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.

Tonight’s Results In Wisconsin Are A Big Deal

What’s at stake here?  Via Allahpundit, Jay Cost has an answer.

The old craft and industrial unions had a stake in the private economy: the faster it grew, the more workers were needed, and the more money everybody made. However, that is not how public sector unionism works at all. In fact, the interest of the public sector unions is not in growing the private economy, but of socializing an ever-greater portion of the national wealth.

And these unions have a decidedly clientelistic relationship with the Democratic party. They provide money for the campaign in exchange for special benefits after the election… Today’s Democrats protect and expand government unions whenever and wherever they are able – by fighting efforts to trim collective bargaining rights, by opposing school choice, by resisting efforts to make the government function more efficiently, etc…

That’s really important.

Ace had a post today about how conservatives should get behind traditionalist movies like “For Greater Glory”.   After all, movie studios will have a greater incentive to make right-of-center films if they actually make money.  Rewarding good behavior will more often than not get further good behavior in the future.

We tend to forget that we have to reward politicians who stand strong for our team.  Governor Walker has taken a heaping ration of shit from the Wisconsin Left and their allies in the national progressive movement.  They’ve made this a national referendum.  It would be very nice if the good guys won this thing and demoralized the liberals but good.

More:  I dunno who is going to win this recall.  However, I was listening to the radio this afternoon and I happened upon the Ed Schultz show.  You could practically hear his tears dripping onto the microphone.  Lots of “It ain’t over til it’s over” talk.  Much doe-eyed winsome referring to anecdotal evidence of massive progressive turnout.

Like I said, I won’t make a prediction but Sgt. Schitzhead sounded like Team Walker pissed in his feeding trough.

That’s gotta be a good sign, right?

Still More:  Ace coblogger CAC has a great Wisconsin recall election monitoring post up and running over at the HQ.  Live updates, commentary, the works.  Check it out, it’s pretty cool.

UPDATE:  Via the AOSHQDD:  Walker:  251,276,   Barrett:  155,283  with 19% reporting.

That sound you’re hearing?  Liberals working up into a full-throated wailing and gnashing of teeth hissy-fit.

UPDATE II:  It’s over.  Walker wins.  Decisively.

I’ll be on Twitter, drinking progressive tears…like the sweet sweet wine that they are.

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.

Look For the Union Label Smacking You In The Face

Matt over at the great Conservative Hideout has done a nice video round-up of the recent Wisconsin leftist goonery.

Check it out, peeps.

My favorite thug?  The snarling hammerhead at the :27 second mark who slapped Tabitha Hale around with the patented “Big Labor Love Clutch” usually reserved for Kenneth Gladney or other black folks who unburden themselves of Marxoid ideology.

Nice work, Matt.  Hat’s off to you.

Governor Walker’s End-Game?

Wisconsin’s budget battle has been the talk of the political blogosphere the last few weeks. The thing I couldn’t see out is just how it was all going to play out. Now we might have a clue. Could this car crash masquerading as a political food fight finally be over?

Democrats have insisted they want to see changes to the collective bargaining portions of the bill, but to do that they would need to win support from three GOP senators because Republicans control the house 19-14.

Sen. Dale Schultz (R-Richland Center) is the only Republican who is criticizing the bill.

“All I know is, we’re not talking. We’re wasting valuable time about collective bargaining, which I don’t ever remember being a part of the last election whatsoever. But most of all, you know, to me, this just looks like the classic overreach we see every two years,” Schultz said in an interview Tuesday on WEKZ-AM (1260) in Monroe.

Sen. Bob Jauch (D-Poplar) said late Thursday night that he no longer believed Democrats would be able to persuade two more Republicans to join Schultz and block the bill in the Senate. Jauch said opponents of the bill need to look for other ways to protect union rights.

“In order to kill this bill we could never go home. That’s not practical and most people realize it,” Jauch said.

First of all, lets all give Dale Schultz a pat on the back for winning the Nutless RINO Award for 2011.

Even more important than the revelation that Schultz is warming up to take over for John McCain as the official Republican who hates Republicans is Bob Jauch’s comments. He’s letting the unions know that the Dems are tapping out on this one. They can’t move any more GOPers to block Walker’s proposals, so they’re done.

I’m not going to be totally convinced that this is all over until the ink is dry on the budget deal. But for now, I think we can tentatively chalk this one up as a win for Governor Walker. Is it cool to do a victory lap yet?

Not surprisingly, this has been a monster Memeorandom thread.

Wisconsin and The Reactionary Left

First, some encouraging signs brought to us by Byron York.

[Wisconsin Governor] Walker has stood firm in the fight, but the truth is a lot of Republicans were nervous last week when crowds of protesters showed up and Democrats headed for the hills. What if the public supported the unions? After going home to their districts over the weekend, Republicans are feeling better. Many heard from constituents telling them to hang tough, and voters were especially unhappy with Democrats for hightailing it out of state. “We think public opinion is with us on the budget issue, and we’re sure public opinion is with us on the Democrats’ not showing up for work and doing their job,” says Mark Jefferson, executive director of the state Republican Party.

In fact, for many Republican supporters, the big question is not whether the fight is worth the trouble but whether there’s some way the GOP can steamroll over the Democrats. But that’s not going to happen, at least for now. Republicans believe they are going to win without using extraordinary measures.

Is it time to let up yet? No, but I think this is a very good sign.

First, this is not–as I erroneously hinted in an older post–just some minor statehouse squall.  By running out of the government, the Donks turned what might’ve been just a run-of-the-mill budget fight into a contest of wills. When Obama unleashed his Organizing For America flunkies to meddle in Wisconsin’s business, that pissing contest supernova’ed into epic showdown status. When something in the states goes mega-national like this, the stakes almost automatically get raised to the rafters; Wisconsin 2011 is no different.

I think everyone on the Right who was paying attention to this feared the Wisconsin GOP or Governor Walker buckling under the pressure. York’s piece gives conservatives hope that the good guys can win this fight. It’s also nice–and a pleasant surprise to boot–to see Wisconsin voters following through on the 2010 midterm elections by continuing to back up their representatives. They could’ve easily listened to the MSM narrative and gotten wobbly, but so far that hasn’t been the case.

As far as the Left goes, they haven’t exactly covered themselves in glory with this fiasco.  Fleeing from a vote, hiding in another state, fake doctor’s notes, rampant whining, union shenanigans, anti-democratic overtones, moral equivalence; much of the modern progressive movement’s pathologies have been laid bare by this political battle.

But something else about liberalism has been revealed in Wisconsin. Roger Simon calls it…reactionary.

I admit I have been using the term “reactionary” for a while when referring to contemporary liberals. This has been quite intentional, something of a deliberate hoisting by their own petard. In my old days on the left, we would brand everyone we didn’t like as a reactionary, mired in the then supposedly-evil capitalist system. And I would like to use the events in Wisconsin to explain why I do it to them now. (Yes, it is partly to get their goat, but it is also to make a point.)

…So why has our left become so reactionary, so unwilling or unable to adapt to a changed world that they “act out” with all the juvenility of adolescents deprived of the family car keys? Some say it is because they have replaced religious faith with politics and I, an agnostic, see some truth in that. But there is more. Liberalism has become a mask for greed in our culture — a way of hiding excessive selfishness from others and, importantly, from the self. It’s a deflection, really.

There’s a lot to like in that article, so read the rest. Simon’s analysis is pretty much spot on, but I think he misses something. The question here is why has the Left become so reactionary, so reluctant to change.

Look at the public sector unions, a key component of the American progressive movement. They’ve pretty much become the establishment in many facets of government. For them, the current order of things isn’t too shabby.

It’s one thing to advocate for change when you’re on the outside looking in. When you’ve become the epitome of ‘business as usual’, you generally don’t want to rock the boat all that much. In fact, anything that jostles your position is likely seen as a dire threat to your existence, even if the jostling in question is relatively minor.

The Tom Hayden/Abbie Hoffman/Bill Ayers Axis of Poor Hygiene and their spiritual descendents have taken over major chunks of the federal government, as well as large portions of many states’ governments.  As part of the governmental machine, progressives have set up a very cushy relationship with taxpayer money that they can readily exploit.  Systemic unsustainability, responsibility to voters or just a simple sense of fairness are not enough to convince the Left to forgo their gravy train. 

The system we have now, where government workers’ unions make psychotic demands and governments readily acquiesce, has reached the point that we have, in the words of Margaret Thatcher, run out of other peoples’ money.  The reactionary forces on the Left will not help tear down the quasi-pyramid scheme they’ve erected.  There is simply too much for them to gain from the current racket.

No, the real agents of change in America–principled conservatives, libertarians and Tea Party acttivists–will have to do it all by themselves.

UPDATE:  Welcome, welcome The Other McCain readers!   Glad you could stop by.  You can go ahead and move about the blog freely. 

I thought my Chris Rock slammage was underappreciated.  Maybe ya’all will find that fun?  I dunno.

In any case, big thanks to RS McCain for putting me up in his Headlines sidebar thing.  I appreciate it very much, sir.

Wisconsin-The Reverberations Will be Huge

Fake doctors’ notes for real Wisconsin teachers?

Wow.

The shittiness is strong with these clowns.

Bunkerville, take it away.

This is the test of our democracy. Ms Piven must be delighted.

‘Delighted’?  That repellent old socialist windbag is wringing out her panties as we speak.

Meanwhile, back in the real world, where all but the most blinkered left-wing ideologues actually live, Herman Cain throws down a marker.

Big ups to RS McCain for posting this vid.  Read the rest of his piece as he makes some good points and includes a smidge of Breitbart magic as well.

As for Herman Cain, he declares, “Wisconsin in ground zero for the rest of America”

Listen to this man.  He speaks the God’s honest truth here.

As I said in an earlier post, Obama has sent his troops into this fight.  Organizing For America pretty much sat on it’s hands during the 2010 election season.  Unlike in November, the President has decided to enter this battle with both barrels blazing.  He is gambling that with OFA assistance, rent-a-goon union tactics and good old fashioned media bias, he can get Wisconsin Republicans to back down. 

Obama must not be allowed to win this fight.

Ponder this scenario:  The GOP in Wisconsin is broken.  They give in to Democrat demands and business as usual reconvenes.  The consequences from that loss would be dramatic and immediate.  First, this will embolden the Obama political hack groups to pull this kind of stuff anytime a fiscally conservative statehouse gets too uppity.  If the Cloward/Piven/Alinsky tactic works in CheeseHeadLand, the Left will naturally seek to use these same political moves everywhere else.  Obama will send out OFA to infiltrate, disrupt and disarm any states’ attempts to slow the growth of government. 

Governors from states that are in similarly dire budgetary straits–like all 50 of them–will look at this hypothetical conservative failure in Wisconsin with great interest.  They will learn that there is no political gain to be had from trying to evade the budgetary dilemmas they face.  Runaway entitlements, public-sector union issues, basic fiscal discipline…all those concerns will go by the wayside.  Politicians will instead recalibrate their messages to voters; the big fight in the next election cycle will be which party can best deliver the gubmint cheeeeeeeez to state-dependent voters. 

Just a reminder:  Even after the compassionate conservatism of the Bush years, Republicans will never–EVER–win that argument.  If faced with the prospect of  Republicans offering an ‘efficient’ well-organized welfare state or Democrats promising a generous fluffy relaxing social safety hammock, voters will choose the Donkey Punchers every time.  When a little kid cries for a Snickers bar, he really doesn’t care how much money Mommy saved when she bought the thing.  No, the child only cares that the chocolate goody gets to him as soon as possible and that there is more where that came from.  Same thing is true with the electorate if faced with that kind of ‘choice’.

What Obama and the Dems are trying to do is nothing less than the repeal of the 2010 midterms. 

Wisconsin might not be America’s political Ragnarok.  Perhaps I’m misreading just how big this thing is.  However, the fact that Barack Obama has decided to expend such efforts and has unleashed his rabble-rousers tells me that this is a massive deal.

Democrats: Chickens Playing Chicken

Matt at Conservative Hideout gives us the run-down.

I’ve been watching the Wisconsin story with great interest. Essentially, the Wisconsin Legislature is working on a bill that will limit union power. The goal: Have public union workers pay some of their pensions (but still less than the average private sector worker). But, for the unions, any potential limits on their power demands a rent-a-mob response. So, shirts were printed, buses were obtained, hotels reserved, teachers called off “sick,” and off they went…just like any other “real” grassroots movement.

The rent-a-mob occupied the Capitol Building. Others stalked the homes of legislators. The Democrat delegation fled the state, preventing a vote from being taken.

Read the rest. He’s got a nice compilation of links as well.

We hear a lot of talk about political bravery. Many pols pat themselves on the back because of there alleged courage. And now the Wisconsin Democrats have literally taken their ball and gone home. Sir Robin would be proud.

What about the President? Where is he on this issue? Why, he’s community organizin’ of course.

The Democratic National Committee’s Organizing for America arm — the remnant of the 2008 Obama campaign — is playing an active role in organizing protests against Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker’s attempt to strip most public employees of collective bargaining rights.

OfA, as the campaign group is known, has been criticized at times for staying out of local issues like same-sex marraige, but it’s riding to the aide of the public sector unions who hoping to persuade some Republican legislators to oppose Walker’s plan. And while Obama may have his difference with teachers unions, OfA’s engagement with the fight — and Obama’s own clear stance against Walker — mean that he’s remaining loyal to key Democratic Party allies at what is, for them, a very dangerous moment.

Last week Barry HopeyChangey came out with a budget utterly divorced from reality. With that proposal, he declared in no uncertain terms that the big gubmint spending of the last two years is his highest priority. Deficits? Debt? The fast approaching entitlement apocolypse? No sweat America; here’s some high speed rail boondoggles. That’ll solve everything. [sarc/]

But St. Barry of the Holy Hand-Out isn’t content to just run the federal government merrily off a cliff. Oh no, that simply wouldn’t do. He’s got his rent-a-hack bozos trying to spread the Donkey-Puncher gospel of fiscal debauchery all across the fruited plain. Amazing.

You know what I love about our current leadership class? They’re a perfect combination of utterly unlikable traits. From the Obamessiah down to the Wisconsin Demo-Chickens you get cowardice, smug indifference to voters and a breezy disregard for the disaster they’re bringing on this country all rolled up into a nice neat bungwad of fail.

Meanwhile, what are the Republicans doing? Twiddling their thumbs and worrying about some pissant House rule rather than just going ahead and killing socialized medicine.

Hey Tea Party Peeps: We still got a whole lotta work to do.

UPDATE: Gateway Pundit is just putting up this wanted poster out of civic duty.

A Tale of Two Campaigns-Democrats and Republicans in 2010

Notice something missing from Russ Feingold’s campaign ad?

In case you didn’t spot it, here it is.

Even so, this is a vivid illustration of just how epically the alleged Great Liberal Realignment of 2008 has failed. Obama destroyed McCain in Wisconsin, winning by almost 14 points, and yet this is what a three-term Democratic incumbent is reduced to less than two years later — chipping away at an eight-point deficit by reminding people that he fights for veterans and lives in the same house he’s always lived in and, well, that he’s a pretty darned pleasant guy.

Bango.

You don’t run this kind of ad (innocuous, folksy to a fault, no mention of partisan affiliation) if the voters are super-stoked about the political positions you’ve represented for nearly 20 years in the US Senate.  As AP notes, Russ Feingold has long been the golden boy of the hyper-left caucus in a traditionally Democratic state.  And yet, here’s Feingold running as fast as he can away from his party.

One gets the feeling that unless they’re handed a bogey-man to rail against, it’s very hard for a liberal to justify his or her existence.  Why did the Donks do so well in 2006 and 2008?  Because Dumbya BusHitler was always available, to be conjured up–like Emmanuel Goldstein in 1984–for a Two Minutes Hate rally.  Now that G-Dub is gone and statist god-king Obama is in the White House, there’s no way to generate sufficient rage to propel progrtard candidates to run progtard campaigns.

Besides, it really wasn’t supposed to go down this way.  Obama’s election meant that liberals could finally be themselves.  They could enact the whole raft of lefty fever-dreams and get away with it because the American public had finally come to love the Euro-douche nanny state.  In the liberal mind, Barack Obama and a large Democrat legislative majority was a signal to shed the last scraps of moderation they’d been hiding behind. 

The dream was that a Russ Feingold could make a 2010 campaign where he vociferously bragged about passing ObamaCare, repealing “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” and socializing vast swaths of the automotive industry.  That…um…didn’t exactly work out.  Instead, Feingold and the rest of the Donkey-Punchers have once again had to don the imagery and tone of a mushy soft spoken moderate in the thin hope of retaining their congressional seats. 

This has got to be a total left-wing buzzkill.      

Contrast all that with the tone of Allen West in this clip.  Yeah, this is a stump speech, not a campaign ad.  But it still bears examination.

I’m not really noticing any hushed mincing cowardly talk out of West.  He’s hella stoked for a fight against Alcee Hastings, John Lewis and Barack Obama.  This is a man who doesn’t have to take cover behind moderation.  He’s a loud-n-proud conservative.  Bear this in mind:   West is running in a traditionally Democrat district that has voted the Donkey-Puncher candidate in the last three presidential elections, exactly the kind of district that was supposed to go full-on lip-lock with Obama-style liberalism.  Instead, Allen West is running a surprisingly competitive race and could pull out a strong win.

That’s pretty amazing when you think about it.