Talk:Tommy Thompson

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Maybe someone should pare down the section on v-chip in this article. (unsigned comment by User:162.129.236.17)

• The vchip section is sloppily written and in need of wikification, but it is the only attempt made so far in this article to provide political balance. The rest of it is pretty laudatory.--Hraefen 20:37, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

---

I followed a link to this page that mentioned Tommy Thompson was involved in a controversial line-item veto of a bill that effectively introduce a new passage. I'm curious as to why this isn't actually mentioned anywhere since the preceding page implied the information was here. Does anyone know anything what the line-item veto was about?

• I'm not sure, but I've noticed that this article has had some major info purges in the past that seem to have been motivated by a desire to make Tommy seem like the number one guy in the universe. If it was controversial (i.e. if it made Tommy potentially look bad) I would guess that it got erased. If you really want to know, go through the history (Yeah... I know... I don't care enough to to that either).--Hraefen 20:59, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

Okay, it looks like 71.145.181.46 posted some (mostly unsourced) negative stuff back in December 2005 that OCNative then removed in March 2006 (even after Hraefen left that remark). I've reposted it, and will now look for sources. --BaronLarf 22:32, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

-I came here looking for some criticisms of Thompson but found absolutely none--and Thompson is certainly not universally popular. The article as it stands reads more like a campaign ad than an overview of his political career. I flagged it NPOV. - Jarrett

By all means, please be bold add some sourced criticism then. Or, if you just want unvarnished criticism, check out his profile on the SourceWatch.org wiki. Cheers.--BaronLarf 22:22, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

I'm looking for some now. (I'm no expert on him, which is why I came to this page. So it will take some research.) But I've discovered something odd. A lot of text from this page, particularly the W-2 stuff, matches that on many other site, notably the White House's:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/government/thompson-bio.html

and:

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/medicalnews.php?newsid=17356

http://www.deloitte.com/dtt/employee_profile/0,1007,sid%253D80772%2526cid%253D86217,00.html

http://www.healthnewsdigest.com/site/thompson_mccurdy.html

...the list goes on. I found these by a casual Google search for "welfare-to-work legislation, which served as a national model for welfare reform". I'm not sure about the policy for this sort of situation--what to do? - Jarrett 6 May 2006

Gah. Probably copyviolations. I'll have a look at 'em myself, too. Since it's not the whole page, the easiest thing to do is just remove everything that looks like its been copied and then just rewrite it, putting references to our sources. See also Wikipedia:Copyrights#If you find a copyright infringement--BaronLarf 23:37, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

I've removed all the copyviolations that I could see; now to rewrite the sections in an unbiased, referenced way... --BaronLarf 23:50, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

Any objections to removing the POV tag?--BaronLarf 14:06, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

Most of this entry now seems to be objective and NPOV to me. I would be happy to remove the tag. Richardjames444 03:37, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

I took the tag off. This debate has been cold for several months now, which suggests that no-one cares overmuch. Richardjames444 03:40, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Contents 1 the downside 2 HEY 3 Debt? 4 Campaign Website 5 Accuracy Issues 6 Clean-up

[edit] the downside

Leo Wanta was framed for state tax evasion with the connivance of Tommy Thompson when he was Governor of Wisconsin and was part of the CIA's reputed operation Children's Defense Fund, Hilary Clinton's $250,000,000 personal slush fund.

After Thompson left office thousands of pages of documents mysteriously went missing or were destroyed.

What in the hell? The Governor of Wisconsin framed some unknown goofball with the help of the CIA, Hillary Clinton, and the Children's Defense Fund? Wikipedia really 'is' an experiment doomed to failure. Time to get the tinfoil hats. 70.226.145.36 00:47, 18 November 2006 (UTC) Wis Native

Documents mysteriously destroyed...yeah by his Democratic gubernatorial successor Jim Doyle, who apoligized on behalf of the incompetant hourly warehouse workers who did it. Get real

[edit] HEY

quote from CNN:

GOP Sen. John McCain on Thursday will launch exploratory committee for the 2008 presidential race, CNN learns. AP reports former Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson also plans to join the race.

[edit] Debt?

There doesn't seem to be any mention of the ~$3 billion debt Tommy Thompson left Wisconsin with when he went to Washington, even though it was a major point of the successor elections that brought Doyle to power. Personally, I think the massive debt is what Thompson is most remembered for around here. --64.24.181.157 23:53, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, debt. Hmmm, would you have any sources on that? $3 Billion. Are you talking debt (Bonds, and state borrowing) or (as I suspect) are you talking of a "structural deficit". Wisconsin state law requires that the budget be balanced, and it is. The 'but' is that each governor since at least Lucey has built-in a certain "structural deficit". It wasn't anywhere near $3 billion under Thompson and I suspect its not more than $1.5 billion now. However you may have a good citation. We all look forward to your next post.-- 70.226.145.36 00:40, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Campaign Website

Hello. Did we find Tommy Thompsons camapign website? If someone finds it, please add it. I can not seem to find it anywhere. Thanks, Asher Heimermann 02:31, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

I saw it. It is www.tommy2008.com.70.226.159.181 01:38, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Accuracy Issues

This section has severe accuracy problems:

Additionally, HHS falsely reported the cost of the Medicare reform by over $150 billion. Thompson’s appointee, Tom Scully, threatened to fire staff if they revealed to Congress the true cost. Investigators determined that the data was improperly hidden from Congress, and that Scully’s threat to fire the actuary was in violation of federal appropriations law. Accordingly, federal money could not be used to pay Scully's salary after he made the threats to the actuary in May 2003 [6]

1. HHS did not falsely report the cost - it was a dispute over estimated costs. If you go back and look at the actual costs, the actuary's costs were far off. In fact, the New England Journal of Medicine has a story this month (no link, as it is a fee service) that says the first year was $13 billion less than those estimates - due to lower drug costs.

2. The New York Times story that is linked to the Scully item does not say that Scully broke the law. The inspector general said she could not determine if laws were broken. Federal money DID pay Scully's salary after May 2003. This is simply wrong.

3. Finally, the title of this section: "Medicare Mismanagement and Conflict of Interest" is highly misleading. Medicare wasn't mismanaged. This was a dispute with Congress over costs of a bill - not an actual program. At the time of the dispute it was still a proposal. As for conflicts of interest, he was not in office at the time he advocated changes to the Medicare law. He was a private citizen working for private companies. He has every right to advocate for changes beneficial to whomever he pleases.

Galloway28 05:38, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Clean-up

I have just tagged this article for clean-up, since with him announcing presumably there will be more people checking the article. Could somebody do this who despises the man less than I do? This isn't a license to cover up scandals, but as a patriotic citizen of Wisconsin I fear for my ability to avoid NPOV violations on the.... expletive deleted... fellow. --Orange Mike 01:57, 5 April 2007 (UTC)