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.
For those of you around the Twin Cities who don’t know who Dave Thompson is, I’ll point you to the bio page for his State Senate campaign. Dave won the Republican endorsement for District 36, where Sen. Pat Pariseau is retiring, last week. He is solid on the issues, from taxes to school choice.
I’m sure Shoebox can, and will, provide a better rundown than I can. Good luck Dave, and may we be calling you Sen. Thompson this time next year.
(H/T – Kevin Fischer)
I’m actually surprised that CNN ran with this short montage of Teh Won’s facial expressions while Republicans were making their points at the PlaceboCare “summit” last week….
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Si1Xec3elDU[/youtube]
As Kevin said, “Sure Obama wanted to listen to Republicans….really he did!” And we have a “slightly-used” bridge to sell you.
(H/T – Kevin Binversie)
There’s a new twist in the All My Thompsons saga – Poltico is reporting that Tommy Thompson has told his Washington-based law firm and key clients that he might indeed challenge Russ Feingold for his Senate seat this year. His former campaign manager, Bill McCoshen, told Politico that Thompson’s moves toward running are “more thoughtful and more deliberate” than those taken at any point since he departed the governor’s mansion in 2001.
Meanwhile, an anonymous ally, who says that Thompson would have at least $200,000 in donations waiting for him once he jumped in, says that it is now 70-30 that he jumps in, noting that Thompson has been asking operational questions in recent weeks.
On the other hand, his wife, Sue Ann, recently told Madison Magazine that she’s discouraging Tommy from running. Also, Thomspon has a few black marks, including being on record as supporting the Senate version of PlaceboCare.
Side note from the story – Milwaukee County Democratic Party chair Sachin Chheda noted that support would hurt Thompson in any election.
Also, I note that $200,000 isn’t exactly going to cut it in the money race. Feingold had over $3.6 million in the bank at the end of last year, and Terrence Wall, the more-moneyed of the two announced Republican challengers, raised about $240,000 not including loans to himself in his first 7 weeks.
Still, there’s the Rasmussen polls over the last 2 months that gave Thompson a margin-of-error lead over Feingold (while Feingold maintained a double-margin-of-error lead over both Wall and Dave Westlake), and the name recognition that Thompson still enjoys in Wisconsin.
The consensus in Wisconsin, from Kevin to Mary at Freedom Eden to Brad V at Letters in Bottles is that Thompson needs to make a decision soon, sooner than during the late-May GOP convention that was floated in the Politico article. Beyond the time aspect, which Wall and Westlake desperately need to get known, there’s the money aspect. If those with deep pockets (or at least deeper pockets than my empty ones) don’t know whether Thompson will or will not jump in until late-May, the cash that could have gone into this race will likely end up elsewhere.
I suppose I should fire up the polls on this one. While I didn’t include an expiration date on the poll, I will close it before the GOP convention if Thompson still hasn’t announced one way or the other.
Will Tommy Thompson run for US Senate in 2010?
Up to 1 answer(s) was/were allowed
Total Voters: 68
Loading ...The February Rasmussen look-in at the Wisconsin governor’s race holds good news for Scott Walker, and not-as-good news for Mark Neumann and Tom Barrett. The raw numbers:
The reason why I call it good news for Walker despite a narrowing of the lead by a percentage point is two-fold:
Neumann has a harder road given a more-significant narrowing of his lead over Barrett. However, not only does he still have said lead, his Favorability Index improved from -1 (10% very favorable/11% very unfavorable) last month to +4 (18%/14%).
Barrett shares that same +4 Favorability Index (22% very favorable/18% very unfavorable), an improvement from his +2 (19%/17%) last month. That is buoyed by an improvement in the views of both Gov. Jim Doyle (overall approval margin up from -26 to -20, Approval Index up from -31 to -24) and President Barack Obama (overall approval margin up from -8 to -5, Approval Index up from -20 to -11).
Regardless of the age, kids don’t understand the importance of healthy eating habits. From early on, and yet today, Thing 1 and Thing 2 are “compartment” eaters. The Things eat all of one item, say their vegetable, then the meat, then the starch. If we sat their dessert on the table along with the rest of their meal, there is no doubt that they would eat that first.
The House Democrats had a plan to reform health care. The Senate Democrats had a plan to reform health care. While the plans varied on some details, we heard vociferous denials and objections from various Democrat leaders, including President Barack Obama, that there was no plan to “take over” health care. They claimed time and again, that they just wanted to repair, fix or reduce the cost of it.
Today President Obama finally announced his plan for reforming health care. Remember that neither the House or Senate plans were his and that every attempt to get him to explain the details of either of those plans was met with some variation of “he hasn’t released his plan.”
President Obama’s plan contains basically one item; price controls. Pay no attention to anything else that he says about incorporating parts of the Senate, House or even Republican plans, they are moot. With the simple act of controlling and dictating prices, President Obama will absorb national health care into the Federal government.
By controlling the pricing structure, President Obama will force all of the other concessions that he wants: Not including pre existing conditions; you won’t get that price increase. Not reducing payments to physicians; you won’t get that price increase. Using procedures that aren’t deemed acceptable; you won’t get that price increase. Paying too much for people that have high cost health care; you won’t get the price increase etc. etc. etc.
When asked about the large loans provided to the auto manufacturers and the subsequent rules imposed on them by their Czar, President Obama claimed “I don’t want to run the auto companies.” Saying that limiting premium increases is not controlling the insurance industry and in turn the medical industry, is just as disingenuous as his statement about the auto industry.
While we’ve taught our boys that they need to work the process, eat a good meal and they get dessert, President Obama has never learned this lesson. Rather than eat a balanced meal, President Obama thinks his political life only exists to eat dessert. I hope he has a good dental plan!
Rasmussen Reports expanded and extended upon their Russ Feingold-v-Tommy Thompson matchup last month, this time including the two announced Republican challengers. The quick-and-dirty numbers:
– Thompson 48%, Feingold 43% (up from a 47%/43% Thompson advantage last month)
– Feingold 47%, Terrence Wall 39%
– Feingold 47%, Dave Westlake 37%
As Rasmussen noted, incumbents who can’t get to 50%, especially against a couple of people little-better-known than John Doe, are in trouble. Of note, the “undecideds” in all three matchups are, to within the margin of rounding, equal to the margin between the major candidates.
It’s not often that I fisk an entire article but this one was so blatant it deserved a response.
Frank: Partisanship is out of control in Congress
Even the title is laughable. Other than Nancy Pelosi, I can’t think of anyone in Congress who is as arrogant, belittling, as drunk on their own power or as partisan as Barney Frank!
At a book signing at the University of Massachusetts, Frank commented on Evan Bayh’s retirement announcement:
“I don’t understand how you make things better from the outside. I share the frustration, but I would have hoped he would have stayed around and voted to change the filibuster rule,” Frank said.
Really? You can’t think of one way that it would be better to be on the outside than on the inside? Other than the obvious point that Frank being out would definitely lower the partisanship, how about if you were a Representative who actually had a conscience, a Representative who did not think driving the country into an inescapable black hole of debt? What if you thought that the far left of your party had become so partisan that they had severed themselves from all sense of reality? What if you were tired of being counted amongst those who were responsible for the destruction of the United States? What if you thought that your party leadership were part of the problem? What if you actually paid attention to your constituents and heard the anger, frustration and concern? If you were that person, wouldn’t you think that going to your constituents with a clean slate and removing your personal desires from the equation might be a good thing?
But partisanship was a theme to which he returned again and again, saying he believes a clear shift began under Republican Newt Gingrich’s tenure as House speaker in the second half of the 1990s.
Before that, he said, Democrats and Republicans could disagree but remain cordial and work toward compromise. Now, though, the pressure to please the party’s base to win primary elections has spawned a Congress in which the sides are “very ideologically differentiated,” he said.
“Compromise” has been a word that means we continually slide to the left. On days that Republicans are called “ideologues,” we slide just a bit to the left. On days that Republicans cosponsor legislation with Democrats, we run wildly to the left. While there may be some legitimate argument that the United States has moved left socially, moving left fiscally means a complete disregard for basic economics.
We are now “very ideologically differentiated” because fiscally, we are at a dire point. The Left wants to abandon any fiscal discipline of any kind. They want to spend with the belief that examples of economic stagnation of Europe and the demise of the Soviet Union’s economy were a result of not having people who were enlightened enough to create money out of thin air as the current Left believes they can. The Right, whether they actually believe it or it is now fashionable, want to stop the country from committing financial Harri Kari. The reason that people like Frank see this as partisanship is that the Left is incapable of seeing any issue in the terms of black and white or right and wrong. The core of the Left ideology is that everybody’s opinion is as valid as the next person. There is no right or wrong, just opinions. This thinking leaves them claiming that all issues should be negotiated and compromised. I don’t think anyone with a correct brain would believe that what Hitler did to the Jews was able to be compromised about. What the Left is looking to do the US financially has the potential to have consequences every bit as horrific.
Frank goes on to blame the partisanship in the electorate on where people choose to get their information:
He believes that’s also evident in the electorate, in which the most ardent liberals and conservatives are getting their news from such different sources that they often seem to be discussing completely different topics.
“People are almost in a parallel universe. They are not getting a common set of facts and most of the people they talk to are those who agree with them,” Frank said.
Barney, Barney, Barney, facts, by their very definition are, well, facts. There can not be more than one set of facts in a situation. “Barney says” is not fact. While it may (highly unlikely) contain facts, it is not all fact.
If Barney wants to complain about us getting information from the people we know who we agree with, perhaps Barney should look at the legislative process. If Barney listened to his own words, he would be much more open to opposing health care reform, shrinking or disbanding FREDDIE and FANNIE and avoiding additional spending of any kind!
Barney Frank is the worst kind of hypocrite. Not only does he not see his own failings, he actually views his failings as being the answer to the problem he sees as existing.
Much as been made of President Obama’s ego and his apparent lack of appreciation for reality. President Obama is Aristotle to Frank’s Peter Pan when it comes to living in reality. Who knows, with the election of Scott Brown, anything now seems possible!
If not the biggest surprise in fact, certainly the Evan Bayh retirement announcement will likely go down as the biggest surprise in timing. Bayh announced his retirement with just four days remaining until the the filing deadline for the primary. As an aside, if you’d like to know how things go if no one files, see Steve’s post here.
In his statement, Senator Bayh pointed to the level of partisanship in Congress as the reason he would not seek another term:
After all these years, my passion for service to my fellow citizens is undiminished, but my desire to do so by serving in Congress has waned. For some time, I have had a growing conviction that Congress is not operating as it should. There is too much partisanship and not enough progress — too much narrow ideology and not enough practical problem-solving. Even at a time of enormous challenge, the peoples’ business is not being done.
It would seem logical that Bayh is blaming Republicans for partisanship. That’s what all the left pundits, well, those who haven’t eviscerated him for giving them only 4 days, will say. But, consider some seemingly random bits of information.
A bit later in Bay’s statement, he specifically called out examples of partisanship:
Just last week, a major piece of legislation to create jobs — the public’s top priority — fell apart amid complaints from both the left and right.
By accounts from all political persuasions, it was Harry Reid who pulled this bill.
Also from his statement:
Two weeks ago, the Senate voted down a bipartisan commission to deal with one of the greatest threats facing our nation: our exploding deficits and debt. The measure would have passed, but seven members who had endorsed the idea instead voted “no” for short-term political reasons.
Some may say that the second statement is pointed at Republicans. Those “somes” however, would be missing the fact that there were just as many Democrats as Republicans who voted against this commission, 23 of each to be exact. As with so many other issues during Obama’s first year, the Democrats had more than enough votes to pass the legislation but couldn’t get the job done. Perhaps more interesting, President Obama himself who now talks constantly about the need to cut the deficit, didn’t endorse this commission until the day before the vote.
As much as the two items in Bayh’s statement make me wonder what he is thinking, there are other items, acts of his during the past few days, that raise far more questions for me.
First, according to a couple of sources, Bayh told his staff of his decision last Friday. All accounts have Bayh informing President Obama of his decision early Monday morning. According to numerous reports, Bayh did not tell the Majority Leader, Harry Reid, until late Monday morning after the news had been leaked to the press.
Why would Bayh not tell President Obama about his decision until Monday morning? If he thought Obama had the right policies and just hadn’t been able to explain the situation to the American people, would Bayh have at least gotten his counsel before he made his decision.
Perhaps even more puzzling is why Bayh would wait until after news had leaked to inform Harry Reid. I would think that Reid would have a bunch of questions for Bayh in an attempt to figure out what Bayh’s announcment might mean on strategy for legislation that Reid may choose to pursue this year.
The second issue is the timing of Bayh’s announcement. Bayh announced with so few days left prior to the primary that one of two things are happening. Either, he or the State’s Democrat leaders have a hand picked person waiting with the prerequisite number of signatures to get on the ballot or, this process will bypass the the primaries and leave the decision of who will run to the Democrat leadership of the state. In either event, it would appear that Bayh has orchestrated this to keep the far left organizations from having much influence on the choice of the candidate.
On the surface, it may appear that Bayh is pointing to Republican partisanship as the reason he is leaving the Senate, However, after looking at his statements, and examining his acts, I’m not so sure. While there are likely some Republicans that Bayh may point to, it seems more likely that Bayh’s comments are pointed to the extreme left of his own party.
It is the extreme left of his party that shut Republicans out of the stimulus bill. It was the extreme left of his party that shut the Republicans out of health care reform. The policies of the extreme left, led by Obama, Reid and Pelosi, have left us buried in debt with only the benevolence of the Chinese keeping us from bankruptcy. Finally, it is the extremely partisan politics and policies of President Obama, representing the far left, that has turned vast numbers of Americans against the Democrats and may have earned Bayh a defeat even had he decided to stay.
If I were to quote Evan Bayh’s thoughts, they would be those of the immortal Pogo:
We have met the enemy and the enemy is us
Update 8:29 – If you think my theory was cracked, take a look at this little out take from CNN’s report on Bayh’s retirement:
“He hates the Senate, hates the left bloggers,” a friend and longtime adviser to Bayh said. “They are getting their wish, pure Democrats in the minority.”
OK, admittedly, getting support for my theories from CNN may not exactly elevate my argument but you get your friends where you get your friends!
(H/T – Ed Morrissey, who tipped me for finding something in Indiana law regarding what happens if there is no Dem primary)
The Washington Post’s Chris Cillizza reports that Sen. Evan Bayh (D-IN) will not seek re-election. This surprising move comes as the deadline for qualifying for ballot access in the May partisan primary approaches. First, a quick review of the ballot access qualifications and timeline (from pages 16-17 of the 2010 Indiana Candidate Guide):
Now, you might say that leaves the Democrats in a lurch if nobody can get on the ballot. However, Indiana also contemplated a scenario where one of the major parties might not have anybody qualify for a partisan primary ballot (pages 9-10 of the Candidate Guide – all emphasis in the original):
If No Candidate Runs In a Major Party Primary
On occasion, no candidate will file for the Democratic or Republican Party nomination to an office before a primary election. If this occurs, the vacancy may not be filled before the primary. (IC 3-13-1-2)
Immediately following the primary election, the political party may begin the process of filling the ballot vacancy. However, no political party is ever required to fill a ballot vacancy, even if an individual wishes to run as a candidate for the vacant nomination.
For federal, statewide, and state legislative candidates, the state chairman of a political party calls a caucus of the precinct committeemen within the district…. (IC 3-13-1-6; 3-13-1-7; 3-13-1-8)
A person who wishes to be selected by the caucus to fill a ballot vacancy for a federal, statewide, state legislative office, judicial office, or the office of prosecuting attorney must file a CAN-31 form with both the caucus chairman and the Election Division….
The deadline for the Democratic or Republican Party to conduct a political party caucus to fill a vacancy existing on the general election ballot resulting from a vacancy on the primary election ballot is Wednesday June 30, 2010 (IC 3-13-1-2; IC 3-13-1-7).
As Ed noted in Update IV of his post, “…(T)hat process is almost certain to produce a liberal ideologue — the exact opposite of what Indiana Democrats need for the midterms.”
Last week, Matt Lewis hit Paul Ryan on a trio of “not exactly” fiscally/small-government conservative votes at the end of the previous and the start of the current Congress. Jon Ward asked Ryan directly about each of the three votes (quotes from Ryan, with interjections from me breaking up the blockquotes):
You know I don’t hear it here at home that much. You’ve got to remember Obama won my district. Dukakis and Gore won my district. Clinton won my district. So I don’t come from, you know, a red area. So I think it’s important to keep in mind where I come from. I don’t hear that here.
It may not exactly be “that much”, but I will verify that Ryan has heard it from the district (specifically me). I will point out that before Mark Neumann finally broke through in 1994 (after failing miserably in 1992 and narrowly losing in a special election in 1993) and before Ryan made it a “safe R” district, the district was a very-safe Democratic district represented for years by Les Aspen.
TARP. I’ll take one at a time. I believe we were on the cusp of a deflationary spiral which would have created a Depression. I think that’s probably pretty likely. If we would have allowed that to happen, I think we would have had a big government agenda sweeping through this country so fast that we wouldn’t have recovered from it. So in order to prevent a Depression and a complete evisceration of the free market system we have, I think it was necessary. It wasn’t a fun vote. You don’t get to choose the kind of votes you want. But I just think as far as the long term objectives that I have — which are restoring the principles of this country — I think it was necessary to prevent those principles from being really kind of wiped out for a generation.
I know a lot of people don’t like to hear it (especially those with short memories), but support for/opposition against TARP, at least in its originally-conceived form of being a very-temporary holding of real assets that could not be dumped on the open market without the open market crashing, was a far closer call than the 20/10 vision of history made it.
Auto. Really clear. The president’s chief of staff [Josh Bolten] made it extremely clear to me before the vote, which is either the auto companies get the money that was put in the Energy Department for them already — a bill that I voted against because I didn’t want to give them that money, which was only within the $25 billion, money that was already expended but not obligated — or the president was going to give them TARP, with no limit. That’s what they told me. That’s what the president’s chief of staff explained to me. I said, ‘Well, I don’t want them to get TARP. We want to keep TARP on a [inaudible]. We don’t want to expand it. So give them that Energy Department money that at least puts them out of TARP, and is limited.’ Well, where are we now? What I feared would happen did happen. The bill failed, and now they’ve got $87 billion from TARP, money we’re not going to get back. And now TARP, as a precedent established by the Bush administration, whereby the Obama administration now has turned this thing into its latest slush fund. And so I voted for that to prevent precisely what has happened, which I feared would happen.
It’s a question of semantics here. Does one see that particular vote (which died in the Senate) as a “limit the damage” attempt or an opportunity to stand in complete opposition? Do remember that, at the time, Ryan’s hometown was home to a GM truck assembly plant, and that Chrysler had an engine plant in the district.
Would “limiting” the cash available for that bailout to $25 billion stopped the government takeover of GM and Chrysler? I don’t know. However, it would have prevented the Treasury from providing the debtor-in-possesion financing that greased the nationalization skids.
The whole AIG thing, you know that was — you know I obviously regret that one. I was angry at the time because I was worried that all these companies were jumping into TARP thinking they could use TARP as a way to best their competitors, as a way to get cheaper credit, to get money at cheaper rates, at the expense of their smaller competitors. And so I was seeing TARP as sort of a new tool of crony capitalism, and I thought it’d be a good signal to send to the large banks who were jumping into this thing, who really didn’t need it: ‘Stay away from this, don’t get in bed with the government, even though it might in the short term give you a leg up on your competitors, you’ll be burned. That was what was running through my mind at the time, given the fact that we had about six hours notice on the vote, and our lawyers were telling us that it was not a bill of attainder. Now when a week went by, and our lawyers had a chance to read it more clearly and carefully, they reversed their opinion of the bill and said it was in fact a bill of attainder, which therefore should not have passed…. The other thing that bothered me was the Democrats were in a real political pinch, because Chris Dodd wrote in the exemption for those bonuses in the bill, and they were on the hook for it. And they were trying to get themselves off the hook and Republicans on the hook. And that bothered me too, was just the political cynicism behind it bothered me and I didn’t want to give the Democrats that as well. So those were the thoughts running through my mind when I had to make more or less the snap judgment on that bill.
The “don’t get in bed” portion of that was the off-the-record answer I alluded to last week (which, going back through the archives, was not exactly off-the-record). The fact that Ryan admitted he made a mistake is new, and refreshing.
John Hawkins over at Right Wing News once again took the temperature of the right end of the blogosphere, this time in response to a rather kooky Daily Kos/Research 2000 poll of “self-identified ‘Republicans'”. I honestly don’t remember (Shoebox: I did it. Usually I forget these things. This one didn’t require a lot of thought and I’m good at that!) whether it was Shoebox or I that provided the answers for the blog (it’s been that kind of week), but I’ll fire in my two-cents’ worth (my answers are bolded, and the “not sures” from the Kos poll, which are not tabulated in the RWN straw poll, are not copied here):
Would you favor or oppose giving illegal immigrants now living in the United States the right to live here legally if they pay a fine and learn English? (RWN – 24% favor/76% oppose, Kos – 26% favor/59% oppose)
That doesn’t go far enough. Illegal aliens also need to go back to their country of orgin, apply properly, and enter the line at the point they do so. Shoebox:ditto
Do you believe Barack Obama is a racist who hates White people? (RWN – 29% yes/71% no, Kos – 31% yes/36% no)
Obama hates conservatives regardless of skin color. Shoebox: Ditto
Do you believe ACORN stole the 2008 election? (RWN – 20% yes/80% no, Kos – 21% yes/24% no)
Allow me to clarify. Without ACORN and affiliated groups, including the Soros-bought-and-paid for secretaries of state, Shoebox and Birdman would not be calling Al Franken “Senator”. However, Obama’s election was by beyond the margin of fraud. Shoebox: I voted no because this was based on the Presidential election. I agree with Steve on the Franken mess.
Should openly gay men and women be allowed to serve in the military? (RWN – 53% yes/47% no, Kos – 26% yes/55% no)
The key word here is “openly”. For the record, I am also against co-ed military units where fraternization cannot reasonably be limited. What a military member does off-base, so long as it doesn’t violate the laws or involve intimate relations with another military member, does not matter.
Shoebox: This was the hardest one for me. I believe in equal employment opportunities regardless of sexual orientation, therefore I voted yes. The “openly” for me is almost irrelevant because as best I know, it’s not a good thing to be caught “openly” having heterosexual sex while on duty. I believe the real issue comes down to performance. As long as we keep the ACLU out of it, I think the military has plenty of ways to deal with disruptive behavior of any kind. I don’t think the government needs to micromanage this one.
Should same sex couples be allowed to marry? (RWN – 24% yes/76% no, Kos – 7% yes/77% no
For those who say that marriage is simply a religious function, explain why the former Soviet Union sanctioned marriages and specifically limited it to one man and one woman.
Shoebox: ditto
Should Barack Obama be impeached, or not? (RWN – 11% yes/88% no, Kos – 39% yes/32% no
Obama meets the Constitutional requirements of the office of President, was duly elected in accordance with the Constitution, and hasn’t done anything like lie to a grand jury or direct a coverup of a break-in.
Shoebox: I’ll put one caveat on Steve’s point; we haven’t heard the testimony on the Blagojevich case yet!
Do you believe Barack Obama was born in the United States, or not? (RWN – 86% yes/14% no, Kos – 42% yes/36% no)
See above. Shoebox: distraction. Move on!
Do you think Barack Obama is a socialist? (RWN – 89% yes/11% no, Kos 63% yes/21% no)
If one seizes companies like a socialist, one parcels out pieces of said seized companies to favored political interests, specifically unions, like a socialist, and one dictates the maximum level of compensation at companies not quite completely under the ownership of the government like a socialist, one is a socialist.
Shoebox: I marked yes but I actually think he is a Marxist.
Do you believe your state should secede from the United States? (RWN – 6% yes/94% no, Kos – 23% yes/58% no)
We’re not at that point in the course of human events where it is necessary to dissolve those political bands…yet.
Shoebox: Besides, at least while I’m living in MN, there’s no way we’d leave the losing side!
John also asks a question not asked by Kos/Research 2000 that has had (see below) Shoebox on one side, Birdman on the other, and me somewhere in limbo.
Do you think the Democrats are going to pass a health care bill? (26% yes/74% no)
Call me hopeful, but I don’t see how Nancy Pelosi has 217 (yes, the majority is 217 now that there are two vacancies) votes for the abortion-and-payoffs Senate version of PlaceboCare. I also don’t see the troika of Obama/Pelosi/Harry Reid accepting anything less than full socializatin of health care complete with full abortion-on-demand funding. If they couldn’t ram the full monty through in the 6 months they had a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate, despite having said full monty allegedly certified for “reconciliation”,….
Shoebox: anything is possible but I think this is dead. I think there are too many electoral bodies stacking up even for ideologues like Pelosi, Reid and Obama.
Remember when the Left made hay with former Sen. Norm Coleman’s DC housing arrangements? Jim Geraghty the Indispensible found that Sen. Evan Bayh (D-IN Who Knows Where) used the business address of his campaign treasurer as his “home-state address of record” on his current Statement of Candidacy. Said Statement of Candidacy was filed with the secretary of the Senate, and signed by Bayh, in July 2005.
While the Constitution is silent on the DC-area living arrangements of Senators, it isn’t exactly silent on where a Senator must be living at the time of his or her election. From Article I, Section 3 (emphasis added):
No Person shall be a Senator who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty Years, and been nine Years a Citizen of the United States, and who shall not, when elected, be an Inhabitant of that State for which he shall be chosen.
Earlier this week, President Obama announced that he would hold a televised meeting that would include himself and leaders of both Congressional Chambers on February 25th. According to Obama, the purpose of the meeting is to hear ideas from all parties, forge them in a bipartisan bill and get health care reform passed.
Coincidental with the announcement of his desire to hear Republican input on health care, Obama has increased the volume and frequency of accusing Republicans of being the “party of no.” Last Wednesday, President Obama called Republicans “obstructionists” during a meeting with Democrat lawmakers. On Monday of this week, President Obama characterized the Republican desire to start the health care process over again as “doing nothing.” With this kind of rhetoric, some, including myself, wonder whether President Obama is sincere in is attempt to hear ideas or whether the health care meeting is a first step in an attempt to color the Republicans as the “party of no” in an attempt to save the sure November disaster waiting for the Democrats.
Today, President Obama had a closed door meeting with Nancy Pelosi and John Boehner. The meeting was set to discuss what was to be included in and how to pass a “jobs bill.” Reportedly, on the topic of credits for jobs created, Nancy Pelosi expressed skepticism of the bill and said that she knew of no one who believed the plan would actually create any jobs!
Hallelujah! I’m not sure that I’ve ever agreed with Nancy Pelosi before! Further, I think this may be the first time this session that Pelosi and Boehner agree, although they may not realize it!
Boenher has diagnosed the problem properly. Jobs are not returning because businesses have too many uncertainties. Health care costs, energy costs, capital gains, income taxes and many other items are currently being considered by the Obama administration. In each case, the administration is proposing legislation that would either cost businesses more or put further regulation on their ability to do business. When businesses see uncertainty that they have no ability to hedge against, they respond by taking less risk. Taking less risk translates to less hiring and fewer jobs.
Pelosi is also right, even though she doesn’t know why. Given the uncertainty described previously, jobs credits will have little to no effect on hiring. The issue, simply, is that employers are not hiring because they see high risk in expanding their business. Increasing hiring, even if it’s partially paid for by the government, does nothing to change the broader economic issues.
Who would have guessed that when it came to assessing a jobs program, Nancy Pelosi and John Boehner would be on the same side of the argument, neither party wants to pursue one.
So, who’s the “party of no” now?
David Dodenhoff, Ph.D, took a look at the shocking growth of food stamps in Wisconsin for the Wisconsin Policy Research Institute, specifically the 50% growth between 2002 and 2008. The takeaway (emphasis in the original):
That, unfortunately, is the way government tends to work. When elected officials act, they typically claim to be addressing some public policy problem or other. It’s funny, though, how the solutions they proffer always seem to solve a political problem, namely, “How can I maximize my chances for reelection?” New programs and extensions of existing programs, like SNAP, allow politicians to distribute benefits to particular constituencies, while spreading the costs over a broad base of taxpayers. The political benefits are obvious; whether or not progress has been made on the underlying policy issue is almost beside the point.
Bureaucrats have a similar problem to solve: “How can I keep my job?” Negotiated civil service and union protections are part of the answer. Another answer, though, is this: “Make yourself indispensible.” New programs and extensions of existing programs mean that there’s always more work to be done, which makes the idea of bureaucratic downsizing a very hard sell.
The result is a public sector that sees its own unrelenting growth not as many Americans see it—that is, as an urgent problem—but as a solution; in fact, as the one solution that always makes sense.
Matt Lewis remembers that voting record matters, which tends to be bad news for one Paul Ryan –
Though he talks like Nobel Prize-winning economist Milton Friedman, some of Ryan’s most high-profile votes seem closer to Keynes than to Adam Smith. For example, in the span of about a year, Ryan committed fiscal conservative apostasy on three high-profile votes: The Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP (whereby the government purchased assets and equity from financial institutions), the auto-bailout (which essentially implied he agrees car companies – especially the ones with an auto plant in his district—are too big to fail), and for a confiscatory tax on CEO bonuses (which essentially says the government has the right to take away private property—if it doesn’t like you).
While Ryan’s overall voting record is very conservative, the problem with casting these high-profile votes is that they demonstrate he is willing to fundamentally reject conservatism when the heat is on.
Because it is impossible to believe the highly intelligent and well read Rep. Ryan was unfamiliar with conservative economic principles, one must conclude he either 1). Doesn’t really believe in free market economics, or 2). Was willing to cast bad votes for purely political purposes.
From my standpoint, ignorance can be forgiven and overcome; the other explanations, however, seem to be disqualifiers for higher office.
Yes, folks, that is Nick Schweitzer Matt linked to. Speaking of that, Nick was prophetic on what the bailouts of GM and Chrysler would lead to…
What this bailout proposes is to replace that system with one in which the Executive branch, through a “car czar”, and also through various financial carrots and sticks, take control of that reorganization. The danger in doing so is that not only will the bailout money be wasted, but now politics will enter into how the reorganization takes place. If you thought the current system of ear marks, and special favors in bills was bad, just wait and see what little favors GM, Ford and Chrysler are forced to do… whether it will actually help make a successful company again or not. This is once again an unprecedented growth in executive power, which makes our President even more like a King that before.
As for the charges, damn near everybody who doesn’t have a conspiratorial mind got fooled on TARP. However, by the time the auto bailouts came around, the “fool me twice” principle came into play. Ryan’s suggestion was to use previously-programmed-yet-unspent money for plant modernization to do the bailout, which given that the bailout was used as leverage for a takeover, is not exactly defensible. I’ll note that neither the GM truck plant in Janesville (Ryan’s hometown) nor the Chrysler engine plant in Kenosha got saved in the end.
Regarding the pay limit, that is an off-the-record answer.
Rasmussen Reports’ Daily Presidential Tracking Poll shows that whatever bounce Barack Obama got post-State of the Union speech has gone. This weekend’s numbers:
Saturday – -15 Approval Index (26% strongly approve/41% strongly disapprove), -11 overall differential (44% approve/55% disapprove)
Sunday – -17 Approval Index (26%/43%), -12 overall (44%/56%)
Monday – -15 Approval Index (26%/41%), -8 overall (46%/54%)
The average between the beginning of the year and the SOTU address is a -14.42 Approval Index (26.21% strongly approve/40.63% strongly disapprove) and a -5.71 overall differential (46.79% approve/52.50% disapprove). I believe the operative word is, “Splat!”
John Hawkins answers the complaints from the oh-so-“tolerant” Left about Sarah Palin’s use of her hand to hold a couple of bullet points on her speech before the “National Tea Party Convention” Saturday. John, you should’ve used the backhand.
The Weekly Standard‘s Matthew Continetti deconstructs the One Week Hate unleased by the Left upon Congressman Paul Ryan (R-WI, and my Congresscritter):
Key fact: Ryan’s plan preserves the current entitlement system for everyone over the age of 55. The rest of us will see dramatic changes in the structure of Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and the tax code–changes the CBO says will solve the long-term budget problem, in ways that increase individual choice and limit government’s scope. If nothing is done, America faces high interest rates, inflation, and economy-crushing tax rates. Is this the future Democrats prefer? After all, they have provided no alternative way to achieve the Roadmap’s outcomes.
As a matter of fact, they do prefer that to one with low interest rates, low inflation and low tax rates, especially if that invovles a limited scope of government and increased individual choice. In fact, the Left is more afraid of limits on government and the corresponding increase in individual freedom than they are about going the route of the Soviet Union.
Talking just days after the election as he talked about the challengesPresident elect Obama faced, Rahm Emanuel made his famous quote:
Never allow a crisis to go to waste.
Emanuel explained this quote by saying that extreme circumstances allow you the opportunity to do big things. The Democrat trilogy of Obama, Reid and Pelosi have spent the first 13 months of the Obama administration fulfilling Emanuel’s prophecy.
Health care “reform”, cap and trade, take over of portions of the financial and automotive industry, moving terror trials to New York and appointing Cabinet memebers and Czars who are out right Marxists are all examples of the Obama Administration doing “big things” because they thought they could.
The response to Obama’s action have been definite and specific.
Beginning as early as April of last year, people gathered in various parts of the country under the banner of Tea Parties. Initially, these gatherings were a general protest against ever growing government, the taxes required to support it and the freedom that it extinguished.
As time went on, the tea parties came to be a lead organization for protests against the attempt to take over the health care industry via the proposed health care “reform.” Later, they became a major driver in the near victory of Doug Hoffman in NY. Most recently, the financial support from those aligned with the tea parties allowed Scott Brown to be elected to the seat previously owned by Ted Kennedy and along with it, defeat Obama’s desire to control the health care industry.
It’s clear that much of the American population, including those affiliated with the tea parties, have grown tired of President Obama’s approach. Whether it is ideology, naievete or stupidity, it is clear that Obama’s policies are driving us quickly to the edge of a financial cliff.
This week, President Obama proposed a nearly $4T budget with a deficit of nearly $1.6T. These number are obscene by any definition. What makes the situation move beyond obscene to grotesque is Obama’s chiding that we must become fiscally responsible and that somehow these numbers are a result of President George Bush’s making.
Folks, this budget needs to be defeated. We need to do to it what was done to health care reform. We need to take it apart line by line, word by word and expose it to the American people. Unless Americans are unwilling to make any sacrifices, in which case we’re screwed, they will quickly see an audacity similar to that of health care reform and revolt against it. If we have any hope of reversing the coming fiscal disaster and possibly, the ruin of our country, we need to start now!
We’ve removed the super majority in the Senate and with it much of Obama’s political capital. We have the momentum, the American people and principle on our side. We have elections on the mind of every House member and many endangered Senators.
If ever there was a time to take on a challenge as large as fundamentally changing how budgets are viewed in Washington, now is the time. If we wait until the next budget, people may be lulled to sleep thinking that the newly elected Republicans will solve the problem.
Rahm Emanuel laid out our came plan perfectly: Never allow a crisis to go to waste. In extreme circumstances we have the opportunity to do big things. Doubt me? Ask the people of Massachusetts!
Happy Blogiversary to me! Two years ago I posted for the first time at Norunnyeggs. Thanks to you for reading, encouraging and correcting me. Thanks to Steve for his long suffering of allowing me to squat on his site!
Hopefully, the following is worthy of a 2 year blogiversary posting!
Quick, what do the following actors have in common?
Alan Alda, Carroll O’Connor, Ted Danson, James Garner and Kelsey Grammer.
Each of these actors, while having a varied and successful career having played numerous other characters, are immediately recognized for a single role that they played. Alan Alda is forever Hawkeye from MASH. Carroll O’Connor is immortalized as Archie Bunker. Ted Danson is Sam Malone, James Garner is Jim Rockford (or Bret Maverick if you’re of a certain age) and Kelsey Grammer was Frasier Crane across two long running sitcoms. These actors are victims of typecasting.
Typecasting occurs when an actor or actress becomes so associated with a type of role, or specific role that no matter how hard they try, they are never able to fully keep people from thinking of a new role as an extension of the role they were type-casted as. Typecasting varies in severity. Some people, like James Garner, while fondly remembered for a role, go on to have very successful careers with other roles and genres. In the most severe cases, typecasting can be so severe that actors or actresses are unable to get another role beyond the one that they were typecast in. The most notorious of this level of typecasting was George Reeves who once he became Superman, was Superman even on TV shows that had no connection to the character.
President Obama has released his budget proposal for the next year. His budget encompasess total spending of $3.8 trillion and a deficit of $1.56 trillion.
While President Obama has taken nothing from the Scott Brown victory, numerous Democrats in both the House and the Senate seem to be attempting to position themselves as aligned with the fiscal sensitivities of the populous. From the WSJ:
“I guess I don’t understand…the vision of the administration when it comes to putting in place economic policy that works for our nation in today’s economy and the economic climate today,” Sen. Lincoln said during the same hearing with Mr. Geithner.
and:
“I don’t know anybody in business who hires an employee because they’re going to get a tax credit,” said Rep. Thompson during the hearing of the House Ways and Means Committee.
There are scores of additional examples of Democrats now trying to convince their constituents that they aren’t aligned with those tax and spend liberals in Congress.
The problem for those Democrats now attempting to become the next Ron Paul is that nearly every one of them seem to have limits to their new found fiscal conservatism. From the Baltimore Sun:
A headline on the 2010 campaign website of Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.), blares her opposition to Obama’s farm budget: “Blanche stands up for Arkansas farm families,”
And
Sen. Arlen Specter (D-Pa.), a recent party-switcher, questioned trade policies battering the steel industry. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) asked about health care for first responders involved in the Sept. 11attack. The message from Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Ca.): “California is hurting.”
And
Elsewhere around the country, Rep. Suzanne Kosmas — a freshman Democrat from a Republican leaning part of Florida — minced no words in complaining about Obama’s proposed cuts to the NASA budget. The space industry is one of the largest employers in her district.
“The president’s proposal lacks a bold vision for space exploration and begs for the type of leadership that he has described as critical for inspiring innovation for the 21st century,” said Kosmas.
And
In the swing state of Missouri, Democratic Senate candidate Robin Carnahan wasted no time this week denouncing Obama’s budget as profligate.
“I’m disappointed in the president’s budget recommendation,” she said. “Missouri families have to balance their checkbooks and our government is no different.”
Clearly, Democrats are trying to show their fiercer, budget hawk side. After all, it wasn’t just the threat of health care that got Scott Brown elected and has put a number of the Dem’s jobs in jeopardy. Equally, the ever ballooning spending and deficit has also gotten people’s attention. Also clearly, while they talk budget hawk out of one side of their mouth, the Dem’s hawkishness ends right at the end of the particular program or jurisdiction that they have their nose stuck into!
As hard as Democrats may try from now until November, to paint themselves as characters other than the fiscally irresponsible characters they are, it won’t work. The Dems have become victims of their own “success”. They were swept into office promising not one, but a whole flock of chickens in every pot, never considering how they were going to pay for those chickens. Now that they find that those chickens actually cost money, and they don’t have any, they are left with the choice of not providing the chickens or attempting to con the public into believing that continuing investment we get from China each month is not really anything to worry about.
The public is not buying a word of the Dems attempt to claim fiscal responsibility. Like George Reeves the Dems are irreversibly typecast. Try as they may, no one, at least not for this election cycle, will believe their claims that they can actually play a different role.
(H/Ts – Dad29 and Hot Air Headlines)
Back in September, Ed Morrissey found, and I expanded upon, a dire look at the Social Security “Trust” Funds from the Congressional Budget Office that said the combined OASDI “Trust” funds would start running primary (cash) deficits in FY2010 and run them for much of the decade. Allan Sloan over at Fortune found some worse news in the January 2010 CBO budget outlook:
Instead of helping to finance the rest of the government, as it has done for decades, our nation’s biggest social program needs help from the Treasury to keep benefit checks from bouncing — in other words, a taxpayer bailout.
No one has officially announced that Social Security will be cash-negative this year. But you can figure it out for yourself, as I did, by comparing two numbers in the recent federal budget update that the nonpartisan CBO issued last week.
The first number is $120 billion, the interest that Social Security will earn on its trust fund in fiscal 2010 (see page 74 of the CBO report). The second is $92 billion, the overall Social Security surplus for fiscal 2010 (see page 116).
This means that without the interest income, Social Security will be $28 billion in the hole this fiscal year, which ends Sept. 30….
If you go to the aforementioned pages in the CBO update and consult the tables on them, you see that the budget office projects smaller cash deficits (about $19 billion annually) for fiscal 2011 and 2012. Then the program approaches break-even for a while before the deficits resume….
I did so, and just like in September, I found some rather “curious” claims of economic boom. In fact, the new “boom” is even more unbelievable than the old “boom” (note; the September 2009 CBO GDP estimates come from summer 2009 budget update).
Click for the full-size chart
Between this fiscal year and FY2019, instead of a cumulative Social Security primary deficit of $100 billion, we’ll have a cumulative Social Security primary deficit of $157 billion. That is, of course, if we actually do get all the economic and tax growth that the CBO seems to hope we will. If we don’t, the chart I put together back in September showing just how easy it was to turn the CBO’s hope into red ink as far as the eye can see will be rosy.
That also doesn’t include Obama’s plan for a second round of $250 checks to every Social Security recipient. That is a drag of another $13 billion on this year, which would make this year’s cash deficit somewhere around $51 41 billion.
Revisions/extensions (4:42 pm 2/4/2010) – The internal copy editor failed me, as I made a basic math mistake. Thanks to Hot Air commenter WashJeff for the catch once Ed Morrissey made the news a front page post.
Refusing to take any message of “you’ve gone too far” out of the Scott Brown victory, President Obama told Senate Democrats that he is moving full steam ahead with his agenda:
“We’ve got to finish the job on health care. We’ve got to finish the job on financial regulatory reform. We’ve got to finish the job, even though it’s hard.”
Defiantly, Obama blamed Republicans for the inability to pass the health care legislation. Never mind that up until Scott Brown, Republicans had no was to delay the legislation had Democrats themselves been united.
Obama urged the Senators to forge ahead with even greater urgency. With regard to the loss of the Senate super majority, Obama said:
We still have to lead.
Leading is well and good. In fact, I’d welcome some rational leadership from this administration. The challenge with leading is that you should have an idea of where the path you are leading along goes. If you don’t, charging ahead full steam without any caution could create some unexpected problems:
Warner Todd Huston has some lessons for the Tea Party movements in the wake of yesterday’s elections in Illinois:
Let’s take the race for Senate in Illinois as exhibit “A.” Of course the good old boys in the state party went with Mark Kirk, the center left candidate from a northern suburb of Chicago. He was the he-can-win candidate and the establishment choice. Not one Tea Party group, though, wants Kirk and for good reason — and I heartily concur with them, as it happens. So who was the “Tea Party candidate,” the one meant to beat out Kirk, the one backed by the newly found power of the Tea Party movement? There wasn’t one. There was three.
Sadly, the Tea Partiers in Illinois split their vote all up. Some Tea Party Groups went with Don Lowery and some went with Patrick Hughes. A few even went with John Arrington. Hughes, of course, was the only one that had even a remote chance as far as voter polls were concerned. Hughes at least registered in the polls, Lowery and Arrington barely showed up at all….
The sad fact is that the Illinois Tea Party groups didn’t spend any time organizing, polling each other, coordinating with each other. There was no effort from one Tea Party group to reach out to another one and work together. They all stayed in their own little area, met in their own little meetings, had their own little candidates forum, and made their own little decisions….
One thing is sure, if Tea Party groups want to become a political force for good, they have to coordinate farther out than their own towns and county. If they don’t they will risk making themselves irrelevant just as they did in the Senate race and Governor race in Illinois. That means organizing, whether they like it or not because organization wins elections. It’s just that simple.
The Tea Party folks certainly do not have to take on all the characteristics of the failed Party organizations they oppose. But they must get over this fear of organizing. If they don’t they will not be able to wield the power they might actually have behind them. Worse the parties that are a bit scared of them right now will surely find themselves able to ignore the Tea Parties if they ultimately find no threat from them.
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