Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker’s Budget Surplus Is Soooooo Big

How big is it?

Wisconsin’s budget picture brightened Thursday, with new estimates that show a surplus will grow to $484 million, giving Republicans and Gov. Scott Walker even more room to pursue their tax cutting agenda.

The estimate from the nonpartisan Legislative Fiscal Bureau was nearly $137 million better than one Walker’s administration released in November. The numbers will be used by Walker as he puts the final touches on his two-year spending plan, which he’s set to unveil on Feb. 20.

But surely this is not a accomplishment worthy of our adulation. We shouldn’t be impressed by such a meager feat. Governor Walker was just building off a previous budget surplus, right?

In 2011, Walker took office facing a roughly $3 billion budget shortfall…

Oh.

Okay.

Look, I know it’s a stretch to make this comparison, but can you imagine if the federal government did anything like what Scott Walker has done? Is it even possible to picture a world where we–and I realize how crazy this sounds–lowered the debt ceiling? Neither Obama or the Congressional GOPers talk about getting to a surplus these days. The fight in Washington is over whether the debt should be unimaginably immense or just insanely massive. Spending less than what you take in is seen as a hopeless anachronism that doesn’t make sense in our enlightened new age.

Yet here’s Scott Walker, scourge of progressives from Berkley to Georgetown, actually getting his state in line with ancient unfeasible common sense.

Hey, conservatives, you wanted a winning right-wing governing model? Walker’s only been serving it you fresh out of the oven for two years straight, surviving a brutal recall election in the process. If that’s not bad-ass enough to at least merit a sniff from the Republican talent scouts, I don’t know what is.

I snagged this link from Ann Althouse’s blog. Thanks.

Wisconsin Recalls Part Deux

Al-Reuters reminds us that this week it’s the Donkey-Puncher’s turn to face the voters.

Wisconsin’s series of recall elections concludes on Tuesday when voters go to the polls in two state Senate districts where Democrats are being forced to defend their seats.

No matter who wins, Republican Governor Scott Brown and his Republican allies will retain control of the legislature, where the battle over public workers’ union rights was waged earlier this year with public protests, legislative maneuvering and court challenges.

Republicans have managed to keep control of the state senate — 17 to 16 at last count — because Democrats failed to unseat three Republican state Senators in the key round of six GOP senate recalls last week. But Democrats did pick up two state Senate seats formerly held by Walker allies.

The Dems couldn’t seal the deal last week.  Awwwwww, too bad so sad.

Say, just how much did that temper tantrum cost the progressive movement?

National and state liberal groups, led primarily by public employee labor unions, have pumped well in excess of $14,000,000 into the Wisconsin state senate recall elections.

MacIver News’ staff complied this graphic of this unprecedented spending using official reports on file with the Wisconsin Government Accountability Board (Totals are accurate as of 8/8/11).

These figures include direct contributions from political action committee to candidates, coordinated independent expenditure campaigns, and individual third party expenditures. The overall effort, however, is likely much larger. Member-to-member communications and issue advocacy totals are not required to be reported to the Wisconsin Government Accountability Board and are therefore not included in this total.

Official cost:  A 14 million dollar waste of ammunition 14 months before the 2012 Barackopacalypse elections.

Unofficial cost:  God knows how much cheddar the libs pissed down the rat-hole of The We Hate Scott Walker Angry Fun Time Super Lefty Foot Stamp.

Look, a 17-16 majority is still a majority.  In lib-land Wisconsin, that’s not bad.  But as majorities go, it’s a little slim for most people’s tastes.  The best outcome would be that these two lefties get the boot, giving Walker and the GOP a nice comfy cushion.      

Hey Wisconsin–make the statist left sob uncontrollably and elect Jonathan Steitz and Kim Simac in the recall elections this Tuesday.

Christmas In August, Courtesy of the Wisconsin Recall Elections

Republicans dodged the boulder that the Democrats caught right in the chest.

After tens of millions of dollars spent by outside interest groups, dozens of attack ads and exhaustive get-out-the-vote efforts, Democrats on Tuesday fell short of their goal of taking control of the state Senate and stopping the agenda of Gov. Scott Walker.

Republicans won four of six recall races, meaning the party still holds a narrow 17-16 majority in the Senate…

…Sens. Robert Cowles, R-Green Bay, Sheila Harsdorf, R-River Falls, Luther Olsen, R-Ripon, and Alberta Darling, R-River Hills, successfully defended their seats Tuesday.

Challengers state Rep. Jennifer Shilling, D-La Crosse, and Jessica King unseated incumbent state Sens. Dan Kapanke, R-La Crosse, and Randy Hopper, R-Fond du Lac.

Going into Tuesday, Republicans controlled the body 19-14, so Democrats needed to win at least three seats and hold onto two more next week to take over.

There are a boatload of delicious schadenfruedey gifts to be had. Let’s start with a small morsel.

“The revolution has not occurred,” said UW-Milwaukee political science professor Mordecai Lee, a former Democratic lawmaker. “The proletariat did not take over the streets.”

Thank you Morty. Thank you so much, you pathetic Marxoid hack.

Only a blinkered paleo-lib safely ensconced in the depths of the faculty lounge could make a statement so breathlessly melodramatic and so divorced from reality. ‘The proletariat’? Jeebus, dude. The only thing those crazy class-warfare inflamed proles like less than a sanctimonious tweed-head with a two inch Hegels-stiffy is a former Donkey-Puncher congressdork lamenting the fact that his party can’t just go ahead and vacuum up every dime out of the citizenry’s collective wallet.

The political loss suffered by the progressive movement is really nice too. Here’s Ed Morrissey making note of a cool effect of the recall vote.

The vote counting stretched into Wednesday morning before the last race was finally called. While one vulnerable Republican fell as expected and another lost by a razor-thin margin, Democrats failed to break away in the battleground districts they and outside groups had most heavily targeted. Closing up shop on his election night party in Madison before the final results were in, state Democratic Party chairman Mike Tate tried to claim some measure of victory, and promised to keep up efforts to recall Walker.

“We will not stop, we will not rest, until we recall Scott Walker from the state of Wisconsin,” Tate said.

They’re probably going to try, but as last night proved, it’s an empty threat. For the second time, unions had an opportunity to bring their organizational and funding advantages into a special election environment, and for the second time, Wisconsin voters largely rejected them. The union tried to unseat Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice David Prosser in April, blanketing the state for challenger Joann Kloppenburg in an election that should have had a small, easily manipulated turnout. Instead, they came up empty as Wisconsin voters turned out heavily.

The lefties badly wanted this. They pined for this. And they lost.

Meanwhile in the community-based reality, Kos is trying and failing to put a brave face on this.

I’ve got to say, I expected to be torn up if we didn’t get to three seats. I expected to suffer through yet another bout of electoral depression, bummed at coming up short yet again. And we did come up short!

Short of what? Short of taking the Wisconsin Senate? Sure. That would’ve been nice.

But let me just say, if tonight was a loss, I hope we have many more such “losses” in 2012.

Try again, Marky.

Like most lefties, homeboy doesn’t really understand the concept of return on investment. Then again, Kos has always been good at spending other people’s money on liberal fever dreams.

How much dough did the various organs of the progressive movement dump into these recall elections? It’s hard to say, but probably tens of millions of dollars is a good back of the envelope guesstimate. Mind you, we’re not talking about the New York, Boston or even the Philadelphia media market, where TV and print ads are costly. Wisconsin has some big cities, but still, spreading the word through the media is not brutal.

Also, what are Scott Walker’s poll numbers? As of July, he was at something like 59% disapproval. Considering that, dude should’ve been a heavier boat-anchor around the Wisconsin GOP’s neck during the recall fight.

Instead, the Democrats once again were forced to spend a boatload of cash in a tough political fight in order to choke a mile before the finish line.

If Kos is willing to take that kind of loss, I’m sure conservatives would be happy to give it to him.

The only way this could get any better is if there were Democrats up for recall. Oh, wait.

Republicans have a chance to deliver a political coup de grâce to the national union and Democratic intimidation tactics next Tuesday when there are two elections seeking to recall Democratic State Senators Robert Wirch and James Holperin. These two were among the fleebaggers who ran away to Illinois..

The Recall Wirch campaign has been a focus here for months. The Republican challenger is Jonathan Steitz.

The challenger to Holperin is Kim Simac.

Go Jonathan Steitz. Go Kim Simac.

Professor Jacobson notes that Left is demoralized from last night’s loss. Hopefully next week’s recalls add another dollop of emo onto the Left’s shit sandwich.

More-According to Ace:

Something to keep in mind: While they claim they were playing on Republican turf, that wasn’t true in one of the districts, and the other district we lost regrettably featured an incumbent who had an affair with a 25 year old intern and then moved out of the district itself.

In addition, the left outspent us 2 to 1 on advertising, and the unions nationalized the elections, pushing hard for a coalition-of-government-dependent turnout.

Outspending by a 2 to 1 margin, and the libs still couldn’t beat the GOP.  Yikes.

With all the headwinds blowing against the Republicans, this should’ve been shooting fish in a barrel with a grenade launcher.

But Kos is getting giddy because his side was able to take down the clown who had an affair with the free office help.  Wow.  Thats nothing to breathe heavy over.  That’s basically a gimme that a political party should be able to nail without trying real hard.

So let’s see here, one slam-dunk and one sorta tough-ish win when the Donks outspend their opponents 2 to 1 in a political climate where the libs had more than a few advantages.  Unless you’re grading on an Atlanta school district curve, there’s really no way to play this as a win for the Democrats.

But hey, keep trying juicebox mafiosi.

Jimmy Carter Speechwiter James Fallows Suddenly Worried About Political Intimidation

Let the faux-sincere handwringing commence!

William Cronon whom I know very slightly, is as good as the American academic establishment can now produce. He is president of the American Historical Association; he is the Frederick Jackson Turner professor of history at the University of Wisconsin; his Nature’s Metropolis and Changes in the Land are books any writer would be proud to claim.

Because Cronon dared write an op-ed piece in the New York Times* pointing to Wisconsin’s long tradition of bi-partisan, “good government”-minded support of collective bargaining rights, and criticizing Gov. Scott Walker for his campaign against organized labor and collective bargaining, the Wisconsin Republican Party is launching a legal effort to look through his email archives to see if he has been involved in the recent protests in the state. The putative rationale is that Cronon’s messages were sent on the University of Wisconsin’s email system and therefore are covered by the state’s open-records law.

Hey, maybe I spoke too soon. Perhaps Fallows has a point. Actions that have the appearance of bullying a respected college professor is quite troubling. You know what else is quite troubling? Death threats.

MADISON – The State Department of Justice confirms that it is investigating several death threats against a number of lawmakers in response to the legislature’s move to strip employees of many collective bargaining rights.

Among the threats the Justice Department is investigationg is one that was emailed to Republican Senators Wednesday night. Newsradio 620 WTMJ has obtained that email.

The following is the unedited email:

Please put your things in order because you will be killed and your familes will also be killed due to your actions in the last 8 weeks. Please explain to them that this is because if we get rid of you and your families then it will save the rights of 300,000 people and also be able to close the deficit that you have created. I hope you have a good time in hell. Read below for more information on possible scenarios in which you will die.

Where was James Fallows when this came to light? You’d think a dude who was so concerned about an investigation into one professor having a chilling effect on academia would be just as interested in a threat to kill GOP politicians having a chilling effect on those people’s lives.

Oh yeah, it’s only intimidation when a Republican does it.

Yep, this is a Memeorandum thread.