DON'T MAKE A MCCALLUM MISTAKE

Almost two weeks after he launched his budget adjustment bill, Gov. Scott
McCallum plan is having more trouble getting traction than a bald tire in a
Wisconsin snowdrift.

The Republican governor's proposal to shift the burden for covering the
state's $1.1 billion revenue shortfall to local property taxpayers has
proved so unpopular that his fellow Republicans are doing it in.

Legislative Republicans are showing little loyalty to the man who inherited
former Gov. Tommy Thompson's term scraps. Indeed, the McCallum mistake has
yet to attract a single endorsement in the Legislature.

And if Republican legislators are steering clear of this gubernatorial
folly, Republican elected officials from around the state, such as Waukesha
County Executive Dan Finley, are actively campaigning against a plan that,
by eliminating shared revenue payments, threatens police and fire
protections and basic services.

Last week, the hapless governor invited Finley to the Capitol for a little
friendly persuasion. McCallum needs to work on his technique: Finley walked
out of the meeting and demanded that his name be removed from press
releases promoting the tax-shifting scheme.

Then the City Council president of McCallum's hometown, Fond du Lac,
contradicted the governor's "all will be well" line with a grim assessment
that the plan "would definitely cause some loss of services."

McCallum tried to counter the sobering response from the local elected
officials, who are most in touch with Wisconsinites, by calling a press
conference to trumpet support for his plan from the Madison special
interest lobbyists, who are most out of touch with Wisconsinites. The press
conference was a laughable affair, where lobbyists for the Wisconsin
Manufacturers & Commerce business lobby and the Wisconsin Education
Association Council dutifully showed up to illustrate that McCallum's
budget plan was designed not to do what was best for Wisconsin but to curry
favor with influential players in this fall's election campaign.

Despite the hundreds of thousands of dollars in special interest campaign
money being poured into an advertising campaign to promote the McCallum
mistake as good policy, the governor's election prospects are looking a
good deal less likely since he decided to avoid responsibility for the
state's budget problems by trying to bankrupt Wisconsin's counties, cities
and villages.

That does not mean, however, that Democrats are guaranteed a key to the
governor's mansion. McCallum is right that Democrats are failing to offer
credible alternatives. That was obvious when the four Democratis candidates
for governor debated Thursday.

The best counter to McCallum came not from a Democrat but from Libertarian
Ed Thompson, who called for slashing a bloated prison budget.

Wisconsin's prisons are packed with nonviolent offenders who are locked up
not because they pose a danger to society but because they were too poor,
too mentally unstable or too addicted to gain the sort of legal
representation that would have gotten them the help they need.

Thompson would guide nonviolent offenders into treatment and rehabilitation
programs, shut unneeded prisons and save hundreds of millions of dollars.
It's a smart fix - a lot smarter than the McCallum mistake.