No comments on Presty the DJ for Oct. 24
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The focus groups who reportedly picked out Democratic gubernatorial candidate Mary Burke were reportedly looking for …
1) a woman, 2) who is highly educated, 3) who has a business background and is literally a job creator, 4) who has deep roots in Wisconsin and 5) is not a sitting politician.
You would think a person meeting the third and fifth of those criteria would not sound like the fifth criterion. But when the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel interviewed Burke for the first time, they got …
The Democratic challenger to Gov. Scott Walker said she would seek to avoid raising state or local taxes but stopped short of pledging no increases if elected.
In an interview Monday with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, former Trek Bicycle Corp. executive and state commerce secretary Mary Burke also said she had voted against a 2006 constitutional amendment that prohibited gay marriage and civil unions and supported allowing gay and lesbian couples to marry.
Burke, a Madison school board member, also said she would oppose making Wisconsin a right-to-work state but declined to weigh in on whether she would support a unionizing effort at the Waterloo bicycle manufacturer that was founded by her father.
On big questions such as taxes, Burke remained careful with her answers and avoided big pledges, saying simply she wanted government to be accountable and live within its means.
“I’d want to look at the totality. We collect revenue in a lot of different ways. I certainly wouldn’t look at raising (taxes), but I’d also want to look at it in the context of our finances, our budgets …” Burke said.
In other answers, Burke said she opposed a law passed by Republicans requiring voters to show a photo ID at their polling place and said she was skeptical of an effort to change the state’s American Indian mascot law for schools. …
In the interview, Burke made clear she opposed a so-called right-to-work law, which would prohibit requirements that workers in private companies pay labor dues even if they don’t belong to a union.
“The laws, as they stand on the books, work for Wisconsin,” Burke said.
Walker and GOP lawmakers passed a law in March 2011 that repeals most collective bargaining for most public employees, effectively putting right to work in place for government workers.
Burke declined to weigh in on whether Trek workers should be represented by a union.
“The issues regarding whether it’s Trek or any other company, I think, those lay with those specific companies,” she said. …
She said she wanted to better Walker’s progress on the state’s economy but offered relatively few specifics. To boost lagging rates of entrepreneurship in Wisconsin, Burke said the state should look at proven strategies for encouraging and supporting new businesses such as start-up accelerators like gener8tor in Madison.
Walker’s predecessor, Gov. James Doyle, famously said, “We should not, we must not, and I will not raise taxes.” That was a pledge (if you ignore fee increases) kept until Democrats took over both houses of the Legislature after the 2008 elections and Doyle decided he wasn’t going to run for reelection, and then all tax hell broke loose. “Raising revenue” is a buzzphrase for “tax increase” unless you can show how our overtaxed voters in Wisconsin won’t have more money coming out of their pockets for Govzilla.
Burke takes a minority (position) on voter ID, apparently because the Democrats think voter fraud is OK when it benefits them. I’d like to hear her explanation for why such schools as Mukwonago (Indians), Potosi (Chieftains), Belmont (Braves), and any school with “Warriors” as its nickname should knuckle under to the professionally offended or the Self-Esteem Caucus and spend taxpayer money to rid themselves of mascots and logos those school districts chose because of their positive, not negative, qualities.
Burke will have to figure out how to explain her role in Trek Bicycles and how that can translate to improving the state’s business climate. (For that matter, she’ll have to convince people in her own party that business climate matters.) She also will have to explain what she learned from being Doyle’s secretary of commerce and how to, again, improve the state’s business climate. (Hint: “Start-up generators” are necessary but not sufficient.) I’m not even sure how seriously one should take Burke’s comment about (the nonexistent) unions at Trek, given that her party’s official position is that government workers should be required to join and pay dues to unions. (Eliminating that was what Act 10 was about, but Burke, of course, opposes Act 10.)
And Burke really needs to do better at interviews than here. Someone seems to be telling Burke that all she needs to do is fork out millions of her dollars and be Not Scott Walker, and she’ll win. That’s not sufficient either. Challengers always have to convince voters not only to not vote for the incumbent, but to vote for the challenger.
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It somehow escaped my notice that the 2013 World Series begins tonight.
My life is too busy to watch, but truth be told I’ve lacked interest in baseball since the Brewers were eliminated from contention around April 15. (If you think that’s bad, the Cubs were eliminated from contention during spring training.) I was mildly interested in seeing if the great Vin Scully could get to call a World Series, but his employer, the Dodgers, failed to follow through.
This World Series features Boston and St. Louis, two iconic franchises, who met in the 1946, 1967 and 2004 World Series. Here is a perspective on the Cardinals from, of all places, New York:
The Evil Empire just doesn’t feel so daunting anymore, winning just one title since the last year of the ’90s dynasty. It feels like the mandate has mutated. We aren’t about product as much as profit. And then we lose Mo and Andy, taking with them the remnants of the glory, Torre days.
There’s a crack in Darth Vader’s mask. And the St. Louis Cardinals have slipped through it, blooming like a rose from Middle America.
While the Yankees lick their wounds and grab their wallet, the Cardinals are deep into another fall run toward the Fall Classic. If they can squeeze out four games against the talented but tormented Dodgers, St. Louis will be the hub of America’s pastime yet again.
And they do it with a fraction of our budget and our bombast.
St. Louis loses their two pillars – Tony LaRussa and Albert Pujols – and didn’t drop a rung. They do it the right way, their players are spawned by perhaps the most fertile farm system in baseball. You don’t know who they are until you see them whacking clutch home runs in the playoffs. Then they sprinkle the roster with seasoned, team-first free agents.
The Cardinals, who have their mail forwarded to October, have been to the postseason 25 times. They have 11 rings, including two in six years. The Yanks won their first World Series in 1923; the Cards won their first in 1926, beating the Bronx Bombers. And they beat New York two more times, including the iconic 1964 World Series, essentially ending the Mickey Mantle era.
And they play in St. Louis, appropriately placed in the middle of the map, like the aorta of baseball. Almost every player, foreign or domestic, preaches the Cardinal Gospel. St. Louis is a special place, they say, the real Field of Dreams, a pastoral wonderland where players are beloved no matter their last plate appearance.
They don’t even boo their players. This is the land of Stan Musial, who stayed like a spiritual buoy for over 90 years. The land of Bob Gibson and Ozzie Smith. They can find victory in virtue. …
The Cardinals’ lineup reads like a roll call for Bull Durham. Pete Kozma. Matt Adams. Jon Jay. David Freese. Daniel Descalso. Matt Carpenter. Who? Chris Carpenter was their ace. They lose him, and in slides Adam Wainwright. They lose Pujols, and here comes Carlos Beltran.
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The number one song today in 1961:
A horrible irony today in 1964: A plane carrying all four members of the group Buddy and the Kings crashed, killing everyone on board. Buddy and the Kings was led by Harold Box, who replaced Buddy Holly with the Crickets after Holly died in a plane crash in 1959:
Today in 1976, Chicago had its first number one single, which some would consider the start of its downward slope to sappy ballads:
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Anthony B. Sanders (who uses my WordPress blog theme, so you know he has style, class and good taste) of George Mason University explains:
First, the M1 Money Multiplier (white line). It was over 3.0 back during the Reagan Recovery in the 1980s, but it has been all downhill since then. It is currently below 1.0 at 0.721.
Second, the M2 Money Velocity (red dashed line). It peaked in 1997 during the Clinton Recovery and has been pretty much downhill ever since (with the exception of 2003-2006).
Third, labor force participation (green dotted line). It peaked in March 2000 and has been falling ever since (with the exception of 2004-2006).
Fourth, real median household income. It peaked once during 2000 and then again in Q4 2007. And then it has been all downhill from there. …
I suggest we try a different approach that allows real incomes to rise.
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… is, according to James Taranto …
“The Affordable Care Act is not just a website,” President Obama said at the Rose Garden today. “It’s much more.” It’s like a chamois, it’s like a towel, it’s like a sponge.
Another way of putting it is that ObamaCare isn’t just a technical failure. And it isn’t just an economically unsustainable scheme. Now it’s a rhetorical disaster too. Even by the standards of Obama speeches it was terrible. It was so bad, it was the ObamaCare website of political oratory. …
Much of the speech was devoted to an enumeration of various ObamaCare provisions that are thought to appeal to Obama voters and that apply to insurance plans outside the failing exchanges–the mandate that parents’ insurance cover “children” in their mid-20s, the “free” birth control and mammograms and so forth. This was delivered with Obama’s trademark condescension: “You may not know it, but you’re already benefiting from these provisions in the law. . . . You may not have noticed them, but you’ve got them and they’re not going anywhere and they’re not dependent on a website.”
Believe it or not, that was as good as it got. Obama actually tried to make a distinction between ObamaCare and what he variously called its “product” and its “essence”:
So the fact is, the product of the Affordable Care Act for people without health insurance is quality health insurance that’s affordable. And that product is working. It’s really good. And it turns out there’s a massive demand for it. So far, the national website, healthcare.gov, has been visited nearly 20 million times. . . .
The point is the essence of the law, the health insurance that’s available to people, is working just fine. In some cases, actually, it’s exceeding expectations.
This is nonsensical for multiple reasons. One is a point the president made himself, in the course of trying to reassure listeners there’s plenty of time to sign up: “Keep in mind the insurance doesn’t start until Jan. 1.” It’s Vaporcare!
Perhaps a physical product can be said to be “working” 10 weeks before delivery if it is functional in the corporate lab. But insurance–which ObamaCare redefines as a prepaid benefit plan–is a financial instrument. In order for it to “work,” the marketplace as a whole has to function so that policyholders are able to collect the promised benefits. Technical functionality is a necessary condition for the “product” to “work.”
But not a sufficient one. Obama boasted: “Every day people who were stuck with sky-high premiums because of pre-existing conditions are getting affordable insurance for the first time, or finding . . . that they’re saving a lot of money. Every day women are finally buying coverage that doesn’t charge them higher premiums than men for the same care.”
If Obama is accurately describing the typical ObamaCare enrollee, then the program’s economic death spiral is under way. ObamaCare can work only if people without pre-existing conditions prove willing to pay jacked-up premiums and, since he mentioned it, if men are willing to pick up the tab for those lowered (or less steeply raised) premiums for women.
As to the technical failures, Obama gave no reason to think they will soon be solved. “I called on the contractor to get its A-team here and give us 150%,” Saturday’s The Wall Street Journal quoted Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius as saying in an interview. Obama’s speech was equally platitudinous. He said “we’re well into a tech surge to fix the problem,” cleverly appropriating a Bush administration slogan that referred to–ulp!–Iraq.
At least the Iraq surge is generally understood to have been a success. Over the weekend an anonymous HHS blog post alluded to an even greater wartime failure: “Our team is bringing in some of the best and brightest from both inside and outside government.” Alas, Robert McNamara is still dead.
It’s telling, too, that Obama–even though he said “there’s no excuse for the problems”–offered as an excuse that the site was swamped by overwhelming demand. That’s the “Good Glitches” argument, offered Oct. 1 by former Enron adviser Paul Krugman. Is the president no more knowledgeable about ObamaCare’s failures today than Krugman was 20 days ago? Or is he concealing what he knows to forestall the political consequences of an honest accounting? It’s hard to know which of these possibilities indicates a greater calamity.
A Politico report last week suggests concealment was the prelaunch modus operandi:
Facing such intense opposition from congressional Republicans, the administration was in a bunker mentality as it built the enrollment system, one former administration official said. Officials feared that if they called on outsiders to help with the technical details of how to run a commerce website, those companies could be subpoenaed by Hill Republicans, the former aide said. So the task fell to trusted campaign tech experts.
The Daily Beast’s Andrew Romano has a telling interview with Michael Slaby, who served as the 2012 campaign’s “chief innovation and integration officer”:
What if the real lesson of HealthCare.gov is that the U.S. government, unlike Obama’s campaign team, is set up to make boneheaded websites no matter how hard it tries?
That, in effect, is what Slaby tells me when I call him and ask him to respond to the folks who have been contrasting the campaign’s successes with the White House’s failures. “I think a lot of the challenge here with the ‘they ran such a tech-savvy campaign, why are the [sic] having problems building a website?’ crowd is that this isn’t apples and oranges,” he says. “It’s more like apples and firetrucks.”
I ask Slaby to elaborate.
“The campaign was working in an environment that was vastly more unconstrained in terms of what we could do, what technologies we could use, how we could build, how we hired people, how we procured outside help,” he explains. “All of those variables would be wildly in favor of the campaign. They’re all really stacked against the White House. We have set a lot of the technical projects in government up to fail by being a little irrational.”
Which does not exactly bolster one’s confidence in the government’s ability to administer a complicated financial marketplace either.
Obama’s audience this morning consisted in part of purported ObamaCare beneficiaries, but the Washington Examiner’s Byron York looked at their stories and found “it’s clear the administration was stretching to present people who, beyond supporting Obamacare, have actually gained from it in any tangible way”:
For example, a Pennsylvania man named Malik Hassan was in the group, and this is the White House description of his situation, in full: “Malik Hassan works at a restaurant in Philadelphia. Hassan, who does not receive coverage through his employer, is looking forward to enrolling for health coverage this fall. He recently used Healthcare.gov. to process his application and is waiting for the options for potential plans in Philadelphia.” . . .
Then there is Nathaniel Hojnacki, who recently finished his schooling. Here is the White House description of his situation, again in full: “Nathaniel Hojnacki recently received his Master’s degree at Johns Hopkins University SAIS and is in an employment situation without benefits. Hojnacki recognizes the importance of coverage and is planning to enroll after he explores his coverage options on the DC exchange.” . . .
Then there is LaJuanna Russell, of Virginia. Here is the White House description of her situation, in its entirety: “LaJuanna Russell is the owner of Business Management Associates, a consulting company in Alexandria, Virginia. Russell says she is proud to offer her employees health insurance but that it can be difficult for a small business. Russell believes that the ACA provides stability for her and her employees and is exploring what new coverage options will be available to her company under the exchanges.”
Then there is another small business owner, Zohre Abolfazli of Tennessee. Here is the White House description of her situation, in its entirety: “Zohre Abolfazli has owned a small business outside of Nashville, Tennessee for almost twenty-five years. Even though she has been able to maintain her health insurance over the years, it has been a challenge to find affordable, comprehensive health insurance in the individual market place. Last night, Abolfazli was able to register through HealthCare.gov and now plans to comparison shop for the best plan that meets her budget and needs.”
Of the 13 White House success stories, only 2 actually seem to have bought policies through the exchanges. A few others have benefited from those other ObamaCare provisions that, according to the president, “you may not have noticed.” But you’d think the White House would be able to come up with a baker’s dozen people who’ve actually benefited in some way. And again, none of the success stories involve people who’ve willingly signed up to pay higher premiums–those without whom ObamaCare’s economics cannot work.
Obama ended his speech on a characteristically antagonistic note, denouncing Republicans and saying: “It’s time for folks to stop rooting for its failure.” As one who has indeed been rooting for failure, we must say we agree. It’s time for folks–above all the “folk” who lives at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue–to acknowledge its failure.
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Today in 1964, EMI Records rejected a group called the Hi-Numbers after its audition. Who? That’s the group’s current name:
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The continuous-loop SequesterShutdownDebtlimit crisis in Washington (which will resume before New Year’s Day) has crowded out political news elsewhere.
And there has been a lot of political news coming from Madison, to wit:
- The Legislature passed a property tax cut and increase in state aid, thanks to a surplus of nearly $800 million at the end of the 2012–13 fiscal year.
- The candidate the Democratic Party is trying to anoint as its candidate for governor, Mary Burke, is getting opposition from Democrats and liberals.
- Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen isn’t running for reelection.
- Candidates for attorney general so far include Waukesha County District Attorney Brad Schimel and state Rep. Jon Richards (D–Milwaukee), though Dane County District Attorney Ismael Ozanne may run.
First things first: Five Democratic senators and 12 Democratic representatives voted against the property tax cut. Sens. Tim Cullen (D–Janesville) and Bob Jauch (D–Poplar) aren’t running for reelection. Were it not for the fact that the remainder appear to be from safe (i.e. Dane County and Milwaukee) seats, opponents could make hay of their belief that the government deserves your money more than you do.
Democrats claimed they had a better property tax relief plan. Democrats didn’t bother to mention that their plan required the state to expand Medicaid with federal money that the feds don’t have. The previous three years in state government have been about fixing fiscal disasters, not creating new ones.
The woman who would replace Gov. Scott Walker appears to be more assembled than an actual person, if you believe Collin Roth:
It’s always been clear that Madison multi-millionaire Mary Burke was the hand-picked candidate of the Democratic establishment.
But what wasn’t known is that Burke was basically picked by virtue of focus groups.
Kristen Hansen, an official of the Democratic Party of Wisconsin in the 5th Congressional district, posted the following on Facebook. This post was picked up by liberal blogs and posted by Blogging Blue:
Excuse me, but as someone who is part of the evil “party,” no one told Mark Harris to sit down and shut up. You have no idea what his plans are or the strategy he might be developing for his political future. And as for the “boo-hoo no one asked ME who I want for governor” – here’s the thing: there were 41 focus groups of “regular people” held across the state and you know what came out of it? That the toughest competition for Walker would be 1) a woman, 2) who is highly educated, 3) who has a business background and is literally a job creator, 4) who has deep roots in Wisconsin and 5) is not a sitting politician. That person is Mary Burke and she will be a great candidate. Also, those who are whining that she hasn’t personally come to their house yet, FYI she has been doing meet and greets in Northern Wisconsin for weeks because that’s a key voting block for any statewide race. In conclusion, we are not idiots.
Recallarama and the tens of millions of dollars the Democrats flushed down the media toilet for nothing accomplished gives the lie to Hansen’s last sentence, but be that as it may …
Yet to be heard from is state Sen. Kathleen Vinehout (D–Alma), who ran four years ago and supposedly is mulling over another run. Vinehout’s advantage to “regular people” is that she’s not from the Madison–Milwaukee axis. She keeps sending weekly newspapers op-ed pieces, and she’s not likely to be doing that in preparation for a post-legislative career as a columnist.
Yet to be heard is Burke’s perspective on doing business in Wisconsin (during which she might have to explain why her family’s company’s bicycles are not assembled in the U.S.), as well as what she thinks her party has done wrong over the years. If Burke is not willing to criticize the Democratic Party, particularly on its anti-business policy since, well, Gov. Anthony Earl, then all that focus-group marketingspeak about not being a politician is not worth the trash from the coffee and muffins served to the focus groups.
I am aware of no one who predicted Van Hollen’s departure. I hope there is no comment attributed to Van Hollen that he has to go out and earn “real money.” I heard that comment attributed to one of the recent Assembly GOP departures. That is an insult to the taxpayers who make half what state legislators make. And constitutional offices — the governor, attorney general and even the do-nothing secretary of state and state treasurer — are considerably better compensated than state legislators. One state legislator by himself or herself makes nearly as much money as the average Wisconsin family.
Regarding Schimel, James Wigderson wrote, and writes:
With more news that Waukesha County District Attorney Brad Schimel is likely to run for the Republican nomination for state Attorney General to replace JB Van Hollen, a column I wrote about Schimel last year is attracting some attention on the Democratic side. I thought I would take a moment to clarify the Schimel record and what I wrote.
The column was in response to a decision by Schimel not to pursue an open records case against former Waukesha [Business Improvement District] President Norm Bruce. An investigation showed Bruce intentionally inflated the cost of my open records request. …
If it was just the Bruce case, perhaps what I said and what I wrote was over the top. Maybe.
But to say there was just one case is to ignore the bizarre decision by Schimel not to prosecute for the alleged fake signatures on the petitions to recall former Alderman Peggy Bull despite some pretty strong visual evidence. Then there was the decision not to charge Alderman Roger Patton for deleting nearly all his email regarding the Business Improvement District and official city business. No asking Patton to resign, not even a fine, after he was caught destroying public records.
Even as I write this, Schimel is sitting on two vote fraud cases from the February primary election for District 11 Alderman in the city of Waukesha. The case involves two downtown businessmen who allegedly voted using their business addresses rather than their home addresses. I won’t name the two yet because they haven’t been charged, but the case is well known and should be relatively easy to prosecute. However, it is eight months later and still no charges have been filed. Schimel has even confirmed with me the names of the individuals being investigated, but somehow the case is just sitting there.
I’m not the only one who has been bothered by Schimel’s unwillingness to use his office to support openness in government. Schimel has been a target of other conservatives, too, because of the district attorney’s unwillingness topursue open records cases involving the Menomonee Falls school board.
And let me throw one more thing out there for my Republican readers. Many of you felt, with justification, that former Assembly Speaker Scott Jensen was railroaded during the “caucus scandal” as a way of balancing out the prosecution and criminal conviction of former Democratic Senate Majority Leader Chuck Chvala. When no Assembly Democratic leaders were ever charged despite evidence they were doing the same things that got Jensen prosecuted, including former Assembly Speaker Tom Loftus who wrote about using caucus staff for political work in his book, Republicans were understandably outraged at the selective reinterpretation of the law. When Schimel made the decision not to retry Jensen, it was an understandable and even just decision.
But when you combine the decision to not retry Jensen with all of the times Schimel chose to look away when confronted with cases involving politics, whether it is open records, destruction of public records, or vote fraud, the pattern puts the Jensen decision in bad company, and it’s a record Democrats will use against Schimel.
So some conservatives have problems with Schimel. Democrats have been duplicating their Burke anointing with Richards, despite unfavorable comparisons to both Van Hollen and Schimel, as the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports:
“I think Wisconsin needs a tough-on-crime, no-nonsense attorney general who will also stand up for middle-class families,” Richards said.
Richards said he would be independent, fight for open government and combat drunken driving, school violence and domestic abuse. On the budget committee, Richards has also advocated for better pay for state prosecutors and opposed bringing back for-profit bounty hunters in Wisconsin. …
Schimel campaign adviser Darrin Schmitz said that Richards would seek to advance a liberal agenda as attorney general.
“Last thing the state needs is an Eliot Spitzer-type attorney general who views business as prosecutorial prey or refuses to defend the state from the overreach of the federal government,” said Schmitz, referring to the former New York attorney general and governor. “There will be a stark contrast between a frontline prosector like Brad Schimel and a politician like Jon Richards.” …
Richards has also served as a special prosecutor in the Kenosha County district attorney’s office. His campaign didn’t include that information in the media release announcing his candidacy.
Richards campaign adviser Sachin Chheda said that the position was an unpaid volunteer post of several months in which, to learn about prosecutors’ work, Richards filed motions and made some court appearances such as bail hearings on behalf of the district attorney’s office.
Richards, however, may get company. The Journal Sentinel reports that Matt Frank, who worked for the state Department of Justice and then was Gov. James Doyle’s corrections secretary, may announce in the next week. Frank has actual criminal justice experience that Richards lacks.
Izanne is insane to consider running. The only reason anyone has heard of Izanne is because his definition of law enforcement is … filing a lawsuit to stop the public employee collective bargaining reforms of 2011. Izanne, who was appointed by Doyle, has spent his time in office ignoring the rise in Dane County crime.
And then there’s this strange potential addition, according to the Journal Sentinel: Jim Palmer, executive director of the Wisconsin Professional Police Association, is reportedly considering running as an independent.
Who, you ask? From the WPPA website:
Prior to joining the WPPA in 2003, Mr. Palmer worked for an Indiana law firm and primarily practiced corporate transactional law, which included incorporations, mergers and acquisitions, import law and product safety compliance, as well as specialized employment contracts. During that time, his representation included an investor-owned subsidiary of a national water utility, a regional hospital system, a minor league professional basketball team, and various units of local government.
Mr. Palmer is a member of the board of directors of the Wisconsin Law Enforcement Accreditation Group, a Regional Vice-President for the National Association of Police Organizations, and the chairman of the board of directors for the Wisconsin Coalition of Annuitants. In 2009, he was appointed by Governor Jim Doyle to the State of Wisconsin Higher Educational Aids Board, and has since been elected its secretary. In addition to having been a presenter at arbitrator and advocate training conferences for the Wisconsin Employment Relations Commission, Mr. Palmer has been a keynote speaker at police conferences held all across the country to talk on a variety of labor and law enforcement-related issues. Frequently in the media, Mr. Palmer has appeared on national television and radio news media outlets, such as CNN, FOX News, MSNBC, and National Public Radio, to name a few.
Mr. Palmer received a Bachelor of Arts degree in political science from the University of Wisconsin in Madison, and a law degree from the Valparaiso University School of Law, where he was an editor of the law review. In addition to being a licensed Wisconsin lobbyist, Mr. Palmer is also admitted to practice law before all state and federal courts in Wisconsin. He is an active member of the American Bar Association, the State Bar of Wisconsin, and the Association of Wisconsin Lobbyists.
Notice the absence of the words “criminal law” in those paragraphs.
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I wrote during the government slowdown that the “current political crises will end when it is politically advantageous to all sides concerned for them to end. … it will be when Barack Obama, Senate Democrats and House Republicans figure out how to do something that will politically benefit all of them.”
That is because what pundits incorrectly call the “shutdown” is the result of a faulty decision by Attorney General Benjamin Civiletti to end nearly 200 years of practice in which appropriations continued at the previous fiscal year’s level (as happens in Wisconsin) if Congress doesn’t approve appropriations for the next fiscal year.
The slowdown is therefore the fault of every attorney general since Civiletti for failing to reverse his legal opinion, and every Congress since then for not passing a law to restore past practice.
To the rescue comes U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson (R–Wisconsin), according to Right Wisconsin:
Echoing the sentiments of a wide majority of Americans, Wisconsin Senator Ron Johnson supports a plan that would prevent, forever, future government shutdowns over budget impasses.
Authored by Sen. Rob Portman (R-OH) and co-sponsored by Johnson and 19 others, the End Government Shutdowns Act makes specified provisional (automatic) continuing appropriations in the event that any regular appropriation bill for a fiscal year is not enacted before the beginning of such fiscal year, or a joint resolution making continuing appropriations is not in effect. (Thus prevents a federal government shutdown.)
The proposal Johnson is promoting is the Senate companion to a bill that started in the House, sponsored by James Lankford of Oklahoma (HR 1164). The House bill was introduced in March. It has 17 cosponsors, including Wisconsin’s Paul Ryan and Reid Ribble, as well as notable members like Justin Amash, Tom Cotton and Jeb Hensarling.
Under the bill, if Congress doesn’t affirmatively appropriate money, discretionary spending defaults to last year’s level. Under current law, it defaults to zero, to ‘shutdown.’
This isn’t some crazy, impossible to implement plan. In Wisconsin, for example, if the legislature does not pass a budget by July 1 of every other year, the government continues to fund its agencies on a cost-to-continue, zero increase basis. This bill would have the same effect on the Federal Government and its discretionary spending … with a twist.
After 120 days, funding would be reduced by one percent, thus incentivizing a new agreement. The automatic spending decreases would continue by 1 percent every 90 days an agreement is not reached.
This would bring some stability to Washington and Wall Street. It takes out the fear of the unknown, yet still creates a sense of urgency to get a deal done.There is an interesting counterintuitive aspect to this bill. Fiscal conservatives might well argue that appropriations should in fact end at the end of the fiscal year unless money has been authorized for the next fiscal year. That would be the idealistic view. The politically realistic (that is, cynical yet accurate) view is that, contrary to Nancy Pelosi’s claim, nothing ever gets cut. Indeed, federal employees got paid to not work during the slowdown, and meanwhile three-fourths of the federal government continued to operate while the government was supposedly shut down.
What happens to this bill will prove my thesis that the slowdowns are a political game meant to rile up each party’s base and increase campaign contributions. There is no good reason for this bill to not pass. Anyone who votes against this bill will prove that the manufactured crisis of the government slowdown benefits them.
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The number one song today in 1957 …
… came from a just-opened movie:
The number one song today in 1967:
Steve Prestegard.com: The Presteblog 