Solution to Capital problems is campaign finance reform

Letter to the Editor, Capital Times Forum page/Voice of the People

I must say that I was dismayed after reading the political discussion in The Wisconsin Way’s position paper, “Wisconsin at the Crossroads.” I found this discussion lacking in candor if not disingenuous. I believe that many citizens will read this segment and feel disheartened by such a simplistic analysis of the central political problem facing Wisconsin. Are we really expected to believe that the single greatest problem at our state Capital should be understood and has to do simply with partisan gridlock and ideological inflexibility?

It’s not that “our elected officials are trapped in a political process that thrives on issue polarization.” Rather it’s you and I, the voters and taxpayers of this state, who are trapped by allowing the rich and powerful to own our lawmakers. Our legislators are doing just fine, thank you, by repeatedly staying in office owing to big fat contributions year after year.

Any fair and honest discussion of the present context and process of policy making at our Capital it seems to me must, at its center, be focused on the corrupt pay-to-play culture that exists there. What good would be accomplished if the people of Wisconsin, through a state-wide conversation and consensus, for example, should come to the conclusion that indeed corporations in Wisconsin should be taxed more and also by the community in which they are located?

This enraged citizen taxpayer believes that any solution that ignores the need for comprehensive campaign finance reform in Wisconsin will be a paper tiger and go the same way as most other such initiatives have gone. It will be little more than shifting the sand piles around because reform, without the people owning and controlling their government, is futile.

Respectfully,

William R. Benedict

Stem Cell Debate is Needed

Have Wisconsin taxpayers been deprived of having a vigorous and diverse discussion regarding the future of Wisconsin’s embryonic stem cell research in our State? I think so! I believe one reason for this is the polarized, highly partisan, and special interest-owned state legislature. It is due to legislators’ eagerness to play it safe and stay in office versus fairly representing the diverse and complex needs of all the people of Wisconsin.

To date the legislature’s single flex reaction has been to try and criminalize perhaps the most important scientific discovery of our lifetime. Shame on our state legislature for its inertia and lack of policy leadership on perhaps the most important issue it will ever face.

Recently I attended a lecture sponsored by the Wisconsin Academy of sciences arts & letters entitled, “Tales from the Other Biotech Frontier” by Alta Charo of the University of Wisconsin/Madison Law and Medical School. The subtext for this talk was how our policy makers here in Wisconsin can keep our state competitive. Charo had recently spent a year in California and informed us how this state “has become the world’s leader in stem cell research.” She referred to the state’s 3 billion dollar research program and how they plan to loan 300 million dollars each year over ten years to support stem cell research in California.

Charo reviewed the various stem cell stakeholder groups and the role that each of them played since the state’s referendum, Proposition 71, was approved by over sixty percent of the voters. Most of Charo’s talk was a provocative narrative of how a real democracy is supposed to work. All the actors had the opportunity to make their rights, needs and wishes known.

Stakeholders included the governor, legislature, taxpayers, women health groups, the religious community, the university community, biotech companies, patient and social justice activists, the LGBT community, people of color, and disabilities communities. What has played out over the past five years can best be described as how a diverse grassroots democracy is supposed to work when confronted with a very complex and potentially life changing issue.

Wisconsin has not had this debate. Perhaps now with James Thomson and JunyingYu’s latest stem cell alternative discovery ---using human skin cells in place of human embryonic stem cells --- the citizens of Wisconsin will begin talking over their dinner tables and with their neighbors about the tremendous speed with which biotechnology is developing and how it is likely to affect our lives and especially the lives of our grandchildren.

What accounts for the fact that there have been no stem cell policy initiatives from our legislature, including not a dollar, for even basic stem cell research? Should not the Wisconsin taxpayers insist on state policies to insure that research in Wisconsin is conducted in a safe and ethical manner and that public benefits, including affordable and accessible stem cell-based therapies, will follow?

Why should Wisconsin taxpayers pay multiple times for the benefits of stem-cell research? Should they pay for basic research now and again later for costly commercial therapies? Should they pay once when they employ a Wisconsin stem-cell research scientist and again when that scientist makes a major discovery? And, then again, when that publicly supported discovery results in a disease-curing commercial stem-cell-based therapy?

Shouldn’t Wisconsin taxpayers receive a payback if and when a revenue stream results from publicly funded research? Shouldn’t all Wisconsin taxpayers, including our underserved and uninsured populations, benefit from more affordable and accessible stem sell therapies?

And finally, why at the epicenter of embryonic stem cell research, where the first human embryonic stem cell was first derived, is there such a deafening public silence? Only through greater transparent discussions in the public square can we find the clarity and balance that we all seek between those areas where more scientific progress is still needed and areas where caution and perhaps enough human engineering is enough? In a great progressive state like Wisconsin, all the stakeholders, including especially our young people, need to come to the table and reason together.