Republican Hypocrisy

Turn That Frown Upside Down

An overarching theme for Republicans, regarding the next election cycle, is this idea that things are an economic mess. Times are tough, everyone is struggling. 

Yet, in many metrics, a reasonable, non-partisan observer would most likely conclude that times are, generally, good. 

Unemployment

The current unemployment rate is under 4% (3.7% as of today for the U.S.; 3% for Wisconsin). And, despite an historically low unemployment rate, wages are rising.

Interest Rates

Historically speaking, interest rates are low. In the 1970s, rates were mid-7 percent. The 1980s saw rates rise to mid-9 percent. The 1990s started around 10 percent, and finished around 8 percent. From 2000 through the 2010s, rates fell from 8 percent to 3 percent. The 2020s have seen rates rise from high-3 percent to the current mid-5 percent.

Inflation Rate

The majority of noise in the inflation rate hangs on the energy sector. A better descriptor for this phenomenon is price-gouging. The energy sector doubled gasoline prices and laughed all the way to the bank as Republicans and their accomplices manufactured the price-gouging into a Joe Biden spending (inflation) problem. It's no coincidence that as the energy sector has gouged less (gas prices have come down), inflation has fallen.

Texas and Yet Another Failure of Privatization

Beto O'Rourke: Why Texas Oil & Gas Can't Keep Texans Warm

Greg Abbott Lies About Green Energy To Deflect On Freeze Fail - UPDATE: AOC Responds

The Texas grid got crushed because its operators didn’t see the need to prepare for cold weather

Why Does Texas Have Its Own Power Grid?

The failure of privatization in the energy sector and why today’s consumers are reclaiming power

A Cost Comparison ofPublic and Private Water Utility Operation

Privatization of Water and Wastewater Services

Has privatization failed Texas utility customers?

Natural gas, not wind turbines, main driver of Texas power shortage

Texas Mayor Tells Residents To Fend For Themselves

Feds Warned Texas To Weatherize Power Grid The Last Time This Happened

Fox News aired bizarre and wildly misleading claims about Texas' blackouts that pin blame on renewables and climate policies

Why on earth would right-wing people with connections to the fossil fuel industry lie about ‘frozen wind turbines’ in Texas?

Share Of Energy From Renewable Resources

[source]

Barack Obama One Of The Most Consequential Presidents In American History

Barack Obama is officially one of the most consequential presidents in American history

He signed into law a comprehensive national health insurance bill, a goal that had eluded progressive presidents for a century — and built it strong enough to withstand assaults from the Supreme Court and avoid repeal from a Republican administration. He got surprisingly tough reforms to Wall Street passed as well, not to mention a stimulus package that both blunted the recession and transformed education and energy policy. 

He's put in place the toughest climate rules in American history and signed a major international climate accord. He opened the US to Cuba for the first time in more than half a century, and reached a peaceful settlement to the nuclear standoff with Iran.

Obama's Accomplishments

Wisconsin's Electricity Rates Are Highest In Midwest

[source]

Weekend Reading

Austerity Kills Government Jobs As Cuts To Budgets Loom
Corporate Wellness Programs: Not Quite The Cost Savers
The Fanatic, Fraudulent Mother Teresa
Lost Decade Not Over For 401(k)s, IRAs 
Morning Joe's Accuracy Deficit
Shocked, Shocked, Over Hospital Bills
The U.S. Economy Really Needs A $ 2 Trillion Stimulus
U.S. Power Grid Is Getting Pricier, Less Reliable
Voucher Madness

Investing In Infrastructure

The Impact Of Current Infrastructure Investment On America's Future
Other Reports

Walker's Revenue Plan - Sell Off The State

Walker Seeks Sale Of Power Plants

Gov. Scott Walker is seeking to sell off hundreds of millions of dollars in power plants or other state assets to help pay some of the borrowing he is proposing as part of his two-year $6.4 billion transportation plan unveiled Friday.

I'm sure this will work out as well as Walker's other privatization plans.

Weekend Reading

What If Obama Spent Like Reagan?

U.S Has Some Of The Lowest Energy Taxes In The World

4 States Considering Laws That Challenge Teaching Evolution

The Real Reason For The Decline Of American Unions

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Should Take Tougher Stand On Mine

Why The Founding Fathers Loved National Debt

Home Depot Syndrome

Paul Ryan Breaks Down Under Wonkterrogation

Our Incredible Shrinking Government

Weekend Reading

The Addiction
Inequality Is Holding Back The Recovery
Manufacturing Jobs Use To Pay Well. Not Anymore
More Bogosity From Michelle Rhee
This Is Why You're Fat, America
12 Scientific Reasons Humans Are Irrational
2nd Amendment Ratified To Preserve Slavery
What We Know About Video Games & Violence
When Public Outperforms Private In Services
Where The U.S. Imports Its Oil From
World Needs $57 Trillion Infrastructure By 2030

A Fractured Process

The Journal Sentinel reports, "A new study funded by the petroleum industry says Wisconsin firms employ 20,000 people supporting the unconventional oil and gas business - meaning sand mines, largely. The sand from western Wisconsin is used by drilling companies in North Dakota and other states to unlock underground natural gas and oil supplies in a controversial practice called hydraulic fracturing, or fracking."

Go figure. The industry that gains from fracking has released a study showing how wonderful it is.

Walmart employs people. Sport stadiums employ people. Yet, these are low-wage jobs, usually lacking health care and retirement plans. The mantra of "It creates jobs!" is short-sighted and overblown. Regarding fracking, if those jobs destroy land, water, and leave behind a barren wasteland, it's not really a long-term jobs plan. It's a short-term money grab for the parent company pillaging and plundering the land. Not to mention the negative public health consequences for residents. So yeah, again, not really a good nor sustainable jobs plan. And, definitely not a good plan for a state that prides itself on the natural environment and the beauty and purity of the land.

[source]

“Every year, large areas are continually becoming unfertile in spite of efforts to grow vegetation on the degraded mined land.” wrote Mrinal Ghose in the Journal of Scientific and Industrial Research.

As Ellen Cantarow reports, "Boom times for hydraulic fracturing began in 2008 when new horizontal-drilling methods transformed an industry formerly dependent on strictly vertical boring. Frac-sand mining took off in tandem with this development. “It’s huge,” said a U.S. Geological Survey mineral commodity specialist in 2009. “I’ve never seen anything like it, the growth. It makes my head spin.” That year, from all U.S. sources, frac-sand producers used or sold over 6.5 million metric tons of sand — about what the Great Pyramid of Giza weighs. Last month, Wisconsin’s Department of Natural Resources Senior Manager and Special Projects Coordinator Tom Woletz said corporations were hauling at least 15 million metric tons a year from the state’s hills. By July 2011, between 22 and 36 frac-sand facilities in Wisconsin were either operating or approved. Seven months later, said Woletz, there were over 60 mines and 45 processing (refinement) plants in operation. “By the time your article appears, these figures will be obsolete,” claims Pat Popple, who in 2008 founded the first group to oppose frac-sand mining, Concerned Chippewa Citizens (now part of The Save the Hills Alliance)."

There are better ways to grow an economy. Much better ways than destroying the land around you. Let's move toward a sustainable, equitable, and safe future for Wisconsin and it's residents. Let's tell the hydraulic fracturers to frack off.

For Further Reading:
Clintonville Booms Caused By Fracking?
The Evolving Truth About Fracking For Natural Gas
How Rural American Got Fracked
In The Name Of Fracking

Republican Shrinkage

Republicans often repeat the line, "Most Americans want a smaller government."

A classic example of Republicans getting an inch and taking a mile.

Most people simply want efficient provision of services. The number of public workers is not important to most taxpayers. The quality of service per tax dollar is what concerns taxpayers most.

The idea that simply shrinking government for the sake of shrinking government is wanted and/or somehow optimal is false. Taxes, as a share of income, are at their lowest point in 60 years. It's difficult to argue government is wasteful when they have been continually doing more with less decade after decade.

And, whether the service is administered at the federal or state/local level doesn't really matter to most taxpayers. This distinction matters most to the politicos trying to maintain their fiefdoms. Taxpayers just want the service/program - regardless of which agency (state or federal) provides it.

Social Security, Medicare, police and fire protection, sewers, water, garbage collection, snow removal, roads and highways, trains, unemployment insurance, the court and judicial system - people want these services provided fairly and efficiently, they don't care which level of government performs the service. (Today - Thanksgiving - would be a good day to reflect on these programs which we collectively provide for each other.)

Republicans merely cling to this talking-point (we must shrink government) because it positions well alongside their never-ending "bad government" war chant. When it comes to the public sector, according to Republicans, less is always better.

Yet, for most citizens, less government means more inequality. Remember this the next time you hear some conservative blathering on about big bad government. The more government declines, the less services and programs (listed above) they can provide, and thus the quality of life of most citizens also declines.

Romney's 10 Most Baseless Claims

"And these businesses -- many of them have gone out of business. I think about half of them, of the ones have been invested in, they’ve gone out of business." – Mitt Romney, Oct. 3 Presidential Debate

Businesses that got government clean energy loans failed at a rate of about 1.4 percent at the end of 2011, according to The Washington Post.

"My plan is not to put in place any tax cut that will add to the deficit." – Mitt Romney, Oct. 3 Presidential Debate

Romney's tax plan would cost the country $4.8 trillion over the next 10 years, according to Tax Policy Center data, cited by NBC News.

"You never balance the budget by raising taxes." – Mitt Romney, Oct. 3 Presidential Debate

President Bill Clinton managed to balance the budget during his time in office with a tax boost for those in the top 2 percent of earners, according to Duke professor William Chafe.

"The president has a view very similar to the view he had when he ran four years ago, that a bigger government, spending more, taxing more, regulating more -- if you will, trickle-down government would work." – Mitt Romney, Oct. 3 Presidential Debate

President Obama's proposed budget is estimated to cut about $1.1 trillion over the next 10 years and, so far, Obama has signed $2 trilion worth of spending cuts into law, according to Democratic Party Pollster Bernard Whitman.

"Up to 20 million people will lose their insurance as Obamacare goes into effect next year." – Mitt Romney, Oct. 3 Presidential Debate

Some workers may switch from their employer-provided health plans, according to the Congressional Budget Office, but that number is more likely to be closer to between 3 and 5 million per year between 2019 and 2022.

Obamacare "puts in place an unelected board that’s going to tell people, ultimately, what kind of treatments they can have." – Mitt Romney, Oct 3 Presidential Debate

Though Obamacare does create an independent board, the law prohibits the board from making recommendations to "ration health care," or "otherwise restrict benefits or modify eligibility,” according to Bloomberg.

"The idea of cutting $716 billion from Medicare to be able to balance the additional cost of Obamacare is, in my opinion, a mistake." – Mitt Romney, Oct. 3 Presidential Debate

The indirect effects of Obamacare have yet to be determined, since the law has yet to be implemented. But as the law is written now, Obamacare doesn't cut seniors' benefits as part of its plan to curb health care costs, according to USA Today.
Obama's healthcare law would curb benefits to health care providers and insurers, but doesn't directly cut seniors' benefits. Critics allege however, that the cuts in payments would have the unintended consequence of hurting seniors because doctors would stop accepting Medicare patients, according to USA Today.

"It's hurt the housing market because Dodd-Frank didn't anticipate putting in place the kinds of regulations you have to have. It's not that Dodd-Frank always was wrong with too much regulation. Sometimes they didn't come out with a clear regulation." – Mitt Romney, Oct. 3 Presidential Debate

The Dodd-Frank regulations aim to prevent another housing crash like the one that helped to cause the 2008 financial meltdown by banning high-risk lending practices, according to CBS News. In addition, the housing market has been on a slow rebound since Obama took office.
If anything, it may be banks that are holding back the housing recovery. Many are slow to lend because they're concerned Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will make them take back any bad loans, the Wall Street Journal reports.

"I just don't know how the president could have come into office, facing 23 million people out of work, rising unemployment, an economic crisis at the -- at the kitchen table, and spend his energy and passion for two years fighting for Obamacare instead of fighting for jobs for the American people. It has killed jobs." – Mitt Romney, Oct. 3 Presidential Debate

The Congressional Budget Office estimates that healthcare reform will reduce the health care industry's workforce by only about 0.5 percent, largely because workers will decide to retire early or work fewer hours. And if Romney's Massachusetts health care reform law is any indication, job loss won't be a big problem; employment trends in the state have mirrored national trends since Romneycare took effect.

"The president said he’d cut the deficit in half. Unfortunately, he doubled it.” – Mitt Romney, Oct. 3 Presidential Debate

When Obama took office in 2009, the deficit was projected to be $1.2 trillion during that year, and it ultimately turned out to be $1.4 trillion, according to Congressional Budget Office data cited by The New York Times. The deficit is expected to be $1.1 trillion for fiscal year 2012.

Mitt Romney's 10 Most Baseless Claim

Monopoly Utilities

Bruce Murphy, in Monopoly Greed, uncovers:

• A new study by the state Public Service Commission (PSC) shows electric rates are now 21 percent higher than other Midwestern states and 10 percent higher than the national average. 
• Wisconsin utilities have been allowed to jack up electric rates by 55 percent from 2002-2010, during a period when inflation rose by just 20 percent. 
• A study by the UW-Milwaukee Employment & Training Institute found that the average cost of heat and electricity for city of Milwaukee renters, all customers of We Energies, nearly doubled in just six years, rising from $1,318 in 2000 to $2,227 in 2006.
• These ever-higher rates have helped drive profits for We Energies: year after year the company has reaped profits of 10 to 12 percent.
• Wisconsin utilities had the second-highest profit margin among 26 states studied.
• Those generous profits, in turn, help pay for huge bonuses for We Energies executives, which amounted to $77 million over the last three years, according to annual reports it files with the PSC.
• Those profits have also been good for the company’s stock price, which has risen by 17 percent year-to-date (33% over the past calendar year). 
• We Energies would like to see more increases in the years to come. Company officials are requesting an annual increase of 3.6 percent for both 2013 and 2014, though the estimated rate of inflation for those years is 2.2 percent and 2.3 percent respectively.

Roads, Roads, Everywhere

With a dying planet and a dying economy, the Wisconsin Department of Transportation decides to double down on pollution and antiquated energy and transportation sources.

DOT kills Hoan Bridge bike lane proposal.

Put That In Your Pipeline & Smoke It

We're broke.  We're drowning in debt. We must sacrifice.

We don't have money for living wages, improved transportation infrastructure, or green energy projects.

But we have - seemingly unlimited - money for continuing tax breaks for the wealthy, corporate giveaways, continued building of new roads to nowhere, and billions for filthy energy sources.

To help the already heavily subsidized fossil fuel industry, we (along with TransCanada) are now planning on building a pipeline to deliver crude from Canada down to the Gulf Coast.

"There will be jobs!"

Indeed. But not nearly the amount the boosters claim.

And, wouldn't green infrastructure jobs be a better investment for the future of the U.S.? Wouldn't such a green investment place the U.S. and our industries in a better competitive position? Couldn't such a green initiative be the leap forward (which the U.S. needs) to positioning America as an attractive place to live and work versus our global competitors?

We can continue subsidizing old, obsolete industries and maintain our steady downward spiral into insignificance. The other option is to actually put our money where our mouth is by building sustainable, efficient infrastructure and assuring the relevance of the U.S. into the next century.

For Further Reading:
Economic Value Of Green Infrastructure
Dirty Oil From Canada To Texas
Green Infrastructure
Green Water Infrastructure
Pipeline Bad For Environment

Fake Messiahs

Articles thoroughly debunking the effectiveness and honesty of Mitt Romney and Rick Perry:

As Bain Slashed Jobs...

Bain Record of Job Cuts

Biggest Hypocrite in Texas

Eight Things to Know About Rick Perry

Mitt Romney: The Huckster

Perry Rides An Energy Boom

Rick Perry, closet Keynesian?

Rick Perry's Texas Miracle

Rick Perry: The Texas Miracle That Wasn't

Romney's Fortunes Tied to Business Riches

Texas is a Complete Disaster

The Texas "Miracle"

Energy Opportunity

Thomas Content, of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, discusses a new report, from the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, regarding Milwaukee transforming "the challenge of energy and climate change into a competitive advantage."

I made the same point in earlier posts (here and here).