The repository of one hard-boiled egg from the south suburbs of Milwaukee, Wisconsin (and the occassional guest-blogger). The ramblings within may or may not offend, shock and awe you, but they are what I (or my guest-bloggers) think.
From Robert Stacy McCain – “Lie down with Bushes, wake up with Democrats.”
Do read the whole thing, including what he says about Jeb’s comments about abandoning the Reagan principles. News flash to Jeb – I believe the GOP tried that the last 2 election cycles, with predictable results.
First, sorry I’ve left Steve hung out to dry for the past few weeks. I don’t want to go into it right now but I’ve been working on a “special project” here in MN for the past few weeks and just haven’t had the time to spend on the blog end. More on the special project later.
Now, on to our regularly scheduled program.
To my surprise, President Obama has managed to keep his net favorable ratings above the zero level into May. With the way things were going early in April, I would have bet that he would have dipped below zero by now. However, not all is good news in the Obama camp.
First, Rasmussen continues to show an eroding net positive rating for the President. For the past two weeks the net positive, according to Rasmussen Reports, has been bouncing around in the low single digits. Saturday, the net positive had dropped to just +1. While the President’s personal popularity remains high there are continuing indications that support for his policies are not. Which brings me to…
Second, also according to Rasmussen Reports, one of the bluest states around, New Jersey, appears to have an incumbent Democrat Governor who is in real reelection trouble. Depending upon the poll, current Governor, John Corzine is down by as much 15 points to a potential Republican challenger. The main issues in the campaign seem all related to the economy in New Jersey. In fact, Rasmussen makes the statement:
this race could come down to a referendum on the first year of the Obama administration. The economy clearly has hit New Jersey as hard as any other state, with many New York City commuters across the Hudson River being decimated by the financial mess on Wall Street.
I have to say I’m surprised that any Democrat is feeling pressure as a result of Obama’s economic policies. After all, just last week, President Obama, in his most recent preemption of prime time television in which he answers questions that have as much relevance to the country’s challenges as Simon Cowell does to men’s fashion trends, told us that his economic plans were working. In fact, he had already identified 150,000 jobs that had been saved or created since the stimulus bill was passed.
The stimulus bill was signed February 18th, just 10 weeks ago. With 150,000 jobs already saved or created, that’s 15,000 per week. At that clip, we’ll see nearly 500,000 more created or saved this year and another 650,000 created or saved prior to next year’s election for a total. With a total of 1.3 million jobs saved or created by next year’s election, it’s hard to imagine any incumbent being concerned about the President’s economic policy. 1.3 million is a lot of jobs is a lot of jobs! A lot of jobs; if any of them really exist. Maybe Corzine should start worrying!
Since WisPolitics bailed early, I guess it’s up to me to do the day-after Hospitality Suite awards.
Best food: Paul Ryan’s suite. In addition to the de rigeur cold-meats-and-cheese cracker spread, there were chicken wings, Swedish meatballs, potstickers, quesadillas, and spring rolls.
Best beverage: Jack Voight’s leaded slushees. It was the alcohol that made me actually like tea.
Best motif: J.B. Van Hollen’s hunting decorations took the cake. He even had an arcade hunting game there. Honorable mention goes to Voight’s suite with a heap of Tea Party signs and some post-bailout logos (I HOPE that TwitPic turned out).
THE WINNER!: Call me a sucker for intimate gatherings, but I have to give it to Voight’s suite. He was on the small end of the suite run, and nobody wanted to disturb the big lemon “Thank you” cake he had, but effort like that cannot be forgotten.
I just caught up with Rep. Paul Ryan, my Congressman, to briefly discuss the state of Congress and the TARP bailout…
Earlier this morning, I caught up with former Rep. Mark Neumann. Technical note; the grandfather clock tolling out the hour late threw me off of whatever game I had.
I didn’t quite get everybody, partly because I stepped out in the middle to interview Robin Vos, but I got most of the speeches to the floor made this morning. The quality may not be great because I didn’t hook into the multibox, so be advised. Click each of the links to download:
– RPW Chair Reince Priebus
– College Republican chair Lora Rae Anderson
– Congressman Tom Petri
– Congressman Jim Sensenbrenner
– Milwaukee County Executive Scott Walker
I caught up with Milwuakee County Executive and candidate for the GOP gubernatorial nomination Scott Walker this afternoon…
Even though the floor session is over, the music is too loud to cut audio of the floor speeches. I did, however, get to talk to Rep. Robin Vos from Racine regarding the various Regional Transit Authority/KRM board votes that took place in the Joint Finance Committee early yesterday morning.
I’m headed out the door to the Wisconsin GOP Convention in La Crosse. Over the weekend, I should be able to get some good interviews, and I’ll definitely be looking for Scott Walker, Mark Neumann and Tommy Thompson to discuss the 2010 gubernatorial race. National GOP chair Michael Steele will be in tonight and available to those of us working as media. I also should be able to find Rep. Robin Vos to discuss, among other things, the RTA/KRM votes last night and early this morning.
Between the blog and my Twitter account, I should be able to give you a halfway-decent view of the convention. On Twitter, those of us who are using Twitter, including the RPW itself and Scott Walker, will likely be using the #WISGOPconv hashtag, so you can follow along by searching for that on Twitter.
I’ll check back here when I get into La Crosse, so if there’s something you want asked, let me know.
The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports that the Kenosha Engine plant, owned by Chrysler, will shut down by October 2010 as part of Chrysler’s bankruptcy reorganization. Of note, it is the only engine plant of four (5 including the plant dedicated to the Dodge Viper and its V-10 that is not shared by any other model) being shut down, with plants in Michigan and Mexico remaining open.
With GM shuttering the Janesville plant last year, Delphi (formerly part of GM) finishing the shuttering of its Oak Creek plant, and Ford not having any plants in Wisconsin, this marks an end to a chapter in Wisconsin’s history.
Harvey over at IMAO runs through the Chapter 7 liquidation of the United States. A quick sample to entice you to go there:
“Although the other 52% of the country DID send in their 1040’s,” noted Obama, “it was all ‘tax-credit’ this, and ‘exemption’ that, and ‘I’m old! Gimme money!’. Cost us billions in refunds, which only made the situation worse.”
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got a speed run to La Crosse to make, and some rumblings about Tommy Thompson coming back to take his office to run down.
(H/T – Charlie Sykes, who properly invokes the BOHICA acronym)
Greg Bump at WisPolitics stayed up late so I wouldn’t have to, and he documented the extent of the screwing of the taxpayers regarding transit by the Democrats of the Joint Finance Committe last night and early this morning:
Do note the 15% that goes to the city. The current Milwaukee County Transit System has expressed its desire to not operate any light-rail system, and specifically the “Downtown Collector” that got rammed into the federal budget. The city is likely to use that 15% to fund the starter light-rail system.
Also note the entites that get to appoint the unelected taxing authority. Not only is there no guarantee that a suburban resident will get a seat as no suburban municpality has appointment power, but the executive of Milwaukee County, unlike the executives of the city of Milwaukee and the state, gets no voice.
An attempt to exempt the portion of Racine County west of I-94 (a minimum of 7 miles west of the KRM line, with no transit service between the area west of I-94 and any of the KRM stations) fell on a party-line 4-12 vote. (Revisions/extensions, 11:45 am 5/1/2009) This area, along with the part of Kenosha County west of I-94, was exempted from governor Jim Doyle’s RTA reorganization proposal.
I wonder why Kenosha County’s executive gets appointment authority, while Racine County’s executive and Milwaukee County’s executive doesn’t. Indeed, that was reinforced on a party-line 4-12 rejection of an amendment to make the Racine and Milwaukee County executives equal to Kenosha County’s. I wonder if there’s a court case to be made here.
Again, note that there is no guarantee that there will be anybody from a municipality other than Milwaukee, Racine or Kenosha on this unelected taxing authority.
You notice anything different between the makeup of the Dane County RTA and the Milwaukee County RTA and the KRM board, like the guaranteed presence of suburban members, or the requirement of approval of the legislative branches, or a role for the county executive?
I’m not exactly hopeful my state Senator, Jeff Plale (D-South Milwaukee) will either remember that he once wanted to get rid of sales taxes entirely or kill the RTAs. He is far more afraid of the East Side/UWM liberals than he is of outraged taxpayers. After all, someone who had to drop out because he committed vote fraud got 26% of the vote in the 2006 Democrat primary.
(H/T – Hot Air Headlines)
The News Organization That Cannot Be Quoted™ found that millions of taxpayers, from married couples where both spouses work, to those with multiple jobs, to many retirees, will be getting a nasty surprise when they do their 2009 taxes. The IRS massively screwed up the tax withholding tables in their attempt to implement the $13/week “Making Work Pay” tax credit, which will cause many taxpayers to owe taxes come April. The really-bad news didn’t quite make the story – the IRS charges penalties for underwithholding, so those who try to manage their withholding situation so the Treasury doesn’t get to use a lot of their money interest-free will want to consult their tax professional ASAP.
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