One of the biggest and most frequent mistakes in politics is for a party to misread its mandate. When it happens, independent and swing voters get angry and punish a candidate or a party on Election Day. Because American politics is a zero-sum game, punishing one party means rewarding the other party—even when the latter is not necessarily deserving of support. Frequently, the party that benefits from the spanking mistakenly interprets it to mean that the public is embracing every aspect of its agenda. Republicans shouldn’t forget that their party had dismal favorable/unfavorable poll ratings last fall. They won because they weren’t Democrats.
There is no question that the Republican base, conservatives, and supporters of the tea party want to take a meat ax to government spending. When Republican congressional members return home and meet with their constituents, they are encouraged to vote against continuing resolutions and for deep spending cuts. These supporters have intensity, and they adamantly oppose any compromise with Democrats.
It would be a blunder, however, to think that such views drove the election. Republicans, conservatives, and tea partiers did not throw Republicans out of their House and Senate majorities in 2006, and they did not vote to increase the size of the Democratic majorities and elect Barack Obama president in 2008.
Independent voters were the ones who cast their ballots for Democrats by an 18-point margin in 2006 because they were mad at President Bush and upset about the war in Iraq, not to mention Republican scandals and the general performance of the GOP Congress. Two years later, these same voters were still angry at the president, were afraid of the financial crisis, and didn’t care for GOP presidential nominee John McCain.
In 2010, these independent voters were unimpressed by the economic-stimulus package, didn’t like cap-and-trade environmental regulation, and really didn’t like the Democratic health care package. Those over or approaching 65 years of age also feared that health care reform would erode Medicare benefits. Even those unaffected by the reforms rallied to defend Medicare.
Polling is very clear. Most voters want to see the federal budget balanced and spending cut. However, they don’t want Social Security, Medicare, or Medicaid touched, and, oh yes, they don’t want taxes increased. Now, anyone with an IQ over room temperature knows that all of this is impossible. Spending on Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, along with interest on the national debt, amounts to approximately half the federal budget.
There is no doubt that significant budget cutting is necessary and that Medicare and Medicaid must be reformed. No one can doubt the courage or sincerity of House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan, R-Wis. But it’s little short of suicidal to drop a Medicare reform package—even a voucher plan that would be optional for those currently older than 55—into tough budget negotiations stymied over Republican demands for deep spending cuts. Democrats have some experience with older voters going ballistic, even with changes that wouldn’t affect them.
For many seniors, doing anything to Medicare that can’t be portrayed as an increase is essentially a cut, and they will fight it to their last breath. From a political standpoint, Medicare reform is very dangerous territory. House Republicans are not just pushing the envelope—they are soaking it with lighter fluid and waving a match at it.
One can understand why Republicans are pushing so hard. Their base is demanding that they do so. And if congressional Republicans resist, many of them can look forward to primary opposition next year. But it seems that GOP members of Congress have become so consumed with pleasing their base that they are ignoring general-election voters and the independents who drive the wild gyrations in American politics.
Congressional Republicans would be well advised to pay attention to the results of the latest Pew Research Center poll (conducted March 30 to April 3 among 1,057 adults) that asked Americans whether they would prefer that their lawmakers stand by their principles even if it meant that the government would shut down, or whether they would rather have their lawmakers compromise on a budget even if they didn’t agree with it. Among Republicans and Republican-leaning independents who agree with the tea party movement, 68 percent said they would rather have a lawmaker who stands by his or her principles. But among all Republicans, only 50 percent said stand by their principles, while 43 percent said compromise. Among all adults, 55 percent said compromise; among independents, 53 percent said compromise, with 36 percent siding with the principles option.
The bottom line: GOP primary voters are very different from general-election voters. It would be a very shortsighted strategy for Republican members—especially those in swing districts—to focus too much on primary voters. A lot of Democrats did the same thing in 2009 and 2010. Many are now former members of Congress.
By: Charlie Cook, National Journal, April 7, 2011
April 7, 2011
Posted by raemd95 |
Congress, Conservatives, Democrats, Elections, Federal Budget, Government Shut Down, Ideologues, Independents, Lawmakers, Medicaid, Medicare, Politics, Public, Republicans, Right Wing, Swing Voters, Teaparty, Voters | GOP, Party Bases, Pew Poll, Primaries, Rep Paul Ryan, Seniors, Social Security |
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It’s become common to bash large public institutions with the phrase, “if I ran my business the way they run [government/public schools/whatever], I’d be bankrupt.”
Maybe so. But Congress and law making are not businesses (the high-cost business of campaigning and lobbying aside). And public schools are not businesses, either.
Still there’s a tendency to think that putting corporate executives or small business owners in leadership positions at public institutions will somehow make those entities profitable or successful. That accounts for the election of some businesspeople to Congress, and the appointment of former magazine magnate Cathie Black as New York City schools chancellor.
Just a few months after her appointment by New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Black is out. It was hardly a surprise, her approval rating among city residents had been an anemic 17 percent, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released last month. She had made some foolish comments, such as suggesting that birth control was the solution to schools overcrowding, and she upset some parents with her proposal to install an “elite” new high school inside an existing Park Slope high school.
Black had no education experience, which might have contributed to her troubles. She may be great at bottom-line decisions, but such calculations are nearly impossible in a public school. You can’t fire your students to improve your graduation rate. You can call a school “failing” for not reaching certain testing standards, but the school can’t do anything about the challenges–such as poverty, substance abuse in the home, or language barriers–that make certain student populations more difficult to teach.
And ironically, the business model on Wall Street doesn’t follow the market approach being imposed on schools. Financial big-wigs who helped run the economy into the ground got big bonuses, despite their poor performance. Their businesses weren’t closed for incompetence; they were given government bailouts. There is indeed an argument to be made that letting those businesses fail would have done tremendous damage to innocent parties, such as people whose IRAs are dependent on the performance of stocks over which they have no control. So why are schools not given the same “business” courtesy?
The same goes for the federal budget. Sure, one couldn’t run a business budget in the same way. But then, the government can’t fire Social Security recipients. It can’t–not without planning and consensus–decide to shutter “underperforming” enterprises such as the Afghan war. The government is meant to take care of everyone, to some degree, and unlike a business, the government can’t pick and choose which customers to target.
As stubbornness in Congress threatens a government shutdown, lawmakers tethered to a business model approach should remember their roles. A CEO or small business owner can dictate; a House member is one of 435 and must accept the needs and perspectives of the rest of the chamber. Businesses can price items high enough to cut out low-income consumers. Government has an obligation–though to what degree is a valid discussion–to protect the neediest. Having former businesspeople in Congress provides a valuable perspective in a diverse institution. But Congress is not a business.
By: Susan Milligan, U.S. News and World Report, April 7, 2011
April 7, 2011
Posted by raemd95 |
Businesses, Congress, Consumers, Corporations, Elections, Federal Budget, Government, Government Shut Down, Ideologues, Lawmakers, Politics, Voters | Business Models, Cathie Black, Corporate Executives, Low Income, Michael Bloomberg, Public Schools, Wall Street |
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The House Republicans on Tuesday made it clear to anyone who had missed it that they are not interested in a deal on the current federal budget. In a meeting at the White House, they rejected a deal to get through the next six months. President Obama, silent for too long on this fight, emerged from the meeting to say that he would tolerate no more ideological gamesmanship. But the Republicans, if anything, only increased their demands, and a government shutdown seemed likely to begin on Friday.
That the Republicans are not interested simply in reducing the deficit was made clear when the House Budget Committee chairman, Paul Ryan, released his budget plan for 2012 on the same day as the talks to finish the 2011 budget were falling apart. It was less a budget-balancing effort than a press release for the 2012 elections. Similarly, the party’s refusal to accept Mr. Obama’s overly generous budget offer for this year makes clear that its leaders prefer a shutdown to abandoning their ideological crusade to abolish their least favorite government programs.
If their goal was to reduce spending, they would have accepted the Democrats’ offer to cut $33 billion out of the budget for the next six months — the same amount as Republican leaders had originally requested before Tea Party members forced them to double it earlier this year. As the president noted, that offer constitutes the largest cut to domestic discretionary spending in history.
But Speaker John Boehner and his negotiating team have continually moved the end zone. They spurned the specific cuts proposed by the Democrats because they did not end the programs reviled by the Republicans, including education improvements, health care reform and infrastructure rebuilding. They now want a total of $40 billion, a target that just emerged on Tuesday.
After meeting with the Republicans, Mr. Obama suggested with some bitterness that they were still trying to score political points, demanding victories on abortion or gutting environmental regulation to keep the government open. He made it clear that that was not acceptable, and neither are demands to cut 60,000 Head Start teaching positions, or medical research, or other items that are vital to many Americans and the fragile economic recovery.
There will still be a few more meetings before the shutdown deadline, but leaders on both sides say they are more pessimistic about reaching agreement. The public may need to rely on the pain of an actual shutdown to bring radical House lawmakers back to reality.
By: Editorial, The New York Times, April 5, 2011
April 6, 2011
Posted by raemd95 |
Congress, Conservatives, Economy, Elections, Federal Budget, GOP, Government Shut Down, Ideologues, Politics, President Obama, Rep Paul Ryan, Republicans, Tea Party | Discretionary Spending, House Republicans, Rep John Boehner, Spending Cuts, White House |
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While Wisconsin Congressman Paul Ryan prepares to shut down the federal government to prove that government is bad, analysts say the radical agenda of Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker suffered a major set back today as his good friend incumbent Justice David Prosser was defeated for Wisconsin Supreme Court. The AP unofficial vote count, with 100 percent of the precincts reporting, puts challenger Joanne Kloppenburg ahead by slightly more than 200. A recount is doubtless on the way.
In a state that has never unseated a conservative Supreme Court justice, people power fueled a concentrated effort to deny the Imperial Walker one branch of government. Walker’s opponents hope a Kloppenburg victory will swing the Supreme Court in a more independent direction and set the stage for the court to strike down Walker’s controversial collective bargaining law. While the fate of the law is uncertain, Kloppenburg’s three week sprint from dead-in-the-water to victor may give Walker, Ryan and other Wisconsin politicians pause as they rush to radically reshape government to benefit the privatizers and profiteers.
Sleepy Court Race Electrifies the State
While it may seem odd to many Americans, Wisconsinites like to elect their judges. Although an elected judiciary has its problems (namely, unseemly high-dollar elections), the ballot box sometimes hands citizens a rare opportunity to un-elect judges — and that is what many Wisconsinites decided to do today. Prosser, a former Republican Assembly Speaker, stumbled when his campaign embraced Walker’s election.
The Kloppenburg victory is stunning. Six weeks ago, sitting Judge David Prosser was a shoo-in and the challenge by Assistant Attorney General Kloppenburg was a snooze fest. But something happened on the way to the high court. A governor, who was elected to create jobs, took office and quickly moved to disenfranchise voters and kneecap unions so they could no longer be a viable force in state elections. The raw power grab sparked a spontaneous uprising, the likes of which this state has never seen, and the Supreme Court race was the next vehicle for people to have their voices heard.
Proxy Fight Over Worker Rights
The whole country took notice when firefighters, teachers and cops stood with working families across Wisconsin to say ‘no’ to Walker’s radical plans to bust unions, cut $1 billion from schools and privatize the university system.
When his “budget repair bill” was passed March 9th, many national observers thought the fight was over. With large margins in both houses, Walker’s stranglehold on government seemed invincible.
But irate Wisconsinites fought back on multiple fronts, filing lawsuits over the way in which Senate leaders rammed the bill through with less than the requisite notice required under the state open meetings law, blocking the bill’s implementation. They filed recall petitions against eight Wisconsin senators and this week delivered the requisite signatures for two of those recalls well ahead of schedule. They turned their attention to the heretofor unnoticed race for Wisconsin Supreme Court. Within days, handmade signs for Joanne Kloppenburg popped up across the state. Many voters understood that to win any of the battles ahead over worker rights, over the recalls, over redistricting and more, a more balanced judiciary was needed.
Kloppenburg went from being a long-shot to victory in a three-week sprint marked by huge independent expenditures on both sides. The anticipated recount will keep the juices flowing and will fuel the remaining recall fights.
Shock Doctrine at Work
While some voters believe the court will act as a check and balance on the madness at the state level, they are concerned that Paul Ryan continues to run amok at the federal level — threatening a complete government shut down. At the same time that Walker was working to obliterate unions and privatize public schools, Ryan, Chair of the House Budget Committee, decided to go after Grandma with the complete privatization of Medicare. His radical budget bill, unveiled this week, slashes trillions of dollars from America’s social safety net and throws the elderly into the private insurance market with a “voucher” in their pocket.
Less interested in balancing the budget than redistributing wealth, his budget plan would funnel billions into the pockets of big insurance firms while also giving a ten percent tax break to corporations and the very richest Americans.
What is really going on here? Naomi Klein warned in her groundbreaking book “Shock Doctrine” that the right-wing excels at creating crises, real and imagined, to viciously advance their pro-corporate anti-government agenda. She credits economist Milton Friedman who observed that “only a crisis—actual or perceived—produces real changes. When the crisis occurs, the actions that are taken depend on the ideas that are lying around. That, I believe, is out basic function: to develop alternatives to existing policies to keep them alive and available until the politically impossible becomes politically inevitable.”
UW Professor Joel Rogers wrote recently: “As explained by Grover Norquist and Karl Rove, this project aims at national repeal of most of democratic achievements of the 20th century, a return to business domination of public life not seen since the Gilded Age and McKinley.”
The Wall Street financial crisis caused by years of deregulation and lack of government oversight cost Americans eight million jobs, tanking federal and state tax receipts and creating budget shortfalls. Ryan and Walker are moving to take advantage this real jobs crisis to cook up a fake deficit crisis to advance a radical agenda that is hostile to the very idea of government – the idea that sometimes services are best provided and things are best accomplished collectively, for the public good, and not for corporate profit.
Today, many voters believe that this agenda was checked in Wisconsin. While another recount battle looms, voters of Wisconsin are pledging that they will not allow this victory to be stolen.
By: Mary Bottari, Center For Media And Democracy, April 6, 2011
April 6, 2011
Posted by raemd95 |
Banks, Collective Bargaining, Corporations, Debt Crisis, Deficits, Democracy, Economy, Elections, GOP, Gov Scott Walker, Government Shut Down, Labor, Medicare, Middle Class, Politics, Public Employees, Rep Paul Ryan, Republicans, Right Wing, Union Busting, Unions, Voters, Wisconsin, Wisconsin Republicans | Activism, Joanne Kloppenburg, Justice David Prosser, Karl Rove, Private Insurance, Privitization, Social Justice, Vochers, Wall Street, Wisconsin Senate |
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Chris Abele – a 44-year-old philanthropist, scion of a wealthy Boston family and political neophyte – handily defeated state Rep. Jeff Stone (R-Greendale) at the polls Tuesday to become the next Milwaukee County executive.
Abele had 61% of the vote to 39% for Stone, according to unofficial results with all votes counted.
Abele said he would immediately tackle tough county problems and work cooperatively with Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett and other leaders in the county.
“It is time for a new approach,” Abele said from his election party at the historic Pabst Brewery. “It is time to stop working apart and to start working together.”
He pointed to the undeveloped Park East property nearby as something on which the city and county needed to collaborate.
“I don’t see the mayor as a competitor,” Abele said. “I see him as a partner and a friend.”
Stone conceded the race about 10:05 p.m., promising to work with Abele to help fix the county’s problems. Stone called the campaign an amazing race run in “an unusual environment.”
Abele campaigned with $1 million of his own money as someone with fresh ideas to tackle the county’s nagging financial problems. Though light on specifics, Abele outlined an approach that emphasizes efficiency moves. He put much of his advertising firepower into trying to fuse Stone with Gov. Scott Walker and his controversial push to end most collective bargaining for public employees.
Stone said his loss “reflects the divide we have right now in Wisconsin.” He also said the big turnout in Milwaukee “was a reflection of some of the unrest we had in Madison” over Walker’s union measure.
Walker held the county executive slot for eight years before his election as governor last fall when he defeated Barrett.
Stone in his campaign faulted Abele as inexperienced and callous to everyday concerns, pointing to a long-delayed resolution of Abele’s 1996 drunken driving case, his avoidance of state income taxes and his dispute with the IRS over a $2.3 million federal tax bill.
The win gives Abele the final year left in Walker’s county term. Abele has said he plans to run for a full four-year term as executive in spring 2012.
Though a longtime supporter of Democratic candidates and liberal causes, Abele ran for county executive – officially a nonpartisan office – often sounding like a conservative. Like Stone, Abele vowed not to raise taxes and said he’d work hard to attract new business. Abele said he’ll push to wipe out inefficiencies and service duplications and might turn to privatizations, selling off county assets and marketing park services to the suburbs.
He also hinted at layoffs as a way to bring the county’s budget into long-term balance, promising unspecified “tough cuts.”
He said he wouldn’t be surprised “if we end up with a government that looks smaller.”
Mix into that formula Abele’s frequent assertion that he’ll serve as a cheerleader for Milwaukee, whether stalking development and jobs or demanding a fairer shake for the area when lobbying the state.
Calls for cultural change
He’s vowed to bring on a culture change in county government, where getting results is rewarded and poor performers are called on the carpet.
“The real key here is changing the way we think about stuff, changing this notion that the only solution to everything is either cutting services or raising taxes,” Abele said.
Abele has never held a government job, in contrast to Stone, who has spent the past 17 years as a state and local official. Stone derided Abele as “an amateur” whose government inexperience would hurt the county.
Abele sought to make a virtue of his clean political slate and said he would apply what he’s learned over the past 15 years in running the Argosy Foundation, a family charity, and two small businesses. Argosy and Abele personally have given heavily to arts, environmental, civic and community groups and Abele has served on many local nonprofit agency boards.
Abele’s introduction to the county’s financial concerns came as a member of the Greater Milwaukee Committee and a task force that concluded in 2006 that county government could be phased out, its services parceled out to the state, other municipalities and newly formed parks and transit districts.
As a candidate for county office, however, Abele has been more cautious. He says he’ll put his faith in detailed studies and proven practices to fix what’s wrong with the county.
Restructuring the county’s mental health programs by shifting to smaller, community-based care is something Abele has identified for change. He also wants to push for creation of a local government insurance pool as a way to trim county health care costs. He says he’ll cut back on county employees’ use of cars and cell phones and will expand energy audits of county buildings.
Stone on defensive
Stone found himself on the defensive over Walker’s collective bargaining bill since voting twice for it in February, following a three-week period in which news coverage of protests in Madison overshadowed other political news.
While often protesting critic’s claims he’d be a carbon copy of Walker, Stone said he and Walker shared a similar conservative philosophy. Stone also advocated for county policies pioneered by Walker, including ruling out tax increases, pursuing a possible long-term lease of Mitchell International Airport to a private firm and relying on business expansion to drive a county financial resurgence.
A key part of Stone’s plan to fix the county’s long-term budget shortfall was to reform employee health care with a wellness incentives and primary care available in or near county offices.
The job pays $129,114 a year. Unlike Walker, who returned up to $50,000 in salary a year during his tenure, Abele says he’ll accept the full pay.
By: Amy Hetzer and Mark Johnson, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, April 6, 2011
April 6, 2011
Posted by raemd95 |
Class Warfare, Collective Bargaining, Conservatives, Elections, GOP, Gov Scott Walker, Middle Class, Politics, Public Employees, Republicans, Wisconsin, Wisconsin Republicans | Chris Adele, Jeff Stone, Milwaukee County, Taxes |
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