Planned Parenthood operates over 800 health clinics across the country. These clinics are often the only option for women who need vital services, including contraception, HIV testing or PAP smears to detect and prevent cancer and other life-threatening illness. Three million Americans go to Planned Parenthood every year, and one in five women in the United States will visit a Planned Parenthood clinic in their lifetime. The personal relationships developed at clinics inform Planned Parenthood’s critical and ongoing advocacy for federal support for reproductive health and freedom. As a trusted brand representing women in DC, Planned Parenthood Action Fund has successfully lobbied for greater access to healthcare, better educational resources for family planning and the preservation of a woman’s right to choose.
The nexus of service and advocacy is a powerful place to stand: simultaneously addressing direct needs and advocating for systemic redress of those needs is a winning equation for progressive power. Yet, we have precious few progressive organizations left in that spot at the national level, and the ones we have are under attack precisely because our opposition understands their power.
For the past two weeks, all eyes have been glued to Madison, Wisconsin. The collective and joyful resistance to Governor Scott Walker’s power-grabbing budget bill has inspired the demoralized progressive base and put the corporate-backed assault on working people front and center in the national conversation.
Once we recognize the critical role these progressive service organizations play in building progressive politics, the right’s broader strategy in Wisconsin and elsewhere becomes clear.
Read the full story at The Nation.
Wednesday, March 2, 2011
Why the Right Attacked Unions, ACORN and Planned Parenthood
The Nation: While it's obvious that the right wing is out to break the back of the progressive movement, it’s easy to miss the strategy that guides their selection of specific targets. Their attacks are all carefully aimed at the same critical juncture: institutions that work for people in their daily lives and in the political arena, those that connect people’s personal struggles across the country to the political struggle in Washington.
Politics Not Budget At Heart Of Republican Stategy
Progressive groups in Wisconsin are taking their case against Governor Scott Walker (R) to the people. Progressive Change Campaign Committee (PCCC) and Democracy for America (DFA) are sponsoring a new ad that features the voices of public workers who would be affected by Walker's plan to make unions pay more for benefits and strip them of collective bargaining rights. The ad directs viewers to go to WarOnWorkingFamilies.com where they can join an e-mail list and contribute money to the campaign.
The Republican Governors Association (RGA) has also announced an ad of their own supporting Walker. Greg Sargent at The Washington Post argues that the RGA "badly distorts" the history of the standoff in Wisconsin by not acknowledging that the unions have already agreed to pay more for their benefits.
"The unions have already agreed to the benefit concessions Walker has asked for, as long as he doesn't roll back their bargaining rights," said Sargent. "Walker has refused. The sticking point has nothing to do with benefits.Video is from PCCC, uploaded to YouTube March 1, 2011.
Monday, February 28, 2011
The New State Budget May Cut 189,000+ Public Education Jobs
The Center for Public Policy Priorities today released some devastating county-by-county analysis of the state budget cuts proposed by Gov. Perry and the Republican controlled legislature:
The state is short $27 billion, more than one-quarter of the state’s discretionary budget, of which about 91 percent is consumed by public schools, higher education, and health and human services.
Texas Observer: Gov. Rick Perry has repeatedly said Texas’ deficit is “reflective of the national recession’s lingering impact on state revenue.”
Impact By School District
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- Public Education Analysis
- Higher Education Analysis
- Health and Human Services Analysis
- Medicaid Spending Losses Analysis
The state is short $27 billion, more than one-quarter of the state’s discretionary budget, of which about 91 percent is consumed by public schools, higher education, and health and human services.
Texas already spends less per capita than almost any other state, but Senate Finance Chair Steve Ogden -- a Republican who Rick Perry has described as the smartest budget man he knows, and someone he implicitly trusts with the budget -- warned today the proposed budge cuts will “decimate public education."Texas Republicans would rather put our children's future at risk than allow corporations to pay their fair share to help build the well educated workforce Texas businesses need to prosper in the future.
Texas Observer: Gov. Rick Perry has repeatedly said Texas’ deficit is “reflective of the national recession’s lingering impact on state revenue.”
In fact, the recession has little to do with the $27 billion budget shortfall. Back in 2006 the Republican controlled Legislature concocted a Rube Goldberg-style [school funding and business tax reform] measure that simultaneously cut property taxes, implemented a new “margins” tax on business and rejiggered the way public schools are financed.Star-Telegram: A 68-page report released by Texas Comptroller Susan Combs on Monday reveals that Texas will give business $32.2 billion worth of tax exemptions for sales, franchise, and gasoline and motor vehicle sales taxes for the 2011 fiscal year that ends on Aug. 31, 2011.Problem was, as the state Legislative Budget Board pointed out at the time, the plan’s math didn’t wash because the margins tax wouldn’t bring in as much as the Legislature thought. In fact, the board said, it would leave a $5 billion hole in the state budget every year.
The upshot: Perry, who pushed the swap, knew full well he was helping to create today’s “crisis.”
Exemptions to the state sales tax, the state's biggest source of revenue, will total $30.8 billion for the current fiscal year, Combs said, although some items exempted from the sales tax are taxed from other sources. Gasoline tax exemptions will amount to $113 million. Motor vehicle sales tax exemptions will total $125 million.NYTimes OpEd "Leaving Children Behind" by Paul Krugman:
"While sales and use tax collections totaled $19.6 billion in fiscal 2010," Combs said, "the tax is limited in scope when compared with the total number and kind of transactions in the economy, because of various exemptions and exclusions," Combs said.
A number of lawmakers are calling for the elimination of at least some exemptions to boost revenue and help offset deep service reductions proposed in preliminary draft budgets. Others say canceling the breaks amounts to a tax increase, which Gov. Rick Perry and Republican legislative leaders have vowed to oppose.
Read more at the Star-Telegram
Consider, as a case in point, what’s happening in Texas, which more and more seems to be where America’s political future happens first.
Texas likes to portray itself as a model of small government, and indeed it is. Taxes are low, at least if you’re in the upper part of the income distribution (taxes on the bottom 40 percent of the population are actually above the national average). Government spending is also low. And to be fair, low taxes may be one reason for the state’s rapid population growth, although low housing prices are surely much more important.
But here’s the thing: While low spending may sound good in the abstract, what it amounts to in practice is low spending on children, who account directly or indirectly for a large part of government outlays at the state and local level.
And in low-tax, low-spending Texas, the kids are not all right. The high school graduation rate, at just 61.3 percent, puts Texas 43rd out of 50 in state rankings. Nationally, the state ranks fifth in child poverty; it leads in the percentage of children without health insurance. And only 78 percent of Texas children are in excellent or very good health, significantly below the national average.
But wait — how can graduation rates be so low when Texas had that education miracle back when former President Bush was governor? Well, a couple of years into his presidency the truth about that miracle came out: Texas school administrators achieved low reported dropout rates the old-fashioned way — they, ahem, got the numbers wrong.
It’s not a pretty picture; compassion aside, you have to wonder — and many business people in Texas do — how the state can prosper in the long run with a future work force blighted by childhood poverty, poor health and lack of education.
But things are about to get much worse.
A few months ago another Texas miracle went the way of that education miracle of the 1990s. For months, Gov. Rick Perry had boasted that his “tough conservative decisions” had kept the budget in surplus while allowing the state to weather the recession unscathed. But after Mr. Perry’s re-election, reality intruded — funny how that happens — and the state is now scrambling to close a huge budget gap. (By the way, given the current efforts to blame public-sector unions for state fiscal problems, it’s worth noting that the mess in Texas was achieved with an overwhelmingly nonunion work force.)
So how will that gap be closed? Given the already dire condition of Texas children, you might have expected the state’s leaders to focus the pain elsewhere. In particular, you might have expected high-income Texans, who pay much less in state and local taxes than the national average, to be asked to bear at least some of the burden.
But you’d be wrong. Tax increases have been ruled out of consideration; the gap will be closed solely through spending cuts. Medicaid, a program that is crucial to many of the state’s children, will take the biggest hit, with the Legislature proposing a funding cut of no less than 29 percent, including a reduction in the state’s already low payments to providers — raising fears that doctors will start refusing to see Medicaid patients. And education will also face steep cuts, with school administrators talking about as many as 100,000 layoffs.
The really striking thing about all this isn’t the cruelty — at this point you expect that — but the shortsightedness. What’s supposed to happen when today’s neglected children become tomorrow’s work force?
Anyway, the next time some self-proclaimed deficit hawk tells you how much he worries about the debt we’re leaving our children, remember what’s happening in Texas, a state whose slogan right now might as well be “Lose the future.”
Gov. Walker's Wisconsin 'Union Busting' Exposes 'Tea Party' Scam, Duped Americans
Time for those [Tea Partiers] formerly hoaxed by duplicitous corporate schemes to wake-up and smell what billionaire sociopaths are shoveling...
Guest editorial at BradBlog by Ernest A. Canning
Thanks to a citizen journalist blogger named Murphy, we know how much Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker is in bed with the conservative billionaire Koch Brothers, who are one of the main funding sources for the national Tea Party movement.
It was Murphy who, by impersonating the billionaire and Americans for Prosperity money man David Koch, punked Gov. Walker into a 20 minute phone call where Walker revealed his real union busting political motives.
The transcript of the call is unbelievable.
In one key exchange the Koch impersonator says, "What we were thinking about the crowds was, planting some troublemakers." To which Walker replies, "We thought about that. My only gut reaction to that would be, right now, the lawmakers I talk to have just completely had it with them. The public is not really fond of this.The teachers union did some polling and focus groups..."
A watchdog group is actively investigating whether Walker admitted to breaking any campaign finance or ethics laws in the conversation.
Click to Murphy's blog.
Many other citizen journalists are at work in Wisconsin and across the nation make sure the full factual story about the national Republican strategy to bust employee unions is told.
Guest editorial at BradBlog by Ernest A. CanningThis is not a budget issue," the policeman speaking to the cheering protesters jammed inside of the capital rotunda in Madison, WI, shouted this weekend, "This is a civil rights issue!"
"Mr. Walker, if you are listening to me, let me tell you something," he continued through the bullhorn as the crowd rallied, "We know pretty well now who you work for. Let me tell you who we work for. We work for all of these people!"
"We're not here, Mr. Walker, to do your bidding. We're here to do their bidding!" he told the crowd in a remarkable video-taped moment posted by RAW STORY on Sunday.
While a wide swath of Wisconsin society, entailing not only both public and private union members, but students, doctors, nurses, teachers, police officers (like the one mentioned above), and fire fighters have swarmed the streets and public buildings of Madison as part of a mass movement rivaling those we've recently seen on the streets of Cairo, there is one sector of our society who should be especially angry with the Wisconsin branch of Corporate America's wholly-owned, public subsidiary, GOP, Inc.
It is the uninformed and misinformed working class stiffs, aka "Tea Partiers," who should be most disturbed by the scam they've been subjected to over the past two years (and many more). It is they who were taken in by the lies and deceptions of billionaire sociopaths, like oil-baron David Koch of the infamous Koch Industries. Koch's aim is not liberty, freedom, and jobs but American fascism, corporatocracy, and the "eternal subjugation of the common man"...
Read the rest of the story at BradBlog
Murphy / Walker call - Part 1 |
Murphy / Walker call - part 2 |
It was Murphy who, by impersonating the billionaire and Americans for Prosperity money man David Koch, punked Gov. Walker into a 20 minute phone call where Walker revealed his real union busting political motives.
The transcript of the call is unbelievable.
In one key exchange the Koch impersonator says, "What we were thinking about the crowds was, planting some troublemakers." To which Walker replies, "We thought about that. My only gut reaction to that would be, right now, the lawmakers I talk to have just completely had it with them. The public is not really fond of this.The teachers union did some polling and focus groups..."
A watchdog group is actively investigating whether Walker admitted to breaking any campaign finance or ethics laws in the conversation.
Click to Murphy's blog.
Many other citizen journalists are at work in Wisconsin and across the nation make sure the full factual story about the national Republican strategy to bust employee unions is told.
Thursday, February 24, 2011
What Is The Real Agenda Of The Budget-Cutters?
Campaign for America's Future: What is the real agenda of the budget-cutters? Are they really trying to bring the country back from the edge of financial ruin? Or did they bring about the appearance of a borrowing crisis to create a public panic that enables them to impose "solutions" that change the very nature of our country -- while doing little about the borrowing?
In the news this week, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker "ginned up" a budget crisis, then introduced legislation that removes collective bargaining rights from public employees, and over time effectively destroys their unions. Similar measures have been introduced by Republican governors or legislatures in several other states.Texas Observer: For many Texas legislators and conservative activists, the budget crisis is a thing of wonder—a once-in-a-generation chance to drown government in the bathtub, to use anti-tax crusader Grover Norquist’s infamous phrase.
This legislative attack on public employees follows more than a year of "preparing the ground" with a coordinated campaign from conservative organizations to convince the public that public employees are overpaid and that their pensions are "bankrupting" state governments -- not the effects of the recession.
In the news soon, the coming strategic "shutdown" of the federal government by Republicans. After decades of forcing through tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations, again and again -- most recently just a few weeks ago -- Republicans and corporate conservatives are engaged in a national campaign promoting the belief that there is a "deficit crisis." Their solutions involve gutting the things government does for We, the People like consumer, health, safety, labor and financial, retirement and income protections, while keeping things the government does for corporations and the wealthy "off the table."We see variations of the same formula over and over. Here is how it works:
Repeat as often as needed to create a plutocracy.
- Cut taxes for the rich and corporations (corporate stock is mostly owned by the top 1%); big deficits result.
- Claim a deficit emergency and use their domination of corporate-owned media to whip the public into a panic, creating the appearance of demand for corporate-approved "solutions." Manipulate the appearance of consensus.
- With taxes and military “off the table” push through cuts in the things government does for We, the People.
Read the rest of the story at the Campaign for America's Future.
In the mid 1980's conservative activist Grover Norquist famously said, "My goal is to cut government in half in twenty-five years, to get it down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub."
"Starving the beast" so it is small enough to "drown in the bathtub" is a fiscal-political strategy adopted by American conservatives in the 1970's to create and greatly increase budget deficits via tax cuts so that it forces ever increasing reductions to government.
The term "beast" refers to the government and the programs it funds, particularly social programs such as welfare, Social Security, Medicare and Public Schools. [see Forbes]
As Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst succinctly put it in his inaugural speech: “We pronounce the word ‘C-R-I-S-I-S’ as ‘opportunity.’” [Texas Observer]
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
Why Budget Cuts Don't Bring Prosperity
The Democratic Strategist: New York Times economic columnist David Leonhardt wrote a piece yesterday that every Democratic activist and elected official should read and then try to put into as plain a form of English as possible.
Texas Republicans would rather put our children's future at risk than ask corporations to pay their fair share to help build the well educated workforce Texas businesses need to prosper in the future.
Off the Kuff:
That means Texas parents should expect even deeper cuts to K-12 and college education spending when the next Texas legislative session convenes two years from now in 2013. Soon the conservative dream to fully privatize public education will be a reality.
As conservatives continue their ideological push to privatize all government services they will soon cut government funding for public eduction so deeply that parents will be forced to send their children to private for profit schools.
Soon, education and the better live it brings will be within the reach of only the wealthiest children. Is that really the American Dream we want?
Its title is plain enough: "Why Budget Cuts Don't Bring Prosperity." And its content wouldn't have seemed that striking until very recently, when one of America's two major political parties suddenly embraced the belief that government spending had somehow caused a private-sector housing and financial crisis and then a demand-side recession, and that radical cuts in government spending would put the economy on the right track via "business confidence" or some such magical term.Starving the government beast [see Forbes] in Texas Governor Perry and the Republican-controlled Texas legislature propose to cut up to $31 billion more from the next state budget, without using any money from the $9 billion rainy day fund, to cut government spending by firing tens of thousands of teachers, closing K-12 schools, closing of community colleges, eliminating tuition support for 60,000 college students, closing correctional facilities and drastic reducing state services for the poor, elderly, and young and for those with mental health problems.
The simplest term for this delusion is probably Hooverism, since many Americans are aware, however dimly, that the Great Depression was significantly worsened by the policies of a president who was ideologically opposed to any major stimulation of the economy by the public sector.
Read the full story at the The Democratic Strategist.
Texas Republicans would rather put our children's future at risk than ask corporations to pay their fair share to help build the well educated workforce Texas businesses need to prosper in the future.
Off the Kuff:
Giving Texas Corporations Taxpayer Money: Apparently, the idea is that the [Corporate Welfare] slush funds Gov. Perry controls are good for job growth. How you can believe that while pushing budgets that would result in the firing of 100,000 teachers, among other things, is a special talent on loan to our Governor. Here’s more about this, with Sen. John Whitmire playing the “you’ve gotta be kidding me” role.Texas Observer: For many Texas legislators and conservative activists, the budget crisis is a thing of wonder—a once-in-a-generation chance to drown government in the bathtub, to use anti-tax crusader Grover Norquist’s infamous phrase.
More Enterprise Fund failures - Gov. Rick Perry’s office has rewritten contracts for companies that are struggling to create the promised number of jobs after getting millions of taxpayer dollars from the Texas Enterprise Fund
As Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst succinctly put it in his inaugural speech: “We pronounce the word ‘C-R-I-S-I-S’ as ‘opportunity.’”John Heleman, chief revenue estimator for Comptroller Susan Combs, in testimony before state senators in early February 2011 said Texas' budget problems will not go away when legislators eventually sign a balanced budget later this year. The school funding and business tax reform legislation passed in 2006 generates at least a $10 billion budget short fall every year. [Texas' Finances Not As Rosy As They Seemed and Budgeting with smoke and mirrors]
The state is short $27 billion, more than one-quarter of the state’s $100 billion discretionary budget. About 91 percent is consumed by public schools, higher education, and health and human services. Texas already spends less per capita than almost any other state, but even more “devastating” cuts are all but certain.
In case anybody’s looking for a culprit, Gov. Rick Perry said Texas’ deficit was “reflective of the national recession’s lingering impact on state revenue.” In fact, the recession has little to do with the $27 billion shortfall.
Back in 2006 the Legislature concocted a Rube Goldberg-style [school funding and business tax reform] measure that simultaneously cut property taxes, imposed a new “margins” tax on business and rejiggered the way public schools are financed. Wowee zowee—three birds with only one stone!Problem was, as the state Legislative Budget Board pointed out at the time, the plan’s math didn’t wash because the margins tax wouldn’t bring in as much as the Legislature thought. In fact, the board said, it would leave a $5 billion hole in the state budget every year.The budget shortfall is not the cause of the pain. It’s the justification. For 30 years, anti-government forces have been in the ascendancy with a platform of free markets, deregulation, privatization, the evisceration of social programs and the systematic debasement of the greater good.
The upshot: Perry, who pushed the swap, knew full well he was helping to create today’s “crisis.”
In Texas, where Republicans control more than two-thirds of the state House and a little less than two-thirds of the state Senate, this ideology now has its moment in the sun.
“The bottom line is there are no excuses now,” Republican Sen. Dan Patrick of Houston, the right-wing radio talk-show host and founder of the Tea Party Caucus, told the Associated Press in January. “It’s a perfect storm, in a positive way, for conservatism.”
That means Texas parents should expect even deeper cuts to K-12 and college education spending when the next Texas legislative session convenes two years from now in 2013. Soon the conservative dream to fully privatize public education will be a reality.
As conservatives continue their ideological push to privatize all government services they will soon cut government funding for public eduction so deeply that parents will be forced to send their children to private for profit schools.
Soon, education and the better live it brings will be within the reach of only the wealthiest children. Is that really the American Dream we want?
I’m Still Looking For The Union Label
By Lynn Wolfe
While growing up in New York City, I remember a television commercial that supported labor unions. Many years later, I can still hear those women singing, “Look for the Union Label . . . .,” in TV Ads like the one posted at the bottom of this article.
However, somewhere along the years, these valuable jobs were exported to China and Viet Nam because Americans wanted inexpensive merchandise that came in a store with “Mart” in its name.
We had a President in the 80s (shockingly, a one-time Union President himself) who had very little respect for the type of American workers who showered after work, not before, and the anti-union movement started gathering steam.
Fast -forward to our current news cycle and the war against organized labor continues. So I decided to take a little stroll down memory lane and revisit some of the everyday-things that unions are responsible for.
Editorial note: Americans decisively support laws ensuring the collective bargaining rights of public employee unions by a nearly two-to-one margin, according to a new USA Today/Gallup poll.
Sixty-one percent said they oppose legislation stripping those rights in their states, as compared to only thirty-three percent who said they favor such laws, a striking discrepancy that shows public opinion firmly on one side of a growing national fight. The wide poll margin undercuts Republican claims that the American people want to outlaw labor unions.
While growing up in New York City, I remember a television commercial that supported labor unions. Many years later, I can still hear those women singing, “Look for the Union Label . . . .,” in TV Ads like the one posted at the bottom of this article.
We had a President in the 80s (shockingly, a one-time Union President himself) who had very little respect for the type of American workers who showered after work, not before, and the anti-union movement started gathering steam.
Fast -forward to our current news cycle and the war against organized labor continues. So I decided to take a little stroll down memory lane and revisit some of the everyday-things that unions are responsible for.
- Weekends
- 40-hour work week
- Unemployment insurance
- Safe working conditions
- Medical benefits
- Sick days
Clasaic Union Ad Firefighter Mike DeGarmo, criticizing Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker for refusing to drop his assault on public employee bargaining rights. |
Editorial note: Americans decisively support laws ensuring the collective bargaining rights of public employee unions by a nearly two-to-one margin, according to a new USA Today/Gallup poll.
Sixty-one percent said they oppose legislation stripping those rights in their states, as compared to only thirty-three percent who said they favor such laws, a striking discrepancy that shows public opinion firmly on one side of a growing national fight. The wide poll margin undercuts Republican claims that the American people want to outlaw labor unions.
Tuesday, February 22, 2011
Poor, Middle Class To Pay For Tax Breaks For Rich, Corporations
Think Progress: State budgets across the country are in disarray as a weak economy, the end of tens of billions in Recovery Act funds, and a GOP-led House that is pushing for deep cuts to many programs that benefit state and local governments set the stage for massive in shortfalls over the next two years.These misplaced priorities mean that the poor and middle class will shoulder the burden of fiscal austerity, even as the rich and corporations are asked to contribute even less. Here’s a detailed look at how the GOP’s war on the poor and middle class is playing out at the state level:
Texas: As ThinkProgress has reported, Gov. Perry spent the last two years traveling around the country attacking the stimulus and other Obama administration initiatives, all while touting the “Texas Miracle” (low taxes, low services, and low regulations). However, as Matt Yglesias noted, “It looks like the secret behind Texas’ ability to avoid the kind of budget woes that afflicted so many states last year was two-year budgeting rather than the miracle of low-tax, low-service, lax-regulation policies.” Moreover, Perry relied more on the stimulus than any other state to fill his 2010 budget gap, with stimulus funds plugging a full 97 percent of the gap.Read the complete story @ Think Progress
In facing down a $25 billion budget crisis on par with that of California, Perry categorically rejected any tax increases. Texas, as Paul Krugman said, already takes a “hard, you might say brutal, line toward its most vulnerable citizens,” as indicated by its poor educational performance and sky-high 25 percent child poverty rate. Still, Perry also refuses to use any of the $9.4 billion in the state’s rainy day fund (some of which, ironically, comes from stimulus funds intended to help states stave off draconian cuts that Perry instead squirreled away) and is instead contemplating deep cuts to child services programs and education, among other things. Perry even floated a plan to drop Medicaid entirely. Perry’s proposed education cuts are so deep that they prompted an unlikely source to take to the pages of the Houston Chronicle to write in opposition to them — none other than former First Lady Laura Bush. Bond ratings agency Standard & Poors has also weighed in, saying Texas’ cuts-only approach “won’t solve the state’s long-term fiscal problems” and that revenue increases need to be considered alongside the deep cuts being proposed.
Wisconsin: Gov. Scott Walker first gained national headlines for joining Ohio’s Kasich in a future-losing decision to cancel an $800 million investment — fully paid for the by the federal government — in high-speed rail. This decision prompted train manufacturer Talgo to announce it was leaving the state and will likely cost the state thousands of jobs.
Walker is of course now famous for his high-stakes war against Wisconsin’s workers. Walker has used a very small short-term shortfall and larger shortfall to come (which is still smaller than shortfalls the state has faced in recent years) to move forward with an unpopular plan to destroy the state’s public employee unions. As Ezra Klein and many others have noted, Wisconsin’s unions aren’t to blame for the state’s budget problems and taking away their collective bargaining rights will have no impact on the state’s fiscal situation.
Indeed, the unions offered to concede to all of Walker’s financial demands, so long as they could retain their collective bargaining rights. Walker balked at this offer, betraying his true motive: busting unions. Walker is also late in offering his budget, but it is believed that in spite of the supposed “crisis” and being “broke,” as Walker himself has said, his budget plans will include “a LOT more tax breaks” for the rich and corporations that will have to be balanced on the backs of workers or with painful cuts to state services and the state’s Medicaid programs, BadgerCare. It’s also worth noting that the last time Scott Walker went union busting, it turned into a massive boondoggle when he was overruled by an arbiter, wasting hundreds of thousands of taxpayers dollars in the process. When Republican governors speak of “shared sacrifice,” it seems that the only thing they mean is sacrifices by the poor and middle class in order to fund massive tax breaks for the rich and corporations.
Monday, February 21, 2011
Voters Say Slash The Budget, But Not Anything In It
Texas Tribune insiders took on school finance this week, and they're not optimistic that there will be a happy ending:Lawmakers have proposed spending $10.4 billion less than the Texas Education Agency says it needs to keep things running like they're running now. Is that current level of services sufficient for public education? Two-thirds of our panel said no, it's not.
On the question; Should lawmakers free local schools to raise their property taxes to make up for money lost to state cuts? Most of our insiders — 70 percent — said yes, while 27 percent said no.
More @ Texas Tribune.
The Texas Tribune this week also looked at the Mixed Signals on Budget Cuts that Texans are sending in a UT/Texas Tribune Poll:By a margin of more than 2 to 1, Texas voters believe that lawmakers should solve the state's massive shortfall by cutting the budget, according to the latest University of Texas/Texas Tribune poll, but their enthusiasm dissipates when asked if they support specific cuts.T
"We [Texans] really want to slash the budget, but not anything in it," says pollster Daron Shaw, a professor of government at UT.
Given a list of things that could be cut to balance the budget and asked to check each that they'd consider, the voters were protective of state programs, and overwhelmingly so.They oppose cuts to public education, 82 percent; pre-kindergarten, 62 percent; state grants to college students, 73 percent; state contributions to teacher and state employee retirement programs, 69 percent; the Children's Health Insurance Program, 87 percent; to state environmental regulation that could be picked up by the federal government, 65 percent; cuts to Medicaid providers like doctors and hospitals, 86 percent; state funding for nursing home care, 90 percent; prisons for adults or for juveniles, both 67 percent; new highway construction, 63 percent; border security, 85 percent; or for closing four community colleges, 77 percent.
Many of the items on that list are among the prime cuts made in proposed budgets from the House, the Senate and the governor. "Frankly, if you're assuming the results of the last election mean you should cut and that people meant government should completely go away, you're overreaching," says pollster Jim Henson, who teaches government and runs the Texas Politics Project at UT.
More @ Texas Tribune
his is, to me, a very Pavlovian thing. Pavlov conducted an experiment where for a period of time he rang a bell every time he set food down for his dogs. The dogs soon associated the bell with food and soon began to salivate as soon as they heard the bell, even when food was nowhere in sight.It’s very easy to compare the techniques Pavlov used with his dogs to what the conservative noise machine has done to condition voters to the sound of "government spending."
When voters hear "government spending" their immediate conditioned response is "cut spending" without thinking that means their children will not receive a good education, their grandparents can't go to the doctor, potholes in roads (built by government spending) will go unfilled, there will be no prisons to hold the criminals who rob and kill, and on, and on, and on... When voters do stop to think about the GOP Price Tag attached to perpetual rounds of spending cuts they start to growl.
What Americans Really Want
Saturday, February 19, 2011
Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker: Funded by the Koch Bros.
Mother Jones: Wisconsin Republican Governor Scott Walker, whose bill to kill collective bargaining rights for public-sector unions has caused an uproar among state employees, might not be where he is today without the Koch brothers.
"Starving the beast" is a fiscal-political strategy adopted by American conservatives in the 1970's to create or increase existing budget deficits via tax cuts to force future reductions in the size of government. The term "beast" refers to the government and the programs it funds, particularly social programs such as welfare, Social Security, Medicare and public schools. [see Forbes]
The term "starving the beast" to refer to the political-fiscal strategy was in a Wall Street Journal article in 1985 where the reporter quoted an unnamed Reagan staffer.
The tax cuts of former US President George W. Bush's administration, still in place, are an example. He said in 2001 "so we have the tax relief plan that now provides a new kind -- a fiscal straight jacket for Congress. And that's good for the taxpayers, and it's incredibly positive news if you're worried about a federal government that has been growing at a dramatic pace over the past eight years and it has been."
Former U.S. vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin expressly advocates the policy: "please Congress, starve the beast, don't perpetuate the problem, don't fund the largess, we need to cut taxes." U.S. Senator Jon Kyl (R-AZ), a member of the Senate Finance Committee, states "you should never have to offset the cost of a deliberate decision to reduce tax rates on Americans." Another well-known proponent of the strategy is activist Grover Norquist who famously said "My goal is to cut government in half in twenty-five years, to get it down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub."
Starving the beast in Texas includes Governor Perry and the Republican-controlled Texas legislature proposing to cut up to $31 billion in spending from the next budget, without using any money from the $9 billion rainy day fund, to reduce government by firing tens of thousands of teachers, closing K-12 schools, closing of community colleges, eliminating tuition support for 60,000 college students, closing correctional facilities and drastic reducing state services for the poor, elderly, and young and for those with mental health problems.
Charles and David Koch are conservative titans of industry who have infamously used their vast wealth to undermine President Obama and fight legislation they detest, such as the cap-and-trade climate bill, the health care reform act, and the economic stimulus package. For years, the billionaires have made extensive political donations to Republican candidates across the country and have provided millions of dollars to astroturf right-wing organizations.Starving the [Government] BeastKoch Industries' political action committee has doled out more than $2.6 million to candidates. And one prominent beneficiary of the Koch brothers' largess is Scott Walker.
According to Wisconsin campaign finance filings, Walker's gubernatorial campaign received $43,000 from the Koch Industries PAC during the 2010 election.
That donation was his campaign's second-highest, behind $43,125 in contributions from housing and realtor groups in Wisconsin. The Koch's PAC also helped Walker via a familiar and much-used politicial maneuver designed to allow donors to skirt campaign finance limits.
The PAC gave $1 million to the Republican Governors Association, which in turn spent $65,000 on independent expenditures to support Walker. The RGA also spent a whopping $3.4 million on TV ads and mailers attacking Walker's opponent, Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett. Walker ended up beating Barrett by 5 points. The Koch money, no doubt, helped greatly.
The Kochs also assisted Walker's current GOP allies in the fight against the public-sector unions. Last year, Republicans took control of the both houses of the Wisconsin state legislature, which has made Walker's assault on these unions possible. And according to data from the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign, the Koch Industries PAC spent $6,500 in support of 16 Wisconsin Republican state legislative candidates, who each won his or her election.
Read the rest of the story at Mother Jones
"Starving the beast" is a fiscal-political strategy adopted by American conservatives in the 1970's to create or increase existing budget deficits via tax cuts to force future reductions in the size of government. The term "beast" refers to the government and the programs it funds, particularly social programs such as welfare, Social Security, Medicare and public schools. [see Forbes]
The term "starving the beast" to refer to the political-fiscal strategy was in a Wall Street Journal article in 1985 where the reporter quoted an unnamed Reagan staffer.
The tax cuts of former US President George W. Bush's administration, still in place, are an example. He said in 2001 "so we have the tax relief plan that now provides a new kind -- a fiscal straight jacket for Congress. And that's good for the taxpayers, and it's incredibly positive news if you're worried about a federal government that has been growing at a dramatic pace over the past eight years and it has been."
Former U.S. vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin expressly advocates the policy: "please Congress, starve the beast, don't perpetuate the problem, don't fund the largess, we need to cut taxes." U.S. Senator Jon Kyl (R-AZ), a member of the Senate Finance Committee, states "you should never have to offset the cost of a deliberate decision to reduce tax rates on Americans." Another well-known proponent of the strategy is activist Grover Norquist who famously said "My goal is to cut government in half in twenty-five years, to get it down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub."
Starving the beast in Texas includes Governor Perry and the Republican-controlled Texas legislature proposing to cut up to $31 billion in spending from the next budget, without using any money from the $9 billion rainy day fund, to reduce government by firing tens of thousands of teachers, closing K-12 schools, closing of community colleges, eliminating tuition support for 60,000 college students, closing correctional facilities and drastic reducing state services for the poor, elderly, and young and for those with mental health problems.
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