The private prison system already introduces bad incentives into the policy-making process because people stand to make money from a more punitive, rather than a more effective prison system -- and in Arizona with SB 1070, we're seeing how that dynamic works as applied to illegal immigration. This isn't new; private prison companies have been in the business of detention for years -- but SB 1070, and the possibility that other states will follow Arizona's lead, is nothing short of a bonanza for an industry that profits from a harsh, ineffective immigration system.
The interesting thing here is the involvement of Sarah Palin. It doesn't seem to be helping. I was unaware until today of her unpopularity in her home state.
On the other side is Republican Ron Johnson, the antithesis of everything the Tea Party says it stands for. In business, Johnson built a company propped up by government grants and loans -- otherwise known in Tea Party terms as “bailouts.” As a board member of a local opera house, he lobbied for funds from the same “big government” stimulus bill the Tea Party despises. During the campaign, he has touted NAFTA-style trade policies’ “creative destruction” of Wisconsin’s manufacturing economy. And rather than promoting the freedom the Tea Party says it values, Johnson has praised China’s repressive communist regime for its economic policies.
...why are they against the stimulus? They really won't say other than to screech about how expensive it was. But, before we go further, read the paragraph about the deficit again. The Democrats cut the deficit. And then factor into the mix that $288 billion out of the $800 billion cost of the recovery act was composed entirely of tax cuts. Tax cuts! As a matter of history and taken as a lump sum, this was the largest American middle class tax cut ever. So it's not a stretch to suggest that the Republicans are suddenly against the largest middle-class tax cut in American history.Despite the attempt to turn a derivation of the positive word "stimulate" into a negative, there's very little about the stimulus that actually sucked, other than the fact that it wasn't big enough. Beyond that, Republican voters need to ask themselves if the tax cuts were bad -- or maybe was it the new roads and infrastructure that helped to create jobs, or was it the money that was spent to keep the states out of bankruptcy and police, teachers and firemen from losing their jobs? What's awful about any of that?
It's worth noting here that this same Republican deception runs across other issues as well. Republicans are suggesting they'll protect individual liberty, while shrinking government small enough to fit into your bedroom or your uterus. Or they're running on the Constitution, while also having their hired thugs handcuff and detain a reporter in a flagrant violation of the First Amendment. Hell, some Republicans are running for U.S. Senate while opposing the 17th Amendment that established popular elections of senators. Wrap your head around that one.
This article by Tim Dickenson is a must read. It cuts through the fog of political warfare and nails the reality of Obama's accomplishments. Very encouraging to this Old Blue.
Less than halfway through his first term, Obama has compiled a remarkable track record. As president, he has rewritten America's social contract to make health care accessible for all citizens. He has brought 100,000 troops home from war and forged a once-unthinkable consensus around the endgame for the Bush administration's $3 trillion blunder in Iraq. He has secured sweeping financial reforms that elevate the rights of consumers over Wall Street bankers and give regulators powerful new tools to prevent another collapse. And most important of all, he has achieved all of this while moving boldly to ward off another Great Depression and put the country back on a halting path to recovery.Read more at www.rollingstone.com
Political fundamentalists are as dangerous as any other kind of extremist. This is the politician who would be king, endorsing Tea Party candidates all over the country, channelling money and influence. King maker, country breaker.
Sen. DeMint bravely stands up for bigotry
The South Carolina Republican defends his belief that gays and unmarried women shouldn't be allowed to teach
Sen. Jim DeMint is standing behind comments he made Friday about gays and unmarried sexually active women being unfit to teach in America's classrooms. Today, a spokesperson attempted to explain the South Carolina Republican's comments: "Senator DeMint believes that hiring decisions at local schools are a local school board issue, not a federal issue. He was making a point about how the media attacks people for holding a moral opinion." Well, yeah, we do when that moral opinion is discriminatory and the person holding it has the power to influence public policy -- and so do gay rights groups and women's organizations.
DeMint's remarks at a church rally last week were reported by the Spartanburg Herald Journal: "DeMint said if someone is openly homosexual, they shouldn't be teaching in the classroom and he holds the same position on an unmarried woman who's sleeping with her boyfriend -- she shouldn't be in the classroom." He said of nearly identical comments he made in 2004: "[When I said those things,] no one came to my defense, but everyone would come to me and whisper that I shouldn't back down." How brave of him to be the martyr for self-righteous bigotry! He added, "They don't want government purging their rights and their freedom to religion." As the Charleston City Paper puts it: " DeMint's America is one where guns and God are allowed in the classroom, but not good educators who happen to have a functioning, unwed vagina or his and his bath towels."
Read more at www.salon.com
Conventional Wisdom driven by heresay and marketing. It's false. Repeat. It's false.
Unfortunately, it's also a testament to how little most people care about good policy and competent execution. As near as I can tell, it's practically conventional wisdom these days that the stimulus package was a complete bust—and all because the Obama administration initially made a lousy projection about the future course of the recession and suggested that the stimulus package would reduce unemployment to 8 percent. If their forecast of the depth of the recession had been correct and they'd predicted, say, 11.5 percent unemployment without a stimulus package and 10 percent with it—which is what happened—elite opinion about the stimulus would probably be completely different.
So there you have it. Good policy and good execution gets you bubkes. All it takes is one wrong forecast number to wipe it all out. Welcome to the real world.
Read more at motherjones.com
I like the fact that the stimulus has come in on time and under budget. Sounds like good business to me. The fact that it saved our economic butts in the recent crisis is telling.
Of course, we shoulda done more.
Report gives stimulus package high marks
By Lori Montgomery
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, October 1, 2010;
1:38 AM
The massive economic stimulus package President Obama pushed through Congress last year is coming in on time and under budget - and with strikingly few claims of fraud or abuse - according to a White House report to be released Friday.
Coming barely a month before November's midterm elections, which will determine whether Democrats retain control of Congress, the report challenges public perceptions of the stimulus aid as slow-moving and wasteful - an image that has fueled voter anger with the dominant party. Even some former skeptics who predicted that the money would lead to rampant abuse now acknowledge that the program could serve as a model for improving efficiency in government.
"Given the ambitious nature of the stimulus, the fact that things have gone relatively smoothly suggests that they did put appropriate and adequate resources" into program oversight, said Soloway, an early skeptic of the package. "They definitely deserve credit for that," he said.
Bernstein said "people's feelings about the recovery act or the role of government in society" are unlikely to change because of Friday's report. "We have a ton more work left to do," he said.
Read more at www.washingtonpost.com
But the report serves to verify, he said, that "the recovery act has accomplished much of what it set out to do."
