Sean Duffy, who is taking on the third-longest serving member of the U.S. House of Representatives, Congressman David Obey, was featured on Sunday news digest UPFRONT with Mike Gousha after he appeared on Time Magazine’s list of Republican Surprises: Ten More Scott Browns.  

Click here to watch Sean Duffy on UPFRONT with Mike Gousha

Rep. Paul Ryan appeared on UPFRONT with Mike Gousha on Sunday to discuss his Roadmap for America and the national fiscal crisis.  Ryan urged the Obama Administration to stop pointing fingers and start working out a plan to turn the economy around. 

Click here to watch Paul Ryan on UPFRONT with Mike Gousha

State Rep. Rich Zipperer (R-Pewaukee) recently shared concerns about the latest stimulus jobs tally with The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. The new rules for tracking the number of jobs created or “saved” by the stimulus package are misleading and make it difficult to distinguish the number of jobs created or saved by stimulus money. 

According to a White House report released last week, 10,316 Wisconsin jobs were funded by stimulus money in the last quarter.  At the county level this results in a cost to taxpayers of at least $2,000 per job. 

Even then, this number is deceiving because the new rules created by the Office of Management and Budget this past December count not only jobs created, but also any jobs “touched” by stimulus money. 

The new rules also change the reporting period from annually to quarterly.  Zipperer is concerned that since the method for counting jobs has changed, jobs will be counted repeatedly.  His concern is already being realized because one company can report the same job statistics each quarter, as long as the job is still there throughout the year.   

Read more in The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

State Sen. Jim Holperin (D-Conover) seems to say one thing to the press and yet another to his constituents.  In a letter to the editor sent to local newspapers this past December, Holperin praised the progress Wisconsin was making under the leadership of Gov. Jim Doyle and the Democratic- controlled Legislature. 

In several e-mails authored by Holperin, he admitted that: “there were lots of new taxes, and the Democrats were responsible for them.”

In other e-mail correspondence, The Democrat State Senator went on to say that:

"We Democrats authorized all kinds of new taxes in the recently adopted state budget (cigarette taxes, capital gains taxes, solid waste fees, cell phone tax, boat registration fee, etc. etc.) and took a lot of heat for that," Holperin wrote. "Nobody is eager to be voting for 'another' tax increase ... especially on beer! We're a brewery state, for crumb sakes (which maybe also explains our alcohol culture...)!"

“You know the Governor's got enough little tax and fee hikes in that budget of his to sink a good sized battleship. So there's no shortage of revenue 'uppers' for the legislature to consider and for the voters to get mad over ... which they have done even though most of the increases won't affect most average Wisconsinites."

Read more from The Lakeland Times.