Somewhere between “hell” and average

As the end of the school year quickly approaches, our children will soon be bringing home their final report cards of the year. Now imagine your child comes home and presents you with a report card full of C's straight across the board. I would suspect you would smile, pat him or her on the back, and say "Great job kiddo. Middle of the pack. Nothing wrong with that! Now go on out and play and have some fun…"

Oh – I'm sorry. You say you wouldn't?

Neither would I. So why are we so apt to do it in other areas of our lives?

Lately I have been reading a lot about our state's financial situation, specifically with regards to overall government spending and tax burden. Now there are as many ways to slice and dice state spending and tax data as there earmarks in the current state budget, so getting a good read on the overall picture and its implications for future policy is somewhat nebulous. In addition, as Mark Twain pointed out so eloquently over one hundred years ago: "There are lies, damn lies, and statistics."

In delving into the data, and articles summarizing the data, one finds arguments ranging from Wisconsin being a "tax hell" to Wisconsin as a middle-of-the-pack average state. But what you don't find are arguments for Wisconsin being in the upper echelon of fiscal responsibility – or even close to it. That's an important point.

I'm a fan of statistics, and have readily reported some that I feel show we're on the wrong path and that we need to scale back the size and scope of state government. Those who disagree with me may point to other statistics that show things may not be as bad as the rest of us might think, and our state is about average in terms of spending and tax burden. And the reality is… we're both right to a certain degree, depending on which stats you want to focus on.

But just to clarify, so that we can correctly frame the debate going forward: The debate is now over Wisconsin government spending and taxes being somewhere between "hell" and "average." Are we really comfortable with that?

Most parents won't accept "average" when it comes to their children, yet so many of us continue to accept "average" (or worse) from our state legislators.

I don't know why this is, but it needs to change if we are to show real material progress as a state. We don't accept excuses defending mediocrity from our children, and we certainly shouldn't accept them from our state government and other defenders of the status quo.

We can do much than somewhere between Hell and Average. Our children's future depends on it.