Walker's new found love for local rule

Now that County Executive Scott Walker is no longer running for governor, he seems to be a big supporter of local rule. In a recent Milwaukee Journal Sentinel article on a proposal to increase the Milwaukee County sales tax, Walker had this to say:

Walker said later that elected officials should make direct decisions on county priorities...

What a crazy idea. Local elected officials being allowed to make the decisions they were elected to do in the first place.

This runs a little counter to some of the things Walker said in his support for TABOR/TPA during his run for governor. An article in the Beloit Daily News a while back had Walker saying this:

Walker said if elected he immediately would call legislators into special session to pass a property tax freeze. The freeze would require all taxing authorities in the state to limit the amount of tax levy to the 2006 amount for fiscal years 2007 to 2010. He said the levy could be increased due to growth or if voters approved an increase.

He also favors passage of the Taxpayer Bill of Rights (TABOR).

If he would have been elected governor, he wanted to limit the ability of every single local government to be able to set spending priorities and cope with rising fuel and health costs unless they went to referendum, but now he thinks local leaders should be the ones to set spending priorities. I guess the view from Milwaukee looks a little different than the imagined view from Madison.