Only a private contractor can clean up this mess.
Scott Walker's 2011 budget is the gift that just keeps on giving. Every day it seems like something new pops up that no one knew was in it. Last week I received one of those gifts in my
water bill. The City of Madison, or any other municipality in Wisconsin, is no longer allowed to perform repairs on the feeder lines to the main sewer line. While property owners are responsible for the feeder line to the street, in the past, if anything ever went wrong with it the city would do the repairs and charge you for it.
Now the city is offering insurance so that if anything does go wrong you can hire a private contractor to do the repairs. Why? Well, there is the GOP talking point that private industry can do it faster, better, and cheaper. Of course, Republicans often leave out the part of that that says "at the expense of the workers." But I digress. This section of Scott Walker's budget repair bill appears to be ALEC legislation.
Now, before this law, I had a choice of having the city fix my feeder pipe or I could hire a private contractor. Now I have one choice, a private contractor. What I don't understand is that if private industry can do this type of work cheaper, faster, and better than a municipal crew—then why are they so afraid to compete with a public entity? According to Republican logic they should be able to undercut the public utility every single time.
In the grand scheme of things this really is not that big of a deal. Per the City of Madison they only do a dozen or so of these jobs a year. But, I would much rather see my rates go up a few pennies a year to ensure that if I ever had a problem with my feeder pipe the city would fix it—it is a part of being in a community. We should be looking out for one another; however, in the Republican world we only get to have local control when they say so. Each municipality should be able to decide how to maintain its own sewer system. If the city wants to be able to fix the pipes that go into the city sewer system because they feel that is what is best, then that is what they should be able to do.