Day: February 23, 2011

An interesting idea that was brought up to me by my chief of staff, we won’t do it until tomorrow, is putting out an appeal to the Democratic leader. I would be willing to sit down and talk to him, the assembly Democrat leader, plus the other two Republican leaders—talk, not negotiate and listen to what they have to say if they will in turn—but I’ll only do it if all 14 of them will come back and sit down in the state assembly. They can recess it… the reason for that, we’re verifying it this afternoon, legally, we believe, once they’ve gone into session, they don’t physically have to be there. If they’re actually in session for that day, and they take a recess, the 19 Senate Republicans could then go into action and they’d have quorum because it’s turned out that way. So we’re double checking that. If you heard I was going to talk to them that’s the only reason why. We’d only do it if they came back to the capitol with all 14 of them. My sense is, hell. I’ll talk. If they want to yell at me for an hour, I’m used to that. I can deal with that. But I’m not negotiating.

Scott Walker, governor of Wisconsin, revealing his plan to end the stalemate by doing what Republicans always do: pretend to talk and be a sober representative of the people while using that opening to end the standoff in a typically underhanded fashion.
But, yeah, Obama: acting like and adult and negotiating from the compromise position will work every time because the GOP is all about policy outcomes.
Source: Slate

Gimme! Gimme! (Oh, and fuck unions)

The fine print in Wisconsin is all too familiar:

The state’s entire budget shortfall for this year – the reason that Walker has said he must push through immediate cuts – would be covered by the governor’s relatively uncontroversial proposal to restructure the state’s debt.

By contrast, the proposals that have kicked up a firestorm, especially his call to curtail the collective-bargaining rights of the state’s public-employees, wouldn’t save any money this year.

“What we’re asking for is modest, at least to those of us outside of government,” Walker said in a televised address Tuesday night.

In January, the Wisconsin Legislative Fiscal Bureau reported that the state would face a $137 million shortfall before the end of the fiscal year on June 30. The governor’s budget repair bill proposes a debt restructuring that would save the state $165 million in the near term, more than covering the shortfall.

The legislation would also borrow money from a federal welfare program to cover further state shortfalls, and it includes a provision that would allow the sale of the state’s public utilities without a bidding process or public oversight.

So, restructure, borrow from dread federal guvmint, and a massive under the table handout to favored GOP allies, in this case the Koch Brothers who stand to create a pretty fantastic (for them, anyway) vertical monopoly there in WI. And, oh, may as well fuck the Unions while we’re at it. This last part excites the Tea Klanners so that they don’t even notice they’re taking up the side of their supposed enemy.

Who says this isn’t the new gilded era? Legal and even expected child labor, here we come.

Gimme! Gimme! (Oh, and fuck unions)