Wisconsin Policy Research Institute

The simplex (in electronics, "one-way") reasoning of Milwaukee Journal Sentinel columnist Christian Schneder becomes more fundamentalist conservative by the week. Today, his column's entire premise is summed up in the column's ridiculous headline:

No it's not.

The other day I gave the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel editors a raspberry for all the space their newspaper allows the wingnut Wisconsin Policy Research Institute (WPRI) in the paper's news and opinion columns. I also razzed the JS editors for their constant, nonsensical description of WPRI as a "conservative, nonpartisan think tank." I noted that those first two words together count as an oxymoron. Lo and behold, within a work day, in its very next use, the description had been changed to omit the word "nonpartisan."

As journalists and students of political science and public administration are well aware, regulatory agencies -- such as those assigned to protect the environment or oversee financiers or watch drug companies -- are always at risk of being captured by the very special interests they are assigned to monitor. Similar risk now affects newspaper editorial boards that rely more and more upon a narrow, ideological point of view from some of the very organizations they are supposed to view with skepticism.

From George Lightbourn, former Tommy Thompson functionary and now maximum leader of the wingnut (albeit officially nonpartisan) Wisconsin Policy Research Institute (WPRI), comes the flaming revelation that Scott Walker has established a "new normal" for Wisconsin:

For starters there will be no more deferring to the status quo. No longer will politicians automatically assume that more school spending will enhance student performance, that more regulation by itself makes our air and water cleaner... .

No, now state politicians are supposed to automatically assume that less school spending will enhance student performance -- but only in public schools. In private schools already receiving huge public tax dollars swiped from those public schools, the old normal will still apply, only more so thanks to Walkerism.