Chad Fradette For Wisconsin

The Wisconsin Alliance for Retired Americans, held a forum between myself and Senator Dave Hansen yesterday at the Brown County Library in Green Bay.  Needless to say, I feel that I out performed my opponent in our first head to head setting.

I justify the last statement by the simple fact I was never given the correct set of questions that was asked by the moderator due to an egregious oversight error by the Executive Director of the Wisconsin Alliance for Retired Americans, Billy Feilinger.  Because of this error, I was unable to prepare my remarks in advance and was forced to think on my feet, while Dave Hansen read his prepared answers verbatim from a binder.

Dave Hansen’s biggest fear and worry is that he could contradict himself in debates with me.  Unfortunately, in this style of debate, Senator Hansen was able to carefully craft his answers that would placate the audience he was speaking to, while at the same time avoided contradicting his voting record. Also on a few occasions, Hansen did not answer the question being asked and was very good at skirting the issue.

In our next joint appearance, Senator Hansen won’t be so lucky.  The format of the next debate will be questions from the audience; no script, no rules, and no advanced knowledge of questions.  Therefore, I invite you to attend and ask myself and Senator Hansen the tough questions and the concerns you have.

The following are the details of the next debate:

Tuesday, October 28, 2008
6:30 - 7:30 p.m.
Weyers Hilliard Library
2680 Riverview Drive
Howard, WI

I look forward to addressing your concerns in an open forum.  I hope to see you there.

To Listen to the ad, please click Here

Today, former Green Bay Common Council President and State Senate Candidate Chad Fradette (R-Green Bay) released the first radio ad of his campaign today in all corners of the 30th State Senate District.

The ad highlights incumbent Sen. Dave Hansen’s record on raising taxes and his attempts to hide that record from the people of the 30th Senate District. “Sen. Hansen’s constituents need to know that he is trying to hide his eight-year record of trying to raise taxes,” Fradette said. “At a time when there is much uncertainty with our economy, it is vital that we not make it even more expensive for employers to do business in Wisconsin. Unlike Dave Hansen and his liberal friends in Madison, I believe that businesses should use their revenue to create jobs and avoid layoffs, rather than sending that money to the politicians in Madison. Elect me as State Senator on November 4th, I will work to defeat the tax increases that Senator Hansen has imposed on us over his eight years.”

The ad highlights Sen. Hansen’s votes to raise property taxes, gas taxes, the hospital tax, and tipping fees. The ad points out that Sen. Hansen’s individual votes on dozens of taxes would cost state residents billions. It also points out that Sen. Hansen voted for the largest state tax increase in our nation’s history, $15 billion, to fund the government takeover of our health care system. “If you rent a car, shop online, file paper copies of your taxes, buy or a sell a home, or fill up your gas tank, Dave Hansen thinks you aren’t paying enough already,” Fradette said.

“We must end the liberal culture of people like Dave Hansen who think that the taxpayers are a bottomless piggy bank, always ready to fund his pork barrel projects.”

The ad, titled, “Whitewash,” began running in the 30th Senate District from Green Bay to Marinette this week.

In today’s world, we need photo ID’s to do just about anything. Want to rent a movie? Show your ID. Want to deposit or withdraw money at the bank? Show your ID. Want to fly on a commercial airplane? Show your ID. This makes sense to prevent criminals from stealing your identity and charging up huge debts for you.

Identity theft is a real problem in our society, but there’s one area where some believe that it’s not worth preventing – elections.

In the 2004 election, John Kerry won Wisconsin by only 11,000 votes out of nearly 3 million votes cast – a margin of less than one half of one percent. In 2000, Al Gore bested George Bush in Wisconsin by only 5,708 out of more than 2.5 million votes cast – an even small margin of two-tenths of one percent. The closeness of these margins show just how important it is to ensure that all votes are cast legally.

A report on voter fraud in the 2004 election from the Milwaukee Police Department found hundreds of irregularities including the fact that more votes were counted than actually recorded as cast. If that’s going on in Milwaukee, it stands to reason it’s happening elsewhere too.

2008 is expected to be razor-thin again in Wisconsin. It’s critical that we ensure integrity in our elections by requiring a photo ID in order to vote. The principle of one man, one vote, is the cornerstone of a truly democratic process and voters deserve to know that their votes aren’t being canceled out by illegal votes cast in other cities.

Republicans in the legislature have fought hard to require photo ID’s to vote. They have been blocked at every turn by Governor Doyle and legislative Democrats who insist on business as usual. I wonder who they think the fraud is benefitting?

If elected to the State Senate in November, I will vote to require photo ID’s at the polls. The voters deserve honesty and integrity in their elections and deserve better than Democrats content to let the fraudulent votes slip by.

Even though we weren’t on the ballot against each other yet, it was very telling that I received more votes in Tuesday’s voting than Sen. Hansen did.  A longtime incumbent running in his third straight election should probably have had a better showing.

I think this is strong evidence that my message of lower taxes, more jobs, affordable health care, and protecting the unborn is really starting to take hold across the district.

Here’s the final tally:

Chad Fradette:  3,019 votes

Dave Hansen:  2,944 votes

This also highlights how close this election is going to be.  Beating a two-term incument is never easy, especially when Hansen has the backing of the powerful Madison special interests.  But yesterday’s results show the voters of the 30th district are hungry to take back their district and reject special interest politics.

Tired of potholes? Tired of road construction that seems to drag on forever? Wouldn’t it be nice if the state had the money to pay for adequate road repair and timely construction? Well, I’ll let you in on a secret that incumbent Sen. Dave Hansen doesn’t want you to know. We do have enough money to pay for these things and we could do it without raising your taxes by even one dollar.

Usually in politics, when something sounds too good to be true, it is. In this case, though, it is true. What’s the solution? End the raids on the Transportation Fund. Period.

You see, in Wisconsin we pay for road projects through the gas tax and vehicle registration fees. All of that money, literally billions of dollars, is deposited into the Transportation Fund, a segregated state fund that is supposed to be used only for transportation projects, nothing else.

So far so good. But here is where the problem starts. Since 2002, the Democrats in Madison have raided more than $1 billion from the transportation fund to pay for services and pet projects that have nothing to do with transportation. That’s $1 billion that could have been used to widen narrow roads, re-surface damaged roads, and build safer intersections. Roads are the arteries on which our economy depends to move people and products around our state. By stealing $1 billion from the fund, the Democrats are hurting our economy and forcing our citizens to drive on damaged and sometimes unsafe roads.

It’s a flat-out bait-and-switch to tell us that they’re going to use the gas tax and vehicle registration fees to pay for roads, and then turn around and steal the money. And it’s particularly galling to know that part of the reason we’re paying high gas prices is the 31 cents per gallon gas tax that’s now being used to pay for pork barrel projects instead of needed transportation.

And remember too, that Sen. Hansen voted to increase our vehicle registration fees from $55 per year to $75 per year, claiming that we needed the extra transportation funding. Then he turned around and immediately voted to raid hundreds of millions of dollars out of the fund.

I’m tired of politicians that talk out of both sides of their mouth. If elected to the State Senate, I will protect our Transportation Fund to ensure that our roads are safe and efficient.

Are you a homeowner worried about your home losing value in the current housing market slump? Are you a home seller worried that you won’t be able to sell your home for what it was worth even just a few months ago? If you are, you are not alone. All around Wisconsin, homeowners are facing lost equity and lower sale prices as a result of the slowdown in the national housing market.

Unfortunately for you, your incumbent Senator, Dave Hansen, has been working to make the housing crisis even worse. In the current biennial budget, Senator Hansen proposed doubling the real estate transfer fee, the fee paid to the government when they sell their home, from $3 per $1,000 of value to $6 per $1,000. For a $100,000 home, that’s $300 extra that Sen. Hansen wants to charge us.

A recent article in the Wisconsin State Journal reported that Wisconsin’s home market declined 22.2% in the second quarter from the same period last year. That’s a worse decline than the Midwest average and worse than the national average too.

The same article also reported that selling prices are down more than 3% in Wisconsin. For a $100,000 home, that’s more than $3,000 in lost value and equity for home sellers.

This is why Sen. Hansen’s proposal is so concerning. The housing market is in one of its worst declines in a generation, and Sen. Hansen wants to make it even harder and more expensive to sell your home.

I believe this is wrong. In tough economic times, we need to be making it easier and less expensive to sell your home in order to get the housing market moving again. Lower fees means cheaper homes, increasing home sales, which increases demand and lowers supply, causing your own home to go back up in value. But Sen. Hansen doesn’t understand this at all.

Fortunately for us, Sen. Hansen’s proposal was blocked by legislative Republicans. You can be sure, though, that if Sen. Hansen gets sent back to Madison next year, he’ll bring his proposal back again.

I believe that we should be always working to increase home ownership. Owning your own home is a part of the American Dream and government shouldn’t be making it harder to achieve. If elected to the State Senate, I will oppose any effort to make it more expensive to buy and sell a home.

The latest quick-fix being proposed in Madison by incumbent Sen. Dave Hansen to lower our health care costs, the ironically named Healthy Wisconsin plan, is really nothing more than a power grab by big government liberals to put government bureaucrats in charge of your health care decisions without doing anything to lower costs.

In case you’re unfamiliar with the details of Healthy Wisconsin, I’ll explain how it works.

Step one, take away your existing health insurance. That’s right, the first step in this supposed “fix” is to take away the insurance of every Wisconsinite not already covered by Medicare, even if you’re happy with the insurance you already have.

Step two, enroll everyone into a single health insurance plan, administered by state bureaucrats. An unelected board of directors made up business representatives and union bosses will determine the level of coverage that will be allowed under the plan. There aren’t even any medical professionals or insurance experts allowed on the board.

Dave Hansen not only wants to force us to give up our existing insurance but also wants to force us into a plan where bureaucrats and politicians get to decide which things are covered and which aren’t. Does that sound like a better way to you?

But, Hansen says, lower quality and less choice is a small price to pay in order to reduce our health care costs. Well, he might be right if the plan actually lowered costs, but in the case of Healthy Wisconsin, it doesn’t.

To pay for this plan, Sen. Hansen proposes raising payroll taxes in Wisconsin by $15 billion. This would be the largest tax increase in the history of any state in our nation. And even with this record increase, Healthy Wisconsin’s own supporters admit that the total cost of health insurance in Wisconsin will still double in the next ten years. So watch out, Sen. Hansen’s $15 billion tax increase today is going to quickly turn into a $30 billion tax increase in just a few years. This doesn’t sound like lowering costs to me.

Healthy Wisconsin also will put a big red bullseye on Wisconsin for illegal aliens and the unemployed everywhere to flock here for free health insurance courtesy of you, the taxpayers. This is sure to increase costs even further.

So, let’s add it up. Take away our existing coverage; replace it with a government-run program where bureaucrats make our health care decisions for us; double state taxes to pay for it; and give free health care to the unemployed and illegal aliens. It seems clear to me that Sen. Hansen’s Healthy Wisconsin is actually very unhealthy for Wisconsin.

My message calling for the repeal of Wisconsin’s Minimum Markup law was again echoed by two different sources; the Appleton Post Crescent and the Wood Communications Group.  Even with the majority of Wisconsinities supporting the repeal, Sen. Dave Hansen continues to support this archaic law. 

Over the past month, I have offered to debate this issue with residents of the 30th Senate District and Senator Hansen.  Unfortunately, Senator Hansen has not chosen to debate this issue with his constituents, including myself.  Therefore, I would encourage you to email or write Senator Hansen and ask him why he supports higher gas prices and this outdated law.  You can email Senator Hansen at Sen.Hansen@legis.state.wi.us or download a letter to send Senator Hansen Here.

To read the Appleton Post Crescent Editorial, click here.

To read the Survey Conducted by Wood Communications, click here.