Monday, February 18, 2019

WMC makes an idiotic comment on weed

I know Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce are right-wing lowlifes, but what they said today left me dumbfounded.

There's a lot wrong with that take.

1. IT IS ILLEGAL AND FIRABLE TO OPERATE EQUIPMENT WHILE HIGH. Whether that substance is booze, opiods, weed, or other prescription medications. How would allowing marijuana to be legal with a prescription change that reality?

Wisconsin's Lieutenant Governor found it odd that WMC isnt concerned about a more common type of impairment in our state.


2. Given how many people get hooked on much more addictive and damaging opiods to deal with pain and keep working, and if they're hooked, they become unproductive if not outright dangerous in the work place. Wouldn't we rather have people self-medicating after work with a much less addictive drug like cannabis? Seems like a no-brainer to me.

3. WMC and other business groups have constantly complained about the "skills gap" and the inability to find qualified employees. Evers' initiative would expunge the records of some people with convictions for pot possession, and would only give a ticket to people in the future that get popped for weed, instead of having a criminal conviction on their record.

Both of these effects should increase the availability of qualified labor in Wisconsin, which WMC allegedly wants. In addition, having fewer people in prison and/or with limited job prospects reduces social and fiscal costs, which theoretically can allow for lower taxes or a better use of resources that improves goods and services that businesses use.

As Evers notes, dercriminalizing pot could lower the racial disparities that have limited Wisconsin's economic and social growth.


You'd think that would be in the interests of businesses that want to succeed. So why isn't WMC supporting Evers' plans to change marijuana laws?

Because WMC isn't about improving the quality of the Wisconsin economy and making Wisconsin more competitive in the 21st Century economy, but instead they are GOP hacks who are rent-seekers that try to steal as many tax dollars and suppress wages by any means they can.

WMC's "business leaders" are a big reason why our state's economy got left behind the rest of the country over the last 8 years, and today's idiotic, partisan response to Tony Evers' proposals on marijuana are another example of why those regressive fools should be ignored at all turns.

3 comments:

  1. I think they are racist and that they like cheap prison labor. I also think they are mostly ideologues.

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    Replies
    1. I think both of those reasons are in play. They are definitely GOP hacks that care more about power and taking easy money vs entrepreneurship and encouraging talent to locate in Wis.

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  2. WMC: once again, pretending to care about the ordinary Wisconsinite. Sorry, WMC, in trying to take the high moral ground, you sank into the swamp yet again.
    Behind the scenes, WMC is busy deciding how to monetize and monopolize legalization...

    ReplyDelete