The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel printed my response to a Scott Walker apologist who took aim at me a while back attempting to blame all of the troubles Milwaukee County has experienced on the pension issue.  In the column I debunk Walker's claims.  Click here for the column. 

The following paragraph was partially lost on the cutting room floor which changed the context a bit but not the overall nature of the column. 

Last week, community columnist and Walker apologist Rick Esenberg of Mequon blamed former Milwaukee County leaders for todays problems.  Esenberg went so far as to suggest that bus routes that Walker has cut should be renamed the "Jim McGuigan Trail of Tears", an allusion to the genocidal massacre of native Americans.  Esenberg's racially insensitive remark was over the top and I was shocked that it came from a Marquette University Professor.

I'll simply follow up by saying that it's painful to see the County fall apart as it has under the hatchet of Walker.  There is a better way to do things.  To take the approach that everything that's happened is someone else's fault so todays problems need not be fixed is irresponsible. 

Professionally, Walker has come a long way from his days as a Wauwatosa Assemblyman who sent out a press release condemning the Million Man March but his simplistic ideas back then are no different than those now.  The only thing that has changed is his rise to power and his ability to enact the ideas which he championed as a member of the Assembly.

But just look at the result.  Fiscal chaos.  Failing infrastructure.  Land sales revenues budgeted just to meet operating expenses.

There is a better way. 

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Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel: Stop county blame game