The Real Party of No

[CUDA]

No we wont do our jobs. in Wisconsin, and now in Indiana. so instead of voting against a measure we'll just run and hide out of state so a vote cant even be taken

[woodchip]

I wonder how their running away will resonate with voters in 2012? So the Democrats, who have no problem sending union SEIU thugs out to beat up on black tea party protesters, when faced with having to dirty their hands by actually voting on something distasteful, run away and hide. Wisc. Gov. should tell the skirt seeking Democrats something akin to Obama's comment of, "Get over it, we won".

[Tunnelcat]

CUDA, all those workers are WILLING to take concessions. It's their right to collective bargain that they won't surrender. If it takes the Dems leaving town to keep a heavy handed governor from overstepping his authority, tough tooties. In fact, the delay is causing some of the dirt to come out of Walker's agenda closet, which is to privatize the state commons for profit.

Look out Wisconsin, Walker's trying to privatize and sell your power plants to the Koch Brothers in a power grab. And everyone worships the machinations of conservatives. The Walker machine is on the move. Better buy generators people, because you won't be able to afford private power, if it even gets maintained.

http://host.madison.com/ct/news/local/g ... 002e0.html

A new poll shows that many Americans don't like what he's doing either.

http://www.usnews.com/opinion/blogs/rob ... on-busting

Lest you think he's has the general public welfare in mind, think again. Walker's done this before. When he was in charge of Milwaukee, he fired all the security guards at the municipal court house, against the objections of the county board, who said he didn't have the authority. All those fired where public employees of course. Then he hires a private firm to supply the security guards. Guess who? Wackenhut! The very same corporation in charge of embassy security in Afghanistan, who was as you may or may not remember, had employees that were involved in a very ugly male homoerotic sex scandal. Apparently they had so much time on their hands they could afford to NOT do the job we as taxpayers are paying them to do, like protect our embassy! By the way, it also turned out in the end costing the county far more than the original union employees cost. AND, they had to all be hired back when Wackenhut employees were dumped for poor job performance. Some savings.

[CUDA]

PERSONALLY I dont care what excuses you try to make for them.

Those Lawmakers were elected to do a Job. they are being paid by the tax payers to be at the capitol and to do said job. they might lose the battle. such is the world of politics but at least show up and do what you are paid to do. the republicans had to deal with it in congress when the Dems had power. yes they "tried" to filibuster which was allowed them by the rules of order if congress. but the Dems in Wisconsin and now Indiana apparently dont have the courage to do their jobs, face the battle. and stand up for what they believe in.
I guess its just easier to run and hide.

In the private sector what those Democrats are doing is called Job abandonment and is grounds for termination. IMHO all those union employess are doing the same thing should be fired also. they signed a contract and are inviolation of that contract. pull a Reagan give them 3 days to get back to work or Terminate them

to keep a heavy handed governor from overstepping his authority, tough tooties.

should we begin to travel down the Path of the heavy handed things the Dems did while in power? so to quote a member of this Board "tough tooties" DO YOUR JOB

[SilverFJ]

Fair:
Government benefiets are virtually obscene compared to the private sector. My retirement is based on whatever I throw into my funds, while the picketteers in Wisconsin have it paid from ...the state for life. And when it comes down to it, working 9 months out of the year is a big pro-rate in comparison to an average salary. The average salary of a Montana High School teacher is $34,563, but if you add what would have been roughly $4000 in benefeits that are free for them, it comes out to $38,000-$39,000. That alone is nothing to sneeze at. Plus there are 2-3 more months in the year to find additional employment. Find the right summer job and you could net roughly $55,000 for the FY. That's pretty good considering the average single income in my state is around $24,000, and the family income of around $42,000 which ranks us around 46th in the nation.

An Example of How to Fail:
One thing they could do is take off 20% of the budget for state employees across the board so that teachers would remain in the union employment based on their union seniority as opposed to performance. That's not a good idea.

The Two Edged Blade:
I believe unions to be essentially evil, but at the same time education has itself set up from the get-go to fail in the system. Personally, I think more students should be encouraged to develop the trade skills which can pay them just as much (and have a wider employment reach) as a regular degree. Just look at how many unemployed English and Psycology degree-holders there are. Personally, I can name more than I have fingers.

My Solution:
There is too much emphasis on going to college to begin with, and I think a society structured on which is it's own downfall. If the classes were trimmed down and said students became, say, welders or electricians, this problem wouldn't exist to begin with. Instead of launching deeply into debt because of a student-loan aimed at screwing you anyway, more youth need to enter the job market to stimulate the economy. The benefeits to the nation would be extreme. We still need our doctors and lawyers, and DEFINITELY need our teachers, but we also need to create an infrastructure that allows 2-8 years of circulation of funds which otherwise wouldn't exist. It would help the economy and classes would be smaller, allowing those educated a better opportunity.

In Addition:
The private sector has proved time and time again that it performs better in the business market than the government ever could, and, in fact, the government tends to have a "brown thumb" whenever it comes to business, (Amtrak?). Perhaps this grab by Koch and his associates will help their economy. I'm not pretending to be an economist by any means, but the private business tax generated by the new grab seems like it would support their state more than the alternative. The private sector also has to deal with competitive rates which could actually result in lower costs for the citizens.

All of this is just conjecture, though.

[Tunnelcat]

If you think the private sector and Koch Brothers can run utilities better, just remember Enron and the California energy crisis. All manufactured by manipulation and greed. No services that are for the common good should be privatized for profit. Most of these investors that buy up these companies usually milk them of their profitable entities and discard the deadwood, or what they think is deadwood, destroying the original company structure and it's products, or neglecting the infrastructure that needs maintenance because it takes too much from the bottom line. Remember the Rural Electrification Act that brought power to rural counties? Well, I seriously doubt that private enterprise would have gone to the trouble because it just wouldn't have been profitable to build isolated power lines out to isolated farms, and rural farmers might still be without power today. It took government by the people for the people.

[SilverFJ]

While you are right about Enron, which I consider to be a relitively isolated incident, there are far more facets to the Cali Energy Crisis than you're giving it credit. Mostly geographically, and what it actually takes to populate what was once nothing but a desert, and that California is a breeding ground for personal and state bankrupcy. Tell me what isn't to be gained by the large corporations paying it's workers instead of tax dollars?

Coming from rural farmland America, I know a bit about the REA. Federally granted loans aided communities like mine, but that was to put the hardware in place. Co-ops are the medium through which these funds were transferred. A Co-op is a private establishment. Even in the 1930's (I think 1936), the government knew that it couldn't micromanage said planning without the executive use of the private companies. The government got it's money back, as well, unlike the now-government-standard of basically defaulting.

In short, the REA wasn't some kind of god-sent gift to Rural America, it was cool cash on loan they in fact, made interest on, the services for which provided the Government turned to the private sector to administer for them.

[SilverFJ]

Hm worked for a few days and come back to no response from TC....wonder why.

[callmeslick]

I wonder how their running away will resonate with voters in 2012? So the Democrats, who have no problem sending union SEIU thugs out to beat up on black tea party protesters, when faced with having to dirty their hands by actually voting on something distasteful, run away and hide. Wisc. Gov. should tell the skirt seeking Democrats something akin to Obama's comment of, "Get over it, we won".

do these 'facts' come to you in a dream, or as a result of hallucinatory drugs?
Oh, and addressing your wonderment, it would seem to be resonating quite well. As of the moment:

Support for newly elected Republican governors:
Wisconsin--31%
Pennsylvania--34%
Florida--32%
Ohio--34%
....swing states, all of them.
Couple these numbers with Tea Party favorable/unfavorable at 33%/46% and 2012 might just see the pendulum swing back from 2010 quite a bit.

[woodchip]

I wonder how their running away will resonate with voters in 2012? So the Democrats, who have no problem sending union SEIU thugs out to beat up on black tea party protesters, when faced with having to dirty their hands by actually voting on something distasteful, run away and hide. Wisc. Gov. should tell the skirt seeking Democrats something akin to Obama's comment of, "Get over it, we won".

do these 'facts' come to you in a dream, or as a result of hallucinatory drugs?
Oh, and addressing your wonderment, it would seem to be resonating quite well. As of the moment:

Support for newly elected Republican governors:
Wisconsin--31%
Pennsylvania--34%
Florida--32%
Ohio--34%
....swing states, all of them.
Couple these numbers with Tea Party favorable/unfavorable at 33%/46% and 2012 might just see the pendulum swing back from 2010 quite a bit.

Care to link your support polls so we can see they are not from the Huffington Post or MSNBC.

[callmeslick]

sure:
http://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2011/03/ ... 301534297/

http://www.fallsnewspress.com/news/article/5005275

http://theweek.com/article/index/213678 ... popularity

plenty more, but you get the idea. Quinnipiac, Gallup and the like are not hack pollsters, and the results are becoming VERY consistent. Folks are pissed off.

[woodchip]

Polls taken during a highly emotion event should be taken with a grain of salt. Lets wait and see how the polls are a month or so from now. On the other side of the coin:

"67% of likely voters oppose Wisconsin Democrat senators’ tactic of leaving the state to prevent the legislature from voting on a bill to curb pay, perks and power of government-sector unions, according to a new national Rasmussen poll."

http://blogs.investors.com/capitalhill/ ... ving-state

[null0010]

All polls should be taken with a "grain of salt," especially polls to which we are not privy to the questions asked.

[callmeslick]

Polls taken during a highly emotion event should be taken with a grain of salt. Lets wait and see how the polls are a month or so from now. On the other side of the coin:

that is why I cited polls taken in late March or early April, after most of the governors cited had submitted budgets. The view of the Tea Party has no tie that I can think of to one emotional event.

"67% of likely voters oppose Wisconsin Democrat senators’ tactic of leaving the state to prevent the legislature from voting on a bill to curb pay, perks and power of government-sector unions, according to a new national Rasmussen poll."

you are aware that Rasmussen is a tool of the GOP? Sort of like citing an MSNBC or Reuters poll on the other extreme. Everyone in the politics game knows certain sources are skewed. Not the Rasmussen's skew isn't valuable. For instance when I was analyzing polling for the Dems in 2008, when we saw Rasmussen put Obama in front by 1%, two weeks out, we knew it was all over.

[woodchip]

you are aware that Rasmussen is a tool of the GOP? Sort of like citing an MSNBC or Reuters poll on the other extreme. Everyone in the politics game knows certain sources are skewed. Not the Rasmussen's skew isn't valuable. For instance when I was analyzing polling for the Dems in 2008, when we saw Rasmussen put Obama in front by 1%, two weeks out, we knew it was all over.

You have a source better than a poem indicating rasmussen is a tool of the GOP?

[null0010]

You have a source better than a poem indicating rasmussen is a tool of the GOP?

Here is a New York Times article accusing Rasmussen of having a Republican bias. Here is a strong criticism of how Rasmussen operates their polls. Here is an article calling Rasmussen out for using biased questions in their polls.

[Ferno]

watch out null.. if he doesn't agree or understand he'll either call you an idiot or a leftie...

[null0010]

watch out null.. if he doesn't agree or understand he'll either call you an idiot or a leftie...

That's just a risk I'll have to take.

[callmeslick]

You have a source better than a poem indicating rasmussen is a tool of the GOP?

twenty-plus years of working politics is all I can offer you, Woody, on that one. Everyone in the game knows certain pollers carry certain agendas. Rasmussen favors conservatives. As I said, though, that doesn't make their data useless, you just need to watch trending over time. As a single source they are pretty much consistently 2-3% off in the GOP favor. Reuters likewise to the left, FWIW.