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.
In an editorial that has more of a RDW feel, The Racine Journal Times editorial board skewered the decision by JoAnne Kloppenburg to seek a recount. The open which I’ll tease you with is worth it on its own, but it’s hardly the only broadside they launched:
By this time we would have known if election clerks had somehow missed counting the votes from Kloppenburgville (pop. 7,317) somewhere in western Dane County.
But that’s not happened, and we don’t expect it to.
I’m actually more-or-less ambivalent toward the news that there will be a hand recount of optical-scan ballots in at least portions of 31 counties, jointly agreed to by the Prosser and Kloppenburg campaigns, but only because I am confident that not even a hand recount in those 31 counties (list of counties, though not municipalities other than the city of Milwaukee, courtesy WISC-TV’s Jessica Arp) will result in a net change-of-margin of over 500 votes.
For those of you wondering, in a typical recount, optical-scan ballots would be fed right back through the machine, while both paper ballots that were not optically-scanned and ballots cast on direct recording electronic machines are both hand-counted (DRE hand recounts are from the permanent paper record generated by the machine). However, the Government Accountability Board found an otherwise-irreconcilable problem with the Optech Eagle optical-scan machines used in at least parts of 31 counties and filed a suit to allow a court to reconcile it.
The Optech Eagle, which is no longer made, requires removable memory cartridges, which also are no longer made, to record the vote totals. In order to perform a machine recount, each memory cartridge used in each machine must be clear of all prior data and reprogrammed to perform the recording of the count. There is a claimed insufficient number of spare memory cartridges available nationwide to allow for a recount without erasing at least some of the memory cartridges used on April 5. However, since there is a recount pending, the memory cartridges cannot be erased under state law.
The GAB, through the Department of Justice, had asked for a declaratory judgement to allow a sufficient number of memory cartridges used on April 5 to be erased and used in the recount, while acknowledging that either or both campaigns may request a hand recount.
Craig Gilbert over at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel pretty much confirmed the stereotypes on the linkage between one’s news and TV watching patterns and one’s politics. According to data from National Media, we in the Milwaukee area are, for the most part, very divided in what occupies both our source of information and their entertainment options. I’ll make you go read Gilbert’s analysis for the full story, but I’ll give you a taste of the TV sports split:
– Packer fans, and football fans in general, tend to be somewhat Republican, though Badger football fans are split down the middle.
– While Brewer fans are pretty much split down the middle, those who care enough to watch the World Series are even more more Republican than football fans.
– Bucks fans, and basketball fans in general, tend to be Democratic. Two oddities on that front: Badger basketball fans were slightly Republican (and indeed more so than Badger football fans), and while NBA playoff viewers were quite Democratic, NBA finals viewers were only somewhat Democratic.
One more thing – the partisan skew between those who depend most on newspapers for news (the most-Democratic among 7 Midwest media markets reviewed by National Media) and those who depend most on radio for news (the 2nd-most-Republican among the same 7 Midwest media markets) is striking.
It’s actually a compilation of three items, with at least one of them a complete surprise out of left field. First up, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel editorial board member Ernst-Ulrich Franzen:
But we still think Kloppenburg’s request is a mistake. What happened in Waukesha County was a serious error, but it appears to have been just an error, and one that has now been rectified. The recount is costly and will only serve to further exacerbate Wisconsin’s political divisions. It will leave a bad taste; that’s a sad legacy for Kloppenburg. The difference in the balloting is 7,316 votes. Although that’s less than 0.5% of the 1.5 million votes cast, it’s still a big margin to overcome. Odds are that a recount won’t change a thing. Kloppenburg should take the high road in this case and concede the election.
That was followed by the full editorial board (or at least a majority therof) dumping on the idea of a statewide recount:
We understand the motivation. The final county-by-county canvassing of the state Supreme Court election revealed that Justice David Prosser won a narrow victory, a reflection of how polarizing the new governor and his policies have become. The heat generated by the controversy over those policies most likely spurred the significant turnout for a spring nonpartisan election and a 7,316-vote win for Prosser – less than 0.5% of the 1.5 million votes cast.
That’s slim, but it’s not likely that a statewide recount will change the outcome. Were it a margin in the hundreds of votes, perhaps, but Kloppenburg has to recognize that it’s not.
Finally, Jay Bullock had a moment of clarity:
I supported JoAnne Kloppenburg’s campaign. I do not support the recount, mostly because I do not believe the votes are there and it’s going to be a waste of time and money–taxpayers’ and donors’.
Kevin Binversie found, and Charlie Sykes publicized a chart put together by Politico of statewide recounts over the last 31 years. Some of the races were a bear to track down, but there are two important items to note:
In short, the numbers aren’t there.
Since JoAnne Kloppenburg has asked for a recount, and strongly hinted that she would pursue a post-recount judicial appeal if she doesn’t somehow overcome a 7,316-vote deficit, it’s time to fire up the NRE Polls once again. If you’re wondering why the answers are presented in the order I presented them, they are, in my humble opinion, in decreasing lprobability.
When will the Prosser victory over Kloppenburg be made official?
Up to 1 answer(s) was/were allowed
Total Voters: 110
Loading ...Revisions/extensions (6:32 pm 4/20/2011) – If you’re wondering why I don’t have the Wisconsin Supreme Court included in the poll, while the state-level appeal would eventually end up there, it would be before a 3-3 divided court due to either Prosser recusing himself as he would be a party to the suit or Prosser’s seat being vacant after July 31. If you doubt that the result would be a 3-3 split, just look at the liberals’ attempt to toss Justice Michael Gabelman after he ousted “Loophole” Louis Butler (who, ironically, is likely going to be the reserve judge Lawgiver-In-Black chosen by Chief Justice Shirley Abrahamson to all-but-certainly deliver the outcome Abrahamson and her former clerk Kloppenburg have a vested interest in).
It is still a bit early to officially bring the “Grand Theft Courts” category out of retirement, but in her press conference today announcing her decision to seek a full statewide recount, JoAnne Kloppenburg tipped her hand on what will happen after the recount affirms her loss to Justice David Prosser. She strongly hinted that her post-recount judicial appeal will seek to have the results from the entirety of Waukesha County, and not just the city of Brookfield, declared null and void.
Damn if I didn’t predict that.
Revisions/extensions (4:23 pm 4/20/2011) – Kloppenburg claimed that the Government “Accountability” Board will join her in court tomorrow to ask for a full hand recount of at least several counties, and she asked for a special investigator into the actions of Waukesha County clerk Kathy Nickoulas (the basis for my analysis of what will happen after Prosser wins the recount by somewhere between 6,816 votes and 7,816 votes, and likely closer to the 7,316 votes that it is now). I guess it isn’t too early to bring “Grand Theft Courts” out of retirement. Now if I could remember what I did with that graphic,….
Not so well.
Investigative journalist Richard Moore offers keen analysis.
WOW!
Of all places, the Capital Times reports:
State on pace to hit Walker jobs target
Earth to the Pulitzer Prize winning MJS: The above is NEWS!
Item #1 (H/Ts – Kevin and Fausta) – The same Chevrolet Volt involved in a garage fire last week burst into flames a second time Monday.
Item #2 – The Wall Street Journal reports that the US Treasury is looking to dump the remainder of its holdings in Government Motors (500,065,254 shares) over the summer. At the current trading price of $29.51, that would mean we the taxpayers lost over $14 billion on just the auto-manufacturing part of the GM bailout while (assuming GM makes it to the end of 2014 and the UAW fully cashes out), the entity that was most-responsible for the collapse of Old GM, the UAW, would make $12.55 billion on the deal.
That led Warner Todd Huston to unveil the last car from the current version of GM – the Government Motors WeeKan.
Here are, in my view, interesting, noteworthy columns and articles from the past week that I highly recommend:
Drop protest and pass the ketchup
“Of all the things to protest — Brat Fest!?
Can we not even enjoy a brat for charity in Wisconsin without partisan politics rudely intruding?
So what if a handful of Johnsonville Sausage executives, family members and employees donated $44,250 to Republican Gov. Scott Walker over the last five years.”
School lunch madness
“The principal, Elsa Carmona, is quoted as saying that her students can either eat the school cafeteria food or ‘go hungry.’ Wow! Tough dietary deal. Carmona went on to say that some parents are morons who allow their children to eat garbage and that is not going to happen on her watch.”
On this aborted fetus, the Democrats plant their flag
“(Senator Jon) Kyl said: ‘You don’t have to go to Planned Parenthood to get your cholesterol or your blood pressure checked. If you want an abortion, you go to Planned Parenthood. That’s well over 90 percent of what Planned Parenthood does.’
The entire mainstream media immediately rose in angry denunciation of Kyl — based on Planned Parenthood’s claim that abortion constitutes less than 3 percent of the services it provides.
Apparently, that depends on the meaning of ‘services it provides.’ If taking 30 seconds to write a prescription for birth control pills is considered the equivalent of a two-hour, multiple-visit $450 abortion, then perhaps abortion does constitute only 3 percent of Planned Parenthood’s work.”
Taxes are not too low: It’s the spending, stupid!
” If Congress, rather than borrowing or cutting spending, raised income taxes by the $1.3 trillion necessary to pay for 2010 deficit spending, it would need to more than double income tax collections. In fact, income tax revenue would need to increase by 144% to cover the overspending.”
Who pays for government?
“It’s Tax Day, a time when Americans briefly think about how much their government costs, instead of daydreaming about all the wonderful things it promises to do for them.
Who pays for government? The Evil Rich provide the lion’s share of the income taxes.”
The Trump rebellion
“I saw The Donald open up a can of verbal whup ass on Obama on Hannity last Thursday and Friday night. It was extremely convincing in that he had refreshingly solid, no-BS answers for the multifaceted debacles ‘the worst president ever’ has entrenched us in and explained how he sees himself as the crap-cutting dealmaker to pull us out.”
Oil without apologies
“We’re going to need oil and gas and coal for a long time if America wants to keep the lights on.”
“Wouldn’t you think if you were going to do a front page story about a teacher retiring early because of the hardship posed by Scott Walker’s bargaining changes you might want to give the story some context by saying how much the person experiencing this agony actually makes?
Well since the Journal Sentinel won’t do it for us, I will.”
Since The Hill decided to breathlessly report that Herb “Nobody’s Senator” Kohl raised $0.00 in the first quarter of 2011, Baseball Crank decided to ruminate on it, and Allahpundit put it in the Hot Air Headlines, I’ll explain why it means NOTHING for everybody.
Let’s first go back to the ends of 2004 (just under 2 years before Kohl’s re-election in 2006) and 2010 (just under 2 years before Kohl is up for re-election again). By the end of the 2003-2004 cycle, Kohl raised $2,148 in individual contributions, contributed $185,000 to himself, and had $1,493 cash on hand with no debt. By the end of the 2009-2010 cycle, Kohl raised $270 from individual contributions, contributed $281,500 to himself, loaned himself $1,000,000 and had a net of $4,348 cash on hand (after removing the $1 million in self-debt). The situations were, outside of Kohl’s early loan to himself this time around, similar 2 years out.
Next, on to the first quarter of 2005 and the first quarter of 2011. In the first quarter of 2005, Kohl raised…wait for it…wait for it…$195.00 in individual contributions, loaned himself $2,000,000, spent $34,000 on polling, and spent another $20,000 on various other expenses. In the first quarter of 2010, Kohl raised…wait for it, wait for it…$0.00 in individual contributions, spent $42,000 on polling, and spent another $9,000 on other expenses. Again, the situations were similar.
As for the entirety of the 2005-2006 election cycle, Kohl raised $11,342 from individuals, $450 from non-party PACs, $120 from the Democrat Party PACs, and loaned himself $6,250,000. Once again, Kohl proved that the bastardization of his opening campaign slogan of “Nobody’s Senator But Yours” to “Nobody’s Senator” is the operative phrase.
Whether Kohl decides to run again or not is at least as much predicated on the fortunes of his Milwaukee Bucks as the decision is on anything else, and certainly more than on his (lack-of-)fundraising prowess. We in Wisconsin have often joked that the Bucks are a once-every-six-years playoff contender, coinciding with their owner’s re-election cycle.
In case you’ve been in a cave since mid-day Friday, the county-level canvasses of the election have been completed, and Justice David Prosser has a 7,316-vote (or a 0.4881-percentage-point) lead. The 3-business-day clock is running on challenger Joanne Kloppenburg’s and her campaign’s ability to ask for a recount of any or all of the wards in the state, with the costs to the counties being borne by the taxpayers as the margin is just under the 0.5-percentage-point cut-off. The word on the ether, or at least WISN-AM and the Jay Weber Show, is that the Kloppenburg campaign will have a press conference this afternoon, even though they do have until 5 pm Wednesday to inform the Government Accountability Board (Wisconsin’s state-level election authority) of their decision.
There are two choices the Kloppenburg campaign has at this point. They could decide to not ask for a recount, and let the pending GAB re-canvass be the final word. That would result in GAB announcing on May 15, the date assigned for the announcement, that Justice Prosser has won another 10-year term on the Supreme Court.
They could also decide to ask for a recount. It doesn’t matter how many or few wards they request, because, if they choose this path, the goal is not going to be to overcome the 0.4881-percentage-point lead Prosser has. No recent recount with at least 1.5 million votes at stake has resulted in a change of margin of more than 0.05 percentage points, even with a post-recount judicial challenge to boost the margin-of-change.
Assuming that the Kloppenburg campaign strategy is to “win” by any means possible, their goal, under this scenario, is to get a post-recount judicial appeal into what will amount to a kangaroo court, presided over by a reserve (retired, for those of you outside Wisconsin, and thus no longer accountable to the voters) judge appointed by Chief Justice Shirley Abrahamson, who has a thinly-veiled vested interest in a specific outcome. Their strategy will be to have declared, at a minimum, the city of Brookfield (which Waukesha County clerk Kathy Nickoulas forgot to report to the Associated Press on election night, but which was reported on the county-level canvass) incompetent to determine the affairs of Wisconsin the Kingdom of Dane. Assuming no margin change in a recount, tossing out the city of Brookfield results woudl give Kloppenburg an 87-vote “lead”.
Of course, if the recount finds a further net gain for Prosser (after all, the county-level canvass found, not counting Brookfield, a net gain of 117 for Prosser over the election-night numbers collated by the AP), they might be forced to have declared the entirety of Waukesha County incompetent to determine the affairs of the Kingdom of Dane. Tossing the entirety of Waukesha County would give Kloppenburg a 52,000-vote “lead”.
Any state-level appeal would probably be pointless on its own as it would first go to the Madison-based 4th District Court of Appeals. They would be expected to uphold whatever novel “judicial finding” the kangaroo court creates out of thin air to justify disenfranchising either an entire municipality or an entire county. At best, since either Justice Prosser would need to recuse himself or the seat would be vacant pending a final disposition, a further appeal to the Wisconsin Supreme Court would result in a 3-3 deadlock.
However, whatever novel “judicial finding” the kangaroo court would create out of thin air would almost certainly invoke an equal protection claim a federal court could latch onto. I would expect that, no later than the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals, that claim would find a friendly judicial panel, and after tens of millions of dollars wasted under this scenario, the result would end up being what it is as of today – a Prosser victory.
The ball is in the Kloppenburg campaign’s court. I urge them to consider that, at the end of the day, they can’t win, and spare the state the pain and expense of a “by any means necessary” strategy.
Revisions/extensions (11:43 am 4/18/2011) – I swear that, while Kevin Binversie and I discussed the Butch Coolidge/Marcellus Wallace question, I didn’t crib from Kevin’s take (both his and mine are featured on this morning’s WisOpnion’s round-up). His close – “Because the worst fear the Kloppenburg legal team truly has, is not ‘losing’ a recount. It’s if Waukesha County is allowed to re-run its ballots through its machines again, and the numbers come out the same.”
Just as a reminder, if Kloppenburg opens the recount door, Prosser will be able to force a recount in any ward Klopenburg doesn’t have recounted before any judicial appeal. Given the last anybody heard of GAB’s investigation into Waukesha County was that the as-canvassed numbers from Brookfield were legitimate, one has to wonder if Kloppenburg wants to politically go down that road.
If you’re confused by President Obama’s speech/”budget”, Keith Hennessey deciphered it for you. I’ll skip to the quick, but I encourage you to read the whole thing:
Here are four broad reactions to the new proposal.
First, this is a short-term budget, not a long-term budget. There are three forces driving our long-run government spending and deficit problem:
- demographics;
- unsustainable growth in per capita health spending; and
- unsustainable promises made by past elected officials, enshrined in entitlement benefit formulas.
The President’s proposal addresses none of these forces. It instead spends most of its effort on everything but those factors. His proposed Medicare and Medicaid savings, while large in aggregate dollars, are quite small relative to the total amount to be spent on those programs, and he lets the largest program in the federal budget (Social Security) grow unchecked. While Bowles and Simpson focused their efforts on the major entitlements and also addressed other spending areas and taxes, the President’s proposal does the reverse, focusing on other mandatory spending, taxes, and defense. That’s a short-term focus.
Second, this proposal “feels” to me like the recently concluded discretionary spending deal. It’s the size of a typical deficit reduction bill that Congress usually does every five or so years. I’m sure the affected interest groups are even now preparing to invade Washington to explain how a 3-5% cut will devastate them. The problem is that our fiscal problems are now so big that they require much larger policy changes.
Third, while framed as a centrist proposal, the substance leans pretty far left. It’s deficit reduction through (triggered) tax increases on the rich, plus defense cuts, plus unspecified other mandatory cuts and process mechanisms that might cut Medicare provider payments. Centrist Democrat proposals do all of these things, but they also reform Social Security and Medicare, usually through a combination of raising the eligibility age, means-testing, and raising taxes.
Fourth, the President’s speech was campaign-like in its characterization of and attacks on the Ryan plan.
The President’s proposal could be the opening bid in a negotiation with Congressional Republicans. When you combine this substance with the President’s aggressive partisan attacks and framing of the Ryan budget, however, it’s hard to see how this leads to a big fiscal deal this year or next. A small incremental bill, which “cuts” spending by a couple hundred billion dollars over the next decade, is possible. But the chances of a long-term grand bargain in the next two years just plummeted from an already low starting point.
Bonus must-read – James Pethokoukis found a Goldman Sachs analysis which shows that up to 60% of Obama’s deficit “reduction” over the next decade comes from tax increases, including an unspecified $1 trillion in new taxes (over 12 years) compared to the CBO “alternate baseline”. That does NOT include either the tax hikes on those making over $200,000 or the “trigger” to essentially eliminate itemized deductions when the debt-to-GDP ratio fails to fall.
I don’t think you’ll be able to take Iowahawk’s advice of “Sleep tight, everybody” after this…
Meanwhile, Mary Katharine Ham dreams of what an audit should be.
Happy </sarcasm> Traditional Tax Day, everybody.
(H/T – Tom Blumer, who has some further stats worth reading)
Former Senator Phil Gramm (R-TX) wrote in today’s Wall Street Journal just how disappointing the POR Economy (™ Tom Blumer) “recovery” has been:
Had the U.S. economy recovered from the current recession the way it bounced back from the other 10 recessions since World War II, our per-capita gross domestic product (GDP) would be $3,553 higher than it is today, and 11.9 million more Americans would be employed.
Those startling figures are based on the average recovery rate of real GDP and jobs three years after the beginning of each postwar recession. Some apologists suggest that the current recovery is so weak because the recession was so deep. But the totality of our experience in the postwar period is exactly the opposite—the bigger the bust, the bigger the boom that follows.
On average, three years after the four deepest previous recessions started, real GDP was 7.6% higher than the pre-recession level. During the Obama recovery, real GDP is up only 0.1%. Forty months after the start of the 1953, 1957, 1973 and 1981 recessions, total employment was on average 4.7% higher than the pre-recession peaks, while total employment today is still down 4.7%—that’s a total employment gap of 13.9 million jobs.
Gramm goes on to further contrast the POR Economy to that of the Reagan recovery, including a laundry list of sabotage undertaken by Obama.
There is a further bit of required reading from Tom – what jobs have been gained since the “official end” of the recession has been entirely temporary work. That’s right – since June 2010 2009, a seasonally-adjusted 263,000 non-temporary jobs have been lost.
That’s the reason why Shoebox started the “Economy Held Hostage” series.
Revisoins/extensions (4:05 pm 4/15/2011) – Corrected a typo. D’OH!
I briefly touched on this as part of my third revision/extension to yesterday’s post that found that the federal government, under the “Grand Deal of 2011”, will be spending $18 billion more in discretionary funds in FY2011 than it did in FY2010 using the bottom-line outlays. I decided it needed its own post.
The CBO explained today that the reduction in non-emergency FY2011 budget authority will, assuming it gets adhered to in future budget years, eventually result in between $20 billion and $25 billion of reduced spending through FY2021 compared to leaving the budget authority at FY2010 levels. Of course, that assumes that Wimpy Congress actually remembers when it’s Tuesday that the budget authority was cut. It also is in current dollars, which means that once inflation is figured in, it’s likely that the $18 billion in new spending today won’t be fully-covered by the potential $25 billion in reduced spending over the succeeding 10 years.
It’s actually two situations. The future savings, that may or (more likely) may not come, is based on the Wimpy principle of saying, “I’ll gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today.” The old “Popeye” cartoons never did resolve that, but you can bet your bottom grain of smokeless gunpowder that the Congressional equivalent, especially as long as either half of the bipartisan Party-In-Government has control of so much as one House of Congress, will simply declare Tuesday as not existing.
The present situation is sort of like the carpenter example that Jeff Dunetz outlined:
The difference in the numbers are the difference between outlay and spending authority. Look at it this way. Say you are a carpenter and have been given $100,000 to redo someones kitchen. After one week’s worth of work you have allocated $75,000 to specific items but you haven’t purchased anything as of yet. The home owner comes to you and says you can only spend $70,000. You have cut the budget (or spending authority) by $30,000 but cut outlays by only $5,000.
The problem is that the outlays are actually the cost overruns, which, because Congress is the opposite of progress, will be fully-funded. With that in mind, let’s restate the example:
Say you are a carpenter and have been given $100,000 to redo someone’s kitchen. You’ve been asked by the homeowner and his wife to keep the spending to a maximum of $75,000 (i.e. budget authority) because that’s what the two agreed it would cost, but he agreed to cover any and all cost overruns out of a “separate” account his wife knows nothing about (hence the $100,000 in outlays). After a week, you discover that it’s actually going to cost $105,000 and take an extra week. Because there’s a penalty in the contract negotiated by the wife, the requested maximum has been cut to $70,000, but because the the homeowner also signed a provision putting him on the hook for the entirety of the cost overruns, it’s still going to cost $105,000.
Since Ed Morrissey saw fit to link here, and I’m otherwise fresh out of bloggable material at the moment (it sucks being sick), it’s time for another edition of Open Thread Thursday. Today, we honor the pyromaniac in the field of straw men with the music choice (or at least I would have this embedded if EMI would let me).
Have at it!
When running for the 2010 elections, Republicans attempting to harness the Tea Party enthusiasm promised that they would cut $100 B from the budget. Barely had they gotten elected and the Republicans backed off their $100 B promise and said they could only get something in the $60 B range. When it came to actually getting an agreement, they managed to hold on to a cut that was advertised as $38 B, but quickly identified as only $14 B.
Now that folks have had a chance to read the actual legislation, it turns out that none of the previously touted numbers are the real reduction that Boehner was able to negotiate. According to numerous sources, the actual amount of deficit reductions that Speaker, “We are going to cut $100 billion in discretionary spending next week” Boehner managed to get was only $353 Million…MILLION!
When it became apparent last year that the Republicans would retake the house I had conversations with several people who are much more knowledgeable of Republican leadership than I. I told them my reservations about Boehner becoming speaker and how everything I had seen from him lead me to believe that he was another Washington lifer who would say or do what he needed to to keep his position. I was told by several of them that Boehner was the “real deal.” While now living in Kentucky, I agreed to be from Missouri and be shown that Boehner was a conservative.
No more!
I am now on record as saying that Boehner is the embodiment of everything that is wrong with the Republican party. Boehner is either a charlatan or ignorant. Regardless of which, he is not worthy of leading a party’s effort that is overwhelmingly made up of a base that desires, no, DEMANDS reductions in government spending.
This continuing resolution needs to be voted down. Boehner needs to be personally repudiated by any true House conservative for putting them in a position of having to support this sham of an agreement.
I hate Nancy Pelosi. I despise everything about the woman. Even with my level of disdain for her I give her props for one thing; she has a set of balls as big as two moons hung side by side. Nancy has balls and Boehner is a eunuch!
(H/Ts – Allahpundit and Ace)
The Associated Press (as carried by the Washington Post) reported on a Congressional Budget Office report of the purported $38 billion cut deal reached by House Republicans, Senate Democrats and Barack Obama last weekend, and found that not only is the actual outlays authorized only a (wrongly-estimated) $15 billion cut, but that the impact to the deficit is…wait for it…
…Wait for it…
$352 million (this on a roughly-$1,600,000 million FY2011 deficit).
But wait, it gets worse. While I haven’t been able to find the CBO report referenced by the AP, I did find a 1-page estimate of the FY2011 discretionary spending amounts in the deal. Take a good look at the number at the lower-right corner – $1,364,714 million (or if you prefer, $1,365 billion after rounding to the nearest billion). That is the total amount of outlays that will take place in FY2011, including $76 billion for “emergencies”. In FY2010, the federal government had $1,347 billion in discretionary outlays.
Fucking brilliant, Boehner. I hope this deal fails and the government shuts down, then I hope somebody primaries Boehner right out of his district.
Revisions/extensions (6:34 pm 4/13/2011) – Somehow forgot the link to the article. Fixed.
R&E part 2 (9:25 pm 4/13/2011) – National Journal dug up (H/T – Dad29) a further document from the CBO comparing the total discretionary spending outlays in the “deal” to those called for in all the previous continuing resolutions for this year. Roll tape of the bottom-line projected full-year outlays of the continuing resolutions that had ending dates in 2011:
Oh, did I forget to mention that even HR1, the supposed $100 billion $61 billion non-security discretionary-spending cut, had a total projected discretionary outlay of $1,356 billion (once again, higher than FY2010’s $1,347 billion)?
R&E part 3 (3:30 pm 4/14/2011) – (H/T – Jeff Dunetz) The CBO explains how, assuming Congress doesn’t simply add all the spending back in, there MIGHT be a cumulative $20 billion-$25 billion in actual spending reduction over the next decade versus doing nothing. Of course, once one figures inflation into that, even the $25 billion in savings down the road won’t match the $18 billion in new spending today.
The classic galley ship scene from “Ben-Hur” describes perfectly what Obama thinks the budget needs to be…
Of course, there is one difference – unlike Arrius, I don’t think Obama will eventually tire of ordering ramming speed from we the rowers.
WisPolitics reports that the Waukesha Democrat Party vice-chair, and Democrat representative on Waukesha County’s canvassing board, Ramona Kitzinger has retracted her statement from Friday saying the canvass in which the city of Brookfield votes were re-added to the unofficial total reported Tuesday was correct. All that is needed now to steal an election that was “won” by an order of magnitude larger than any previously stolen election since Reconstruction is a complicit Lawgiver-In-Black.
Revisions/extensions (5:12 pm 4/11/2011) – WisPolitics reports that, while the GAB investigation into what happened last week in Waukesha County continues, the final canvass numbers from the city of Brookfield matches what was reported by the city clerk on Tuesday.
In case you missed the big news of Thursday, Waukesha County clerk Kathy Nickolaus forgot to save the vote totals from the city of Brookfield on Tuesday night, turning what looked to be a razor-thin Joanne Kloppenburg margin into one favoring David Prosser by almost the margin-of-“free”-recount. WisPolilitics reports that, with just Milwaukee County to complete its canvass of the votes (and four three, with Kenosha now posted other counties yet to have the canvassed results posted to the GAB site), Prosser has a 7,304-vote lead.
James Wigderson and the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel editorial board don’t often agree, but they agree that given the current margin, a recount would be a waste of time and money. Of course, since a recount is the only gateway to get it into a court with a reserve judge appointed by Chief Justice Shirley Abrahamson (side note; did Loophole Louis Butler remember to file to become a reserve judge after he was tossed from the Supreme Court), I don’t think Kloppenburg will go as quietly into the good night as her campaign’s private canvass of Waukesha County.
One of Jim Geraghty’s readers beat me to this observation – “Tim Pawlenty is the Huck/Mitt love child — a telegenic blue state governor with a populist tone.”
Insert your own inappropriate punchline here…
The first two big battles of 2011 in Wisconsin both involved big contributors to the Democrat Party (a successful attempt to limit both product and medical malpractice liability, thus reducing the paydays of lawyers, and an attempt to limit the mandatory union dues for public workers that is still stuck in the courts). Taking a page from the Wisconsin Democrats, Senate Democrat leader Harry Reid and President Barack Obama successfully threatened to shut down federal government unless Planned Barrenhoo…er, Parenthood, which contributed over $1 million to Democrats the last election cycle, continued to receive federal funding.
Yep, it’s all about the money (oh, and forcing a minority, highly-divisive social agenda down the throats of the country).
Here are, in my view, interesting, noteworthy columns and articles from the past week that I highly recommend:
“It looks like Waterloo in Wisconsin for government unions.”
President Obama blames you for high gas prices“For the president to suggest that a taxpayer’s inability to buy a new $40,000+ hybrid vehicle (that still requires gas) is the root problem, rather than his price-increasing oil policies is shameful.”
“America is facing a defining moment. The threat posed by our monumental debt will damage our country in profound ways, unless we act. No one person or party is responsible for the looming crisis. Yet the facts are clear: Since President Obama took office, our problems have gotten worse.”
“If Democrats think the Ryan budget is too radical, let them offer a credible alternative.”
Two Americas: Public vs. Private Employees
“If you want to understand better why so many states—from New York to Wisconsin to California—are teetering on the brink of bankruptcy, consider this depressing statistic: Today in America there are nearly twice as many people working for the government (22.5 million) than in all of manufacturing (11.5 million).”
The swift death of the new tone“During the most heated month of the health care uprising, when more than 500 town halls took place over one month across the country, there were exactly 10 instances of documented violence. Most of them were confined to the ripping of signs and minor tussles (though there were a handful of punches thrown), and seven of 10 incidents were perpetrated by ObamaCare supporters on protesters, according to photos, police reports and witnesses.”
“Study hard, but party harder”
“Rutgers University last week contributed to the growing debate on whether higher education is worth its surging costs, when it paid the fabulous Nicole Polizzi (a.k.a., ‘Snooki’) of MTV’s ‘Jersey Shore’ television show $32,000 to speak to its students.”
Misogynist Video Games“Karen’s nine-year-old son came home from a birthday party at a locally owned ‘family fun’ center with plenty to tell. The party was great, especially the laser tag and the pizza. But he didn’t like the arcade games, one in particular.”
Coerced abortions affect men, too
“For every woman who has had an abortion a man has been involved. For me it was two abortions.
My story begins at 16 when I heard that first ‘I’m pregnant’ from my girlfriend. I can remember being scared and a little confused about how it all happened. I asked all of the questions like, ‘I thought you were protected,’ and anything else I could think of to say rather than taking responsibility for my actions.
I can remember when the phone call came to my parents. My feelings of being scared and confused changed to terrified and ashamed. I don’t know how much time passed from the phone call until my parents came to talk with me, but it felt like an eternity. I remember putting on my headphones with the music cranked up, not wanting to face the consequences of my actions as my parents were trying to talk to me. I wanted it all to go away.”
Tax Time Coming“Will any of these jokes cheer you up?”
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