Archive for October, 2009

Rep. Paul Ryan at Franklin Public Library, Friday at 11am – Rep. Sensenbrenner at Elm Grove Library on Saturday at 12:30pm

Rep. Sensenbrenner and Rep. Ryan To Deliver Speaker Pelosi’s Massive Health Care Overhaul to Wisconsinites This Weekend

by RPW Communications

WASHINGTON – Congressmen Jim Sensenbrenner (WI-05) and Paul Ryan (WI-01) will share the House Majority’s massive health care overhaul with their constituents this weekend. After weeks of closed doors meetings inside the Capitol, Speaker Nancy Pelosi unveiled the 1,990 health care overhaul on the steps outside the U.S. Capitol earlier today, with a vote on final passage expected in the week ahead. While Pelosi’s unveiling was by invite only, ( http://washingtontimes.com/news/2009/oct/29/house-democratic-bill-ceremony-closed-public/ ) Ryan and Sensenbrenner will not be checking IDs at the door. Their events are open to the public.

Ryan will leave the health care bill at the Franklin Public Library tomorrow at 11 a.m. Sensenbrenner will present the legislation at the Elm Grove Public Library on Saturday at 12:30 p.m., in advance of his 1 p.m. town hall meeting at the Elm Grove Village Hall.

First District Representative Paul Ryan
11 A.M. – FRIDAY, OCTOBER 30, 2009
Franklin Public Library, Fadrow Room, 9151 West Loomis Road, Franklin, WI 53132

Fifth District Representative Jim Sensenbrenner
12:30 P.M. – SATURDAY, OCTOBER 31, 2009
Elm Grove Public Library, 13600 Juneau Blvd., Elm Grove WI 53122

Ryan and Sensenbrenner would leave copies of the 1,990 page bill at each of their districts’ libraries, but the airline on their flights back to Wisconsin this evening only allowed one carry-on item each.

From http://www.wisgop.org/NewsBack.aspx?GUID=9451b816-c648-449e-911b-d0a56154a7e1

Please attend show Paul and Jim we support their efforts on our behalf.

Feel free to send this email to your friends, relatives, neighbors and anyone who is concerned about the future of our great nation

READ THE HOUSE BILL, ALL 1,990 PAGES at
http://www.house.gov/ryan/readthehousebill.pdf

Paul Ryan Introduces The Patients’ Choice Act, video, 4:02
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S6H3aEob_mo

Paul Ryan: What Washington Doesn’t Want You To Know (about healthcare) video, 1:22
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FmoTtw9794A&
http://milwaukee.wisgop.info/2009/10/28/paul-ryan-what-washington-doesnt-want-you-to-know/

by Kyle-Anne Shiver, October 30, 2009

Whole industries and banks are biting the dust; unemployment lingers close to double-digits; government deficits rise like a mountain of nuclear waste; the communist Chinese are buying up our debt in anticipation of God knows what kind of future demands; and more soldiers die needlessly while the President dithers with his golf game. Purely mad social engineers — Obama, Pelosi, & Reid — are on a determined march toward nationalizing one sixth of the entire American economy. Their scheme will have far-reaching effects on one hundred percent of the men, women and children in this country. The whole idea is patently ridiculous, especially in light of the host of other impending disasters.

(SNIP) Democrats tout Medicare as the test model, but Medicare is on a financial collision course with reality. The Massachusetts model, used by Mitt Romney to boost his presidential bid, is taking the state under water so fast that the Red Cross should send the citizenry life preservers.

Read more at http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/10/democrats_healthcare_scheme_is.html

by Ellen Nakashima and Paul Kane, Washington Post Staff Writer, Friday, October 30, 2009

House ethics investigators have been scrutinizing the activities of more than 30 lawmakers and several aides in inquiries about issues including defense lobbying and corporate influence peddling, according to a confidential House ethics committee report prepared in July.

The report appears to have been inadvertently placed on a publicly accessible computer network, and it was provided to The Washington Post by a source not connected to the congressional investigations. The committee said Thursday night that the document was released by a low-level staffer.

The ethics committee is one of the most secretive panels in Congress, and its members and staff members sign oaths not to disclose any activities related to its past or present investigations. Watchdog groups have accused the committee of not actively pursuing inquiries; the newly disclosed document indicates the panel is conducting far more investigations than it had revealed.

Read more at http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/10/29/AR2009102904597_pf.html

One Republican, against whom charges were dropped. The rest? All Democrats.

Milwaukee County to lay off up to 200 employees

Temporary job cuts to address budget shortfall, Walker says

By Steve Schultze of the Journal Sentine, posted: Oct. 28, 2009

Temporary layoffs of 150 to 200 Milwaukee County employees will be done to avoid a 2009 year-end shortfall now projected at $3 million, County Executive Scott Walker said Wednesday.

The layoff news came just before the County Board’s budget committee recommended its version of a 2010 budget that called for creation of a new $20 motor vehicle registration fee, or “wheel tax,” to pay for transit. That fee would raise nearly $9 million and would be in addition to state and City of Milwaukee registration fees.

(SNIP)

The finance committee endorsed the wheel tax on a 4-3 vote, with Coggs and Supervisors Johnny Thomas, Willie Johnson Jr. and Peggy West in favor. Supervisors Michael Mayo Sr., Jim “Luigi” Schmitt and Patricia Jursik voted against the wheel tax, but voted yes on the final budget package that included the tax.

Coggs said it might be tough getting a majority of the board to back the wheel tax, but noted the difficulty in reconciling the budget without raising the property tax more. Walker has threatened to veto a wheel tax, and at least 13 of the 19 supervisors would be needed for a veto override.

Language included in the wheel tax provision says it was the County Board’s intent to repeal it if the state granted the county authority for “another source of dedicated funding” for transit. That reflects supervisors’ interest in getting the OK to levy a 0.5% increase in the county sales tax for transit, an issue before the Legislature.

Read more at http://www.jsonline.com/news/milwaukee/67035477.html

Like a bad Halloween movie, the wheel tax is STILL alive. aarrggh!!  When will this County Board get it? Taxes are hurting this county, and the Board doesn’t care.

Legal scholars divided over Congress’ authority

by Donald Lambro, October 28, 2009

On top of all the other obstacles facing President Obama in his quest to pass health reform is this one: Does the U.S. Constitution allow the government to require uninsured Americans to buy medical insurance or impose a tax penalty if they refuse?

Congress has never before required citizens to purchase any good or service, but that is what both House and Senate health bills would mandate.

While this debate has been overshadowed by other issues involving the plan’s nearly $1 trillion cost and its government-run option, the constitutional argument strikes at a pivotal part of the health care plan’s finances. To make a government-run health care plan work, the nation’s largely uninsured young adults would need to be covered to help subsidize medical care for older and typically less-healthy Americans, legislators say.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi dismissed the complaint Thursday when she was asked by a reporter if the Democrats’ health reform proposal was constitutional.

“Are you serious? Are you serious?” Mrs. Pelosi replied.

But House Minority Leader John A. Boehner said the argument could not be ignored.

Read more at http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/oct/28/constitutionality-of-health-overhaul-questioned/

Speaker Pelosi: Read the 9th and 10th Amendments!

IBD Editorial, 10/21/2009

Spending: According to two separate Government Accountability Office scenarios, America’s long-term fiscal outlook is “unsustainable.” No surprise, since Uncle Sam is spending like a drunken sailor.

The GAO, Congress’ in-house think tank, warns that in “little over 10 years, debt held by the public as a percent of GDP” will hit a record high, exceeding the debt-to-GDP ratio seen after World War II. Then it will “grow at a steady rate thereafter,” according to the government forecasters.

“Social Security cash surpluses, which have been used to help finance other government activities, are projected to turn to cash deficits by 2016,” the GAO warns.

The agency’s fall update of its “Long-Term Fiscal Outlook” adds that “the Social Security trust fund will be exhausted in 2037, 4 years earlier than estimated last year.” The Medicare trust fund’s day of reckoning, meanwhile, “was also moved forward by 2 years to 2017.”

The GAO used two simulations, an optimistic one making the assumption of historically lower-than-average nonentitlement spending and higher-than-average tax revenues, and a second model assuming that spending and revenues would keep to historical averages. But “both simulations show that the federal government is on an unsustainable fiscal path.”

Read more at http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article.aspx?id=509816
STOP THE OVER-SPENDING! WE’RE BROKE!

Paul Ryan: “Mr. Speaker, Wisconsinites might want to know that just recently our Blue Cross-Blue Shield program announced that people in their 20s under this health care bill will see a 199% increase in their health insurance premiums. People in their 40s will see a 122% increase in their health insurance premiums.

People in their 50s will see a dramatic double-digit increase in their health insurance premiums. 214,000 Wisconsinites might want to know that their Medicare Advantage plan that they enjoy will be either dramatically more expensive or will go away completely.

The American taxpayer might want to know that government estimators are telling us that this bill will cost $1-2 trillion in a new health care entitlement, which will surely add more deficit and debt to future generations.

The shame of all of this, Mr. Speaker, is that we could fix whats broken in health care without breaking whats working in health care. Republicans have offered 40 different pieces of legislation in an attempt to get bipartisan compromise, to make sure that the uninsured get insured, that people with preexisting conditions get health care, and that we do this without breaking the bank, without raising taxes, creating new debt, new deficits, and new entitlements.

Video, 1:22 in length, at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FmoTtw9794A&

by ANDY SOLTIS, October 27, 2009

New Yorkers are fleeing the state and city in alarming numbers — and costing a fortune in lost tax dollars, a new study shows.

More than 1.5 million state residents left for other parts of the United States from 2000 to 2008, according to the report from the Empire Center for New York State Policy. It was the biggest out-of-state migration in the country.

The vast majority of the migrants, 1.1 million, were former residents of New York City — meaning one out of seven city taxpayers moved out.

“The Empire State is being drained of an invaluable resource — people,” the report said.

Read more at http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/tax_refugees_staging_escape_from_qb4pItQ71UXIc0i6cd3UpK

The Magic Question: What is it that is getting rewarded?

Is income being rewarded in New York (or Wisconsin) ? No, it is not, so you will get less income. If you tax something, you get less of it. Tax incomes and you’ll get less income.

by David Limbaugh, October 27, 2009

Can you imagine the outrage that would have ensued had former President George W. Bush declared off-limits those media outlets he thought (correctly) treated him unfairly?

Heck, the left declared him a dictator simply because he led a war on Iraq that Congress approved. He never tried to shut down his critics. He rarely even objected to their abuse.

But liberal politicians have been spoiled with mainstream media favoritism for so long that they believe anything other than sycophancy is mistreatment. Their selective outrage is as hollow as it is risible.

In fact, Fox News seems much more conservative than it is because no other television network over the past half-century has been anything but decidedly liberal. When the media norm is liberal, liberals equate liberalism with objectivity and deviations from it as bias, just as liberals preach tolerance toward all ideas — except conservative ones. Their self-delusion is surreal.

Read more at http://townhall.com/columnists/DavidLimbaugh/2009/10/27/obamas_war_on_fox_is_liberalisms_war_on_dissent

Tolerance? Don’t liberals pretend that they are tolerant? Where do liberals show that they are tolerant? They pretend they are tolerant, and then want to impose speech codes and political correctness and media czars.

Liberals try to show that they are superior. They have social angst and status anxiety, knowing that they are just posing.

by Aman Batheja, 10/26/2009

Former President George W. Bush told more than 11,000 people at the Fort Worth Convention Center that he was confident he made the right decisions as president, even if it hurt his popularity.

“Every single day I was honored to be your president by bringing honor and dignity to the office,” Bush said Monday afternoon, during his first foray into motivational speaking, at the day-long “Get Motivated” seminar.

Bush, who now lives in Dallas, spoke in a relaxed tone about a few lessons he’d learned in life, including sticking to your principles and living each day to its fullest.

“It’s so simple in life to chase popularity, but popularity is fleeting,” Bush said. “It’s not real.”

Read more at http://www.star-telegram.com/local/story/1710670.html

by Jerry Agar, Illinois Policy Institute, 10/23/2009

“If I knew for a certainty that a man was coming to my house with the conscious design of doing me good, I should run for my life.” Henry David Thoreau

“I am from the government, I am here to help you.” Scary Bureaucrat

In no particular order, and in my opinion, here are 10 ways the government does the opposite of its announced intentions.

1. Minimum Wage

2. Taxes

3. Over-Regulating

4. Health Insurance

5. Unions

6. Education Monopoly

7. Stimulus Programs

8. Deficit Spending

9. When “Help” is “Harm”

10. Too Much Government

More details at http://illinoispolicy.org/blog/blog.asp?ArticleSource=1617

The Magic Question: What is it that is getting rewarded? Are you helping the poor, or are people getting out of poverty? There is a difference.

Interview with Charles Krauthammer, 10/26/2009

In a SPIEGEL interview, Charles Krauthammer, the leading voice of America’s conservative intellectuals, discusses Barack Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize, the president’s failures and the state of the United Nations and the international community.

SPIEGEL: Mr. Krauthammer, did the Nobel Commitee in Oslo honor or doom the Obama presidency by awarding him the Peace Prize?

Charles Krauthammer: It is so comical. Absurd. Any prize that goes to Kellogg and Briand, Le Duc Tho and Arafat, and Rigoberta Menchú, and ends up with Obama, tells you all you need to know. For Obama it’s not very good because it reaffirms the stereotypes about him as the empty celebrity.

SPIEGEL: Why does it?

Krauthammer: He is a man of perpetual promise. There used to be a cruel joke that said Brazil is the country of the future, and always will be; Obama is the Brazil of today’s politicians. He has obviously achieved nothing. And in the American context, to be the hero of five Norwegian leftists, is not exactly politically positive.

Read more at http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,656501,00.html

Wispolitics.com, 10/26/2009

Lt. Gov. Barb Lawton is dropping out of the governor’s race, citing “very personal reasons.”

“My deep commitment to our state is second only to my commitment to my family,” Lawton wrote in an e-mail to supporters. “For very personal reasons, I will not pursue the Democratic nomination for governor in 2010.”

Lawton’s campaign did not immediately return a call seeking details.

Lawton, who won the lieutenant governor’s office in 2002 on a ticket with Gov. Jim Doyle, had been steadily pulling in endorsements with no other name Dem in the race. She announced plans to seek the office shortly after Doyle said he would not run for a third term.

Read more at http://wispolitics.com/index.iml?Article=174717

By JOHN FUND, Portland, Maine

Most of the attention on the Nov. 3 off-year elections is on governor’s races in New Jersey and Virginia, which Republicans are hoping to sweep. But voters in two liberal states on opposite ends of the country will also take up measures to limit spending. The outcomes will give us a clear sense of the public mood toward runaway spending.

Maine and Washington are both more liberal and secular than the rest of the country. Barack Obama carried each state with identical 17-point margins, and both have powerful public employee unions that have driven up the cost of government to the point that a backlash has developed.

The voter-initiated measures on next month’s ballot are modeled after Colorado’s 1992 Taxpayer Bill of Rights (Tabor). They prohibit state spending from increasing faster than the growth of state population plus inflation in any given year. Extra revenue would be rebated back to the taxpayers, and if officials wanted to raise taxes beyond the limit they would have to seek a public referendum.

Read More at http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704224004574489252589009002.html

Why can’t Wisconsin have this?

by RPW Communications, 10/19/2009

All three Assembly members from his district, including two Democrats, are opposed.

MADISON - State Senator Jim Sullivan’s (D-Wauwatosa) support for a 58% increase in the state’s liquor tax is the latest example of him pursuing a liberal government agenda opposed by his constituents and even other Democrat elected officials from his district, Republican Party of Wisconsin Executive Director Mark Jefferson said today.

“When all of the Assembly representatives from your district, including long-time Democrat representatives like David Cullen and Tony Staskunas think he’s wrong, it becomes clear just how out-of-touch Sen. Sullivan is,” Jefferson said.

On Friday, Rep. David Cullen (D-Milwaukee) issued a press release opposing an increase in the beer or liquor tax. “With our economy just starting to turn the corner and people finally getting a little bit of breathing room, now is not the time for beer and liquor tax increases,” Cullen said.

Rep. Tony Staskunas (D-West Allis), the Assembly author of OWI reform, has similarly opposed including a liquor tax in the bill. In a Milwaukee Journal Sentinel article two weeks ago, Rep. Staskunas said of Sullivan’s liquor tax, “I’m concerned we’re not going to be able to come together on a final product.”

The third representative from the 5th Senate District, Leah Vukmir, is similarly opposed to raising beer or liquor taxes. Rep. Vukmir is challenging Sen. Sullivan in next year’s senate election.

“More than 130,000 Wisconsinites have lost their jobs in the last year and Sen. Sullivan’s party just got done raising taxes by $5 billion,” Jefferson said. “Instead of using any of that money to pay for OWI reform, Sullivan wants to impose a 58% increase on the liquor tax instead. Where does the taxing end?”

From http://www.wisgop.org/NewsBack.aspx?GUID=e66b8c9b-1aae-4893-9cd6-94bd18e32f6c

Why is the Democrat’s preferred solution to ALWAYS raise taxes??

Washington Examiner Editorial, October 23, 2009

Congress put American taxpayers on the hook for $700 billion last year when it approved the massive bailout to paper over the imprudent lending decisions of nine Wall Street giants: Bank of America, Citigroup, Wells Fargo, JP Morgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Merrill Lynch, State Street and the Bank of NY Mellon. The bailout was essential to save the nation from a complete economic meltdown. Or so insisted President George W. Bush, Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

One year later, however, a little-noted report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office questions whether the bailout — known officially as the Troubled Asset Relief Program — saved anything other than the jobs of greedy Wall Street executives and the political hides of their protectors in government.

Read More at http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/Uncovering-the-bull-under-the-bailout-8426220.html

Where are the hearings? Congress . . . Hello??

by Patrick McIlheran, Opinion, Oct. 21, 2009

We are all Keynesians now, Richard Nixon is said to have said. Too true, says Hunter Lewis, who’s got a new book on how the famous British economist is still messing with your life.

And he is. We are all followers of John Maynard Keynes in the sense that lab rats, learning a maze by electric shocks, are disciples of some psychologist’s theory. We no more benefit from this than do the rats.

Keynes, who died in 1946, is fashionable again. Politicians pray for his blessing on their stimulus plans, since Keynes preached that the way out of a slump was for government to spend lots of money. It should borrow vastly, said Keynes, and spend it on anything. He’s the guy who first suggested paying some to dig ditches and others to refill them.

Nor just in slumps, said Keynes: Governments should print money, loads of it, to drive interest rates toward zero. This would cause a permanent boom, if only we also tax away money hoarded uselessly by rich people.

Sound familiar? Of course, says Lewis, who explains the doctrine precisely in “Where Keynes Went Wrong.” Washington’s embrace of Keynes went uninterrupted through Clinton to Bush to Obama. Fannie Mae’s loose loans, the Fed’s giveaway rates, bailouts, the porkulus: all Keynes, no matter the party.

Read more at http://www.jsonline.com/news/opinion/65310867.html

Keynes the economist: giving politicians a rationale for their spending.

“THE MAGIC QUESTION”: WHAT IS BEING REWARDED?? *

The more you subsidize/encourage, the more you get. We have punished thrift and encouraged overspending. Just don’t be surprised when it happens.

When you ask “The Magic Question” you answer a LOT of questions.

* “The Magic Question” comes from the book “The Greatest Management Principle in the World” by Michael LeBoeuf. Highly recommended. A non-political, business book.

by Steve Schultze of the Journal Sentinel, Oct. 22, 2009

Call it furlough guilt. Or a matter of simple fairness.

Whatever the motive, at least 10 of the 19 Milwaukee County supervisors say they are returning four days’ pay to the county - or donating to a favorite nonprofit - to match the sacrifice the County Board and County Executive Scott Walker imposed on most non-elected county employees.

Walker also said he’ll give back four days’ pay, in addition to the $10,000 a year he already returns to the county.

The board last week approved four unpaid furlough days for most county workers, though deputies, jailers and airport and hospital workers were exempted. The move was pegged to save $1.6 million to help the county avoid a 2009 deficit.

The 19 Milwaukee County supervisors were asked Wednesday whether they were planning to join some of their counterparts in forgoing pay equal to the wages other county workers will lose through four days of unpaid furloughs.

(SNIP)

Will donate pay: Mark Borkowski, Gerry Broderick, Paul Cesarz, Lynne De Bruin, Patricia Jursik, Christopher Larson, Joseph Rice, Joe Sanfelippo, Jim “Luigi” Schmitt, Johnny Thomas.

Will not: John Weishan Jr.

Undecided: Willie Johnson Jr., Theo Lipscomb.

Didn’t respond: Toni Clark, Elizabeth M. Coggs, Marina Dimitrijevic, Lee Holloway, Michael Mayo Sr., Peggy West.

Read more at http://www.jsonline.com/news/milwaukee/65396357.html

Mass. Man Arrested in Terrorism Case
by ABBY GOODNOUGH and LIZ ROBBINS, NY Times, October 21, 2009

BOSTON — A pharmacist living with his parents in the suburbs of Boston was arrested on Wednesday on federal terrorism charges. The authorities said he had conspired to attack civilians at a shopping mall, American soldiers abroad and two members of the executive branch of the federal government.

The man, Tarek Mehanna, 27, was charged with conspiracy to provide material support to terrorists. The conspiracy occurred from 2001 to 2008, the acting United States attorney, Michael K. Loucks, said at a news conference in Boston.

Read more at http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/22/us/22terror.html?_r=1