by folkbum
The news that the Post Office is set to dump another quarter-million people into the unemployment market next year should thrill exactly no one. Here in Wisconsin, with a craptacular couple of job-creation years behind us (and another in the making), and with 8500 local, state, and federal jobs lost in the last year already, we should not relish the idea that five mail processing centers here will close and cost hundreds more jobs.
Plus, you know, the mail will get slower. That will help attract new business [/snark].
But remember why the Post Office is in this mess: Republicans.
I don't say this purely out of spite. The number one reason why the Post Office is in financial trouble is that in 2006, the Republican Congress (with President Bush's approval) required the PO to do something no single other private, public, or private-public organization anywhere has to do--prepay its health care costs for the next 75 years before 2016.
Right now, today, a chunk of every stamp you buy or fruitcake you ship goes to pay the future health insurance cost of someone the Post Office hasn't even hired yet. This is dumb.
No doubt you can go back to the record--and I mean literally, you can, I'm busy--and find weak-sauce justifications for this requirement, something about being prepared for the inevitable or some such. And let's be fair; in 2006, a lot of people were in denial or oblivion about the bubble part of the economy, and figured that the kind of operating profits the PO was seeing in the mid-00s would continue forever. (Yes, the PO made a profit, without a taxpayer dime.)
But the requirement is still dumb. For one, paying today toward the health insurance cost of someone working at the PO in, say, 2060 seems ridiculous on its face. Who the fizzle knows how many people the PO will have working for them, what the health care market will look like, or even whether SkyNet will be running things completely by then?
Moreover, the nearly $60 billion this will cost--75 years' worth of health care costs ain't cheap--is anti-stimulus. It does nothing for the economy. You ship your dad a Christmas sweater and part of the fee you pay for the privilege goes and sits in a bank account somewhere. Sits there. Does nothing. For 75 years.
With this money, the PO doesn't hire new workers, workers who would buy cars and food and houses and engagement rings. With this money, the PO doesn't buy new equipment, which could have been made by US factory workers who instead sit idle. With this money, the PO doesn't buy local advertising, doesn't build new facilities, doesn't innovate. This money just simply gets hoovered out of the economy to sit idle.
Now I know, grand-scheme, $5.5 billion a year in the face of $15 trillion GDP is not enough to turn around a thoroughly rotten economy. But in an era when a company's decision to hire even a dozen new workers gets headlines and a governor's visit, the effects of this dumb PO rule ought to be seen as significant.
Plus, this is entirely undo-able. The Congress can act right now to remove the pre-payment requirement going forward and even allow the PO to tap the money it's set aside to offset the loss of mail revenue following the bubble's bursting. (Caveat: Suggesting that this Congress can act now to do anything is, sadly, hopeless--Republicans will kill anything they think Democrats favor, including stuff the Republican public overwhelmingly likes.)
So, no, the PO is not in some intractable financial position of its own doing or entirely due to the business cycle. It is being killed by a Republican rule of dubious benefit and severe detriment, and in 2012, the economy and the mail will suffer needlessly for it.
Showing posts with label Republicans. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Republicans. Show all posts
Wednesday, December 07, 2011
Monday, November 21, 2011
Q: What happens when two key Wisconsin wingnut values clash?
A: The more hateful one wins, of course
by folkbum
Today's topic: "double-dipping." The competing Wisconsin wingnut values: reflexive anti-tax advocacy vs. personal animus against gubmint workers.
Back in the olden days, when I used to be more involved in my union, we hated what the folks are now calling "double-dipping." This is when my (or any) school district would hire a retired individual to fill a job opening. The union's position was that this was artificially limiting opportunities for active union members and artificially keeping potential new union members out of a job. It worked out for the employees, though, because they could draw both a paycheck and their pension, and that was pretty sweet.
Republicans have finally come around to believe in this union-supported position, with legislators trying to ban the practice. Righty talk-show babblers--notably, Mark Belling--have been apoplectic over the issue for weeks. And the wingnut commentariat are out for blood against double-dippers.
There are two reasons why a school--and it's always schools, people, at least in the wingnut imagination--would hire a retiree to fill an open position. One is if there are no qualified applicants to fill the open spot. Better to have a retiree who knows what she's doing than a substitute (for classroom spots) or a novice administrator who would take too long to get up to speed.
The second is to save taxpayer money. It goes like this:
Say we have a teacher, let's call her Employee A. She's ready to retire. For the ease of math, let's say the cost of employing her is $100,000. She's got a $65,000 salary, with $35,000 in benefits, including a $20,000 health insurance package, pension (12% of salary), payroll taxes (8% of salary), and some other stuff like dental and life insurance. If she retires, she's eligible for retiree health insurance that covers, say, 2/3 of the cost of the plan, but that's the only taxpayer cost upon her retirement. (If she's old enough to qualify for Medicare, that cost may not even be there.)
Don't taxpayers pay her pension?, I hear you asking. True, we do, but we pay for her pension while she's working. No new tax dollars are required to pay her pension upon her retirement. It's already paid for; the money is there in the award-winning Wisconsin Retirement System, and she is paid from those funds already collected. (In their defense of double-dipping at the daily paper the other day, William J. Holahan and Charles O. Kroncke did a really crappy job explaining this, which is why you get letters to the editor from the wingnut contingent who insist that the pension payouts cost taxpayers in real time.)
So, cost of Employee A as she works: $100,000. Cost of Employee A when she retires: $13,000, for that retiree health insurance. There are two possible scenarios, and I'll call them, for the sake of convenience, Scenario 1 and Scenario 2.
In Scenario 1, Employee A retires and the district hires Employee B to take her place. B is likely younger and less experienced, so his cost to taxpayers is less. Let's say a salary of just $45,000 and benefits proportionally reduced to about $30,000. So his cost to taxpayers is $75,000. Throw in the cost of A's retirement health insurance, and the total cost now is up to $88,000. Yippee! The district is saving $12,000 over the cost of paying just A while she was working.
In Scenario 2, Employee A retires but gets hired back at her old salary. That's $65,000, plus some payroll taxes (about $5,000) and the retiree health insurance. But nothing else--because she's retired, she gets none of the other benefits of being an employee--no pension contributions, no sick days, no dental or life insurance. That's a grand total of $83,000--for a savings of $17,000 over pre-retirement, and an additional savings over hiring a new guy as her replacement. Yippee times two!
Indeed, when you look at an actual case, not just numbers made up for the sake of easy math, this is what you get--savings. North Lake, a subject of that article, is one district Belling was on about lately, yet the administrators of the district note that the one "double-dipper" saves money: Her "compensation package--$58,746 in all--was less expensive than a new teacher's would have been"--and $16,000 less than what North Lake says a new hire would cost. The same is true for the spark that lit this thing, the administrator up in Green Bay. Unless the person they hired to replace him got 2/3 or less of the first guy's salary--unlikely, let's be honest there--paying him his salary but not any bennies saves UW-GB money.
Now in Used-to-be-Land, Republicans and wingnuts liked saving taxpayer money. Word is they still do. But you know what impulse is stronger? Hating public employees. So rather than embrace the position that saves money, they look at the situation and all they see is public employees--those god-damned teachers--taking both a salary and a pension at the same time and they can't stand it. It is much better, in wingnut-land Wisconsin, to hate on the public employee than to celebrate the tax savings.
Remember, opposing this double-dipping is a union position from way back. If Republicans are coming around to it, it can only be because their spite is so strong.
by folkbum
Today's topic: "double-dipping." The competing Wisconsin wingnut values: reflexive anti-tax advocacy vs. personal animus against gubmint workers.
Back in the olden days, when I used to be more involved in my union, we hated what the folks are now calling "double-dipping." This is when my (or any) school district would hire a retired individual to fill a job opening. The union's position was that this was artificially limiting opportunities for active union members and artificially keeping potential new union members out of a job. It worked out for the employees, though, because they could draw both a paycheck and their pension, and that was pretty sweet.
Republicans have finally come around to believe in this union-supported position, with legislators trying to ban the practice. Righty talk-show babblers--notably, Mark Belling--have been apoplectic over the issue for weeks. And the wingnut commentariat are out for blood against double-dippers.
There are two reasons why a school--and it's always schools, people, at least in the wingnut imagination--would hire a retiree to fill an open position. One is if there are no qualified applicants to fill the open spot. Better to have a retiree who knows what she's doing than a substitute (for classroom spots) or a novice administrator who would take too long to get up to speed.
The second is to save taxpayer money. It goes like this:
Say we have a teacher, let's call her Employee A. She's ready to retire. For the ease of math, let's say the cost of employing her is $100,000. She's got a $65,000 salary, with $35,000 in benefits, including a $20,000 health insurance package, pension (12% of salary), payroll taxes (8% of salary), and some other stuff like dental and life insurance. If she retires, she's eligible for retiree health insurance that covers, say, 2/3 of the cost of the plan, but that's the only taxpayer cost upon her retirement. (If she's old enough to qualify for Medicare, that cost may not even be there.)
Don't taxpayers pay her pension?, I hear you asking. True, we do, but we pay for her pension while she's working. No new tax dollars are required to pay her pension upon her retirement. It's already paid for; the money is there in the award-winning Wisconsin Retirement System, and she is paid from those funds already collected. (In their defense of double-dipping at the daily paper the other day, William J. Holahan and Charles O. Kroncke did a really crappy job explaining this, which is why you get letters to the editor from the wingnut contingent who insist that the pension payouts cost taxpayers in real time.)
So, cost of Employee A as she works: $100,000. Cost of Employee A when she retires: $13,000, for that retiree health insurance. There are two possible scenarios, and I'll call them, for the sake of convenience, Scenario 1 and Scenario 2.
In Scenario 1, Employee A retires and the district hires Employee B to take her place. B is likely younger and less experienced, so his cost to taxpayers is less. Let's say a salary of just $45,000 and benefits proportionally reduced to about $30,000. So his cost to taxpayers is $75,000. Throw in the cost of A's retirement health insurance, and the total cost now is up to $88,000. Yippee! The district is saving $12,000 over the cost of paying just A while she was working.
In Scenario 2, Employee A retires but gets hired back at her old salary. That's $65,000, plus some payroll taxes (about $5,000) and the retiree health insurance. But nothing else--because she's retired, she gets none of the other benefits of being an employee--no pension contributions, no sick days, no dental or life insurance. That's a grand total of $83,000--for a savings of $17,000 over pre-retirement, and an additional savings over hiring a new guy as her replacement. Yippee times two!
Indeed, when you look at an actual case, not just numbers made up for the sake of easy math, this is what you get--savings. North Lake, a subject of that article, is one district Belling was on about lately, yet the administrators of the district note that the one "double-dipper" saves money: Her "compensation package--$58,746 in all--was less expensive than a new teacher's would have been"--and $16,000 less than what North Lake says a new hire would cost. The same is true for the spark that lit this thing, the administrator up in Green Bay. Unless the person they hired to replace him got 2/3 or less of the first guy's salary--unlikely, let's be honest there--paying him his salary but not any bennies saves UW-GB money.
Now in Used-to-be-Land, Republicans and wingnuts liked saving taxpayer money. Word is they still do. But you know what impulse is stronger? Hating public employees. So rather than embrace the position that saves money, they look at the situation and all they see is public employees--those god-damned teachers--taking both a salary and a pension at the same time and they can't stand it. It is much better, in wingnut-land Wisconsin, to hate on the public employee than to celebrate the tax savings.
Remember, opposing this double-dipping is a union position from way back. If Republicans are coming around to it, it can only be because their spite is so strong.
Thursday, November 17, 2011
Response to WASDA study sad, stupid spin
by folkbum
It's been, oh what's the word for it, interesting to read responses to the WASD survey out a week ago. Almost all the criticism of the survey--and, recall, this is a survey of quantifiable, confirmable data, not whether people's feelings are hurt--flows directly from the officialWalker campaign memo Governor's office press release (pdf) last week.
That response, if I may paraphrase, was mostly Well, the whole sky didn't fall down so #winning! (My pop culture jokes may not be timely, but at least they're trite.)
No, seriously. Here's one direct quote from the Walker response: "67% of districts for grades 4-6 are keeping the same class size or decreasing." So, yes, a lot of districts were able to stave off disaster in this area but, you know, a full third didn't. And they're all like that.
The most prevalent of the criticisms is this: "Milwaukee, Kenosha, and Janesville school districts account for 67% of teacher layoffs for the entire state." This line of "leave out Milwaukee" was evident in the critique by Esenberg ("hatchet job" is his headline) for example, who typed out that "a huge percentage of reduction in force came in Milwaukee. The DPI uses this to maximize the extent of the cuts when it chooses to present statistics on the number of students who attend a district in which something has happened."
The implication being that if those three districts were removed from the data, everything would look grand. So let's do that--remove those three from the data. What do we get?
In the original survey, including Milwaukee, Kenosha, and Janesville, the percentage of districts eliminating teachers was 64%. Of 349 non-Milwaukee, Kenosha, or Janseville districts responding to the survey, 224 reported cutting teacher positions for this school year, or .... drum roll .... 64%. Here it is in a picture:
The black Xes are the districts you can safely ignore because they so obviously screw up the data so much, what with no other parts of the state being red, apparently, according to the WASDA critics.
And including MPS, Kenosha, and Janesville in the stats do not significantly skew the data, contra Esenberg. Let's do a bit of a thought experiment and imagine that these districts had fully appliedthe lash Walker's "tools." Since 59% of districts in the survey with no binding contracts laid off teachers, odds are good that these districts would have still cut teaching positions. Indeed, if MPS had gotten concessions from teachers--as I argued the union should have acceded to--more than 400 teaching positions would still have been cut, though half of them through attrition rather than layoff.
(An additional bit of math: If you assume that all the remaining 73 districts that didn't respond to the survey were not under contract, and assume that they all bucked the trend and did not lay off teachers, you still have 44% of out-of-contract districts statewide laying off teachers. But that's based on two unsupported and unlikely assumptions, meaning the real percentage is likely higher. Note: I used Erin Richards's "about two-thirds" estimate for how many Wisconsin districts were not under contract.)
But perhaps the most pernicious of the critiques of the WASDA survey is this: The survey, the story goes, shows that the "reforms" are working.
How do they claim that? One made a graph, because apparently when school districts follow the law that forces them to reduce their levy, it's visualizable news.
It's usually wrapped in the guise of "we didn't have mass layoffs and still balanced the budget!" The afore-mentioned Esenberg shoveled that here, for example, and it's in pretty much every other response. But this requires you to believe that 7,700 fewer state and local workers (pdf) is not "mass layoffs."
It also requires you to believe the budget is balanced. Or, as Esenberg writes at that link, "For the first time in years, Wisconsin has a budget that wasn't balanced by borrowing from Peter to pay Paul and through smoke-and-mirrors accounting." Which would be true if it weren't false: "In fact, the document shows that based on GAAP accounting, the state would have been left with a deficit of $3 billion by 2012-13 under Walker's budget. That compares to the $2.9 billion GAAP deficit he inherited at the end of Doyle's term, the state's financial statements show."
In the end, the spin and lies are just disheartening. I mean, your taxpayer dollars could have paid an art teacher. Instead, they paid for this sentence from the Governor's office about the WASDA study: "According to the results of the survey released last week, the school districts that responded and utilized the reforms put in place earlier this year mostly either stayed the same or were able to improve the educational opportunities available to their students." In order for this to be true, "mostly" would have to be redefined to about 40%, two out of five, less than half. Because the 59% of school districts that responded and utilized the "reforms" still made cuts.
To sum up: The best responses are absurd or patently false. Your modern WisGOP, everybody. Absurd, patently false.
It's been, oh what's the word for it, interesting to read responses to the WASD survey out a week ago. Almost all the criticism of the survey--and, recall, this is a survey of quantifiable, confirmable data, not whether people's feelings are hurt--flows directly from the official
That response, if I may paraphrase, was mostly Well, the whole sky didn't fall down so #winning! (My pop culture jokes may not be timely, but at least they're trite.)
No, seriously. Here's one direct quote from the Walker response: "67% of districts for grades 4-6 are keeping the same class size or decreasing." So, yes, a lot of districts were able to stave off disaster in this area but, you know, a full third didn't. And they're all like that.
The most prevalent of the criticisms is this: "Milwaukee, Kenosha, and Janesville school districts account for 67% of teacher layoffs for the entire state." This line of "leave out Milwaukee" was evident in the critique by Esenberg ("hatchet job" is his headline) for example, who typed out that "a huge percentage of reduction in force came in Milwaukee. The DPI uses this to maximize the extent of the cuts when it chooses to present statistics on the number of students who attend a district in which something has happened."
The implication being that if those three districts were removed from the data, everything would look grand. So let's do that--remove those three from the data. What do we get?
In the original survey, including Milwaukee, Kenosha, and Janesville, the percentage of districts eliminating teachers was 64%. Of 349 non-Milwaukee, Kenosha, or Janseville districts responding to the survey, 224 reported cutting teacher positions for this school year, or .... drum roll .... 64%. Here it is in a picture:
The black Xes are the districts you can safely ignore because they so obviously screw up the data so much, what with no other parts of the state being red, apparently, according to the WASDA critics.
And including MPS, Kenosha, and Janesville in the stats do not significantly skew the data, contra Esenberg. Let's do a bit of a thought experiment and imagine that these districts had fully applied
(An additional bit of math: If you assume that all the remaining 73 districts that didn't respond to the survey were not under contract, and assume that they all bucked the trend and did not lay off teachers, you still have 44% of out-of-contract districts statewide laying off teachers. But that's based on two unsupported and unlikely assumptions, meaning the real percentage is likely higher. Note: I used Erin Richards's "about two-thirds" estimate for how many Wisconsin districts were not under contract.)
But perhaps the most pernicious of the critiques of the WASDA survey is this: The survey, the story goes, shows that the "reforms" are working.
How do they claim that? One made a graph, because apparently when school districts follow the law that forces them to reduce their levy, it's visualizable news.
It's usually wrapped in the guise of "we didn't have mass layoffs and still balanced the budget!" The afore-mentioned Esenberg shoveled that here, for example, and it's in pretty much every other response. But this requires you to believe that 7,700 fewer state and local workers (pdf) is not "mass layoffs."
It also requires you to believe the budget is balanced. Or, as Esenberg writes at that link, "For the first time in years, Wisconsin has a budget that wasn't balanced by borrowing from Peter to pay Paul and through smoke-and-mirrors accounting." Which would be true if it weren't false: "In fact, the document shows that based on GAAP accounting, the state would have been left with a deficit of $3 billion by 2012-13 under Walker's budget. That compares to the $2.9 billion GAAP deficit he inherited at the end of Doyle's term, the state's financial statements show."
In the end, the spin and lies are just disheartening. I mean, your taxpayer dollars could have paid an art teacher. Instead, they paid for this sentence from the Governor's office about the WASDA study: "According to the results of the survey released last week, the school districts that responded and utilized the reforms put in place earlier this year mostly either stayed the same or were able to improve the educational opportunities available to their students." In order for this to be true, "mostly" would have to be redefined to about 40%, two out of five, less than half. Because the 59% of school districts that responded and utilized the "reforms" still made cuts.
To sum up: The best responses are absurd or patently false. Your modern WisGOP, everybody. Absurd, patently false.
Thursday, November 10, 2011
The most important table in today's WASDA survey
by folkbum
I got the survey report last night (thanks, Anonymous Source!) and was told it was embargoed until after this morning's press conference. But the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel has gone ahead and made it available to everyone (pdf), as it accompanies their story this morning, so I'm hitting publish now instead of later.
It's a survey of school district administrators--and this is an annual thing, so don't think that this is something new propagated by anti-Walker forces--that shows hiring trends, program availability, class sizes, and so on.
The key part of the survey for me, though it's not mentioned in Tom Tolan's write-up, is that it does account for whether school districts were bound by contract extensions or instead had full access to the "tools" that Walker and Republicans claimed would help schools balance their budgets without cutting staff or programs. The survey's finding? "Differences between districts that had contracts compared to those without union contracts were not statistically significant." In table form (click to embiggen):
The report shows that in or out of contract, most districts cut positions and that, in fact, districts without contracts saw higher student-teacher ratios as well as a faster increase in the student-teacher ratios. In other words, the districts with the greatest flexibility to use Walker's "tools" were the districts with the largest and fastest-growing class sizes.
This graph also kills me:
That's the three-year trend for job losses in Wisconsin schools. Combined with predictions from districts that next year's cuts will be as deep or deeper, we're looking at 10,000 jobs lost in public education between 2009 and 2013. That's just devastating.
I got the survey report last night (thanks, Anonymous Source!) and was told it was embargoed until after this morning's press conference. But the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel has gone ahead and made it available to everyone (pdf), as it accompanies their story this morning, so I'm hitting publish now instead of later.
It's a survey of school district administrators--and this is an annual thing, so don't think that this is something new propagated by anti-Walker forces--that shows hiring trends, program availability, class sizes, and so on.
The key part of the survey for me, though it's not mentioned in Tom Tolan's write-up, is that it does account for whether school districts were bound by contract extensions or instead had full access to the "tools" that Walker and Republicans claimed would help schools balance their budgets without cutting staff or programs. The survey's finding? "Differences between districts that had contracts compared to those without union contracts were not statistically significant." In table form (click to embiggen):
The report shows that in or out of contract, most districts cut positions and that, in fact, districts without contracts saw higher student-teacher ratios as well as a faster increase in the student-teacher ratios. In other words, the districts with the greatest flexibility to use Walker's "tools" were the districts with the largest and fastest-growing class sizes.
This graph also kills me:
That's the three-year trend for job losses in Wisconsin schools. Combined with predictions from districts that next year's cuts will be as deep or deeper, we're looking at 10,000 jobs lost in public education between 2009 and 2013. That's just devastating.
Tuesday, September 20, 2011
Milwaukee parents choosing public schools, still
by folkbum
Third Friday, the big student-count day, just passed in Wisconsin. The state's Republicans, led by Governor Scott Walker and legislators like Alberta Darling, did everything they could to make the Milwaukee Public Schools a less-attractive choice: blowing out the enrollment cap and income requirements for the voucher program, expanding charter school options, gutting the MPS budget and pitting its teachers against its community. The prediction was MPS would lose between four and five thousand kids, or a 5% drop.
Reality? According to Board member Meagan Holman--I haven't seen this in the news yet--the total drop in enrollment was a mere 1%, about 800 students, which is actually low by recent trends.
Remarkably, Milwaukee's parents have seen the attacks on public education directed at us from Madison and AM radio and decided to stay. Good for them--and good for the schools, which find themselves in a better financial position than expected.
Third Friday, the big student-count day, just passed in Wisconsin. The state's Republicans, led by Governor Scott Walker and legislators like Alberta Darling, did everything they could to make the Milwaukee Public Schools a less-attractive choice: blowing out the enrollment cap and income requirements for the voucher program, expanding charter school options, gutting the MPS budget and pitting its teachers against its community. The prediction was MPS would lose between four and five thousand kids, or a 5% drop.
Reality? According to Board member Meagan Holman--I haven't seen this in the news yet--the total drop in enrollment was a mere 1%, about 800 students, which is actually low by recent trends.
Remarkably, Milwaukee's parents have seen the attacks on public education directed at us from Madison and AM radio and decided to stay. Good for them--and good for the schools, which find themselves in a better financial position than expected.
Tuesday, September 13, 2011
They ruin everything
by folkbum
Seriously, if there's going to be a GOP debate every other day between now and January, I will never be able to read twitter again.
After watching this summary, I feel relatively secure in knowing that while I watched last night's "Eureka" about wormholing an android with a crush on a sentient robot house onto Saturn's moon Titan, I was watching a program far more grounded in reality than any one of these yahoos.
Seriously, if there's going to be a GOP debate every other day between now and January, I will never be able to read twitter again.
After watching this summary, I feel relatively secure in knowing that while I watched last night's "Eureka" about wormholing an android with a crush on a sentient robot house onto Saturn's moon Titan, I was watching a program far more grounded in reality than any one of these yahoos.
Thursday, September 08, 2011
An Open Letter Concerning the United States Senate
To: Chris Chocola, Club for Growth
The Honorable Jim DeMint, junior Senator from the Great State of South Carolina
It is with great disappointment that we have learned of the efforts of some conservatives on the national level to try to dictate to Wisconsin conservatives their choice for the United States Senate seat being vacated by Democratic Senator Herb Kohl. This is a tremendous opportunity for Wisconsinites to elect a second conservative senator worthy of being able to self-fund a campaign (at least until the unseemly outside contributions can be tallied and repaid) and one that Wisconsin conservatives will take very, very, very, very seriously. This is not only a choice of ideology and of who looks best in a tri-corn hat while eating a cream puff, but one of character, charisma and compassion, and it is our responsibility to bring Mark Neumann’s lack of those attributes to your attention.
We do not question Neumann’s past contributions to conservatism while he was a Congressman. He has been a reliable voice for intemperance, profligacy and sabre-rattling and understands that any notions of good policy making should be flexible depending on the occupancy of the White House. Still his actions during last year’s campaign are completely unbecoming of a conservative candidate. He had the temerity to tell the Badger State the actual truth about his opponent, to expose Scott Walker for a hollow fraud, a charlatan and a corporate shill, the very characteristics that endear him to us all.
We respectfully request the national conservative groups and individuals to take a second look at their endorsement of Neumann and at Tom Coburn’s choice in suits. We ask that, since many of them were so busy at clean-coal seminars, tanning sessions in the Seychelles, Climate Change is Good for Business golf outings and buy-policy-now ALEC fundraisers that, they missed the opportunity to come to Wisconsin during the recent battles over collective bargaining for state employees, the gutting of civil service protections, kowtowing to roadbuilders, polluters and Gadsden Flag sewers and the recall elections, that they buy a freakin’ map and come to Wisconsin now to talk to true Wisconsin conservatives to find out what they think of Neumann before attempting to foist their choice upon Wisconsin. Let our 2012 motto be heard throughout the land, “No foisting without confabulation!”
We do not write this under direction or duress from any candidate, potential candidate, or candidate’s campaign. We write this as a bald-faced attempt to remain relevant in an age of corporate-funded proto-news organizations and under the knowledge that, as the primary for United State Senate commences in earnest, we will likely go our separate ways and support any number of candidates according to fashion, whim, or cosmic message in the entrails of a broken dream. That is our right as Americans, to make sure that the voice of the truly deluded rings free in the hallowed halls of think tanks across the land.
If the past election in Wisconsin has shown national conservatives anything, it is to trust in the faith of Badger State conservative activists. We had the foresight to supply the movement with current leaders and rock stars like Robert Welch, Joe McCarthy, Gordon Roseleip, Jeff Wood, Tom Reynolds, Randy Hopper, David Vanderleest, Hair Model Paul Ryan, Former Reality Star Sean Duffy, Recall Target Scott Walker, U.S. Senate Placeholder Ron Johnson, and even Republican National Committee Chairman Reince “Marginally Better than Michael Steele” Priebus. We assure you, there are plenty more where they came from. There is no shortage of candidates of this quality in Wisconsin. By allowing us to commit character assassination for you prior to the primary, there is no limit to the depth of the field of conservatives we might dredge up.
Don’t limit the choice of candidates too early in the game just based on past successes with Neumann. A Fred Thompson might yet emerge for us to find fault with.
Thank you,
(The Undersigned)
Jay Bullock
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Lisa Mux
Waukesha Wonk
6 months in the trenches of Waukesha
The Honorable Jim DeMint, junior Senator from the Great State of South Carolina
It is with great disappointment that we have learned of the efforts of some conservatives on the national level to try to dictate to Wisconsin conservatives their choice for the United States Senate seat being vacated by Democratic Senator Herb Kohl. This is a tremendous opportunity for Wisconsinites to elect a second conservative senator worthy of being able to self-fund a campaign (at least until the unseemly outside contributions can be tallied and repaid) and one that Wisconsin conservatives will take very, very, very, very seriously. This is not only a choice of ideology and of who looks best in a tri-corn hat while eating a cream puff, but one of character, charisma and compassion, and it is our responsibility to bring Mark Neumann’s lack of those attributes to your attention.
We do not question Neumann’s past contributions to conservatism while he was a Congressman. He has been a reliable voice for intemperance, profligacy and sabre-rattling and understands that any notions of good policy making should be flexible depending on the occupancy of the White House. Still his actions during last year’s campaign are completely unbecoming of a conservative candidate. He had the temerity to tell the Badger State the actual truth about his opponent, to expose Scott Walker for a hollow fraud, a charlatan and a corporate shill, the very characteristics that endear him to us all.
We respectfully request the national conservative groups and individuals to take a second look at their endorsement of Neumann and at Tom Coburn’s choice in suits. We ask that, since many of them were so busy at clean-coal seminars, tanning sessions in the Seychelles, Climate Change is Good for Business golf outings and buy-policy-now ALEC fundraisers that, they missed the opportunity to come to Wisconsin during the recent battles over collective bargaining for state employees, the gutting of civil service protections, kowtowing to roadbuilders, polluters and Gadsden Flag sewers and the recall elections, that they buy a freakin’ map and come to Wisconsin now to talk to true Wisconsin conservatives to find out what they think of Neumann before attempting to foist their choice upon Wisconsin. Let our 2012 motto be heard throughout the land, “No foisting without confabulation!”
We do not write this under direction or duress from any candidate, potential candidate, or candidate’s campaign. We write this as a bald-faced attempt to remain relevant in an age of corporate-funded proto-news organizations and under the knowledge that, as the primary for United State Senate commences in earnest, we will likely go our separate ways and support any number of candidates according to fashion, whim, or cosmic message in the entrails of a broken dream. That is our right as Americans, to make sure that the voice of the truly deluded rings free in the hallowed halls of think tanks across the land.
If the past election in Wisconsin has shown national conservatives anything, it is to trust in the faith of Badger State conservative activists. We had the foresight to supply the movement with current leaders and rock stars like Robert Welch, Joe McCarthy, Gordon Roseleip, Jeff Wood, Tom Reynolds, Randy Hopper, David Vanderleest, Hair Model Paul Ryan, Former Reality Star Sean Duffy, Recall Target Scott Walker, U.S. Senate Placeholder Ron Johnson, and even Republican National Committee Chairman Reince “Marginally Better than Michael Steele” Priebus. We assure you, there are plenty more where they came from. There is no shortage of candidates of this quality in Wisconsin. By allowing us to commit character assassination for you prior to the primary, there is no limit to the depth of the field of conservatives we might dredge up.
Don’t limit the choice of candidates too early in the game just based on past successes with Neumann. A Fred Thompson might yet emerge for us to find fault with.
Thank you,
(The Undersigned)
Jay Bullock
folkbum's rambles and rants
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Lisa Mux
Waukesha Wonk
6 months in the trenches of Waukesha
Monday, August 15, 2011
Buffet Buzz
By Keith R. Schmitz
Warren Buffet's op-ed in this morning's New York Times -- Stop Coddling the Super Rich -- has been burning up twitter since it appeared last night on-line, being tweeted 37,000 times. This makes both the title and its author trending topics all day long.
Looks like the Tea Party and anyone else who supports sacrifices on the altar of trickle down economics have run out of arguments, except of course this guy who has no idea about what he's talking about.
Saturday, August 13, 2011
Iowa Straw Poll
by folkbum
Just moments ago, President Romney called Michele Bachmann to congratulate her on her straw poll win.
Now on to the important stuff: How many games ahead in their division will the Brewers be at the end of the season?
Just moments ago, President Romney called Michele Bachmann to congratulate her on her straw poll win.
Now on to the important stuff: How many games ahead in their division will the Brewers be at the end of the season?
Monday, July 25, 2011
Today's debt ceiling conundrum
by folkbum
While the conservatives in my comments section are busily prattling on about how Obama is a front for the Chi-coms, or something, here's where we are today. Dem Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is proposing a debt-ceiling deal that gives Republicans everything they have asked for including things they agreed to in the Biden talks and voted for in the Ryan Budget. Yet GOP House Speaker John Boehner is putting forward a plan that is the single thing that Obama has said he couldn't support--a short-term deal that forces us through all of this again in four months.
This is my question for anyone who likes what Republicans are up to: How is it possible to support a party whose sole purpose anymore seems literally to be saying no to anything Democrats propose, even when those proposals are exactly what Republicans say they want?
While the conservatives in my comments section are busily prattling on about how Obama is a front for the Chi-coms, or something, here's where we are today. Dem Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is proposing a debt-ceiling deal that gives Republicans everything they have asked for including things they agreed to in the Biden talks and voted for in the Ryan Budget. Yet GOP House Speaker John Boehner is putting forward a plan that is the single thing that Obama has said he couldn't support--a short-term deal that forces us through all of this again in four months.
This is my question for anyone who likes what Republicans are up to: How is it possible to support a party whose sole purpose anymore seems literally to be saying no to anything Democrats propose, even when those proposals are exactly what Republicans say they want?
Saturday, July 23, 2011
America's going Galt
by folkbum
I found this list of things that will happen immediately upon passing the debt ceiling deadline August 2 interesting, as it apparently comprises the full list of what makes Ayn Rand's America great:
The easy answer, obviously, is the kind of clean debt-ceiling vote that has happened 80-something times in the last 90 years, including many times that Eric Cantor, John Boehner, Paul Ryan and the rest of the GOP Randroid caucus uncomplainingly approved. It would take five minutes.
The less easy answer is to take advantage of the fact that real interest on government debt right now is negative: We can more than take a clean vote, but do a whole additional stimulus, which can simply be a big payday to struggling states (or interest-free loans to struggling states). This is also a no-brainer, which make it kind of ironic that the GOP will never let it happen.
I found this list of things that will happen immediately upon passing the debt ceiling deadline August 2 interesting, as it apparently comprises the full list of what makes Ayn Rand's America great:
• You just cut the IRS and all the accountants at Treasury, which means that the actual revenue you have to spend is $0.And, even better, Ayn Rand's America stops sending all aid to states, so within a month or so after the shutdown, everything from schools to hospitals to public safety folds up, too. It will be awesome!
• The nation's nuclear arsenal is no longer being watched or maintained
• The doors of federal prisons have been thrown open, because none of the guards will work without being paid, and the vendors will not deliver food, medical supplies, electricity, etc.
• The border control stations are entirely unmanned, so anyone who can buy a plane ticket, or stroll across the Mexican border, is entering the country. All the illegal immigrants currently in detention are released, since we don't have the money to put them on a plane, and we cannot actually simply leave them in a cell without electricity, sanitation, or food to see what happens.
• All of our troops stationed abroad quickly run out of electricity or fuel. Many of them are sitting in a desert with billions worth of equipment, and no way to get themselves or their equipment back to the US.
• Our embassies are no longer operating, which will make things difficult for foreign travelers
• No federal emergency assistance, or help fighting things like wildfires or floods. Sorry, tornado people! Sorry, wildfire victims! Try to live in the northeast next time!
• Housing projects shut down, and Section 8 vouchers are not paid. Families hit the streets.
• The money your local school district was expecting at the October 1 commencement of the 2012 fiscal year does not materialize, making it unclear who's going to be teaching your kids without a special property tax assessment.
• The market for guaranteed student loans plunges into chaos. Hope your kid wasn't going to college this year!
• The mortgage market evaporates. Hope you didn't need to buy or sell a house!
• The FDIC and the PBGC suddenly don't have a government backstop for their funds, which has all sorts of interesting implications for your bank account.
• The TSA shuts down. Yay! But don't worry about terrorist attacks, you TSA-lovers, because air traffic control shut down too. Hope you don't have a vacation planned in August, much less any work travel.
• Unemployment money is no longer going to the states, which means that pretty soon, it won't be going to the unemployed people.
The easy answer, obviously, is the kind of clean debt-ceiling vote that has happened 80-something times in the last 90 years, including many times that Eric Cantor, John Boehner, Paul Ryan and the rest of the GOP Randroid caucus uncomplainingly approved. It would take five minutes.
The less easy answer is to take advantage of the fact that real interest on government debt right now is negative: We can more than take a clean vote, but do a whole additional stimulus, which can simply be a big payday to struggling states (or interest-free loans to struggling states). This is also a no-brainer, which make it kind of ironic that the GOP will never let it happen.
Tuesday, July 05, 2011
But those mooching teachers have it way too good
by folkbum
Alternatively, you could put it this way: The political right weeps for a family living beyond its means in Naperville, IL (notably pleading to keep their taxes low, not suggesting they move to Aurora), but insists that we cut Medicare before the debt monster kills us all.
The bottom line: It’s not exactly easy street for our $250,000-a-year family.Seriously, that's the conflicting message of the political right these days: It's possible to be near poverty at a quarter mil a year, but that uppity mid-career teacher needs a 12% cut off her $45k salary.
Alternatively, you could put it this way: The political right weeps for a family living beyond its means in Naperville, IL (notably pleading to keep their taxes low, not suggesting they move to Aurora), but insists that we cut Medicare before the debt monster kills us all.
Tuesday, June 07, 2011
Shorter WISGOP
by folkbum
Delaying tactics for extra time to put together a campaign, good; delaying tactics for extra time to explain what's really in the "budget repair bill," call out the state troopers!
Delaying tactics for extra time to put together a campaign, good; delaying tactics for extra time to explain what's really in the "budget repair bill," call out the state troopers!
Monday, June 06, 2011
McIlheran Watch: Vacation's over, time to start up the hypocrisy machine again
by folkbum
You know how it is: You come back from vacation, and the grass is up to here, weeds all over the place, papers piled up on the porch because you forgot to put it on hold. Patrick McIlheran, serial calumnist for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, finds a similar situation upon his return. See, the Republicans, the party for whom McIlheran usually shills, did something anathema over his vacation--they raised taxes!--and he needs to justify it, which he did both in print and on his blawg. (For a description of why the legislative action is a tax increase, read the news story.)
But it's okay, people, he tells us, that the GOP is cutting the Earned Income Tax Credit, a tax credit designed, as McIlheran freely admits, to encourage poor people to work more by offsetting their payroll or other taxes.
Why is it okay? Because of all the tax cuts in the budget. No, really, he says this. From the Sundaycalumny column:tax cut work-inducing incentive? Elimination of taxes on certain capital gains for businesses. I'm actually quite surprised that McIlheran didn't go on about the other business tax breaks the GOP has included in its budget, like the one slipped in Friday night that gives businesses a dollar-for-dollar tax break ... just because. At least with the cut in reinvested capital gains, the GOP is pretending to pick breaks that sound reasonable to your average person. But so many of them are just give-aways to corporate donors.
This is your modern GOP in a nutshell: In a time of deficit, tax breaks for the poor are simply impossible to maintain. But tax breaks for business can continue, and we'll throw in new ones, too.
You know how it is: You come back from vacation, and the grass is up to here, weeds all over the place, papers piled up on the porch because you forgot to put it on hold. Patrick McIlheran, serial calumnist for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, finds a similar situation upon his return. See, the Republicans, the party for whom McIlheran usually shills, did something anathema over his vacation--they raised taxes!--and he needs to justify it, which he did both in print and on his blawg. (For a description of why the legislative action is a tax increase, read the news story.)
But it's okay, people, he tells us, that the GOP is cutting the Earned Income Tax Credit, a tax credit designed, as McIlheran freely admits, to encourage poor people to work more by offsetting their payroll or other taxes.
Why is it okay? Because of all the tax cuts in the budget. No, really, he says this. From the Sunday
Walker and the Legislature, short of money, decided to cut by 15% one work-inducing incentive and to increase another they reckon will be more effective.And what was that other
This is your modern GOP in a nutshell: In a time of deficit, tax breaks for the poor are simply impossible to maintain. But tax breaks for business can continue, and we'll throw in new ones, too.
Friday, March 25, 2011
The GOP can't help but bully
by folkbum
Among the big news stories of the day yesterday (sorry, Badgers), you may have missed this nugget: UW-Madison Professor William Cronon, who penned an op-ed for the New York Times last week that walked through the history of Wisconsin's public employee unions and the GOP's critical role in expanding their rights, is getting FOIA-bullied:
Cronon also sees a likely attempt to paint him as "a wild-eyed union ideologue completely out of touch with the true interests of the citizens and taxpayers of Wisconsin," all for a couple of fact-laden pieces of writing that call into question GOP motives and remind the GOP of how deeply it, rather than Cronon, has abandoned Wisconsin and our traditions.
Cronon, for his part, is not taking this lying down, as he clearly prefers not to be a tool for the WISGOP or facilitate their attempt to bully an enemy into silence or out of a job.
The rest of us, however, need also to be on our toes about this sort of thing. Wisconsin's Republicans are clearly not afraid of trying everything in their power to shut down their critics--whether it's literally shutting the doors of the state capital or cyber-bullying anyone who speaks out against them. All the more reason to oppose the radical GOP agenda .
Among the big news stories of the day yesterday (sorry, Badgers), you may have missed this nugget: UW-Madison Professor William Cronon, who penned an op-ed for the New York Times last week that walked through the history of Wisconsin's public employee unions and the GOP's critical role in expanding their rights, is getting FOIA-bullied:
About a week before that [op-ed], [Cronon] wrote a blog post--the first in a new blog called Scholar as Citizen--examining just who's behind this big anti-union push. He focused on a group called ALEC (The American Legislative Exchange Council).Cronon, who says he's never been a member of a political party and often takes the conservative side in debates with his friends and colleagues, knows exactly what's the dilly, yo:
Now, so far, nothing particularly controversial about any of this. But then it took a dark turn. Or perhaps better to say, then the story got into gear with everything else we've seen out of the Walker administration over the last three months.
Less than two days after Cronon published the blog post, the Wisconsin Republican Party filed a state open records request to gain access to Cronon's personal emails to get a look at what communications or discussions or sources or anything else went into writing it.
The narrative they would like to spin about me seems pretty clear from the search terms they’ve included in their open records request. For instance, they name eleven politicians in that request. [. . .] It’s these eight names, in combination with a search for emails containing the words “Republican” and “recall,” that [WISGOP thug Stephan] Thompson is hoping he can use to prove that Bill Cronon has been engaging in illegal use of state emails to lobby for recall elections designed to defeat Republicans who voted for the Governor’s Budget Repair Bill.This is a threat against Cronon's job--as any such political activism on his part via his state-provided UW email account would be a potential violation of the law and could easily lead to Cronin's termination.
Cronon also sees a likely attempt to paint him as "a wild-eyed union ideologue completely out of touch with the true interests of the citizens and taxpayers of Wisconsin," all for a couple of fact-laden pieces of writing that call into question GOP motives and remind the GOP of how deeply it, rather than Cronon, has abandoned Wisconsin and our traditions.
Cronon, for his part, is not taking this lying down, as he clearly prefers not to be a tool for the WISGOP or facilitate their attempt to bully an enemy into silence or out of a job.
The rest of us, however, need also to be on our toes about this sort of thing. Wisconsin's Republicans are clearly not afraid of trying everything in their power to shut down their critics--whether it's literally shutting the doors of the state capital or cyber-bullying anyone who speaks out against them. All the more reason to oppose the radical GOP agenda .
Thursday, February 24, 2011
Quote of the Day: Finding root causes for the anger
by folkbum
There's a reason why people like Ellen Bravo do this sort of thing professionally, and I just have a blog:
But the full brunt of these companies' strife is being borne not by the CEOs calling the (sometimes wrong) shots, or the shareholders who opted for the risk of investing in companies that produce luxury goods. Rather, the brunt is being borne by workers who, especially in corporate towns like Kohler and Fond du Lac, are just trying to feed their families.
In the last election, Sheboygan and Fond du Lac Counties, home to Kohler and Mercury, voted overwhelmingly for Walker, whose solution to their woes is apparently to finally stop those bloodsucking UW teaching assistants from having a union.
This bears repeating: While it is true that the broader economy has an unemployment rate of 10%, the wealthy are doing fine: Bankster pay is up, stocks are about as high as they've been in the last decade, corporate profits are at all-time highs, companies are sitting on billions in cash reserves (while not paying their small-business supply chains), and corporate and top-tier tax rates are at generational lows.
Scott Walker wants to reward--indeed, has already started rewarding--all those doing so well with additional tax breaks. He wants to take everyone else and extract sacrifice.
The resentment formerly middle-class folks feel is real and palpable and fully justified. But directing it at the people who collect garbage, teach children, and care for our grandparents is ridiculous.
There's a reason why people like Ellen Bravo do this sort of thing professionally, and I just have a blog:
Mercury Marine of Fond du Lac had profits of $1.1 billion from 2000-'07. During that time, it paid nothing in corporate income taxes to our state. The New York Times highlighted Harley last summer as one of the companies finding "surging profits in deeper cuts." As the article pointed out, the benefits of those profits "are mostly going to shareholders instead of the broader economy." [. . .]We have been in an economic downturn, this "Great Recession" of ours. Mercury, Harley, and to a lesser extent Kohler--which has also settled with its unions offering workers a much crappier (no pun intended) deal--all make luxury products, and when the economy recesses, fewer people buy luxury products. You'd expect to see some strife at those companies.
For illusionists like [Wisconsin Gov. Scott] Walker, here's the trick: State politicians give tax incentives and other breaks to large corporations that gouge their workers. The politicians then use the sacrifice of those workers as a sledgehammer to blame budget shortfalls on public employees who are in unions. Workers and the unions take the fall, making big corporations and their politicians even more powerful.
But the full brunt of these companies' strife is being borne not by the CEOs calling the (sometimes wrong) shots, or the shareholders who opted for the risk of investing in companies that produce luxury goods. Rather, the brunt is being borne by workers who, especially in corporate towns like Kohler and Fond du Lac, are just trying to feed their families.
In the last election, Sheboygan and Fond du Lac Counties, home to Kohler and Mercury, voted overwhelmingly for Walker, whose solution to their woes is apparently to finally stop those bloodsucking UW teaching assistants from having a union.
This bears repeating: While it is true that the broader economy has an unemployment rate of 10%, the wealthy are doing fine: Bankster pay is up, stocks are about as high as they've been in the last decade, corporate profits are at all-time highs, companies are sitting on billions in cash reserves (while not paying their small-business supply chains), and corporate and top-tier tax rates are at generational lows.
Scott Walker wants to reward--indeed, has already started rewarding--all those doing so well with additional tax breaks. He wants to take everyone else and extract sacrifice.
The resentment formerly middle-class folks feel is real and palpable and fully justified. But directing it at the people who collect garbage, teach children, and care for our grandparents is ridiculous.
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
Walker v Obama
by folkbum
And, no, I am not talking about 2012.
I tweeted yesterday, only half-kiddingly, "Have lost track of number of ppl who complained Obama refused to compromise w Republicans and say Walker should stand firm." The twit-speak is embarrassing to reprint here on the blog, where brevity is far less a concern than clarity. But the message is something that needs to be reinforced.
You might recall 2009-2010, and the protracted debate over the health care bill that ultimately was passed as the Affordable Care Act. Some of the initial policy proposals offered a radical shift in the way the federal government treated health insurance, including a proposed public option (which would have created greater savings than the final bill does). The process of getting those original ideas into a final bill took nearly a year. It included hundreds of often-contentious town hall meetings, scores of demonstrations and rallies for and against reform, very public Congressional hearings, very private Congressional negotiations among the Senate's bipartisan Group of Eight, and even a White House-hosted round table with leaders and experts from both parties convened to try to hammer out a solution. All of this while Democrats held the presidency and a majority in both Congressional houses.
Ultimately, the Affordable Care Act is a mishmash of watered-down Democratic reforms, Republican policy positions (the individual mandate was a favorite of Republicans right up until it went into the bill), and vague nods toward systemic change. It was not the reform I wanted, but it was perhaps the best bill possible under the circumstances, and though certainly included tons of compromise, I celebrated its passage.
And yet, the steady Republican and media-pundit line was the same: Obama needs to reach out to Republicans more; Obama needs to compromise. Despite the moderation and compromise that riddles the ACA and is apparent in the year-long record, the take-away for our great pundit class and legions of conservative and tea-party Republicans is that Democrats quickly rammed through an ultra-liberal bill with no sop to Republicans at all. Which is, clearly, false. (Anyone who thinks it's true, please try to explain in comments. I need a laugh.)
Flash forward to 2011 in Wisconsin. Scott Walker has proposed a radical policy change in a bill that is about fixing a budget hole, not changing policy. (Walker campaigned on not putting policy in budget bills.) Walker continues to insist, even in his "fireside rap" last night, that the hold-up is over economic concessions without admitting that his opponents long ago agreed to those concessions. (Those concessions may not even be necessary for the state budget to balance, anyway.) No, the hold-up is over changing 50 years of Wisconsin state policy--indeed, national leadership from this state--on workers' rights, with no justification given for doing so.
Whereas Obama campaigned on health care reform, Walker did not campaign on dismantling state employee unions. And in contrast to the tediously long track that health care reform took nationally, Walker introduced his bill on a Friday and expected it to be approved the next Tuesday. Wisconsin Republicans have refused to hear from the public--the hearing rooms were open because Democratic leggies stayed to listen; Republicans shut down the state's legislative hot line. Republicans even illegally voted on aspects of the measure before the posted start time of the legislative session to avoid having to debate the matter. (They later rescinded the vote, obviating their culpability.)
There have been no bipartisan groups of legislators working through the matter. There have been no town halls for legislators to hear concerns in their districts. (Republicans warned their caucus members not to have such town halls, out of fear for their "safety"; to date, no one has been injured at the Capitol and, in all the media reports I sought and I have read, there have not even been arrests). There has been no great Walker-hosted round table on collective bargaining. Indeed, Walker made clear in the prank call conversation with notDavid notKoch, any offer he might make to listen to Democrats is a trick. (About the call: I mostly agree with Ezra Klein. Nothing said is too damning, but the fact that he took notKoch's call at all, and said anything to notKoch, is damning alone.)
So it ought to be surprising that the conservatives and tea-party Republicans, as well as the national media pundits, are telling Walker to stand firm and not at all to compromise. It ought to be surprising since, after all, Walker with collective bargaining is engaging in exactly the opposite behavior of Obama on health care--and Obama's was not nearly enough effort to appease Republicans and opponents of reform.
But it is, of course, not surprising at all. There is a reason that IOKIYAR is a common acronym: it's okay if you're a Republican. There's also the media frame that Democrats must always appear weak (and attempts to appear strong--as when Republicans invited Obama to their Congressional retreat and he challenged their talking points--it's sandbagging or playing dirty) and Republicans must always appear strong. As Atrios noted today, Walker is "a GOP Daddy" so any action he takes "will be praised as 'bold.' " Refusing to compromise is part of the GOP ethos, and as such cannot be criticized, even by those who hold compromise sacred.
(Remarkably, Republican governors across the country have gotten the message that Walker refuses to hear. Governors in Indiana, Ohio, Florida, and Michigan have backed off many of their plans to gut collective bargaining their states. None of them, like Walker, can explain how rescinding those rights solves temporary or even structural budget gaps, especially when unions have already agreed to economic concessions, and have decided that the damage to their own reputations and the people in their state is not worth the fight.)
So I ask those who want Walker to stand firm: Why is compromise now anathema when Obama couldn't compromise enough for you? Why is Walker's mandate unbreakable even in the face of massive protest when Obama's mandate was non-existent in the face of the tea-party rallies? Why are party-line votes in Congress on health care bad while party-line votes in Madison are a consequence of Democracy? Why is Walker's plan to trick Democrats into submission just fine with you when Democrats' transparent and above-board passage of the Affordable Care Act a travesty? And, relatedly, why is the flight of 14 state senators to break quorum worse than Republicans' unprecedented and record-setting filibuster efforts in the US Senate?
These are not idle questions.
I could ask more: Why is it okay to lessen the tax burden on Wisconsin's millionaires while upping the pension burden on public health workers making barely more than minimum wage? Why is it okay to allow Walker to sell state assets with no bids but Doyle's no-bid contract to Talgo was an outrage?
IOKIYAR is the answer I predict.
And, no, I am not talking about 2012.
I tweeted yesterday, only half-kiddingly, "Have lost track of number of ppl who complained Obama refused to compromise w Republicans and say Walker should stand firm." The twit-speak is embarrassing to reprint here on the blog, where brevity is far less a concern than clarity. But the message is something that needs to be reinforced.
You might recall 2009-2010, and the protracted debate over the health care bill that ultimately was passed as the Affordable Care Act. Some of the initial policy proposals offered a radical shift in the way the federal government treated health insurance, including a proposed public option (which would have created greater savings than the final bill does). The process of getting those original ideas into a final bill took nearly a year. It included hundreds of often-contentious town hall meetings, scores of demonstrations and rallies for and against reform, very public Congressional hearings, very private Congressional negotiations among the Senate's bipartisan Group of Eight, and even a White House-hosted round table with leaders and experts from both parties convened to try to hammer out a solution. All of this while Democrats held the presidency and a majority in both Congressional houses.
Ultimately, the Affordable Care Act is a mishmash of watered-down Democratic reforms, Republican policy positions (the individual mandate was a favorite of Republicans right up until it went into the bill), and vague nods toward systemic change. It was not the reform I wanted, but it was perhaps the best bill possible under the circumstances, and though certainly included tons of compromise, I celebrated its passage.
And yet, the steady Republican and media-pundit line was the same: Obama needs to reach out to Republicans more; Obama needs to compromise. Despite the moderation and compromise that riddles the ACA and is apparent in the year-long record, the take-away for our great pundit class and legions of conservative and tea-party Republicans is that Democrats quickly rammed through an ultra-liberal bill with no sop to Republicans at all. Which is, clearly, false. (Anyone who thinks it's true, please try to explain in comments. I need a laugh.)
Flash forward to 2011 in Wisconsin. Scott Walker has proposed a radical policy change in a bill that is about fixing a budget hole, not changing policy. (Walker campaigned on not putting policy in budget bills.) Walker continues to insist, even in his "fireside rap" last night, that the hold-up is over economic concessions without admitting that his opponents long ago agreed to those concessions. (Those concessions may not even be necessary for the state budget to balance, anyway.) No, the hold-up is over changing 50 years of Wisconsin state policy--indeed, national leadership from this state--on workers' rights, with no justification given for doing so.
Whereas Obama campaigned on health care reform, Walker did not campaign on dismantling state employee unions. And in contrast to the tediously long track that health care reform took nationally, Walker introduced his bill on a Friday and expected it to be approved the next Tuesday. Wisconsin Republicans have refused to hear from the public--the hearing rooms were open because Democratic leggies stayed to listen; Republicans shut down the state's legislative hot line. Republicans even illegally voted on aspects of the measure before the posted start time of the legislative session to avoid having to debate the matter. (They later rescinded the vote, obviating their culpability.)
There have been no bipartisan groups of legislators working through the matter. There have been no town halls for legislators to hear concerns in their districts. (Republicans warned their caucus members not to have such town halls, out of fear for their "safety"; to date, no one has been injured at the Capitol and, in all the media reports I sought and I have read, there have not even been arrests). There has been no great Walker-hosted round table on collective bargaining. Indeed, Walker made clear in the prank call conversation with notDavid notKoch, any offer he might make to listen to Democrats is a trick. (About the call: I mostly agree with Ezra Klein. Nothing said is too damning, but the fact that he took notKoch's call at all, and said anything to notKoch, is damning alone.)
So it ought to be surprising that the conservatives and tea-party Republicans, as well as the national media pundits, are telling Walker to stand firm and not at all to compromise. It ought to be surprising since, after all, Walker with collective bargaining is engaging in exactly the opposite behavior of Obama on health care--and Obama's was not nearly enough effort to appease Republicans and opponents of reform.
But it is, of course, not surprising at all. There is a reason that IOKIYAR is a common acronym: it's okay if you're a Republican. There's also the media frame that Democrats must always appear weak (and attempts to appear strong--as when Republicans invited Obama to their Congressional retreat and he challenged their talking points--it's sandbagging or playing dirty) and Republicans must always appear strong. As Atrios noted today, Walker is "a GOP Daddy" so any action he takes "will be praised as 'bold.' " Refusing to compromise is part of the GOP ethos, and as such cannot be criticized, even by those who hold compromise sacred.
(Remarkably, Republican governors across the country have gotten the message that Walker refuses to hear. Governors in Indiana, Ohio, Florida, and Michigan have backed off many of their plans to gut collective bargaining their states. None of them, like Walker, can explain how rescinding those rights solves temporary or even structural budget gaps, especially when unions have already agreed to economic concessions, and have decided that the damage to their own reputations and the people in their state is not worth the fight.)
So I ask those who want Walker to stand firm: Why is compromise now anathema when Obama couldn't compromise enough for you? Why is Walker's mandate unbreakable even in the face of massive protest when Obama's mandate was non-existent in the face of the tea-party rallies? Why are party-line votes in Congress on health care bad while party-line votes in Madison are a consequence of Democracy? Why is Walker's plan to trick Democrats into submission just fine with you when Democrats' transparent and above-board passage of the Affordable Care Act a travesty? And, relatedly, why is the flight of 14 state senators to break quorum worse than Republicans' unprecedented and record-setting filibuster efforts in the US Senate?
These are not idle questions.
I could ask more: Why is it okay to lessen the tax burden on Wisconsin's millionaires while upping the pension burden on public health workers making barely more than minimum wage? Why is it okay to allow Walker to sell state assets with no bids but Doyle's no-bid contract to Talgo was an outrage?
IOKIYAR is the answer I predict.
Friday, February 18, 2011
Amend Budget Repair Bill
By 3rd Way
Dear Senators Cowles, Harsdorf, Hooper, Olsen, Ellis and Moulton,
Sen.Ellis@legis.wisconsin.gov, Sen.Cowles@legis.wisconsin.gov, Sen.Harsdorf@legis.wisconsin.gov, Sen.Hooper@legis.wisconsin.gov, Sen.Molton@legis.wisconsin.gov, Sen.Olsen@legis.wisconsin.gov
I agree with your stances towards fiscal conservatism. I also agree that public employees need to make at least moderate compensation concessions, but revoking the collective bargaining rights of a select group of public employees is unacceptable.
You were elected to work for the people of Wisconsin. I find it hard to believe the majority of people in this state approve of passage of this bill it's current form.
Please amend this bill with changes that will honestly move towards repairing our state's budget and respect working families within this state.
Sincerely,
Erik Johnson
...
Jay picked a helluva week to go Galt!!!
Dear Senators Cowles, Harsdorf, Hooper, Olsen, Ellis and Moulton,
Sen.Ellis@legis.wisconsin.gov, Sen.Cowles@legis.wisconsin.gov, Sen.Harsdorf@legis.wisconsin.gov, Sen.Hooper@legis.wisconsin.gov, Sen.Molton@legis.wisconsin.gov, Sen.Olsen@legis.wisconsin.gov
I agree with your stances towards fiscal conservatism. I also agree that public employees need to make at least moderate compensation concessions, but revoking the collective bargaining rights of a select group of public employees is unacceptable.
You were elected to work for the people of Wisconsin. I find it hard to believe the majority of people in this state approve of passage of this bill it's current form.
Please amend this bill with changes that will honestly move towards repairing our state's budget and respect working families within this state.
Sincerely,
Erik Johnson
...
Jay picked a helluva week to go Galt!!!
Monday, February 14, 2011
I couldn't have said it better
by folkbum
Mike Plaisted, the other day:
Plaisted is not the only one to notice that the social contract--the one that used to say public-sector work would be less rewarding paycheck to paycheck but you'll not need to worry about your health or retirement--has been shredded. Even conservatives like ED Klain know that all this budget emergency talk is plain and simple cover for the last remaining battle in the class war that is nearly over, the rich having already won the private sector:
No. This has everything to do with war, and regular people have just about lost. Makes me wanna give up and move to Canada.
This is a crazy week for me, anyway, so I probably will just go Galt. Vote tomorrow, and whatever. See you.
Mike Plaisted, the other day:
Just like the evisceration of personal injury law had nothing to do with job creation, the destruction of collective bargaining for public employees has nothing to do with the budget. It is rather a mad power grab by a ruling elite that will change any rule to make sure they win. It is also a continuation of the nationwide campaign by Republicans to destroy all what is left of the labor union movement on behalf of the wealthy corporations who pull their puppet strings and pay their bills.As I noted in comments yesterday, the Walker budget "repair" bill is hardly about the current budget at all. What does stopping UW professors from unionizing in the future have to do with this year's budget deficit? Or prohibiting limited-term employees hired in the future from receiving health insurance? Or changing the bargaining rules for contracts agreed to in the future?
Plaisted is not the only one to notice that the social contract--the one that used to say public-sector work would be less rewarding paycheck to paycheck but you'll not need to worry about your health or retirement--has been shredded. Even conservatives like ED Klain know that all this budget emergency talk is plain and simple cover for the last remaining battle in the class war that is nearly over, the rich having already won the private sector:
[W]e are led to believe that public sector wages should be brought in line with those in private sector (regardless of the skewed numbers used to come up with the difference in the first place), rather than demand that the corporate class boost private sector wages instead. No, we must drag everyone down rather than lift anyone but those at the very top up. [. . .]The gutting of the private-sector middle class, from health insurance to pensions to vacations, is not because our Galtian lords and masters are just barely scraping by themselves; indeed, recall that corporate profits are at an all-time high and tax rates, especially on corporations and the wealthy, are at generational lows.
Anyways, we can solve this problem by fully funding public pensions and using tax dollars (though only a small portion of a public pension is funded with tax dollars) to do so, or we can bust up the public unions, put everyone on a 401k and cut taxes for corporations and the top 1% of earners – then wait while that wealth just trickles on down. We can look at this issue as one in which public sector workers are paid too much, or one in which private sector workers are paid too little. We can say “the government is out of money” and then throw our hands in the air as if there’s just nothing left to be done except cut away at public employee benefits, or we can use the various other tools at our disposal to close the budget gap.
No. This has everything to do with war, and regular people have just about lost. Makes me wanna give up and move to Canada.
This is a crazy week for me, anyway, so I probably will just go Galt. Vote tomorrow, and whatever. See you.
Tuesday, January 04, 2011
Paul Ryan calls Paul Ryan's power grab "unprecedented," "breathtaking"
by folkbum
I have written previously about Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Galt's Gulch), and the trouble the GOP is likely to have putting him, a True Believer, in charge of writing its budgets. As much as Republicans like to campaign on things like deficit reduction, they have never been much for rubber meeting the road in that regard.
However, they are about to do something quite amazing: When they vote on House rules tomorrow, they will give Ryan, one representative in a House of 435 voting members, singular authority:
How are Republicans able to make such a thing possible? They are going to use a process called "deem and pass."
Of particular interest, FOX News interviewed, surprise, Rep. Paul Ryan about deem and pass at the time: "Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., called the procedure 'unprecedented' and 'breathtaking.' "
Now, of course, he is willingly going along with the GOP leadership, because this "unprecedented" and "breathtaking" action will "deem and pass" a huge chunk of power directly into his little hands. Classy!
* To be clear: I personally have no issue with deem and pass as a process--it is traditional and right up until last spring, non-controversial. It's a time-saver, basically. However, I do have a problem with two things: One, the massive power-grab itself, concentrating authority without debate or transparency into the hands of a single representative, and Two, the hypocrisy of the GOP in general, and Paul Ryan in particular.
Related, 1: When Ryan sets his budget number, he's planning to just pretend that a repeal of the Affordable Care Act won't increase the deficit. No sense living in reality when you have your hand on the biggest lever of power, eh?
Related, 2: Remember in 2007, when incoming Democratic House Oversight Committee Chair Henry Waxman wrote a letter to all of the labor unions and environmental groups in the country to ask them what investigations of the White House he should be pursuing? I don't either.
I have written previously about Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Galt's Gulch), and the trouble the GOP is likely to have putting him, a True Believer, in charge of writing its budgets. As much as Republicans like to campaign on things like deficit reduction, they have never been much for rubber meeting the road in that regard.
However, they are about to do something quite amazing: When they vote on House rules tomorrow, they will give Ryan, one representative in a House of 435 voting members, singular authority:
Another aspect of the proposed rules also seems at odds with promises made in the campaign about what a new Republican majority would do. There was much talk about increasing the transparency of the legislative process, and some proposals in the new rules package would do that. But the new rules also include a stunning and unprecedented provision authorizing the Chairman of the Budget Committee elected in the 112th Congress, expected to be Representative Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, to submit for publication in the Congressional Record total spending and revenue limits and allocations of spending to committees — and the rules provide that this submission “shall be considered as the completion of congressional action on a concurrent resolution on the budget for fiscal year 2011.” In other words, in the absence of a budget resolution agreement between the House and the Senate, it appears that Rep. Ryan (presumably with the concurrence of the Republican leadership) will be allowed to set enforceable spending and revenue limits, with any departure from those limits subject to being ruled “out of order.”In other words, Ryan can pick a number without telling anyone, at random if he wants, and that number is the spending limit for the year. Period. No debate, no vote, no transparency to the process.
This rule change has immediate, far-reaching implications. It means that by voting to adopt the proposed new rules on January 5, a vote on which party discipline will be strictly enforced, the House could effectively be adopting a budget resolution and limits for appropriations bills that it has never even seen, much less debated and had an opportunity to amend.
How are Republicans able to make such a thing possible? They are going to use a process called "deem and pass."
As soon as those rules are adopted on Wednesday, Ryan's spending levels will be considered--or "deemed"--adopted by the full House as if they'd passed a budget with a floor vote. The legislative language in the rules package holds that Ryan's spending limits, "shall be considered as contained in a concurrent resolution on the budget for fiscal year 2011 and the submission thereof into the Congressional Record shall be considered as the completion of congressional action on a concurrent resolution on the budget for fiscal year 2011."If this sounds familiar, it's because "deem and pass" is a technique long in use in the House*. Used to happen all the time--well, a lot, anyway. Until 2010, when House Democrats attempted to "deem and pass" the Senate version of the Affordable Care Act, the health care bill, and revisions to that bill in a single vote. This is something that should not have been a controversy, but House Republicans jumped all over it. They and the punditerati whose job it is to parrot GOP talking points called this act every possible evil name in the book. (I refuse to link or read the local righty bloggers anymore, but this Wisopinion blogsearch result will let you see what Wisconsin's geniuses were saying about the idea then. As I said, I don't read them anymore, but I am guessing they're pretty quiet about it today.)
Of particular interest, FOX News interviewed, surprise, Rep. Paul Ryan about deem and pass at the time: "Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., called the procedure 'unprecedented' and 'breathtaking.' "
Now, of course, he is willingly going along with the GOP leadership, because this "unprecedented" and "breathtaking" action will "deem and pass" a huge chunk of power directly into his little hands. Classy!
* To be clear: I personally have no issue with deem and pass as a process--it is traditional and right up until last spring, non-controversial. It's a time-saver, basically. However, I do have a problem with two things: One, the massive power-grab itself, concentrating authority without debate or transparency into the hands of a single representative, and Two, the hypocrisy of the GOP in general, and Paul Ryan in particular.
Related, 1: When Ryan sets his budget number, he's planning to just pretend that a repeal of the Affordable Care Act won't increase the deficit. No sense living in reality when you have your hand on the biggest lever of power, eh?
Related, 2: Remember in 2007, when incoming Democratic House Oversight Committee Chair Henry Waxman wrote a letter to all of the labor unions and environmental groups in the country to ask them what investigations of the White House he should be pursuing? I don't either.
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