Protests in Wisconsin Shows Peoples' Anger to Governor Walker's Budget Measures

In the past week since the fall of the Mubarak Regime in Egypt protests have been springing up against governments in the Middle East and in Wisconsin. The uprisings in Middle East come from anger of autocratic rule, but the protests in Wisconsin about state governments taking away unions to produce collective bargaining agreements.

Collective bargaining defined by the Legal Information Institute from Cornell Law School states, " Collective bargaining consists of negotiations between an employer and a group of employees so as to determine the conditions of employment. The result of collective bargaining procedures is a collective agreement. Employees are often represented in bargaining by a union or other labor organization." The benefits of this are that individual workers join together to gain a better deal, and management is able to work more efficiency by listening to one voice instead of many. Overall, a win win situation for both sides.

In times of economic prosperity, collective bargaining groups do not reap the financial compensation that is awarded to the private sector counterparts, but receive a better benefits package instead. The problem that occurs in times of hardship,the recession, groups that collectively bargain seem to have a better situation than private individuals due to the agreements made previously. A real world  example would be if someone would buy a hundred gallons of gas at 2 dollars a gallon, and could reap the 2 dollar price even if the price rose to 3 dollars a gallon. People who did not lock in the price would be upset  of the benefits received by the person who locked in the price. Now if the price went down to a dollar the person paying two dollars a gallon is still stuck with the price unless he renegotiates, and would only get it dropped to 1.50 instead of the dollar. The person with the gas contact would not have to worry about the market fluctuations, but might might not get the best deal all of the time.   In a time of economic distress and high unemployment people see Unions as a target.

Now to the issues in Wisconsin and their budget fight. The problem lies with a 137 million dollar shortfall that needs to be paid by July 1st. Governor Scott Walker's plan to cover this shortfall is to not allow collective bargaining by public unions except for pay, and that could not rise higher than the Consumer Price Index. If this arrangement would be passed by the Wisconsin State Legislature, public unions would not be able to collectively bargain for their benefit packages. Walker is quoted in an ABC News article by saying,"If we don't do this, there will be layoffs. By July 1, when the next budget starts, we'll have to have layoffs of 5,500 state workers plus a similar number of county and city workers."

The issue that arose from this is how did this 137 million dollar deficit form? Some sources argue, such as Ezra Klein from the Washington Post, that a majority of this deficit came from actions done by Walker in a Special Session of the Legislature in December.  The Wisconsin Fiscal Bureau stated that earlier estimates put the state budget at a 120 million dollars in black, until the December session with the passage of  health savings account, tax cuts for new and relocated businesses, and tax exclusion for new employees. This helped cause the 137 million dollar shortfall. According to Brian Beutler from Talking Points Memo, states it best, " public workers are being asked to pick up the tab for this agenda."

So what is being done to prevent this bill from passing? First is that the Wisconsin Democrats in the Senate have fled Wisconsin to Illinois. By doing this, the Wisconsin State Senate only has 19 members. This makes the Senate one member short from making a quorum. Without a quorum, the Wisconsin State Senate cannot take up any legislative business. Therefore the Wisconsin State Senate is suspended indefinitely, until the Democrats come back. This is a major win for opponents of the bill because when the bill passes the Wisconsin State House it cannot be taken up by the Senate.

In addition to the flight of the Senate Democrats, Union members and students from the University of Wisconsin Madison have also started protests, teach ins, and walk outs.  These protests have been very successful in the amount of people that have came to them.  The average protest numbers at the capital have ranged from 15,000 to 30,000 people and the estimate today was at 40,000 people. At first it was more Union members, but then increased with students and citizens as the week progressed. Even with all of the protesters in Madison the Police report that it has been very peaceful assembly. Teachers throughout the state have been doing their part at all academic levels. Other than protesting teachers have been informing the public of the plan and calling in sick. In Madison school had been cancelled since Tuesday due to the protests and now in Milwaukee school was cancelled today due to the absence of teachers.

The protesters have made their case clear and they are supported by various groups. The most obvious group have been key Democrats such as former Senator Russ Fiengold, Senator Dick Durbin, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and President Barack Obama. The Superbowl Champions the Green Bay Packers have also weighed in and are supporting the protests. Other support has also came protesters in Egypt.  Overall, many different groups of people are supporting protesters.

Supporters of Walker are coming to his aid. Many political commentators such as Glenn Beck, Mike Huckabee, and Joe Scarborough are supporting Walker's proposal. In addition to these political commentators Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin and Speaker of the House John Boehner have also supported Walker's bill. Not to be outdone by protests,  Red State announced that  Andrew Breitbart  is staging a counter protest on Saturday in support of Governor Walker, and against those"union thugs and clue less college students." Unlike the current protests, which are a large majority of Wisconsinites, the proposed Brietbart/ Tea Party Patriot counter protest will look more like an astroturf protest because of the busing in of out of state protesters.

Granted now both sides by Saturday will have outside influence, and the nation has now taken notice. It will really depend on how both sides handle themselves. The pro-Union side has made overtures to Governor Walker to reach a settlement, but Walker has not responded except for staying the course. Wisconsin Union leaders have done the right thing by fighting for their rights. Governor Walker could have prevented this crisis by not allowing the tax breaks in December or meeting with leaders in January to find common ground in working on a compromise, but his brash ideology brought upon these protests and disruptions. 

Overall, the Unions are doing what they are suppose to do, protecting their workers rights. No one should complain that the protests are unnecessary. Protests are part of democracy. When the Tea Party shows up with their heroes to support Governor Walker lets hope that the peaceful protests will continue, and hope that they will not act in the way of Mubarak protesters in Egypt and cause a violent confrontation. For democracy to work the best it needs to be done in a peaceful and respectful manner, and we hope these issues are resolved peacefully and that both sides are content with the outcome.

Investment is a Code Word for Insane Spending?

An outline of President Obama's State of the Union Address was presented via an online video today. In that outline today he mentioned investment in Education, Green Technology, and Infrastructure. These are important items. Analysts argue that President Obama's State of the Union Address is going to be a call to arms for investment in these three areas. These are good goals. Investing in these areas will help boloster job growth in this country.

For example, Education will create jobs and train future generations for the work needed to be done in the future. Green Technology will provide jobs that cannot be outsourced to China or India. Jobs for Americans in America providing alternatives to foreign oil and dirty energy. By moving to a Green Technology, we stop damaging the Earth. These innovations in Green Technology cannot happen without a great educational system to teach future generations and challenge them to become better. The last item is Infrastructure. We have not made a revolutionary change on our Infrastructure since the Interstate Highway System during the Eisenhower Administration back in the late 1950s. An update is needed for America to stay competitive in the 21st Century we need to update our roads, bridges, and rail to support the economy of the future.  All three of these items go hand and hand. Without an educated  workforce creating and installing the green technologies, and the infrastructure to move this technology where it is needed America will not prosper.

Even though it seems like Investing in these three items would be a smart long term investment key Republicans are starting their assault on this plan from both houses. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell on Fox News Sunday,"anytime they want to spend they call it ‘investment,’ so I think you’ll hear the president talk about investing a lot on Tuesday night. We’ve got a huge spending problem here.” This sentament was also spoken by House Majority Whip Eric Cantor on Meet the Press,"when we hear invest from anyone in Washington, to me that means more spending.” These ideas are coming before the State of the Union is even presented. What Republicans are trying to do with these comments is not allow the idea of investment in programs settle into minds of U.S. citizens, but to make it all about government waste. Republicans came back into power in the House under the idea that they would cut the decifict and create jobs.
The problem with that agenda is to coin an old phrase," you have to spend money to make money." Without investing in America, America cannot rebound. The Great Depression was solved not by the budget cuts of 1937, but by the mass industrialization of the country by World War II. We did not beat the Soviets to the Moon by sitting idle and saving money, but by spending on our rocket programs and providing science scholarships to students to help produce a booming technology economy. America does not slove its problems by cutting and reducing, but by investing and reaping the rewards. Another example of investment is the GI Bill given to soldiers after World War II. Seven billion dollars was given to GIs in educational loans and the return was 48 billion dollars. Almost a return of seven dollars for every dollar spent. That is a great return.

We now have an opportunity now to do what we did back then. We have the need and we need to act upon it. For the United States to stay a major player in the world we need to retool for the 21st century we need investment in Education, Green Technology, and Infrastructure.

Six Dead and Eighteen Shot at Arizona Democratic Congresswomen's Cracker Barrel

Today at about 10 a.m. Mountain Time in a North Tucson Safeway during Representative Gifford's Cracker barrel a gunman, Jared Loughner of Tucson, open fire on the Giffords and the crowd. In Loughner's shooting spree he killed 6 people including Federal Judge John Roll, and 18 people were wounded including Representative Giffords.  Most of the wounded are in critical condition, but hopefully they will all recover.

Now many areas of the web both sides are trying to pin the shooting on different political identities. The more Liberal blogs like Talking Points Memo have pointed out to the web and rhetoric of the shooter matches some of the rhetoric of the Tea Party. While some Conservative blogs like Red State argue that their rhetoric had nothing to do with this and that we will find out that the shooter was a leftist radical.  Both sides are trying to use this as a smear on the other side, but also giving their condolences. It is sad in America today that each side uses a tragic incident like this as political leverage against the other side.

Outlets like Fox News and Tea Party pundits like Sara Palin, Michelle Bachmann, and Glenn Beck are the easiest to blame in this situation because their rhetoric is often includes violent language that excites people. They are not to blame for this shooting. All current signs show that they did not influence the young man that committed this crime. The problem though it has been the aim of Conservative pundits to use violent language in exciting their base. If you go to a Tea Party or watch Fox News you will see throughout the day a reference of revolutionary violence either against the 111th Congress or the Presidential administration. Television leaders like Sara Palin, Michelle Bachmann, and Glenn Beck help stoke the conspiracy theories by playing them out or creating new ones.  When people believe in conspiracy theories, they start to morph fiction into reality.

Now Liberals are not out of the woods on this one yet. The shooters was not a Tea Party member and had a broad reading list. The overall theme of the list was anti-government not anti-Democrat or anti-President Obama. Talking Points Memo interviewed the Tucson Tea Party and their spokesperson Allyson Miller, said,"she knows the members of her tea party, who she called "reasonable individuals" closer to her age of 55 than the suspected shooter's 22." Yes the Tea Party's average age according to a February 2010 CNN Poll is closer to 55 than 22, but that does not mean the rhetoric only stays with people around the age of 55.  That is the problem today.

The rhetoric used by Politicians, Pundits, and Everyday people is to the extreme. We as Americans now do not hash our differences out now at a coffee table or at a cafe, but with loud speakers and weird signs. Both sides have started an arms race in who can go to the furthest extreme and have the most followers. This is madness. John Stewart was correct in having his Rally to Restore Sanity. By doing that he showed that their are sane people, and they want a voice in government. For us to survive as a country we need to stop the insane rhetoric and to talk to each other as human beings. We need not to call names, but buy each other coffee. If we do that we can bring back civil discourse back to the United States and accomplish something.  If we do not, we could see more of these tragic events. My suggestion to all of you is to by your political opposite a cup of coffee and find some common ground.

Bernie Sanders the One Man Filibuster

Today Independent Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders is filibustering the Obama Tax Compromise on the floor of the Senate today. This is the exciting to see an actual filibuster and not a threat of a filibuster. I hope this challenge by Senator Sanders wakes up the American People and Congress to not pass this Compromise. For your enjoyment here is the link.

http://www.c-span.org/Watch/C-SPAN2.aspx/

Updated
Senator Sanders filibuster lasted 8 1/2 hours. He ended it at about 6:30 EST. I am still looking for a video of the whole thing, but here are the first twelve minutes of it from his website.




We at the Common Civic Good would like to personally thank Bernie Sanders the Senator from Vermont for fighting for the working people of America.
 
Below here are the links to Senator Sanders website and his Youtube page.
 
http://sanders.senate.gov/
http://www.youtube.com/user/SenatorSanders

Congress in Defiance: Congressional Democrats and Republicans Saying No to the Obama Tax Plan

Two days ago, the Obama Administration presented a bipartisan plan to stop the gridlock on the Bush-era Tax Cuts and created a tax compromise with Congressional Republicans. This compromise; would extend all of the Bush-era Tax Cuts for all income levels for two years, index the alternative minimum tax for inflation, drop the estate tax down from 45 percent to 35 percent on all income above five million dollars, an extension of Unemployment Benefits for all that apply, a payroll tax holiday of 2 percent, an extension of all tax credits, would allow businesses to write off their capital improvements, and also allow business to keep a research and development tax credit. Overall, with this plan, everyone wins, but this does not help the country to become more fiscally responsible, help the people in the greatest need.


The cost of this plan would be 990 billion dollars. That is 171 billion more than the Stimulus spending in back in 2009. Republicans back then and during the 2010 general election argued that the Stimulus spending was a waste of taxpayer money. In article published in August of this year at the Brookings Institute Senior Fellow Gary Burtless argued, "there are many indications that these policies have been successful in achieving
their intended goals." The tax compromise though, does not look like a policy that will help all Americans.

Today in the Huffington Post Jason Linkins reports that wage earners that make between 20,000 and 40,000 dollars will see an increase in their taxes due to the reduction of available tax credits for that income bracket. While the richest people get the greatest benefit. For example, the richest Americans will benefit from the tax cut, the estate tax, and benefit from the payroll tax holiday. Granted the poorer Americans will receive the payroll tax holiday, but their benefit from the tax holiday is smaller than the lost tax credits.

Overall, the Obama Tax Compromise should not be passed. Obama administration made the best compromise possible with Congressional Republicans, but the problem is that the rich get richer while the poor become the pawns for the powerful. Obama promised during the 2008 election that he would not extend the Bush-era Tax Cuts for the wealthiest. This compromise breaks that promise and should not be supported by Congressional Democrats.

It would be for the best for Congress to reject this plan, because what the nation will give up will hurt us in the end. Example this plan increases the deficit by 990 billion dollars over two years. This plan is supported by Republican leadership, which argued that by electing them they would help cut the deficit. This plan does not do that. If Republicans are serious about deficit reduction, they need to vote against the plan.

Compromise is a great item and should have been used more often during the 111th Congress. Unfortunately, though, this is not one of those times. A new plan needs to put on the drawing board that limits the impact on the deficit, but does the greatest Common Civic Good.

Representative Boehner is Upset with Obama's Healthcare Proposals

Hopefully everyone knows by now that President Barrack Obama is having a healthcare summit with both political parties to come with a compromise on some healthcare measures. This will allow bipartisan support to healthcare legislation.  Prior to the meeting he has released an 11 page document stating the proposals that he wants to see in the final legislation. Today, House Minority Leader John Boehner complained that Obama's proposal was too small at 11 pages. To put this in perspective, the Republican plan that posted by Minority Whip Eric Cantor is only one page. In the past Boehner complained that the House bill was too long. Now in a reverse fashion he says Obama's proposal is too small. The newscycles only pick up on Boehner's detesting of Obama's proposals instead of what is in the proposal.

Now the problem that might occur is political positioning instead of bipartisan discussion. Granted, differing of views is important to the political process, but compromise is also important. Understanding the othersides view on the manner is very important. In this process of healthcare debate we have seen the Democrats bend over backward to appease the Republicans. Now it is time for the Republicans to bend for the Democrats. Both parties are walking into a meeting and should lookout for their constituents not their political party. This summit will be a great way to show that Congress is not broken.

In a Daily Kos Poll Republicans Help Enforce Sterotypes

Four days ago The Daily Kos did a poll on how Republicans see themselves and the President. It was shocking the results that their survey. Many of the stereotypes that the poll covered were on Barrack Obama's birth, should Obama be impeached, is Obama a socialist, and does Obama want the terrorists to win. The poll surveyed 2,000 self described Republicans with a 2 percent margin of error.

On the first question should Obama be impeached, 39 percent responded that he should be impeached. The funny thing of this is that there has not been any proof of this statement at all. In the second question is Obama a socialist, 63 percent responded that Obama was a socialist. A false belief by Republicans during town halls and was rapidly flamed during the healthcare debate. Bernie Sanders from Vermont is the only person that calls himself a socialist and the correct term is Democratic Socialist. On the question of Obama's birth in this country, 36 percent responded that he was not born in the U.S. Many programs and fact checkers have shown the birth certificate and the birth announcement in the paper. To deny this as truth is another way to deny the legitimacy of this President. The final question that I will look at is does Obama want the terrorists to win, 24 percent responded in favor of that question. I would hope as American citizens we would be in favor of defeating our enemies and that would be a common goal.

A final note on the survey, it worries me that the South as a demographic lead on all these categories. The sad thing is that an argument could be made that a majority of these beliefs could be based more on racism then actual policy. If we as Americans cannot get away from our fears our country will not grow. To become better citizens we need to move on and learn to accept our neighbors as friends and not enemies. If we do not do this personal growth, we will lose our unity as one people and be demolished by other interests.

Conservative Activist Judges Erase over 100 Years of Campaign Finance Reform Laws

Today in a 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court ruled that regulations can not be put on corporations or unions to limit their spending on campaigns. This allows corporations and unions to funnel money to candidates of their choosing without limits. Buying a vote from a candidate will be extremely easier after this ruling.


The case that brought up this measure was United Citizens v. Federal Election Commission. United Citizens produced a documentary, which attacked Hilary Clinton and wanted to release it during the 2008 primaries. The Federal Election Commission declared that the "documentary" was an attack ad and not a documentary. They did not allow the film to be shown during the campaign. In the majority opinion Justice Kennedy argued that it was a violation of Citizens United's First Amendment right to Freedom of Speech that was violated.

What this allows now from this ruling is an unregulated flow of money from corporations and unions to help influence elections. With the items stripped from all the legislation dating to 1907 with the Tillman Act. The Tillman Act prohibited corporations and national banks from contributing to federal election campaigns. Campaign finance reform does not come back into the picture until 1947 with the Taft-Hartley Act, which barred labor unions and corporations from making contributions from toward federal campaigns. The next major action came from a Supreme Court case Buckley v. Valeo in 1976 in which the court argued that contribution limits were legal, but expenditure limits were restricting free speech. This was upheld in 1980 with the Supreme Court ruling of Republican National Committee v. FEC. In 2002 the McCain Feingold Act also known as the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act (BCRA), came into power. This bill eliminated corporations and unions to use soft money to funnel into federal campaigns. The other major item that came from this act was the limits put advocacy ads that supported a candidate. Suggestive ads could not be ran with sixty days or less on the campaign. These laws were shoring some of the corruption problem in the Untied States.

The previous paragraph thanks to the Supreme Court ruling is now void. With the 5-4 decision, banks, corporations, and unions can put as much money into a campaign as they want. They can produce ads for the candidate that they favor and run them all the way to election day. Their major contributions can influence our members of Congress to a greater extent then they do now.

The alternative opinion of this is a victory for the First Amendment. Freedom of Speech is expanded in this ruling. This opens up to First Amendment to corporations. Justice Kennedy wrote, "We find no basis for the proposition that, in the context of political speech, the government may impose restrictions on certain disfavored speakers." He continues, "The court has recognized that First Amendment protection extends to corporations."

Although the expansion of the First Amendment this will hurt the American people. This ruling allows corporations the same rights as United States Citizens. Corporations based in the United States, but controlled by foreign interests will have a say in U.S. politics. The ruling presented by the Supreme Court today was extreme. President Obama and some members of Congress say that they are working to stop the ruling by the Supreme Court, but if taken to trial the Supreme Court will declare the laws unconstitutional. We need our voices to be heard and to support measures to curb this ruling.

Two major populous hurt by this ruling are youth and people in poverty. These voices will have an even smaller say in the U.S. political spectrum. In turn will disenfranchise many of these new voters, which will give politicians more reasons to follow the influence of corporations than their constituents.

There are ways to fight back Alan Grayson a Democratic Representative from Florida has a petition out to fight this ruling. Call your representative to show your distain to the Supreme Court ruling. Being vocal on the internet or in any public forum is necessary to show that the Supreme Court did not rule in favor of the people.

Like always the links are at the bottom.

Washington Post Article "High court shows it might be willing to act boldly"

FEC Short History

Alan Grayson Petition Link

NPR "Supreme Court Rips Up Campaign Finance Laws"

NPR Campaign Finance Reform Timeline

Obama Adminstration Wants to Protect us from the Large Banks

Hot off the press from the Wall Street Journal reportersDamian Paletta and JonathanWeisman report that President Barrack Obama will propose new regulations on banks that are too big to fail. The goal of these regulations would be that banks would have to put up barriers between divisions inside the banks. The goal of this is to make sure that money that is Federally insured by FDIC is not being used for speculative investments. This means though that there will be a separation from the bank that a citizen takes out a loan or deposits money, and from the bank that sells securities on the open market. For banks this is not a good item because a majority of the big banks made most of their profit from the speculative investment part and minor part from deposits and loans.

The idea of this plan comes from the Glass Steagull Act of 1933 which separated depository banks from investment banks. This was the law of the land until 1999 when Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act became into law. This took out the teeth of the Glass Steagull Act of 1933 and help caused the market meltdown in the last decade. The Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act of 1999 passed the full Senate with a 90-8 vote.

The Obama administration does not want to pass regulations to reenact Glass Steagull, but to set limits for banks to make sure they do not get too big to fail. This idea might find bipartisan support. A Bloomberg News article from Alison Vekshin on December 16, 2009 Arizona Republican John McCain and Washington Democrat Maria Cantwell wanted to reinstate Glass Steagull. President Obama is not the only one that wants bank reform.

Sam Brown winning the election in Massachusetts last night and the Democrats have lost their 60 seat majority in the Senate. The idea of passing healthcare reform is stalled and will not likely pass, but with the outcry of the American people for tougher reforms on the banking system allows politicians to gain political capital. Democrats and Republicans can work together on this in a bipartisan way to fix a system that failed the nation. We hope that politicians will do what is best for the country instead of political positioning.

Tighter reforms are needed on the banking system. They help our economy move forward and provide us with the capital needed to due business in the United States. We need to protect our banking system from excessive risk. It is important that our banks do not cause the nation harm by schemes that make them money, but hurt American People. Here at the Common Civic Good we support implementing ideas of Glass Steagull Act back into the legislation.

Like Always the links are at the bottom.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704320104575015910344117800.html

http://topics.nytimes.com/topics/reference/timestopics/subjects/g/glass_steagall_act_1933/index.html?offset=0&s=newest

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=aQfRyxBZs5uc