No Doubt About It, Darling Won Debate with Pasch

Last Sunday WISN channel 12 held a short Debate between Senator Alberta Darling (R-River Hills) and  Representative Sandy Pasch for (D-Whitefish Bay) 8TH Senate recall election. Although it was short, some key questions were at least asked even if the candidates refused to answer them.

In judging the debate the key question for Rep. Pasch is what she would do or what she would have done to balance the budget since the Democrats never presented an alternative to the Walker Budget, and only presented amendments to restore over $2 billion in spending without other cuts. Pasch dodged the question failing to even answer it. Right there that should eliminate her as a serious candidate for the state senate among reasonable voters.

The key question for Darling was to answer the claims made in Pasch's attacks about her votes she took since the start of the year. The big one is that the new budget hurt schools and education. Both candidates basically agreed that this year all but three of over 400 school districts were able to save enough money from tools given to offset state funding losses. The other three districts (MPS, Kensosha, Janesville) cut their own throats by making deals with unions without waiting to see what the new budget would be, which is the fault of terrible management on those districts not Darling.

Pasch's answers were basically an admission by her that the advertising running claiming Alberta hurt education in Wisconsin is "pants on fire" false. 

The next issue for Darling was the claim by the Pasch campaign that tax breaks for companies to produce jobs are a bad idea. Darling pointed out that Wisconsin moved up 17 spots in survey of CEOs on business climate in every state, which is an indication we should continue the track we are on and that Pasch's claim is wrong.

Darling argued that we created half the jobs created in the U.S. in June, and Pasch argued they were not good jobs.  I think, although the data is good, it is too early to judge based on this data. On the jobs front, given the terrible national policies, all you can ask is that we do better than the average state which is clearly the case so far. Pasch gave no good reason to change direction on any of Darling's agenda.

Overall my opinion is Pasch failed to produce any reason she deserves your vote. Maybe if we had two years to look at the Walker/Darling results she might have something to point to; but then maybe by then it would be clear that Darling was right. That is why the unions want this recall election. They know the budget repair bill will be good for taxpayers and education in Wisconsin. They can’t afford to wait until the results are clear to everyone as they will be in two to four years.