Interesting Items 2/21 Alex Gimarc [email protected]
Interesting Items 2 / 21 Howdy all, a few Interesting Items for your information. Enjoy – In this issue: 1. Wisconsin 2. CR 3. Shutdown 4. Parnell 5. Bridge 1. Wisconsin. Well it appears that the left chose Wisconsin as the battlefield to protect their power base among the public employee unions. The newly elected Republican Governor and legislative majority in WI offered up legislation that would require WI all public employee unions in WI to give up their collective bargaining rights over retirement and benefits. There are also provisions that stop automatic deductions from union members’ paychecks, forcing the unions to gather their own dues without the assistance of the employers. It would also block unions from collecting money directly from paychecks for political activities. Finally, there is a provision for yearly elections on whether or not the union should exist. These provisions appear to be the real reason for the argument. Public employee unions will retina their ability to collectively bargain for wages. The last round of union contracts in WI was approved at the last minute by a democrat legislative majority and governor beholden to these unions. The contracts were agreed to and shoved through the legislature on the typical democrat fast track without public input, review or notification. The newly elected Republicans are in the position of having to do something about the contracts, which have expired, and have blown a hole in the state budget. The newly elected Republican governor and the newly elected legislative majority both ran on platforms promising to do something about the public employee unions and their bennies. Interestingly enough, the deal offered by the governor is crafted in such a way as to not lay anybody off – so far. As Republicans hold significant majorities in both houses of the legislature, there is no way democrats can block the result. Senate democrats came up with the same technique used democrats in the Texas legislature to fight a redistricting plan in 2003 – running away and hiding. In order to hold a vote on a budget provision, the WI legislature requires a quorum, and the total number of Republicans in the WI senate fall a single vote short. WI senate democrats reportedly left town in a school bus to bust the quorum. Interesting difference between Texas and WI - WI allows recall elections for elected officials. Texas did not. In the years after the Texas democrats ran away to Oklahoma to hide, they suffered devastating losses in the Texas legislature. Expect WI to turn out the same way. Meanwhile, the DNC and Obama Campaign organization Organizing for American started turning out the union droids in Madison WI to protest the legislation. Around 40% of the teachers statewide called in sick and went to Madison to join the protest. As of Friday night, their numbers were reportedly over 50,000. Saturday, there was a Tea Party counter protest with union participation. It looks like the public employee unions and democrats are drawing their line in the sand here, demanding that there be no possible rollback of the taxpayer-funded goodies. They are going to get significant push-back from WI parents and School Boards that have video of their “sick” teachers in Madison, protesting and trashing the state legislature. There are also WI doctors that have been handing out excuse this person because they are sick paperwork that are liable for committing medical fraud. WI teachers are paid over $77k, on average; and the average income in WI is just over $50k. There is not a lot of sympathy for them, and as they adopt more of the unionist bully-boy, thug tactics, while the real unemployment rate nationwide approaches 20%, they will redefine the phrase “shoot yourself in the foot.” Anything you the reader can do to buck up and support the WI governor and legislature will help this work, as the SEIU, AFL/CIO and other public employee unions are going to be exporting this event to a capital near you. It has already shown up in Ohio. Like the budget battle in DC, this event will redefine politics in the US at the state level for decades to come. With any luck, it will be the last hurrah of public employee unions. 2. CR. The Republican majority in House of Representatives voted out a $61 billion budget cut to the bloated, irresponsible federal budget Saturday night. Their CR version defunds Planned Parenthood; defunds the discretionary parts of ObamaCare; defunds EPA regulation of carbon dioxide; defunds FCC regulation of the Internet via net Neutrality; and defunds US participation in climate fraud perpetrated by the UN IPCC. There is some confusion about the total amount of budget cutting, as House Majority Leader Eric Cantor’s office claims that the total dollar amount exceeds $100 billion as promised. Most other observers believe otherwise. Whatever the final number is, it is a pretty good start, a down payment to the next round of budget cutting demanded by the voters that installed the new majority in the House. It will be excoriated by both the democrat majority in the senate and Obama as he uses it as an excuse to shut down the government. But you have to start somewhere. Message to Tea Party members: this is a start. It is not a finish. Like we are seeing in Madison WI, this is where the democrats have chosen to draw their line in the sand. It is time to take that stick and shove it where the sun never shines. 3. Shutdown. The messages we have been getting out of democrats inside the Beltway for the last two weeks is that any proposed budget cuts out of the House are extreme in nature and will be met with democrat intransigence in the senate and an Obama veto when the Continuing Resolution hits his desk for signature. This will instantly lead to a government shutdown. Democrats have been chortling over the opportunity to use a shutdown as a vehicle to destroy the new Republican majority in the House. They may be correct, but I think they have been listening to their own propaganda too long. A budget that is $1.7 T in the red can eat a $61 B budget cut without blinking an eye. I think democrats are fighting the last war and that the battlefield has changed significantly, as it is difficult to defend outrageous spending while the unemployment level bangs up against 20% and to do it for the next decade. Shut the feds down. Turn out all the federal employees other than the military. And erase all the new regulations and Executive Orders. 4. Parnell. Alaska Governor Sean Parnell became the first governor to refuse federal grant money to establish health insurance exchanges as mandated under ObamaCare legislation. This decision triggered a letter signed by seven democrat legislators demanding he participate. The letter was ignored, as ObamaCare is not a priority in Alaska for conservatives in particular. Alaska also is one of the 28 states now opposing ObamaCare in court. Parnell’s rationale was that ObamaCare has been found to be unconstitutional and that the state would not be participating in unconstitutional action. There is not a lot that the democrats in the state senate can do about this decision. Parnell is to be congratulated for his courageous decision. 5. Bridge. Backers of the Knit Arm Bridge between Anchorage and the MatSu Valley asked the Alaska legislature for a $150 million loan guarantee last week. The money is intended to serve as a financial backstop so that they may obtain private funding. The Knik Arm Bridge was the first of the infamous “bridges to nowhere” that blew up in the lead-in to the 2006 democrat takeover of congress. This bridge is intended to connect Anchorage, which has used almost all buildable land to the MatSu, which has hundreds of square miles of undeveloped land available for new home construction. The bridge is mostly private funded. Unfortunately, the fiscal mess created by the Obamaoids and the last democrat congress has made it all but impossible for private projects to get funding from the lenders who are making 3% off of federal treasury bonds for doing nothing. Lenders are demanding returns in that range from the beginning of the project, which cannot be guarantee. Hence, the need for a backstop from the State of Alaska. The enabling legislation ought to also include protection from harassment lawsuits by greens, anti-development leftists and local NIMBYs who oppose any and all development up here. The Knit Arm Bridge is a good project that will cut driving time between Anchorage and the MatSu from nearly an hour to less than ten minutes. It will open up hundreds of square miles of undeveloped land to new home and business construction. Best of all, it will serve as pressure on the Anchorage Assembly to behave itself and not jack up spending and taxes to unsustainable levels. It ought to be built. Sooner would be better than later. More later - - AG "If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen." - Samuel Adams, speech at the Philadelphia State House, August 1, 1776. Note: Interesting Items can be found at the following locations: The Alaska Standard http://thealaskastandard.com/ MatSu Valley News http://www.matsuvalleynews.com District 28 http://www.dist28.com/ subscriber and supporter Elbert Collins at http://thatselbert.wordpress.com/ and the home page: http://home.gci.net/~agimarc Rod Martin's The Vanguard site is also a long-time supporter of this column: http://www.thevanguard.org/ To read Alex Gimarc’s columns, go to http://home.gci.net/~agimarc/ To stay abreast Pro Life news, go to http://www.listcast.com/ x?oid=20000g For News with Attitude, email [email protected] with subscribe in the Subj. 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