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Scott Walker Finds Making Bumper Stickers Is Easier Than Creating Jobs

Where are the jobs, Gov. Walker?

Scott Walker, the chief executive of Wisconsin, is riding a wave of triumph. The state Supreme Court just upheld his famous crusade to strip collective bargaining rights from public workers. The state legislature just voted, along party lines, to approve his 2012 budget reordering the state’s finances to his conservative tastes.

On Monday morning, Walker stopped by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce to participate in a roundtable discussion about “what works and what doesn’t” in job creation.

Walker regaled the assembled business leaders and governors with tales of his job-creating acumen. He boasted about passing tort reform, tax cuts, a “major regulatory reform” and his celebrated fight against the public-sector unions. “That’s powerful for job creators out there,” he said.

How powerful? “Since the beginning of the year in Wisconsin we’ve seen 25,000 new jobs,” Walker reported.

Sorry, governor, but that’s not very powerful.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Wisconsin’s nonfarm payroll in May was 2,764,300 on a seasonally-adjusted basis, up 20,300 from January’s 2,744,000.

That’s an increase of seven-tenths of one percent in the workforce — not much better than the anemic nationwide growth in nonfarm payrolls to 131,043,000 in May from 130,328,000 in January.

This doesn’t mean Walker’s policies have failed; by his own account, the benefits could take years to materialize. But it does suggest that the conservatives criticizing the Obama administration’s handling of the economy don’t have a silver bullet of their own. Walker, who has large Republican majorities in the Wisconsin legislature, experimented with a long conservative wish-list, but the state hasn’t been a standout in job creation during his six-month tenure.

The truth is that there’s not much more that government can do to boost jobs in the short term. That’s up to the private sector now. Corporate America has recovered so well that profits have been at or near record levels of an annualized $1.7 trillion in the last two quarters – but businesses have yet to spend their piles of cash.

Instead, flush CEOs are demanding still more government spending. This was a theme of Monday’s session at the Chamber, where 23 men and one woman sat around a u-shaped table and listened to Chamber president Tom Donohue describe states as “laboratories of democracy,” where businesses are more likely to find “common sense solutions, innovations, experimentations, bipartisanship.”

Walker, whose tenure has made Wisconsin more of a laboratory of theocracy, clenched his jaw at the mention of bipartisanship. “The very first day I was elected,” he said when his turn came, “I put up a sign that said, ‘Wisconsin is open for business.’” He waved a bumper sticker for the Chamber crowd with that same message. “I called the legislature into a special session based solely on jobs.”

That led to the fight over collective bargaining, the fleeing of Democratic legislators across state lines, and huge protests in Madison. “We got a little more attention than most,” he said.

The attention continued on Monday. Delaware Gov. Jack Markell, one of two Democrats on the panel, said he “took a different approach” than Walker did: “I invited the unions to the table.” Markell said that the cuts he got from the unions exceeded his target by 30 percent, without creating statewide bitterness.

The other Democrat, Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper, implicitly rebuked Walker when he said “with a Republican House and Democratic Senate we passed our budget with at least 75 percent in both houses.”

In terms of job-creation, neither Democrat’s approach has worked any better than Walker’s. Colorado added 9,000 non-farm jobs this year and Delaware has been flat. Iowa, represented on the panel by Republican Gov. Terry Branstad, added 12,000. Virginia, represented by Gov. Bob McDonnell, added 22,000.

The biggest job creator of the six, Gov. Rick Scott (R-Fla.), boasted that his tax cuts, deregulation and tort reform enabled him to cut “unemployment every month since I came into office, and last month our job creation was more than the entire rest of the country.” That’s nice, but even Scott’s job growth amounts to just 1 percent of the state’s workforce, and Florida’s unemployment is among the highest in the country.

Eventually, the governors – like President Obama – will have more to show for their job-creation policies. But for now, they’ll have to settle for baby steps. Walker told the Chamber that Wisconsin moved up 17 places in Chief Executive magazine’s annual ranking. “Last year we were 41,” he said. “This year, we went up to No. 24.”

If only those happy CEOs would start hiring.

By: Dana Milbank, Opinion Writer, The Washington Post, June 20, 2011

June 24, 2011 Posted by | Businesses, Class Warfare, Collective Bargaining, Conservatives, Democracy, Economic Recovery, Economy, GOP, Gov Rick Scott, Gov Scott Walker, Government, Governors, Ideologues, Jobs, Labor, Lawmakers, Middle Class, Public Employees, Republicans, Right Wing, State Legislatures, States, U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Unemployed, Union Busting, Unions, Wisconsin, Wisconsin Republicans | , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Why Polls Are Sinking For New GOP Governors Like Scott Walker

If you’ve  been wondering lately who’s been writing the Republican playbook, I think I’ve  found him. It’s none other than Lenny Dykstra.

Back in his baseball  playing days, Dykstra was a tough as nails leadoff hitter famous for filling  his cheeks with huge wads of tobacco and crashing into outfield walls.  After his playing days were over, he wowed the world with his stock-picking  acumen. Made millions. Drove fancy cars. Owned an $18 million  mansion. He even had a sink that cost $50,000. (It’s true.)

And then, it all came  tumbling down. He went bankrupt. His house was  seized. He was indicted.  And what did he do? He broke back into his old  house … and stole his  prized sink.

Back in November, a new  breed of Republican governor was enjoying its own “wow” moment. Rick  Snyder was the “one tough nerd” to get Michigan’s financial house in  order. Scott Walker was about to take a blow torch to Wisconsin unions.  Florida’s Rick Scott won perhaps the most coveted prize on the presidential  election map. They were supposed to be the leading edge of the Republican  revolution, finally doing what conservatives have long held Americans want  their leaders to do: fundamentally recalibrate the way government operates in  the public square, and disentangling it from the everyday lives of ordinary  people.

But in Sunday’s Washington  Post, Norman Ornstein of the right-leaning American Enterprise Institute took a  moment to detail the woes these boy wonders have since encountered. Rick  Snyder’s approval rating is at 33 percent. Scott Walker’s is 43  percent. Rick Scott: 29 percent.  [Read the U.S. News Debate: Should Congress Raise the Debt Ceiling?]

Seven months ago they were  the toast of the town. Now, milquetoast. What happened?

Well, as Ornstein  describes it, the governors launched initiatives aimed at “cutting benefits for  the poor and middle class while adding tax breaks for the rich” while also  trying to get rid of collective bargaining. As you might imagine,  that wasn’t very popular with a lot of people (for instance: the poor and  middle class). And, shockingly, it hasn’t done much to balance their state budgets either. So now, according to Ornstein, “the only areas left for  meaningful budget reductions are education, Medicaid, and prisons.”

Let’s see: Your approval  numbers are in the tank, and all you’ve got left are gutting schools, letting  out convicts, and taking healthcare away from disadvantaged kids.  I’m guessing, as a re-election strategy, that leaves something to be desired.

In other words: fellas, it  ain’t working. And what’s so surprising about all of this is that for  some, it’s so surprising. Is it really so hard to figure out that one of  the reasons government is its current size and shape is that people have needs  that they want their government to try and meet? It doesn’t always work,  of course. But frustration over government spending on programs that  aren’t working isn’t the same thing as saying people no longer want good public  schools. Understanding that distinction is the difference between doing  the hard, more complicated work of reforming something that isn’t working as  well as we would like, and becoming fixated on an ideological goal that doesn’t  end up fixing anything at all.

Which brings me back to  Mr. Dykstra and his beloved sink. Now, in fairness, those of us who have  been consigned to using standard-issue sinks can only dream about the  hydrological wonders of the $50k variety. Perhaps it dispensed nothing  but delicious milkshakes. More likely: Even as his world was crashing down,  Dykstra couldn’t take his eyes off the one thing he coveted the most. Now  it looks like he’s going to prison.

Republicans may be in for  a similar electoral fate. Instead of helping the people they were elected  to serve, they’ve gone about ruthlessly pursuing an elusive conservative holy  grail. Dismantling government—it’s the GOPs $50,000 sink. And they can’t  take their eyes off of it even as their house burns down around them.

By: Anson Kaye, U. S. News and World Report, June 13, 2011

June 14, 2011 Posted by | Bankruptcy, Collective Bargaining, Conservatives, Democracy, Elections, GOP, Government, Governors, Health Care, Ideologues, Ideology, Labor, Lawmakers, Medicaid, Middle Class, Politics, Public Employees, Republicans, Right Wing, State Legislatures, States, Voters, Wealthy | , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Gov. Chris Christie: Earn $6,000 A Year? No Medicaid For You!

If you live in the state of New Jersey and are earning $118 a week, congratulations!

According to Gov. Chris Christie, you have escaped the bonds of poverty and no longer are in need of the state’s Medicaid program.

Never mind that $118 a week is but a fraction of the poverty line as defined by the United States of America. Pay no attention to the fact that New Jersey battles California for the mantle of having the highest cost of living of any state in the nation.

Chris Christie, everyone’s favorite no-nonsense, “tell it like it is” governor, has decided that you can manage quite nicely on this paltry sum while remaining fully capable of paying for your own medical care.

Sound like a joke?

It’s not. And it is difficult to imagine anything less humorous. Under the Christie plan, adults with a family of four who earn more than $6,000 a year would no longer qualify for the state’s Medicaid program. Currently, the cut-off to qualify is $30,000.

Think about that for a moment.

A single mother raising three kids on a weekly salary of $118 will no longer be eligible to take advantage of the medical social safety net should she fall ill.

I can hear my conservative friends rising in chorus – mom should have thought about that before having all those kids she couldn’t afford! Maybe she should have. If only there were some place these women could turn to for family planning advice so that they might avoid this problem.

But wait – there is such a program in New Jersey. Or, to be more precise, there was such a program in New Jersey. It turns out that women’s clinics are disappearing from the New Jersey landscape as Governor Christie uses the budget pen to wipe out women’s health programs that might also provide abortion services as a small part of what they make available to women so badly in need of their health care and counseling services. This, despite the fact that no state or federal taxpayer money went towards paying for any such abortion services long before Christie began his assault on women’s health.

In his last budget, Christy sliced $7.5 million from family planning clinics – a cut his new budget proudly continues. As a result, health and planning services so vital to low income women are becoming very hard to find in New Jersey- not to mention the many other states where Governors are using the budget to enact their social, anti-abortion agenda’s.

What do we call powerful people when they pick on the weakest among us?

We call them bullies. And Governor Chris Christie exemplifies the modern-day bully. Is it any wonder, then, that the GOP sees Christie as the man they would so gladly follow into the 2012 election battle?

Christie’s proposal to cut over $500 million from the state’s Medicaid program would not only affect parents earning far too little to support their families. Some of the deepest cuts would leave seniors, who require full-time, in-facility nursing home care, literally out in the cold as the funding that supports their ability to get the medical attention they need disappears.

I suppose these elderly can move back into the homes of their children – many of whom are the ones earning over $6,000 a year, but well below the national poverty line, who will no longer be able to care for their own health needs let another find a way to pay for the care of their sick parents.

There is some good news in this otherwise bleak story.

Come 2014, when the federal government steps in to play a larger role in financing the state Medicaid programs (they already pay for about half of the costs), it will be illegal for these people to be denied care. Accordingly, all these folks need do is see to it they do not get sick between now and 2014.

How hard can this be?

As New Jersey U.S. Senator Robert Menendez put it, “The state is effectively telling these families to wait until 2014 to get coverage again. Unfortunately, there is no
such thing as a waiver for getting cancer.” Certainly, some deal can be cut between man, woman and God resulting in that cancer scheduled to show up next year holding off until 2014 when care will be available.

And how much damage can uncontrolled diabetes really do when untreated for a three year period? So, maybe you lose a couple of toes as the diabetes ravages your body.

As Chris Christie would no doubt remind you, forfeiting a few digits for the common good of wealthy millionaires for whom Christie continues to cut taxes, is a small price to pay.

After all, those tax cuts might just result in your getting a better job in the future – assuming you’re still alive.

And if you aren’t, at least you will die in the knowledge that you will have given your life to improve Chris Christie’s chances of becoming President of these United States some day.

So, at least you’ve got that going for you.

By: Rick Ungar, The Policy Page, Forbes, June 12, 2011

June 13, 2011 Posted by | Affordable Care Act, Class Warfare, Conservatives, Consumers, Elections, Equal Rights, GOP, Gov Chris Christie, Government, Health Care, Health Reform, Ideologues, Ideology, Medicaid, Middle Class, Planned Parenthood, Politics, Public Health, Republicans, Right Wing, Seniors, States, Taxes, Under Insured, Unemployed, Uninsured, Wealthy, Women, Women's Health, Womens Rights | , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

John Birch Society Celebrates Koch Family For Their Role In Founding The Hate Group

Billionaire brothers David and Charles Koch have been dominant financiers for conservative front groups and nonprofits for nearly three decades. Their money has flowed to organizations dedicated to lobbying for corporate and upper income tax cuts, as well as to groups responsible for mobilizing Tea Party rallies against President Obama. But the Koch family’s association with fringe right-wing groups began a generation earlier with Fred Koch, the patriarch of the clan.

Fred not only founded the company now known as Koch Industries, he also was a founding member of the John Birch Society. As a founding board member, Fred helped engineer a hysterical wave of attacks on labor, intellectuals, public education, liberal clergy members, and other pillars of society he viewed as a threat. Birchers decried everyone from former President Eisenhower to water utility administrators as pawns in a global communist conspiracy. In the last two years, as the Koch name has become synonymous with right-wing plutocracy in the United States, the Koch family has played down its relation to the Birchers.

However, the New American, the official mouthpiece of the John Birch Society, published a piece this morning celebrating Fred and the Koch family’s pivotal role in developing the group:

Koch warned that American institutions were honeycombed with communist subversives, from labor unions and tax-free foundations to universities and churches. Art and newsprint, radio and television — all these media had been transmuted into vehicles of communist propaganda. […] Fred Koch was no fly-by-night pamphleteer. He spent a generous portion of his later years using his wealth and influence to fight the communism he abhorred. He was an early member of the The John Birch Society’s National Council, an advisory group to JBS founder Robert Welch. Koch supported a variety of freedom-related causes, all the while continuing to build the company today known as Koch Industries.

The Bircher ode to Koch glosses over Fred’s record of bigotry. In a booklet he authored, Fred railed against civil rights leaders, and claimed the movement against racial segregation was a communist plot to use African Americans to destabilize the country. The Koch-funded Birchers held numerous rallies during the ’60s claiming integration would lead to a “mongrelization” of the races.

Although the present-day Koch brothers try to eschew explicit racism, their top Tea Party front group, Americans for Prosperity, is currently pursuing similar racial segregation goals. In North Carolina, the Americans for Prosperity chapter led a campaign to end a highly successful public school integration system.

 

By: Lee Fang, Think Progress, June 10, 2011

June 12, 2011 Posted by | Conservatives, Corporations, Democracy, Education, GOP, Ideologues, Ideology, Koch Brothers, Labor, Neo-Cons, Politics, Racism, Republicans, Right Wing, Teaparty | , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Bush Tax Cuts Turn 10: Wall Street Celebrates, Americans Suffer

Break out the bubbly, because there will be celebrations today on  Wall Street and in corporate boardrooms and mansions all across America. Why?  Because today is the 10th anniversary of the big Bush tax breaks for  bankers and billionaires and the businesses that bankroll their big-budget  campaigns.

Today is an opportunity to ponder these questions: If the Bush  tax cuts are so great, why has the economy been so bad since they became law 10  years ago? And how about this brain  teaser: If the GOP theology of cutting taxes for the rich brings in more  revenue, why is Democratic President Bill Clinton the only president in the  last generation to leave a surplus behind for the next president?

In 1980, President George H.W. Bush called it voodoo economics.  Bush 41 conveniently changed his position when he became Ronald Reagan’s  running mate that year. But the first President Bush was right the first time.  The idea that tax revenues will go up when you cut taxes has cast an evil spell  over the U.S. economy going all the way back to Ronald Reagan. In 1981, the new  GOP math became 1 + 1 = 3. With this kind of fuzzy math, it’s no wonder that  President Reagan left behind a massive budget deficit.

George W. Bush may have had George H.W. Bush for a father, but Ronald  Reagan was his role model. The latest incarnation of voodoo economics was the  creation of the second President Bush. The tax cuts for bankers and  billionaires that became law in 2001 quickly turned the Clinton surplus into  the Bush budget deficit as big as Donald Trump’s ego. Voodoo is what  Republicans do so well.

But Bush 43 did not stop there in handing out goodies to Wall  Street. In 2008, the president asked his Treasury Secretary, Henry Paulson, the  former CEO of Goldman Sachs, to bail out Goldman Sachs and other Wall Street  investment firms to the tune of three quarters of a trillion dollars. Of  course, President Bush never even considered an attempt to rescue the millions  of working Americans who first lost their jobs and then their homes because of malfeasance  on Wall Street.

Last month, the Center for Budget Priorities released a study  that demonstrated that the two biggest reasons for the current budget deficit  were the Bush tax cuts and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. So what do the  Republicans do? Do they vote to cut  Pentagon spending or end  dole welfare for wealthy Americans? Of course  they don’t. They gut Medicare. Genius!

Yesterday, Frank Patitucci, CEO and Chairman of NuCompass  Mobility Service, called on Republican Speaker John Boehner to increase taxes on  Americans making more than $1 million a year. Patitucci explained his position  by saying businesses need a strong middle class to prosper.

But I don’t want to be a party pooper or rain on Wall Street’s  parade, so party hardy, guys. Don’t scrimp on the Dom Perignon and the caviar.  Santa Claus comes only once a year. Let’s worry about the GOP cuts in healthcare for seniors and nutrition programs for women and their infant children another day.

By: Brad Bannon, U. S. News and World Report, June 7, 2011

June 7, 2011 Posted by | Banks, Budget, Businesses, Conservatives, Consumers, Corporations, Debt Crisis, Deficits, Economic Recovery, Economy, Financial Institutions, GOP, Government, Health Care, Ideologues, Ideology, Jobs, Medicare, Middle Class, Politics, Republicans, Right Wing, Seniors, Taxes, Wall Street, Wealthy, Women | , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

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