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Wisconsin Tea Party Reaction to the Mining Bill Debacle

Posted by Kevin Fischer on March 8, 2012

For Immediate Release: March 8, 2012 Contacts: Kim Simac, 715.479.8784

Wisconsin Tea Party Leaders React to Mining Debacle

(Eagle River, WI) – Few examples illustrate as clearly as the GTac mining debacle why citizens across the state of Wisconsin now claim allegiance to the Tea Party Movement. So many of the problems with which we take profound issue have been on prominent display in recent days—not least, holding industry hostage to excessive taxation and over-burdensome regulations. The shameful and all too predictable outcome in this case has been yet another crippling of entrepreneurial spirit in our state.

Who really pays?

GTac is a large, proven employer with a good track record, whose executives honorably promised to bring good conservation practices and a great economy to a state starving for jobs. They can now find some other state in which to mine. Northern Wisconsin, however, remains in economic depression, under which it has already suffered for years. Hundreds of people across the state desperately want and need solid, good-paying jobs to help them survive a challenging economy remain. The GTac mine and the expansion it would have brought to related business and industry could have made a substantive difference. Never mind the valuable tax revenues this mining project would have brought to state and local tax bases.

As Tea Party organizers in Wisconsin, we have publicly maintained these past three years that opportunity, prosperity, and the individual right to pursue them have been grossly hindered by over-reaching and infringing state and federal governments. We have also consistently noted too great a willingness on the part of our elected officials to pander to special interests against the wise will of the people. We amplify that message today.

The mining bill is not the first victim of this marriage between special interests and big government. We can cite many others. The rich, renewable resources available in Wisconsin’s forests, for example, have long been placed beyond the reach of those who could benefit from them. Environmental groups, with the complicity of too many politicians and bureaucrats, have essentially hogtied Wisconsin logging, mills, and additional wood product businesses.

One must ask the question: How do environmental groups and the elected officials who pander to them propose that residents of Northern Wisconsin provide a living for themselves? With this mine now yanked out of reach, with the promise of economic success once again cruelly removed, how will people continue to inhabit these regions? Could it be that prosperity and a future for these citizens is not a priority for these special interest groups and their elected friends?

We put these questions to our Democratic state senators and their close ally Senator Dale Schultz, whose ―Republican‖ alignment with radical environmental and other special interest agendas raises serious questions of its own.

This is a sad day for Wisconsin, and particularly for the children of our state, whose short- and long-term wellbeing has been grossly overlooked. Radical outside interests, using obvious influence to control the decisions of our legislators, have in fact assured that the children of northern Wisconsin in particular, now face a future of far less stability, opportunity, and prosperity.

We, the undersigned and our respective memberships, will not rest until this trend is reversed.

Kim Simac and Shirley Kufeldt, Northwoods Patriots

Annette Olson,Un-Infringed Liberty

Kirsten Lombard,The Wisconsin 9/12 Project

Dan Horvatin,Rock River Patriots

Joanne Terry,Ozaukee Patriots

Matt Strublic,Oshkosh TEA Party

Jim Kiser,Fond du Lac TEA Party

Jeff Horn,Prairie Patriots

Paul Lembrich,Rock County Voter Education Forum

Ed Perkins,Fox Valley Initiative

Ken Van Doren and Todd Welch,Campaign for Liberty

Dr. Sidney Johnson,Central Wisconsin Tea Party

Lora Halberstadt and Nancy Milholland,Racine TEA Party

Seth Cowan,Wolf River Area Patriots

Joe Delsman,Northeast Wisconsin Patriots

Steve Welcenbach,Conservative Insurgency

Dan Curran,Concerned Citizens of Iowa County