NYTimes : Paul Krugman OpEd:
Will 2011 be the year of fiscal austerity? At the federal level, it’s still not clear: Republicans are demanding draconian spending cuts, but we don’t yet know how far they’re willing to go in a showdown with President Obama. At the state and local level, however, there’s no doubt about it: big spending cuts are coming.
And who will bear the brunt of these cuts? America’s children.
Now, politicians — and especially, in my experience, conservative politicians — always claim to be deeply concerned about the nation’s children. Back during the 2000 campaign, then-candidate George W. Bush, touting the “Texas miracle” of dramatically lower dropout rates, declared that he wanted to be the “education president.” Today, advocates of big spending cuts often claim that their greatest concern is the burden of debt our children will face.
In practice, however, when advocates of lower spending get a chance to put their ideas into practice, the burden always seems to fall disproportionately on those very children they claim to hold so dear.
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.
Read the full Paul Krugman OpEd @ NYTimes.com
Monday, March 14, 2011
Paul Krugman: Leaving The Children Behind In Texas
Republicans Take From American Familes To Give To The Rich
With oil prices now more than $100 a barrel, gas prices pushing $4 a gallon and oil companies reporting tens of billions of dollars in profits every quarter, it seems like it's time for Congress to eliminate tax credits for the oil and gas industry.
The budget President Obama submitted to Congress last month proposed repealing oil and gas subsidies – subsidies that come in the form of tax credits, or in plain terms, taxpayers giving their money to oil, gas and coal companies. The White House estimates that repealing those fossil energy company tax credits would save $46 billion, but House Republicans strongly defend those taxpayer giveaways.
After extending the Bush tax cuts for billionaires in December, which worsens the budget deficit by $900 billion, the Republicans passed $60 billion in spending cuts for programs that range from disaster relief funding to helping young people find jobs. Here are a few of the programs House Republicans voted to slash.
Alliance For A Clean Texas (ACT) Lobby Day
by Bob Fusinato
For those interested in moving toward an environmentally responsible and sustainable resource economy here are some links to Alliance for a Clean (ACT) lobby day to be held in Austin on March 14th and 15th:
For those interested in moving toward an environmentally responsible and sustainable resource economy here are some links to Alliance for a Clean (ACT) lobby day to be held in Austin on March 14th and 15th:
Sunday, March 13, 2011
Save Texas Schools Rally At The TX Capitol
Updated Sunday March 13, 2011 @ 1:51pm
The Save Texas Schools organization held a rally and march at the State Capitol on Saturday March 12, 2011. An estimated eleven thousand parents, teachers, students, community members, business owners, and faith organizations converged on the Capitol to voice their opposition to draconian education cuts planned by Gov. Perry and the Republican controlled legislature. Event organizers said they ran out of the 11,000 stickers they brought to hand out to the participants.
In addition to tapping the Rainy Day fund, rally-goers urged Gov. Rick Perry to sign the application for the $830 million currently tied up in a political fight in Congress from the federal Education Jobs fund. They also asked Texas lawmakers to fix the state’s public education funding mechanism.
Friday, March 11, 2011
The Energizing Of Democratic Voters
From the Jobsanger Blog by Ted McLaughlin: It's no argument that the 2010 election was something of a disaster for the Democratic Party. They didn't just lose the House (and several seats in the Senate), they lost it big -- giving the Republicans a significant majority and the ability to kill anything the Democratic Senate or White House might propose. And that loss carried over into state elections, giving Republicans control of many state governments.
Why did this happen? Did Americans decide Republicans could do a better job? For one thing, a lot of voters stayed home. The 2008 election had a voter turnout close to 62%, while in 2010 the turnout fell to around 41%. But that is not unusual for an off-year election. The turnout was actually about what is normal for an off-year election. The difference is in who voted and who didn't. . .
. . . Nate Silver, author of FiveThirtyEight.com and one of the most respected analyzers of polls in the country, believes the Republicans have energized Democratic voters. I agree with him. By trying to shove through unpopular programs to benefit their corporate and rich buddies, the Republicans are in the process of committing political suicide. They are reminding voters why they felt it necessary to vote Democratic in 2008 and encouraging them to do it again in 2012.
It looks like the voters may be energized to once again boot the Republicans out of office in 2012 -- not because of anything Democrats have accomplished, but to protect themselves from the Republican policies.
Read on at Jobsanger Blog . . .
Thursday, March 10, 2011
Democracy Now: Naomi Klein on Anti-Union Bills and Shock Doctrine American-Style
From Democracy Now -- Naomi Klein on Anti-Union Bills and Shock Doctrine American-Style: "This is a Frontal Assault on Democracy, a Corporate Coup D’Etat:"
As a wave of anti-union bills are introduced across the country following the wake of Wall Street financial crisis, many analysts are picking up on the theory that award-winning journalist and author Naomi Klein first argued in her 2007 bestselling book, The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism.
In the book, she reveals how those in power use times of crisis to push through undemocratic and extreme free market economic policies. “The Wisconsin protests are an incredible example of how to resist the shock doctrine,” Klein says.
We’re Having a Democratic Get-together!
Join us for a casual social with Democratic friends
Time & Date: Friday, March 11th, 6:30 pm
Tuesday, March 8, 2011
Friday, March 4, 2011
Issue By Issue Americans Hold Progressive Values
A new NBC/Wall Street Journal poll, released yesterday, reveals that issue by issue America is a very progressive nation.
The survey — which was conducted Feb. 24-28 of 1,000 adults (200 reached by cell phone), and which has an overall margin of error of plus-minus 3.1 percentage points — asked 26 different questions about reducing the federal budget deficit.
The most popular: placing a surtax on federal income taxes for those who make more than $1 million per year (81 percent said that was acceptable), eliminating spending on earmarks (78 percent), eliminating funding for weapons systems the Defense Department says aren’t necessary (76 percent) and eliminating tax credits for the oil and gas industries (74 percent).
The least popular: cutting funding for Medicaid, the federal government health-care program for the poor (32 percent said that was acceptable); cutting funding for Medicare, the federal government health-care program for seniors (23 percent); cutting funding for K-12 education (22 percent); and cutting funding for Social Security (22 percent). In addition, 77 percent believe public employees should have the same collective-bargaining rights (when it comes to health care, pensions and other benefits) as union employees who work for private companies.
Republican pollster Bill McInturff, who conducted the survey with Democratic pollster Peter D. Hart, says these results are a “cautionary sign” for a Republican Party pursuing deep budget cuts. He points out that the Americans who are most concerned about spending cuts are core Republicans and Tea Party supporters, not Democrats, Independents and swing voters. In the poll, eight in 10 respondents say they are concerned about the growing federal deficit and the national debt, but more than 60 percent — including key swing-voter groups — are concerned that major cuts from Congress could impact their lives and their families. What’s more, while Americans find some budget cuts acceptable, they are adamantly opposed to cuts in Medicaid, Medicare, Social Security and K-12 education.
This poll again exposes the big lie that this country is too conservative for progressive legislation to be supported by average Americans. Democrats just have to learn how to properly frame the way they talk to the voters. Candidate Obama used a very progressive frame when he talked to the voters in 2008 and he won the presidency in an electoral landslide.
Also see:
Transcript from the Rachel Maddow video clip in this post.
If you were king for the day, if you got to make the decisions in this country and you wanted to bring down the deficit, would you raise taxes on people making more than $1 million a year? Would you let the Bush tax cuts expire for the richest people in the country? Would you get rid of the subsidies, the tax breaks for oil and gas companies?
Would you do all those things? Really? Are you that liberal? Are you that liberal that you would do all those things?
If you are that liberal that you would do all of those things, then you are an average American. The support for these policies—look at this—the support for these policies is the support you get for the contention that puppies are cute. Eighty-one percent of the country supports raising taxes on millionaires to close the deficit, 81 percent.
If you look at the policies that Americans say they support, then we are the “Soviet Republic of Americanistan.” We are a bunch of commies in this country.
If you don‘t, tell somebody whether a policy is a liberal idea or a conservative idea. If you don‘t say who is proposing or supporting the policy, if you don‘t say where the idea is coming from, big majorities of Americans support really, really liberal economic policies—more liberal policies that are being supported even with Democratic majorities in Washington.
These are from the new NBC News/”Wall Street Journal” Poll that just came out today. Same poll also asked nationwide whether or not people oppose or support what Governor Scott Walker is doing in Wisconsin. Seventy-seven percent of people -- 77 percent of people in the country say that unions should be able to hold onto what the Republicans in Wisconsin are trying to take away from them. Seventy-seven percent of Americans are for public sector collective bargaining rights.
The American people turns out are a bunch of commie, pinko libs.
We‘re hippies. Dogs on streams. Soak the rich. Kumbayah.
Here‘s the most amazing thing, though. The same group of people who says that this is what they believe in, in terms of policy, the same group of people who believes this, mostly call themselves conservatives. Thirty-six percent of people in this NBC News poll, in this poll with these numbers, identify themselves as conservatives. Only 24 percent identify as liberals.
We like to use this word conservative. You keep using this word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
How can you simultaneously be a country that believes in all of this stuff to this degree and be a country that calls itself conservative? You really can‘t be—not if the word conservative has any meaning. But the word conservative, the whole concept of conservatism has been treated to a really expensive rebranding campaign over the last generation or so, and that‘s what it‘s thought of.
People who don‘t believe in conservative ideas at all think that they do, because they like the idea of calling themselves conservative. In reality, in terms of real ideas, though, it‘s economic populism that‘s popular. Policies that benefit people who have to work for a living are popular in this country. Policies that single out and demonize and attack people who have to work for a living, those are not popular.
What‘s happening in Wisconsin right now, what Republicans are trying to do in Wisconsin, is really, really, really unpopular. Republicans appear to be shocked by that. After all, they picked this fight in Wisconsin because they thought they were going to win it and they thought they were going to nationalize it. They thought it was going to be part of their new post-Bush, post-McCain branding.
But they are at the point now of not just losing, but losing really dramatically, publicly, in a way that nobody will ever be proud of. They‘re now at a point of scraping the barrel of the barrel for the most desperate tactics they can think of to win.
Today, Scott Walker and the Republicans came up with some new ideas about how to ratchet up pressure on Wisconsin‘s Democrats who are preventing them from passing this union-stripping thing.
In addition to stuff like cutting Democrats‘ pay and cutting off Democrats staffers‘ access to the capitol building‘s machine, Republicans today move to zero out Democrats‘ office budget. They move to fine Democrats $100 every day. They moved to remove their parking privileges.
They‘re parking spaces? Seriously? Yes, their parking privileges.
That‘s the ground of which the Republicans are now trying to win this. That‘s the ground on which Republicans are left to fight this out in Wisconsin. That‘s what they have to stand on.
Republicans have gotten to the bottom of the barrel in terms of what they can do, and their support has just disintegrated.
As we talked about earlier this week, if the gubernatorial election were held in Wisconsin today, not only would Scott Walker lose according to one of the latest polls, but the state is evenly divided on whether or not they actually want to recall him out of office. Republican state senators who are supporting Scott Walker on this are now facing their own recall drives. The conservative-leaning “Milwaukee Journal Sentinel,” which endorsed Scott Walker for governor, today that paper came out against what Walker and the Republicans are doing with this union-stripping bill.
And listen to this—listen to this: this is a Republican state senator from Wisconsin on a Wisconsin radio station today. This—listen to what he had to say about what his own party is doing now. This is amazing.
(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)
STATE SEN. DALE SCHULTZ ®, WISCONSIN: All I know is we‘re not talking, we‘re wasting valuable time about collective bargaining, which I don‘t ever remember being a part of last election‘s discussion whatsoever. But, most of all, you know, to me this looks like the classic overreach.
(END AUDIO CLIP)
MADDOW: The classic overreach—this Republican state senator calls what his own party is doing.
Nationally, the American people are against what Governor Walker and the Republicans are doing. Statewide in Wisconsin, the people also appear to be against it. Among even some elected Republicans in conservative-leaning media that previously supported this Walker guy in Wisconsin, they are against it now, too.
They are down to their most desperate measures. They‘re down to parking spaces. They say they won‘t negotiate. They are hemorrhaging support to the point they may get recalled from office.
But you know who does support Scott Walker and the Republicans trying to strip union rights and isn‘t afraid to say so? One of the Koch brothers a real one, not a fake one on a prank call.
The billionaire Koch brothers are not from Wisconsin, of course. They do own a large oil and chemical company, however. And Charles Koch wrote in “The Wall Street Journal” that he is on Scott Walker‘s side—both a bit of an anti-climax and a rally instructive thing for why this is a national story.
There are two sides in this fight. There is the side that believes in this, right? There‘s a side that believes in all these populist economic policies. That‘s one side. And then there‘s a few guys like David and Charles Koch and the multibillion dollar oil and chemical conglomerate they inherited from their dad.
It‘s kind of a numerical mismatch between these two sides. But it always is. It‘s the upper crust versus the middle class. It‘s the few people who own the company versus the number of people who work for the company. It‘s the people who write the paychecks versus those who cash the paychecks. It‘s the economic elite versus the average person.
And what the elite lack in terms of numbers of people, they makeup for in leverage in terms of the amount of money they can spend in order to advocate for their side. And that—that split between these two sides, aside from social issues and civil rights and issues of political style, that‘s split is the reason that there are two different political parties in the United States of America.
The Chamber of Commerce spent more money in last year‘s election than any other outside spending group. They put 93 percent of their Chamber of Commerce donations towards Republican candidates. There are two sides.
And because the Democratic side is inherently the one that has more people in it, and this is a democracy, and it‘s one person, one vote, the Republican side, in order to compete with that, has to use money to leverage as many votes as they can, because their side represents the interest of fewer people. That‘s where they found social issues and abortion and gay rights and religion and all of these other things to come in handy.
There‘s an economic split between the two parties, between Democrats and Republicans, but more people are on the Democratic side of that economic split, almost by definition. So, Republicans, by and large, have had to use non-economic issues to get people to vote with the economic elite and against their own economic interest.
The other way this works, though, is this—to the extent that Democrats embrace their role as standing for the average American, standing for the rights of people who work for a living, to the extent Democrats embrace that, people who work for a living and the institutions that represent them, that represent working people, and even poor people, they have over the years pushed the Democratic Party to endorse populist policies—to endorse stuff that helps regular working people. Stuff like minimum wage laws, stuff like expanded health coverage, stuff like workplace regulation, stuff like responsible tax laws that don‘t soak poor people to subsidize rich people. That‘s economic populism.
Endorsing those policies and pushing for those policies has the happy progressive side-effect of paying real political dividends for the Republican Party. Fighting for issues like that just happens to work for Democrats at the polls. There‘s nothing I have ever seen that gooses Democratic turnout, that helps Democratic chances all the way down the ticket than putting something like a minimum wage law on the ballot.
Economic populism is really popular. People really like these policies. Even people who call themselves conservatives like these policies.
We never talk about the differences between the parties like this anymore, but see, it seems so old school. It seems almost too big picture to acknowledge. But the reason there are two different major parties in America is because one of the parties, the Republican Party, represents the interest of a comparatively smaller number of people.
They decided to represent the interest of corporations. You can see it in how the elections are funded. They have decided to represent the interests of people like the Koch brothers that own the corporations. The Republican Party represents those economic elites.
And on the other side, the other party, the Democratic Party, represents a much greater number of people, the non-elites, everybody who has to work for a living. That‘s the reason there are two different parties. That‘s the reason the two different parties exist, even if it is unfashionable to say so and recognize that it is.
And to the extent that the Democratic Party embraces that split and supports policies that make it clear where they stand, that they stand for most working Americans, to the extent that Democrats do that, it helps the Democratic Party. And to the extent that the Democratic Party forgets that and gets away from it, and starts chasing corporate money as well at the expense of its base constituency, not only is there less reason for two different parties to exist in this country, but the Democratic Party is sowing the seeds of its own demise.
As the poli-sic 101 fortune cookie says, given the choice between a real Republican and a watered-down Republican, people generally take the real one. The reason Democrats are even tempted to try to be more like Republicans, to chase corporate interest, to give up on what makes them different from Republicans is because they tend to forget that economic populism is so popular. They forget numbers like this. They forget that this is what this country believes in.
And now, Scott Walker and the great Republican overreach of 2011 has served to remind them. It has reconnected the Democratic Party with its reason for existing.
Scott Walker is looking at being recalled as governor in Wisconsin. What‘s happening on the other side? Well, the progressive group Act Blue put out a call for people to support the Wisconsin Democratic senators who fled the state in order to stop Walker and Republicans from what they‘re doing. So far, with that call, which I bet you didn‘t even hear about, they‘ve raised more than $540,000 for state senators.
The AFL-CIO, the biggest federation of unions in the country, they are now reveling in their newfound support. The AFL-CIO president saying, quote, “We‘ve never seen the incredible solidarity that we are seeing now.”
The head of the United Mine Workers quoted by “The Associated Press,” saying, “People are looking at this and saying, this is a struggle I want to be part of, this is our moment.”
A group called the Progressive Change Campaign C put out the most pointed “stand with the people who work for a living” ad that we have seen in a very long time. They asked for support online to keep it running. Within eight hours, they tell us they raised $145,000.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
EMILY PEASE-CLEM, TEACHER, MADISON, WI: Governor Walker and the Republicans just gave over $100 million in tax cuts to corporations, and now, they‘re asking teachers and nurses to pay for it, and attacking workers‘ rights to negotiate for benefits.
KRISTINE FANTETTI, SECRETARY, WHITEWATE, WI: I‘m just a secretary, and this bill that Walker‘s proposing is going to cost me over $3,000 a year.
KATHLEEN SLAMKA, ELECTRICIAN, OAK CREEK, WI: This is Republican class warfare, an attack on the middle class. This is a battle and we need to win.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MADDOW: In Washington, Democrats like Ohio Congressman Tim Ryan find themselves looking into CSPAN cameras and making this kind of case for what the Democratic Party stands for.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. TIM RYAN (D), OHIO: The issue that we are talking about in Ohio, in Wisconsin is an issue of respect for the average worker in the United States of America. The issue is: are we going to respect work in the United States of America? Are we going to respect the workers in the United States of America while all these fat cats have gotten off scot-free? And we turn around and tell the workers in Ohio and Wisconsin and Indiana and the Big Ten Conference, you got to take the hit. It‘s unfair and it‘s disrespectful and it is not an American value.
(APPLAUSE)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MADDOW: When is the last time you heard Democrats talking like that in Congress?
Democrats are placing themselves on the side of Americans who have to work for a living and against the corporate interest and the political party those corporate interests pay for who are trying to strip them of their rights. This is happening among Democrats at the state level, right? The Wisconsin 14, those Wisconsin state senators have been out of the state 14 days now. They show no signs of wavering.
In Indiana—Indiana—Indiana, land of Democrats like Evan Bayh—in Indiana, state Democrats there did what the Wisconsin Democrats did. In Indiana, they fled the state. Once they fled the state, Republicans caved, and then the Democrats decided to stay out of the state in opposition to privatizing the state school system, too.
Indiana that happened? The fighting progressive Democrats of Indiana?
Indiana. Indiana.
Indiana and Wisconsin Democrats have galvanized to take the kind of
stand and to show the kind of spine that the Democratic base has frankly
been weeping for my entire adult life. In the state, Democrats are remembering now that there‘s a reason there are two parties in this country
remembering why the Democratic Party is not the Republican Party, remembering that the Democratic Party stands for people who work for a living, stands for the kinds of economic populism that are wildly popular in the United States of America, even when people call themselves conservatives.
In the states, in the Midwest, in places like Wisconsin and Indiana and Ohio, the Democratic Party is rediscovering its soul, remembering why it exists. No national Democrats remember that, too.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Understand this: if American workers are being denied their right to organize and collectively barring on when I‘m in the White House, I‘ll put on a comfortable pair of shoes myself. I‘ll walk on that picket line with you as president of the United States of America because workers deserve to know that somebody‘s standing in their corner.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MADDOW: That was candidate Barack Obama in 2007. There‘s no picket line in Wisconsin, but those rights are certainly being stripped.
What‘s happening in Wisconsin is galvanizing the Democratic Party in the States and reconnecting Democrats to what great majorities of Americans believe—economic populism, the interest of people who work for a living.
Republicans picked the wrong fight here. They are isolated and defensive and desperate on this. And even if they win—which I don‘t think they will—they will never be proud of how they won it. They will only be able to hope people forget how they won it.
This has become the Democrats‘ moment. When do we get to hear from our Democratic president on that?
The survey — which was conducted Feb. 24-28 of 1,000 adults (200 reached by cell phone), and which has an overall margin of error of plus-minus 3.1 percentage points — asked 26 different questions about reducing the federal budget deficit.
Rachel Maddow talks about the NBC/WSJ Poll We Are Wisconsin |
The least popular: cutting funding for Medicaid, the federal government health-care program for the poor (32 percent said that was acceptable); cutting funding for Medicare, the federal government health-care program for seniors (23 percent); cutting funding for K-12 education (22 percent); and cutting funding for Social Security (22 percent). In addition, 77 percent believe public employees should have the same collective-bargaining rights (when it comes to health care, pensions and other benefits) as union employees who work for private companies.
Republican pollster Bill McInturff, who conducted the survey with Democratic pollster Peter D. Hart, says these results are a “cautionary sign” for a Republican Party pursuing deep budget cuts. He points out that the Americans who are most concerned about spending cuts are core Republicans and Tea Party supporters, not Democrats, Independents and swing voters. In the poll, eight in 10 respondents say they are concerned about the growing federal deficit and the national debt, but more than 60 percent — including key swing-voter groups — are concerned that major cuts from Congress could impact their lives and their families. What’s more, while Americans find some budget cuts acceptable, they are adamantly opposed to cuts in Medicaid, Medicare, Social Security and K-12 education.
This poll again exposes the big lie that this country is too conservative for progressive legislation to be supported by average Americans. Democrats just have to learn how to properly frame the way they talk to the voters. Candidate Obama used a very progressive frame when he talked to the voters in 2008 and he won the presidency in an electoral landslide.
Also see:
Transcript from the Rachel Maddow video clip in this post.
If you were king for the day, if you got to make the decisions in this country and you wanted to bring down the deficit, would you raise taxes on people making more than $1 million a year? Would you let the Bush tax cuts expire for the richest people in the country? Would you get rid of the subsidies, the tax breaks for oil and gas companies?
Would you do all those things? Really? Are you that liberal? Are you that liberal that you would do all those things?
If you are that liberal that you would do all of those things, then you are an average American. The support for these policies—look at this—the support for these policies is the support you get for the contention that puppies are cute. Eighty-one percent of the country supports raising taxes on millionaires to close the deficit, 81 percent.
If you look at the policies that Americans say they support, then we are the “Soviet Republic of Americanistan.” We are a bunch of commies in this country.
If you don‘t, tell somebody whether a policy is a liberal idea or a conservative idea. If you don‘t say who is proposing or supporting the policy, if you don‘t say where the idea is coming from, big majorities of Americans support really, really liberal economic policies—more liberal policies that are being supported even with Democratic majorities in Washington.
These are from the new NBC News/”Wall Street Journal” Poll that just came out today. Same poll also asked nationwide whether or not people oppose or support what Governor Scott Walker is doing in Wisconsin. Seventy-seven percent of people -- 77 percent of people in the country say that unions should be able to hold onto what the Republicans in Wisconsin are trying to take away from them. Seventy-seven percent of Americans are for public sector collective bargaining rights.
The American people turns out are a bunch of commie, pinko libs.
We‘re hippies. Dogs on streams. Soak the rich. Kumbayah.
Here‘s the most amazing thing, though. The same group of people who says that this is what they believe in, in terms of policy, the same group of people who believes this, mostly call themselves conservatives. Thirty-six percent of people in this NBC News poll, in this poll with these numbers, identify themselves as conservatives. Only 24 percent identify as liberals.
We like to use this word conservative. You keep using this word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
How can you simultaneously be a country that believes in all of this stuff to this degree and be a country that calls itself conservative? You really can‘t be—not if the word conservative has any meaning. But the word conservative, the whole concept of conservatism has been treated to a really expensive rebranding campaign over the last generation or so, and that‘s what it‘s thought of.
People who don‘t believe in conservative ideas at all think that they do, because they like the idea of calling themselves conservative. In reality, in terms of real ideas, though, it‘s economic populism that‘s popular. Policies that benefit people who have to work for a living are popular in this country. Policies that single out and demonize and attack people who have to work for a living, those are not popular.
What‘s happening in Wisconsin right now, what Republicans are trying to do in Wisconsin, is really, really, really unpopular. Republicans appear to be shocked by that. After all, they picked this fight in Wisconsin because they thought they were going to win it and they thought they were going to nationalize it. They thought it was going to be part of their new post-Bush, post-McCain branding.
But they are at the point now of not just losing, but losing really dramatically, publicly, in a way that nobody will ever be proud of. They‘re now at a point of scraping the barrel of the barrel for the most desperate tactics they can think of to win.
Today, Scott Walker and the Republicans came up with some new ideas about how to ratchet up pressure on Wisconsin‘s Democrats who are preventing them from passing this union-stripping thing.
In addition to stuff like cutting Democrats‘ pay and cutting off Democrats staffers‘ access to the capitol building‘s machine, Republicans today move to zero out Democrats‘ office budget. They move to fine Democrats $100 every day. They moved to remove their parking privileges.
They‘re parking spaces? Seriously? Yes, their parking privileges.
That‘s the ground of which the Republicans are now trying to win this. That‘s the ground on which Republicans are left to fight this out in Wisconsin. That‘s what they have to stand on.
Republicans have gotten to the bottom of the barrel in terms of what they can do, and their support has just disintegrated.
As we talked about earlier this week, if the gubernatorial election were held in Wisconsin today, not only would Scott Walker lose according to one of the latest polls, but the state is evenly divided on whether or not they actually want to recall him out of office. Republican state senators who are supporting Scott Walker on this are now facing their own recall drives. The conservative-leaning “Milwaukee Journal Sentinel,” which endorsed Scott Walker for governor, today that paper came out against what Walker and the Republicans are doing with this union-stripping bill.
And listen to this—listen to this: this is a Republican state senator from Wisconsin on a Wisconsin radio station today. This—listen to what he had to say about what his own party is doing now. This is amazing.
(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)
STATE SEN. DALE SCHULTZ ®, WISCONSIN: All I know is we‘re not talking, we‘re wasting valuable time about collective bargaining, which I don‘t ever remember being a part of last election‘s discussion whatsoever. But, most of all, you know, to me this looks like the classic overreach.
(END AUDIO CLIP)
MADDOW: The classic overreach—this Republican state senator calls what his own party is doing.
Nationally, the American people are against what Governor Walker and the Republicans are doing. Statewide in Wisconsin, the people also appear to be against it. Among even some elected Republicans in conservative-leaning media that previously supported this Walker guy in Wisconsin, they are against it now, too.
They are down to their most desperate measures. They‘re down to parking spaces. They say they won‘t negotiate. They are hemorrhaging support to the point they may get recalled from office.
But you know who does support Scott Walker and the Republicans trying to strip union rights and isn‘t afraid to say so? One of the Koch brothers a real one, not a fake one on a prank call.
The billionaire Koch brothers are not from Wisconsin, of course. They do own a large oil and chemical company, however. And Charles Koch wrote in “The Wall Street Journal” that he is on Scott Walker‘s side—both a bit of an anti-climax and a rally instructive thing for why this is a national story.
There are two sides in this fight. There is the side that believes in this, right? There‘s a side that believes in all these populist economic policies. That‘s one side. And then there‘s a few guys like David and Charles Koch and the multibillion dollar oil and chemical conglomerate they inherited from their dad.
It‘s kind of a numerical mismatch between these two sides. But it always is. It‘s the upper crust versus the middle class. It‘s the few people who own the company versus the number of people who work for the company. It‘s the people who write the paychecks versus those who cash the paychecks. It‘s the economic elite versus the average person.
And what the elite lack in terms of numbers of people, they makeup for in leverage in terms of the amount of money they can spend in order to advocate for their side. And that—that split between these two sides, aside from social issues and civil rights and issues of political style, that‘s split is the reason that there are two different political parties in the United States of America.
The Chamber of Commerce spent more money in last year‘s election than any other outside spending group. They put 93 percent of their Chamber of Commerce donations towards Republican candidates. There are two sides.
And because the Democratic side is inherently the one that has more people in it, and this is a democracy, and it‘s one person, one vote, the Republican side, in order to compete with that, has to use money to leverage as many votes as they can, because their side represents the interest of fewer people. That‘s where they found social issues and abortion and gay rights and religion and all of these other things to come in handy.
There‘s an economic split between the two parties, between Democrats and Republicans, but more people are on the Democratic side of that economic split, almost by definition. So, Republicans, by and large, have had to use non-economic issues to get people to vote with the economic elite and against their own economic interest.
The other way this works, though, is this—to the extent that Democrats embrace their role as standing for the average American, standing for the rights of people who work for a living, to the extent Democrats embrace that, people who work for a living and the institutions that represent them, that represent working people, and even poor people, they have over the years pushed the Democratic Party to endorse populist policies—to endorse stuff that helps regular working people. Stuff like minimum wage laws, stuff like expanded health coverage, stuff like workplace regulation, stuff like responsible tax laws that don‘t soak poor people to subsidize rich people. That‘s economic populism.
Endorsing those policies and pushing for those policies has the happy progressive side-effect of paying real political dividends for the Republican Party. Fighting for issues like that just happens to work for Democrats at the polls. There‘s nothing I have ever seen that gooses Democratic turnout, that helps Democratic chances all the way down the ticket than putting something like a minimum wage law on the ballot.
Economic populism is really popular. People really like these policies. Even people who call themselves conservatives like these policies.
We never talk about the differences between the parties like this anymore, but see, it seems so old school. It seems almost too big picture to acknowledge. But the reason there are two different major parties in America is because one of the parties, the Republican Party, represents the interest of a comparatively smaller number of people.
They decided to represent the interest of corporations. You can see it in how the elections are funded. They have decided to represent the interests of people like the Koch brothers that own the corporations. The Republican Party represents those economic elites.
And on the other side, the other party, the Democratic Party, represents a much greater number of people, the non-elites, everybody who has to work for a living. That‘s the reason there are two different parties. That‘s the reason the two different parties exist, even if it is unfashionable to say so and recognize that it is.
And to the extent that the Democratic Party embraces that split and supports policies that make it clear where they stand, that they stand for most working Americans, to the extent that Democrats do that, it helps the Democratic Party. And to the extent that the Democratic Party forgets that and gets away from it, and starts chasing corporate money as well at the expense of its base constituency, not only is there less reason for two different parties to exist in this country, but the Democratic Party is sowing the seeds of its own demise.
As the poli-sic 101 fortune cookie says, given the choice between a real Republican and a watered-down Republican, people generally take the real one. The reason Democrats are even tempted to try to be more like Republicans, to chase corporate interest, to give up on what makes them different from Republicans is because they tend to forget that economic populism is so popular. They forget numbers like this. They forget that this is what this country believes in.
And now, Scott Walker and the great Republican overreach of 2011 has served to remind them. It has reconnected the Democratic Party with its reason for existing.
Scott Walker is looking at being recalled as governor in Wisconsin. What‘s happening on the other side? Well, the progressive group Act Blue put out a call for people to support the Wisconsin Democratic senators who fled the state in order to stop Walker and Republicans from what they‘re doing. So far, with that call, which I bet you didn‘t even hear about, they‘ve raised more than $540,000 for state senators.
The AFL-CIO, the biggest federation of unions in the country, they are now reveling in their newfound support. The AFL-CIO president saying, quote, “We‘ve never seen the incredible solidarity that we are seeing now.”
The head of the United Mine Workers quoted by “The Associated Press,” saying, “People are looking at this and saying, this is a struggle I want to be part of, this is our moment.”
A group called the Progressive Change Campaign C put out the most pointed “stand with the people who work for a living” ad that we have seen in a very long time. They asked for support online to keep it running. Within eight hours, they tell us they raised $145,000.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
EMILY PEASE-CLEM, TEACHER, MADISON, WI: Governor Walker and the Republicans just gave over $100 million in tax cuts to corporations, and now, they‘re asking teachers and nurses to pay for it, and attacking workers‘ rights to negotiate for benefits.
KRISTINE FANTETTI, SECRETARY, WHITEWATE, WI: I‘m just a secretary, and this bill that Walker‘s proposing is going to cost me over $3,000 a year.
KATHLEEN SLAMKA, ELECTRICIAN, OAK CREEK, WI: This is Republican class warfare, an attack on the middle class. This is a battle and we need to win.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MADDOW: In Washington, Democrats like Ohio Congressman Tim Ryan find themselves looking into CSPAN cameras and making this kind of case for what the Democratic Party stands for.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. TIM RYAN (D), OHIO: The issue that we are talking about in Ohio, in Wisconsin is an issue of respect for the average worker in the United States of America. The issue is: are we going to respect work in the United States of America? Are we going to respect the workers in the United States of America while all these fat cats have gotten off scot-free? And we turn around and tell the workers in Ohio and Wisconsin and Indiana and the Big Ten Conference, you got to take the hit. It‘s unfair and it‘s disrespectful and it is not an American value.
(APPLAUSE)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MADDOW: When is the last time you heard Democrats talking like that in Congress?
Democrats are placing themselves on the side of Americans who have to work for a living and against the corporate interest and the political party those corporate interests pay for who are trying to strip them of their rights. This is happening among Democrats at the state level, right? The Wisconsin 14, those Wisconsin state senators have been out of the state 14 days now. They show no signs of wavering.
In Indiana—Indiana—Indiana, land of Democrats like Evan Bayh—in Indiana, state Democrats there did what the Wisconsin Democrats did. In Indiana, they fled the state. Once they fled the state, Republicans caved, and then the Democrats decided to stay out of the state in opposition to privatizing the state school system, too.
Indiana that happened? The fighting progressive Democrats of Indiana?
Indiana. Indiana.
Indiana and Wisconsin Democrats have galvanized to take the kind of
stand and to show the kind of spine that the Democratic base has frankly
been weeping for my entire adult life. In the state, Democrats are remembering now that there‘s a reason there are two parties in this country
remembering why the Democratic Party is not the Republican Party, remembering that the Democratic Party stands for people who work for a living, stands for the kinds of economic populism that are wildly popular in the United States of America, even when people call themselves conservatives.
In the states, in the Midwest, in places like Wisconsin and Indiana and Ohio, the Democratic Party is rediscovering its soul, remembering why it exists. No national Democrats remember that, too.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Understand this: if American workers are being denied their right to organize and collectively barring on when I‘m in the White House, I‘ll put on a comfortable pair of shoes myself. I‘ll walk on that picket line with you as president of the United States of America because workers deserve to know that somebody‘s standing in their corner.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MADDOW: That was candidate Barack Obama in 2007. There‘s no picket line in Wisconsin, but those rights are certainly being stripped.
What‘s happening in Wisconsin is galvanizing the Democratic Party in the States and reconnecting Democrats to what great majorities of Americans believe—economic populism, the interest of people who work for a living.
Republicans picked the wrong fight here. They are isolated and defensive and desperate on this. And even if they win—which I don‘t think they will—they will never be proud of how they won it. They will only be able to hope people forget how they won it.
This has become the Democrats‘ moment. When do we get to hear from our Democratic president on that?
Wednesday, March 2, 2011
Bill White Says, It’s Not Right To Blame The Recession For Education Cuts
Bill White has sent out an open letter to Texans commenting on the massive education cuts planned by Gov. Perry and the Republican controlled state legislature that Senate Finance Chair Steve Ogden -- a Republican who Rick Perry has described as the smartest budget man he knows -- has said will “decimate public education" in Texas:
For weeks now, there has been a steady stream of news stories about school districts laying off, or planning to lay off, hundreds or thousands of teachers as Texas legislators more closer to slashing billions from the state education budget for the next two years. Many districts have already started to fire administrators and other non-teachers, but is clear that many teachers must be fired given the deep budget cuts. As Texas parents become increasingly worried about their children's education Republicans are tell them to "move along, nothing to see here..."
Two years ago a blue ribbon panel with conservative business leaders appointed by Governor Perry reported that Texas “faces a downward spiral in both quality of life and economic competitiveness if it fails to educate more of its growing population.” The panel focused on the need to increase college attendance and to improve higher education.
Governor Perry’s budget proposes a 20% cut in state support for higher education. For the impact of the current proposed budget cuts on specific student aid programs and colleges throughout the state, click here.
Please circulate this information to other Texans, and let your elected officials know what you think about this. You can also join the discussion about these cuts on the Facebook page, www.facebook.com/BillWhiteTexas.
It is not right to blame the recession for these cuts. It is just common sense: the state's economy hasn't gone down by 20%!
These cuts reflect a lack of leadership and planning for the future.
The education of our workforce is the most important investment in Texas' future. My dad came off a subsistence farm with help from the GI Bill, and a scholarship I earned opened the door to a college my family couldn’t afford. But the current budget proposal cuts student assistance by 41%. Even support for community colleges won't be spared during a period when their enrollment is surging.
In the last decade eight countries have caught up with or tied the U.S. in the percentage of young workers with college degrees. Texas has been lagging behind other states.
If you love our state like I do, please share this information with other Texans.
Respectfully,
Bill White
The Statesman: Texans for Fiscal Responsibility, a group that advocates for lower taxes and less government spending, has been making hundreds of thousands of [robo-]calls to voters around the state in an effort to push back against school districts that say the state’s budget shortfall will force them to lay off thousands of teachers.
Michael Sullivan, the president of Texans for Fiscal Responsibility, said his group has called about 350,000 households around the state, with an emphasis on constituents of the lawmakers sitting on the budget-writing House Appropriations and Senate Finance committees.
“Right now, public education bureaucrats are threatening to scare parents and teachers by threatening the classroom,” Sullivan says on the call. “Superintendents and school board members say they’ll start making cuts by letting teachers go. That’s irresponsible. The classroom must be protected. … Tell your state legislators to stand firm on cutting the budget and tell them that cuts must be made outside the classroom.”
Sullivan has repeatedly proven himself to be an effective communicator with the conservative grass roots. Earlier this year, Texas Monthly named him one of the 25 most powerful people in Texas politics.
The argument from Sullivan and other conservatives is that cutting the budget won’t force schools to let teachers go, but rather that schools need to stop spending so much money on non-classroom expenses. An oft-cited number around the Capitol these days is that school districts employ as many non-teachers as teachers, but educators say most of those non-teachers are the people who, for instance, drive the buses, serve the food and clean the buildings.
Read the full story at The Statesman.
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.
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.
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
|
- 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
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