Minimum Wage Movement

I think that a lot people are sympathetic to increasing the minimum wage but I think that the movement will flame out without accomplishing anything.  It is a lot like the occupy movement or the 99%; a lot of people identify with the goals and are in those respective groups figuratively speaking but the majority politicians and the mainstream media will not take up the cause.  This would create popular sustaining support and that is lacking.  You have billions being spent to convince would be members of these groups to act against their own best interests.  What we should look at is how many of these low wage workers are voting for Republicans.  It has to be a lot because the Republicans keep getting elected and they are not going to raise the minimum wage.  The silver lining might be that some editorial writers and cartoonists have seized on the fact that many of these workers get food stamps, housing assistance, and medical care covered by all taxpayers and that this amounts to a business subsidy.  I think that this tact could be successful because people are tired of give aways to business in exchange for jobs that never seem to materialize in the numbers or wages that the companies said they would.  So her's to hope that something will move because right now the majority in this country is being crushed by low wages, rising costs and a growing income disparity.

The Food Stamp President

That's what Mitt Romney and the Republicans call President Obama.  Some look at this as a slam against the President who as a child received food stamps.  Some point to the fact that the number of people on food stamps has increased during his presidency and that somehow he made it easier to qualify for food stamps.  The facts on food stamps are a little more complicated.  The majority of the recipients have jobs.  So, why would they qualify for food stamps?  Because both wages and hours are down since 2008, but in reality they have been in decline for 30 years.  The bottom line is that you have more people who simply cannot afford to live in this country.  If we would reduce the food stamp program (both Paul Ryan and Mitt Romney are on record although recently they have change their mind) Paul Ryan would be able to get in a nice photo op at the soup kitchen probably similar to the depression.  You remove the floor and people are going to fall hard.  The Republicans believe that this is what should happen.  My question is what is the point?  Does anyone really believe that if you cut off aid to the poor suddenly the poor will get higher paying jobs or start a business?  Of course not.  What will happen is that we will see the true effects of this economy, which is that it is disastrous for the majority of Americans.  Maybe, we as a country need to go through a period like this so that people will finally wake up and understand that the wealthy, the corporations, and the politicians did this to us and finally demand change.   

Reflections on the Conventions

I didn't watch all of the convention coverage but what I did see was interesting.  The Republicans featured compelling personal stories that conveniently left out parts where they got government loans, grants, tax breaks,...  The Democrats featured the same kind of personal stories but they all gave government the credit for college loans and grants, business loans and grants, ...  Most telling were the speeches of Sen. Rubio and Mayor Castro.  Both men told the same story.  About how their parents worked, saved, and instilled a message that they would be better off than they were.  In fact they used similar tag lines.  Sen. Rubio, " my father was a banquet bartender so that instead of me standing behind the bar in the back of the room I could stand behind the podium in the front of the room".  Mayor Castro, "my mom worked so that I wouldn't be pushing a mop".  The difference was that the people in the Democratic convention seem to get it and the Republicans didn't.  That is the real difference between the parties.  One is a party of the working people the other is the party of the people who have theirs and either can't recall the struggles or were born on 3rd base.

Isaac part 3

No shortage of hypocrisy in red state Louisiana.  Yesterday on the radio they interviewed a woman self identified as a Republican whose house was under 12 feet of water who said that President Obama had done nothing.  Why wasn't this person challenged?  Obama released Federal aid before the hurricane struck.  She hadn't seen anyone because her house was still under water.  Where was the question about why she didn't have flood/ hurricane insurance?  Where was the pointing out that being a Republican is all about providing for yourself?  Talk about creating a culture of dependency on the Federal government.  When I thought it couldn't get any worse it happened again.  In this morning's Wisconsin State Journal another Republican from Louisiana said that the President should spend whatever it takes to build a better levy system for the rest of the State.  What happened to "State rights and responsibilities"?  Why should the rest of the taxpaying citizen's of the United States who work hard, have homeowners insurance, and flood insurance, whose state and local governments build flood control structures, regulate building,... have to pay for the irresponsible management of Louisiana?  Where is tea party nation and the Republican party on this?  When the President agrees to rebuilding Louisiana we'll hear from both groups about the billions added to the deficit.  Although neither group came out against the spending before it was done.  Hypocrisy and nonsense and irresponsible spending of taxpayer money.

Didn't build that take 2

The Republican convention is all about the phrase didn't build that.  Those hardscrabble immigrant entrepreneurs building their business by themselves.  They didn't rely on a government to establish a civil society that allowed a business to succeed they obviously did it themselves.  They banded together a created police forces to keep the peace and provide security for their business.  They created the fire departments, they built the roads, they built the railways, all without a government.  And how was this fantasy paid for, by the businesses of course.  That is the history that the Republicans are talking about, to bad it is all not true.  No business owners ask government for fire and police protection (they always have), they ask for city services such as water and sewer, they ask that roads be built, they ask that flood control structures be built, they ask for government to take land so that railroads can be built, they ask for locks to be put on rivers for barge traffic, ....  And who ends up paying for this the US taxpayer.

What Should the Dems do?

How should the Dems play the after effects of what was a pretty dismal night?  I think that they should go the other way and help the Republicans pass their agenda.  I'm talking about the things that they don't want to touch or at least the Governor said weren't priorities.  They should propose right to work.  The should propose ending public education.  The should propose ending abortion.  They should propose banning the sales of contraceptives.  They should propose ending Badger Care.  The should propose legalizing drugs.  They should propose making all drugs available without a prescription.  They should propose ending public education.  All of these things seem popular with the people but Republicans have been unwilling to go this far at one time.  They prefer the slow death of these programs.  I say help them fulfill the goals as stated in their platform.  After all they say elections have consequences.

The Problem with Wisconsin Cities

A lot has been made about the sorry state of Milwaukee by the Pro-Walker forces.  The seem to delight in this telling of how Milwaukee is going to fail.  I say then what?  You have the state's largest city in ruins, how exactly is that good for the state or the economy?  The reasons for Milwaukee's and by extension Madison's problems are relate to the party in charge and the fact that a lot of the workers live outside of the city.  You have Governors and legislators who dislike these cities and cut how much tax money is kicked back to them.  This leaves the city with no choice but to raise property taxes, but the people with the money have left for other communities.  But, these are the same people who need better roads, so we tax the residents of the city to pay for this, which drives more people out of town.  This spirals out of control causing the city to decline to the delight of Republicans who seem to only represent the burbs which are full of people who work in the city and won't pay for anything.  Just what are we going to do with the empty shells of cities in the state?

The Rematch

That was the headline.  Is anyone else wondering how this will play out when the number of people who voted for Scott Walker who ran against a Lafollette/ Teddy Roosevelt Republican got almost as many votes as all of the Democrats combined?  Assuming most of the Republicans stayed home because they knew Walker would easily win, where were the Democrats?  Some Republicans might of voted because of fear that the Democrats would have crossed over.  This is baseless, the Democrats needed to select a strong candidate.  There was simply no reason to vote in the Republican primary if you were a Democrat.  In normal times I would have voted for a Republican who quotes Fighting Bob and Roosevelt but these aren't normal times.  So in the end Barrett wins convincingly.  This is like saying there was a mistake we need a do over.  This is a candidate who the last time ran a bad campaign.  He didn't lose to Walker because of the wave election he lost because he was a bad campaigner.  He did a poor job articulating what he wanted to do.  He did a poor job exposing Scott Walkers record to the rest of the State.  I always hear from people that the Gov. didn't campaign on this stuff.  The truth is that he at one time or another mentioned everything that was contained in Act 10 and for the most part it was reported.  You just had to pay attention.  Plus there was his record of dealing with his employees in Milwaukee County.  His record was known.  Maybe the Barrett supporters feel that he can run a lackluster campaign and get away with it because everyone now knows about the Governor.  Barrett's challenge this time will be fighting off distortions and half truths about his record as Mayor of Milwaukee.  These are charges that can't be defended in a 30 second commercial but they play well to the public and they will be heard in saturation on radio and TV.  He has his work cut out and based on the number of voters who went to the polls yesterday he'll need to inspire people to come out and vote because for sure the Governor's supporters will vote.

Recalling the Gov

As recall mania starts to heat up there is one important thing to know is going on. The Republicans or their supporters are also collecting signatures with the intention of not turning them in. This will increase the likely hood of not getting enough signatures. If enough signatures are obtain the Republicans will deliver their signatures and then challenge signatures looking for duplicates. You can't sign more than once. So, it is important to get credentials from the person collecting signatures and only sign once.

Republican Endgame

You have to wonder what the Republican endgame is. We are in the middle of special jobs sessions at both the State and Federal level and as far as I can tel they have done nothing to create jobs but they have done much to increase unemployment and further a social agenda. In Wisconsin there is a proposal that would criminalize stem cell research, there goes hundreds of jobs at UW Madison alone. In Wisconsin they passed a bill that would allow students test performance to be used to determine whether public school teachers are fired. This after much research indicates that many times it is not the teacher but the child. Private school teachers are exempt, although in the areas of the state with private school choice they are receiving taxpayer money. In Wisconsin the number one job creator is the UW system. What has the legislature done for them. They increased the budget cuts to $310 million dollars with another possible $50 million if we don't create more jobs, ironic. Instead of trying to help the UW help the state we had a hearing on what criteria is used to admit students. We should have had a hearing on what we can do to help students stay in school. At the federal level they decided to break-up the President's job package, so last night they voted on spending $45 million dollars to help states meet salary obligations for teachers, police, and firefighters. Every Republican voted no. I suppose that the argument is that they should take less money. The reality is that they have taken less and there have been layoffs. Is the goal to take the country back to the late 18th century when you contracted with a private company for fire protection? Remember the Chicago fire, that was the end of that practice. And what about police? I can agree that less police is a good thing but when there is real crime you want some police. Are we going to try a 18th century solution and privatize the force. Pay them like security guards and hope that with enough open and concealed weapons around you don't have to worry about crime. I really don't see how any of this is going to advance the needs of the nation not to mention promoting the general welfare.

Wisconsin State Assembly

I just heard this today that at yesterday's assembly session (the only one of the month) there was a group of people filming the goings on. That was too much for Rep. Fitzgerald who had the palace guard (Wisconsin State Patrol not the Capitol Police) remove and arrest those people. He cited assembly rule 26 (which I've been told isn't published) as superseding a State law from 1990 not to mention the US Constitution as upheld by the State of Ohio Supreme Court which allow private citizens to record what is said in public meetings. My understanding was the individuals who were doing the taping did not trust that the assembly would be run according their rules or that what happens would not be reported. Judging by the lack of media coverage it would appear that their fears were realized. This move by Rep. Fitzgerald and the rest of the GOP members is appalling. You would expect this behavior from an authoratative government but not from a democracy. And, where were the Democrats? Only 2 of them had the nerve to challenge the action. They should have walked out, this is no way to run a government. Much like the Senate walk out in the end such a move would not have mattered. The Democrats are a non existent party. They cannot introduce legislation and none of their amendments even make it to the floor for a vote. Remember the days of all we ask for is an up or down vote (Republicans). At least there was discussion back then. The Rep. from Black River Falls suggested changing the rule to allow taping as allowed under State law and it was suggested that could be taken up at a later date. Minority leader Barca agreed effectively ending any discussion. Does anyone really believe that this will be taken up at a later date? If you do I have a toxic waste dump to sell you. The Assembly and the State Patrol join the State Supreme Court as disgraced institutions. I'm afraid that they all have shown themselves to be tools of the Republican party leadership and big business. This is a total authoritative move which is going to have consequences in the State. Oh and maybe this is why the worthless State Patrol was exempt from the changes in the state employee contracts, after all you need to have a palace guard.

War on Science

There has been a lot of talk of a war on science recently. Except this war was begun in 1980 with the election of Ronald Reagan. Reagan campaigned on and coined the phrase junk science. Reagan was against global warming, didn't believe in peak oil, and was against spending government money on scientific research unless it was for the military. So, I can't see how it is a surprise that the current Republican (at least the ones getting press) candidates are running against science and doing it effectively. They are so good that scientists are just one step above teachers as the most hated profession.

City of Madison Budget

I think that with the budget plan that Mayor Soglin released was the sharp stick in the eye for Republicans. He said that he would save money by cutting snow plowing and salting. The Republicans who cut aid to the cities complained about the state of Madison roads a couple of winters ago. They felt that the State should take over plowing for the city of Madison. The Mayor may have just figured out how to cut the budget significantly by having the State take over plowing.

The Sign Said Stop Obama (?)

I was riding my bike today and as I was coming to the crest of a hill in the yard I saw a sign that said stop Obama. Now this was some pretty expensive property not as much as the deposit $20 in my mailbox person but nice. Clearly a rural Republican. My question is stop him from what? There is so little difference between Obama and Bush that it is almost like Bush never left office. We are still in 2 wars and pursuing 3 and 4 much to the dismay of the President's supporters. The President agreed to extend the Bush tax cuts which has helped fuel the current debt and deficit crisis. They both spend like crazy. Bush probably would not have bailed out GM but he would have given more money to the banks. Bush may not have extended unemployment but he would have business a break from taxation. Yes he needs to be stopped from turning to the right, unfortunately I don't think that is what was meant by the sign.

Dems Against the Debt Ceiling, Oh My!

A lot is being written about how the Democrats, particularly President Obama and Sen. Reid, were against raising the debt ceiling in 2006. But yet that reporting is incomplete. So the Democrats were against an increase but were accused of blowing up the budget in the 2008 and 2010 election cycle. What's up with that. Well the Democrats objected to increasing the debt ceiling because it was being used to fund programs off budget namely 2 wars and bank bailouts. The Democrats wanted these items put into the budget, which they did causing the budget to explode. In the end this is a more honest accounting of the nations expenses and has probably slowed the growth of debt. Now Republicans are opposed to any increase without massive spending reductions. The problem is that the debt is paying for past expenses. We are currently running a deficit because the job creators are not creating jobs or even spending. Until the economy gets moving the spender of last resort is the government, the wealthy as so often in the past cannot spend enough to turn the economy around and when coupled with trade and labor policies that favor creating jobs outside of the country you have the stagnation with record profits for a few that we see now.

Michelle Bachmann on the Debt Ceiling

Michelle Bachmann yesterday weighed in on the debt ceiling discussion. As expected she was all for defaulting but she said that it would be no big deal the country won't default because there is plenty of money. She was half right, the President has said that he won't let the country default he won't pay current expenses. i think that will be a big deal. Sure we could not pay contractors, soldiers (especially those deployed), welfare, and unemployment (no longer funded due to the unemployment extensions) but to say that this would not be a big deal doesn't understand the economy very well. Then there are the funded programs that we could take money from (Social Security and Medicare) which would also be a big deal. The Republicans want the country to look like it did in 1929 and they won't stop until there are people on the streets and soup lines. This issue is ridiculous. Every President has run a deficit in bad economic times. The debt ceiling was raised several times under President Bush and no one objected. He had to raise the debt ceiling because of his tax cuts and unbudgeted wars, at least now we are trying to straighten this mess out.

Where are the Jobs?

It has been 10 years of the so called Bush tax cuts that were supposed to be an incentive for the "job creators" to create jobs. Where are they? The latest data indicates that the wealthy have gotten richer during the recovery whereas the job seekers are still seeking. We are now being told that if just cut taxes for the wealthy more and provide more tax breaks for business while cutting Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, and education programs for the working masses. Does anyone really believe that this plan is going to work? First off as the masses have lost jobs, salary, and benefits their buying power has declined. The reality is that without customers the job creators are not going to hire. What they are doing is cutting operating costs in the United States by off shoring jobs to places like China. US companies are also selling more products in China because there are millions of Chinese customers that now have some money. A better choice than cutting taxes for the wealthy would be to give the job creators the gift that they have dreamed of, the elimination of the minimum wage. That way those low wage jobs could be created here instead of overseas. This won't save the economy unless we have an appropriate reduction in prices, but that hasn't stopped the Republicans from enacting policies that got us to where we are today.

The President Blows it on the Debt Limit

The President gave a press conference yesterday where he was getting close to being on track but in the end he failed again. As I see there are 2 choices in dealing with these Republicans (keep in mind that these guys voted to raise the debt limit many times but now they are not going raise it), first is he could just agree and let the country go into default and take the country back to 1929 when we had much less of a social safety net than we have today. Just maybe when there are people on the streets because they don't have anything we can finally have an adult discussion about how the economy should work. His other choice is to walk into congress with $300 billion in budget cuts. Where is going to get that? Shut down the wars and bring the troops home. Cut the military force by 50%. Redeploy the navy to US coastal ports. Cut the defense budget by about 50%. Cut funding for all new weapons systems. Force the Republicans to vote on that. The country will not be left defenseless. We can cut our military 50% and still have more military than most countries, especially the ones that we are likely to go to war with.

The President's Economic Team

Great letter to the editor today explaining why it is a good thing that Obama's economic team is going back to academia because they were out of touch with how real economics works. Really! Most of Obama's team was pretty conservative. Larry Summers former head of the world bank and from the Chicago School as a liberal laughable. If Obama were to follow a liberal economic policy you would want Reich and Krugman. Those guys weren't called and they disagree frequently with the President's policies. Instead the President has chosen to be Bush lite on economics. He has followed the Bush policies of giving the store away to the wealthy and big business with hope that they might throw a little bit back to us. His replacement picks will be telling, I'm not holding my breath. All we need to do is look at South America to see the future of following the policies advocated by the republicans and their Chicago trained economists.

Wisconsin Voter ID and the Proof of Citizenship

The Wisconsin Legislature (Republicans) just passed the voter ID bill and a proof of citizenship during a traffic stop is working it's way through. On the surface these sound great. We don't want people who shouldn't be voting, voting. We also don't want people voting in the wrong area. You could change the outcome of the election, if for example a bunch of people from Madison decided that they wanted to vote against Rep. Nass they could go to Whitewater and vote against him. Same thing with the proof of citizenship, we don't want illegal immigrants working or driving cars. The problem with both of these bills they won't solve these problems. For voter ID they will accept a driver's license. The problem is that there are a lot of people who have driver's licenses who legally cannot vote. For example: convicted felons (you lose the right to vote permanently) , foreign nationals who are legal residents, and finally some illegal immigrants. The same problem applies to citizenship. Having a drivers license is not proof. Only a passport is proof of citizenship because it is issued by the State Department and is presumably difficult to forge.

I believe that if you really want to do voter ID you need to come up with a State issued ID for everyone who can legally vote with a renewal of every 2 years so that a reasonable attempt can be made to catch the people whose voter status may have changed. For the proof of citizenship require everyone to carry a passport.