a release on this:

Joint Finance Committee Defeats Bipartisan Amendment to Provide Additional Resources to Fight Child Care Fraud

Mason Says Racine County Shouldn’t Get More Money

Madison…A bipartisan bill that takes initial steps to reform the fraudulent Wisconsin Shares child care program passed the Joint Finance committee today. Rep. Vos (R-Caledonia) says after months of deliberation on the problem, these first steps are laudable. However, he expressed frustration that Racine representative Cory Mason would vote against an amendment to appropriate $1 million to help counties root out more fraud.

“It’s outrageous to think that Rep. Mason would vote against sending additional resources to Racine County ,” declared Vos “when the nonpartisan Legislative Audit Bureau and the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel have so clearly shown that Racine County has a major problem with childcare fraud.”

Vos said it was clear after meeting with Milwaukee and Racine Counties that trying to reform Wisconsin Shares without providing adequate monetary resources for fraud detection would be difficult, if not impossible.

According to Vos, the Department of Children and Families has started off on the right track by convening a fraud detection taskforce, hiring 5 state employees to oversee fraud detection, and allocating some extra resources that will be distributed to counties. But he believes it’s also important to make sure there are enough local resources so people on the front lines are empowered to root out fraud.

“The Department of Children and Families has clearly seen that extra resources are needed, Racine County says extra resources are needed, and Sen. Lehman and I recognized that need by voting for this amendment today,” said Vos. “That’s why it’s so disappointing that Rep. Mason would vote against his own county”

During the Joint Finance Debate, Rep. Mason said he had real concerns with allocating more money to Racine County when they clearly had problems with enforcement and that he wasn’t inclined to give them more money until we get better fraud investigation from Racine County than Journal Sentinel reporters. Vos says the pressure on the County is a direct result of cuts made at the state level.

Assembly Bill 462 is expected to be taken up by both houses on Thursday. Rep. Vos says he will try again to convince the members of the Assembly to provide adequate resources to counties as well as to support amendments that focus on cracking down on recipients of child care subsidies, not just providers – the major focus of the current bill.

Fill in the blank.

2009-11-03T22:22:00.000-06:00

Election night_________________________________________.

Cool

2009-11-03T22:21:00.000-06:00

Chris has new digs... Whiskey Tango Foxtrot

Sunday's Reunion.

2009-11-03T18:42:00.001-06:00

Last Sunday the Minnesota Vikings came onto Lambeau Field and kicked the Packers tails.

As you all know the game was hyped as a massive meeting of rivals with the winner coming out in the driver’s seat with a leg up on the division championship.

Emotions were inflamed as proven by the nearly 50 people that were arrested during the game (an all-time high) and the colorful signs they brought and waved.

And of course this game featured the return of a beloved former Packer. A player that always gave his all, started every game when he was with the team and whose name is all over the Packer’s record books.

He performed well as he usually does; it is always a pleasure to see a real professional. It is a real shame that Ted Thompson could never recognize his worth and keep him in Green Bay.

We miss you Ryan Longwell.

Hey

2009-11-03T14:37:00.000-06:00

Where is Supreme Solar Allah?

AC provisional voter statement

2009-11-03T14:36:00.001-06:00

And the fraud starts to come to light.

Guess the number game.

2009-11-03T14:18:00.002-06:00

No need to guess, I'll give you this one.

3, number of jobs actually saved or created.

269, number of jobs the White House claimed were saved or created.

The Denver Post has the details on the fuzzy math of Obama

Thank Goodness Obama Saved All Those Education Jobs

2009-11-03T13:28:00.001-06:00

That were never in jeopardy in the first place.

Some meetings are more official than others apparently...

2009-11-03T12:45:00.002-06:00

I asked Steve Schultze of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel why last nights Milwaukee County budget meeting was news worthy and the CRG event in support of County executive Walker's budget was not. (The CRQ event had 200 more people)

His response:

Several folks have made similar comments today, including the county executive on Twitter. Here’s the distinction. The budget hearing last night was the official public hearing by the County Board on the 2010 budget. We cover those because that’s the main forum for airing public comments on the budget. The CRG rally was an event hosted by one group.

That said, I think there is an argument to be made that the rally was worth some sort of coverage. It did draw a large crowd, as you mentioned.

Thanks for writing.

RDW Readers Retain Jobs.

2009-11-03T11:31:00.002-06:00

Got this in the email from Bryan...

So Fred, I had some fun today. I received a mailing with "PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA" on the return address. I opened it and found a solicitation package for donations to the DNC. Include in the package was a POSTAGE PAID return envelope for my donation to be sent in. Next to the postage paid printing was a message to save the DNC money by attaching a stamp. YES...you know what I did....I put all the materials back in the postage paid envelope and sent it back to them at THEIR EXPENSE. Just think. If they sent those out to 20,000,000 people like me and we all sent them back, we would take over 9 million dollars out of their treasury and send it to the postal service....NOW THAT'S HELPING RETAIN JOBS....

Good job Bryan.

That's our President folks, plenty of time to campaign and fundraise, no time to make a decision that would protect our troops.

Election Day.

2009-11-03T07:23:00.003-06:00

If the right wins, the left will claim it means nothing.

If the left wins, the right will blame the left for cheating.

The reality, one year ago Obama's message of hope and change appealed to the middle. However, the middle did not understand that hope and change meant a massive expansion of government power and debt added onto the backs of our country's youth.

I expect the middle to say no thanks, we have buyers remorse.