Healthcare repeal and replace disaster

While I find it humorous that the Republicans can't come up with a replacement to Obamacare (they had 7 years to come up with a plan).  I find it more amazing that they can't get the votes for repeal either (the House voted 62 times to repeal and the Senate said if they had the majority it would be repealed).  Then the President blames the Democrats.  No Mr. President you are responsible for this, the Democrats are powerless to stop what you want.  You lost the support of Republican who believed you when you said that you would repeal Obamacare and replace it with something that give all Americans affordable access to healthcare.  Sadly the House and Senate bills would not provide affordable access to healthcare for all Americans.  The bills before Congress were going to leave millions without insurance and millions more priced out of the market and still millions who would be denied coverage.  As one analyst said the only people this plan would work for is a 27 year old male, with a good income, and no health problems.  It only works until they sick and dropped from their insurance or go bankrupt because they bought the cheap no coverage plan.

Liz Cheney Caught

Liz cheney in an effort to shore up her Republican brand went and got a fishing license in Wyoming the other day despite a lack of evidence that she is a fisherwoman.  Of course with her being a Cheney complications and lawbreaking ensued.  It turns out to get an in state license in Wyoming you have to have lived in the state longer than a few days.  This snafu cost her $250 and a lot of embarrassment.

Liz Cheney

Why does anyone take Liz Cheney's senate run seriously.  Here is a woman who was an architect of the NSA spy program that had many up in arms especially her own party when they realized that Obama was still doing it.  Whenever she is on Fox she spews the same discredited talking points from her father's administration.  She is another neocon who has been proven to be wrong about everything.

Fake Democrats

Lets start this out by saying this is wrong and the election board decision is wrong. If you are going to run as a partisan you should be a member of that party otherwise run as an independent. What Republicans are saying is that if the races aren't contested we need to make sure that there is a primary. If we want to go that way why don't we go to a system where all of names are on the primary ballot and the top 2 vote getters go on to the general election unless there are only 2 candidates where the winner wins. This would of course mean that you could have general elections where both candidates maybe from the same party. Think of the Governor race or the race for US Senate. It could easily be Falk versus Barrett in the Governor race and it could be Thompson versus Neumann in the Senate race.

WI Wisconsin Senate

The Republican candidates for WI Senate had a debate the other day. The most shocking thing to come out of the debate was said by Mark Neumann. He stated that all tax breaks should go away. This from who used to be the most reasonable of the candidates, but also a guy who made millions because of the tax breaks. You see Mark owns a company that installs residential solar systems. These systems would not sell as well as they do if it weren't for the fact that the owners can write off up to 40% of the cost. As you know I'm against tax breaks for corporations because corporations should not be getting a subsidized workforce, these taxcuts are different because they go directly to a individual. They allow for homes to be improved and lessen a need for new power plants having to be built.

Fitzgerald is running on his conservative values and leadership. That would be the leadership that cuts off debate and rushes votes when there is barely a quorum thus allowing easy passage.

Finally you have Eric Hovde, who is running an ad touting how much borrowing is being done. It is important to remember that Hovde worked and made millions in an industry that held this government hostage saying that they needed bailing out in order to head off financial ruin of the country. This bailout and the Iraq war really blew up the budget. The debt doesn't look that bad when you take the $6-9 trillion given to the banks and the $3 trillion spend in Iraq and take them out of the $15 trillion debt that we have. Also, he has no plan for how to solve his identified problem other than to not borrow anymore. This does nothing to solve the debt crisis and he should know this.

Tammy Baldwin for Senate?

Tammy Baldwin was interviewed a couple of weeks ago in the Capitol Times. She discussed how she was thinking about running for Senate and how the rest of the State was not that different from her own district ( a mix of urban and rural). My only thought was that she sure doesn't get out in the rest of the State much. There are vast differences, Also, she fails to mention that she has a rural problem in her current district. The problem for Tammy is going to be once you get 100-200 miles outside of Madison the level of education drops, the income level drops, and the people are generally more conservative. Her message is going to be a tough sell. Tammy's legislative record is sparse but a lot of that is due to being in the minority. The problem is that to adequately explain that you need an infomercial. Sure the things that she stands for should be popular among the people outside of Madison but these are the same people who voted against their best interests in 2010 and they will do it again in 2012.

The Bastards

That was my reaction to what the Republican Majority did in Wisconsin tonight.  I don't care what you feel about the collective bargaining provisions or the other anti-union provisions everyone should be mad about the process.  These Republicans have been running roughshod over the Democratic Process.  First it was not giving the Democrats the correct time for an assembly hearing.  Then it was adjourning an assembly session but going back in session as soon as the Democrats left so that they could have an immediate vote on the budget repair bill.  Now they have stooped to a new low.  Sending the bill to conference committee to be divided up so that the Senate could vote on it.  The whole thing to 10 minutes and passed 18-1.  Only one person thought that what they were doing was shameful.  As a consequence the Capitol was re-occupied.  I made my first trip there and it was awesome, people are really angry about the process.  We understand that the votes are there to do whatever he wants, but we want a debate, we want to be able to add amendments, and we are opposed to balancing the budget on the people who can least afford it.  Shame on the Senators, shame on the Governor, and shame on the members of the conference committee.

Senate races and the tea party

There are those that are dismissing the chances of Ms. O'Donnell of winning in Delaware, I'm not one of them. Sure she has made some outrageous comments ass have all of the other tea party candidates but that is why the voters like them. "They are just like me, they speaker their mind, and they tell the truth (even when they repeat the big lies) which is why I'll vote for them" is the common refrain from their supporters. Most people think that this is some tiny fringe element. I think that it is bigger than you think and is growing. I think that every one of those candidates has a chance at winning. If Carly Fiorina (a woman who fired 7,000 HP workers and ran the company into the ground) can push Barbra Boxer in a senate race anything is possible. Look at Wisconsin where it is a dead heat between Ron Johnson and Senator Feingold. The Senator has taken many votes that square with the tea party agenda but yet the race is a dead heat.

Government backed loans, loans, and grants

Ron Johnson wants us to understand that the help his business got was a loan. He also wants us to understand that this was not the Government picking winners and losers. Well, I for one don't understand the difference. Pacur was given a low interest government backed loan from a bank. This is different from a business loan from a bank in that if they defaulted the bank would be able to get some of the money from the government. A grant is a direct bailout, the government picking winners and losers. The way Mr. Johnson tells it anyone could have gotten this kind of deal. Except that isn't true. Only companies that are already established or led by the connected (Mr. Johnson was connected through his father in law) can get these deals. Give me $2 million dollars and I'll open a business.

So, we can say that he got government help but yet he has no problem criticizing Sen. Feingold for voting to give GM loans and grants to stay in business. This vote preserved a large American company that employed 10s of thousands of Americans. You can argue that these Americans were overpaid. He doesn't go there though. He just believes that we should have let them go.

There you have it the differences between funding sources and how Ron Johnson is playing with the facts. And I'll take a low interest loan to open a business.

P.S. Maybe Ron Johnson would be willing to release the salary structure at his company. Does he pay the so called living wage?

Ron Johnson again

Now the Democratic Party wants Ron Johnson to release the tax records for his business. Normally I would agree with Johnson that those records shouldn't be made public. The difference in this case is that Mr. Johnson is campaigning that taxes on his business are oppressive. Since his is one of the largest businesses in the State and there have been a number of articles published indicating that the majority of large businesses in the State pay little or no taxes, these records have become a campaign issue. The voters need to know how much he paid in taxes.