Paul Soglin: Waxing America

Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce: Attitude Adjustment. Not

This week's Isthmus says, Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce tones it down a notch.

Correctly noting that the tone of this fall's election television advertisements designed to elect Republicans are by WMC's own admission, "reposition(ed)." Erik Gunn reports:

Such ads are a departure for WMC, which is better known for its spots trashing state Supreme Court Justice Louis Butler as "Loophole Louie" or, earlier, portraying Gov. Jim Doyle during his successful 2006 re-election bid in a green, toxic haze to suggest he is a crook.

We recall that it took enormous pressure to get WMC to make these modifications to its political message. They only did so  when the image of the individual members was tarnished by the trash they produced in previous elections.

Left to their own devices, WMC would resume creating more "Willie Horton" style messages.

It is clear that WMC's market position was assumed by such groups as the Coalition for America's Families, the Club for Growth and All Children Matter which continues to produce WMC-style attack ads.

All Children Matter is running nasty spots that have nothing to do with children or the truth.

The Government Accountability Board may or may not get the power to regulate these ads so that the public knows who is paying, but the WMC misinformation machine will continue to roll.

These public advertisements are just one face of the WMC propaganda effort.

When the new session of the legislature opens next year, expect WMC to continue to publish distortion and after distortion about Wisconsin tax levies, expenditures for compensation packages of public employees, and of course, the record of Wisconsin Supreme Court Chief Justice Shirley Abrahamson.

WMC is not going to go quietly into the night.

"Vote 'em... Just because they’re dead don’t mean they’re Republicans."

With Election Day approaching, it's always a good time to reread William Kennedy's wonderful synopsis of urban politics.  Kennedy's many fictions set in early twentieth-century Albany, New York are literary treasures.  From Billy Phelan's Greatest Game to Legs to Ironweed (Kennedy's "Albany triology"), we have been given an extraordinary glimpse into the conditions that created the great urban political machines that fueled FDR's rise to power and ultimately led to the New Deal. In 2002 Kennedy focused on the political process with Roscoe, a look at several generations of Albany mayors and fixers. This passage, “Felix Declares His Principles to Roscoe,” is a passing of the family business philosophy from ex-mayor father to lawyer-fixer son.

“How do you make money, boy?  If you run ‘em for office and they win, you charge ‘em a year’s wages.  Keep taxes low, but if you have to raise ‘em, call it something else.  The city can’t do without vice, so pinch the pimps and milk the madams.  Anybody that sells the flesh, tax ‘em.  If anybody wants city business, thirty percent back to us.  Maintain the streets and sewers, but don’t overdo it.  Well-lit streets discourage sin, but don’t overdo it.  If they play craps, poker, or blackjack, cut the game.  If they play faro or roulette, cut it double.  Opium is the opiate of the depraved, but if they want it, see that they get it, and tax those lowlife bastards.  If they keep their dance halls open twenty-four hours, tax ‘em twice.  If they run a gyp joint, tax ‘em triple.  If they send prisoners to our jail, charge ‘em rent, at hotel prices.  Keep the cops happy and let ‘em have a piece of the pie.  A small piece.  Never buy anything that you can rent forever.  If you pave a street, a three-cent brick should be worth thirty cents to the city.  Pave every street with a church on it.  Cultivate priests and acquire the bishop.  Encourage parents to send their kids to Catholic schools; it lowers the public-school budget. When in doubt, appoint another judge, and pay him enough so’s he don’t have the shake down the lawyers.  Cultivate lawyers.  They know how it is done and will do it.  Control the district attorney and never let him go; for he controls the grand juries.  Make friends with millionaires and give ‘em what they need.  Any traction company is a good traction company, and the same goes for electricity.  If you build a viaduct, make the contractor your partner. Whenever you confront a monopoly, acquire it.  Open an insurance company and make sure anybody doing city business buys a nice policy.  If you don’t know diddle about insurance, open a brewery and make ‘em buy your beer. Give your friends jobs, but at a price, and make new friends every day.  Let the sheriff buy anything he wants for the jail.  Never stop a ward leader from stealing; it’s what keeps him honest. Keep your plumbers and electricians working, and remember it takes three men to change a wire. Republicans are all right as long as they’re on our payroll.  A city job should raise a man’s dignity but not his wages.  Anybody on our payroll pays us dues, three percent of the yearly salary, which is nice. But if they’re on that new civil service and won’t pay and you can’t fire ‘em, transfer ‘em to the dump. If you find people who like to vote, let ‘em. Don’t be afraid to spend money for votes on Election Day.  It’s a godsend to the poor, and good for business; but make it old bills, ones and twos, or they get suspicious. And only give ‘em out in the river wards, never uptown. If an uptown voter won’t register Democrat, raise his taxes.  If he fights the raise, make him hire one of our lawyers to reduce it in court.  Once it’s lowered, raise it again next year.  Knock on every door and find out if they’re sick or pregnant or simpleminded, and vote ‘em. If they’re breathing, take ‘em to the polls.  If they won’t go, threaten ‘em. Find out who’s dead and who’s dying, which is as good as dead, and vote ‘em.  There’s a hell of a lot of dead and they never complain.  The opposition might cry fraud but let ‘em prove it after the election.  People say voting the dead is immoral, but what the hell, if they were alive they’d all be Democrats.  Just because they’re dead don’t mean they’re Republicans.

- Barry Orton

Madison School Referendum

On next Tuesday's ballot there is a referendum for Madison Metropolitan School District residents to vote on supporting public education.

As one Wisconsin business leader put it when discussing the challenges of global competition which includes everything from taxation to environmental regulation, "What I need is an intelligent workforce."

We invest every day. Some investments turn out better than others.

There is really no wiser and prudent investment than the education of our children.

An educated child makes more money and pays taxes. An uneducated child is in need of public support for housing, healthcare, and food. An educated child is less likely to go to prison and more likely to support charities. An uneducated child is more likely to become a parent at a young age and is likely to have greater health problems.

An educated child, obviously, is more likely to go on to college and be even more successful. An uneducated child is more likely to raise children who will also be uneducated.

The cost of less than $60 per household is a small cost for the benefits we will all accrue when this referendum passes next week.

Where Does WMC, Where Does WMC Watch, Go From Here?

When I posted Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce Downsizes for Elections and Image noting that the reduced presence of WMC in this fall's elections could be the result of a number of factors, Xoff pointed out that:

WMC, with its image taking a battering, decides to run a token amount of positive advertising and quietly give its big bucks to one of the other right-wing groups that's running untruthful negative ads against Dems all across the state. No requirement to report it, since it's not PAC money, and WMC lets someone else take the heat. Can I prove it? No. But it's plausible, given how much money WMC was raising and how little it appears to have spent directly.

Absolutely correct.

My guess is that WMC and WMC-sourced funds are down significantly this year. However, even if the they did not  redirect political funds into groups like the Club for Growth in this election cycle, the extreme right wing forces will do so in the spring 2009 Supreme Court race.

There are a number of scenarios:

• Money will continue to pour into WMC from US Chamber of Commerce backed sources and WMC will buy the ads.
• Money will pour into WMC from US Chamber sources and WMC will pass the money on to the Club for Growth, and other fronts.
• Money will pour into the Club for Growth and its clones directly from the US Chamber of Commerce, completely by-passing WMC.

All of these scenarios can have different outcomes in that some will be less effective than others.

All of these scenarios are designed to do the same thing - advance a right wing agenda utilizing a Willie Horton media campaign, for the purpose of undermining public education and eliminating reasonable government regulation that protects consumers and the environment.

The studies due after next Tuesday that look at the purchase of television time by these reactionary groups may give us some clue as to which tactic they are pursuing.

In any case, WMC Watch has much to do. Not only will we continue to monitor WMC's election activities, but we willl continue to expose its anti-environmental record, its anti-education record, its distortions about the nature of taxation in Wisconsin, and its plans for the 2010 gubernatorial election.

The Greatest Danger to the Republican Party: Sarah Palin

The Republican Party is in serious trouble. So is the United States.

For the first time since the 1930's there is a charismatic  American political leader with a populist bent who can lead a viable political movement towards fascism.

She is already following in the path of Charles Coughlin who linked arms in the 1930's with Charles Lindberg to build a 'peoples movement' focused to drive out the dual demons, Wall Street and the Communists.

With life imitating art and art imitating life, what comes to mind is Sinclair Lewis' It Can't Happen Here, the Frank Capra motion picture, Meet John Doe with Gary Cooper and Barbara Stanwyck, and Phillip Roth's The Plot Against America (2004).

The problem for the Republicans is that Palin owns the "god, guns, and gays" element of the Republican Party. She locked up the base the way John McCain, Mitt Romney, George W. Bush or even Ronald Reagan could only pretend to embrace. They engaged the abortion issue, guns, and the religious right, and the hatred for American institutions becasue it was politically exepedient.

Sarah Palin is a true believer and the base can tell the real thing.

Now she can lock up a presidential nomination for 2012. Even if the moderate Republicans can hold her off, Palin can bolt, and form her own Populist Party, and relegate the GOP to third party status.

The Neocons are at a loss as to what to do with her. Wall Street must be saved and they know that Communism is a phony issue.

For the rest of us, the challenge is stopping her and a movement with deep roots in American history that claims to appeal to the average Joe, Jane, or John Doe, be they plumber or not.

Author's note:

In his New York Times book review of The Plot Against America, Paul Berman reminds us that Jack London wrote about the topic, though fascism did not exist in 1908, the year The Iron Heel was published:

''The Iron Heel,'' in 1908, from the period before the word ''fascism'' even existed (though fascism was plainly what London had in mind, in the form of a plutocratic-Republican trade union dictatorship). Nearly 30 years later, Nathanael West produced a variation of his own called ''A Cool Million,'' which the Library of America resurrected not long ago — a freaky picture of an America taken over by murderous right-wing screwballs.

Wisconsin State Journal Endorsement of Theron Just Silly

The editorial endorsement today of Peter Theron by the Wisconsin State Journal over Tammy Baldwin for the Second Congressional District seat in the U.S. House of Representatives is just silly.

If the WSJ is mad at Rep. Baldwin for taking her House Judiciary Committee duties seriously and concluding impeachment is the best course to defend the Constitution, that's not sufficient to toss out a Congresswoman who has gained clout, delivered for the District in too many ways to count here, and is in line politically with the majority of the District's voters.

If the WSJ endorses Barack Obama, Ron Kind, and Paul Ryan, fine. It's not consistent, a stretch, but almost rational. When it endorses almost every local Republican Assembly candidate, regardless of qualifications, we can just think, "That's the good old knee-jerk State Journal we all know and try to tolerate." But Peter Theron?

The WSJ admits Theron is way out of the mainstream of Republican thought and has no support:

Theron's party isn't strongly behind him. He has raised the equivalent of pennies to Baldwin's pile of campaign cash. And some of Theron's politics lack the moderation a GOP challenger needs to win the Dane County-dominated seat.

In fact, Theron is by far the weakest candidate the Republicans have ever put up for the Second District since Scott Klug retired. So what's up with the deliberate disrespect towards Tammy Baldwin that this endorsement represents?

"Bizarre" and "ridiculous" are too weighty to describe this endorsement. "Ludicrous" or "surreal' come closer. But "silly" fits best.

- Barry Orton

Wisconsin Pays for Sarah Palin's Communist System

Wisconsin pays for Sarah Palin's Communist ways in Alaska. Stalin, move over.

The irony of the redistribution of money from one set of states to another is that the receiving states are generally Red States. The result is a taking of hard earned money from states like Wisconsin and sending those dollars to Alaska.

Here are some of the example of the redistribution of wealth that Palin and her pinko fellow travelers support:

• Interstate Highways. The construction of the federal interstate highway system, supposedly for national defense purposes, was financed by us northeners. Tax dollars from Illinois went to Alabama, from New York to Texas and from Wisconsin to Alaska. States too cheap to build their own highways saw new expressways financed by the industrial North and Midwest.
• Rural Eelectrification. We all know the story of the financing of the TVA. The north paid to bring electricity to the rural south. The way the south paid back the north was by opening non-union factories.
• Postal Service for Alaska.  Anyone who watches late night TV knows that shipping to Alaska and Hawaii costs more. To send a first class letter from Alaska to the lower forty-eight should require a doubling of the first class rates. Sarah Palin insists that Jill the Plumber pay for subsidizing mail to Alaska.
• Family travel. When I was in public office the public never paid for Sara or the kids' travel or lodging expenses. Making Joe the Plumber pay for $240 night lodging or $700 apiece airline tickets for her kids is the ultimate in Communism. Maybe she thinks taking from the poor and giving to the rich makes it OK.
• Federal gas-tax money. Alaska Thanks You.

According to Taxpayers for Common Sense, a non-partisan watchdog group in Washington, that breaks down to $1,150 for every Alaskan in "earmark" funding for in-state projects alone, 25 times what the average American garners for his or her home state.

That comes to $6.60 paid to Alaska for each dollar paid in. Wisconsin does a little better than breaking even getting back $1.05.

• All Taxes. Alaska ranks between 3rd and 5th over the last five years in receiving federal tax dollars. They get back about $1.85 for every dollar they send to Washington. Wisconsin gets back $0.84; we rank about 45th.
• The Bailout of AIG and Lehman Bro's. Enuf said.

Throughout her entire political career, Sarah Palin, Communist and fellow traveler, has had no problem taking redistributed wealth.

She has no problem with redistributing the wealth.

She never asks if the redistribution results in investment in infrastructure and human capacity that is environmentally sound and the best way to stimulate private investment.

Sarah Palin knows that even before the adoption of the flat federal income tax in 1894, the United States government has redistributed wealth. The movement of money from one group of taxpayers to another was advanced by the adoption of the Sixteenth amendment to the Constitution, the advent of the automobile on American roads, and accelerated by the Great Depression.

Republicans Escalate: Liberal, Socialist, Communist

You can tell the level of desperation among Republicans as the the name calling escalates in the weeks leading up to the November election.

For years the term liberal was the derogatory epithet to use against Democrats. It worked for almost three decades.

As the McCain campaign failed to get traction after the Palin selection fiasco, Democratic plans were labeled socialistic by none other than the fashion impaired vice presidential candidate. Sort of:

Palin uses the Plumber to call Obama socialist on CNN

“I'm not going to call him a socialist,” Palin said. “But as Joe the plumber has suggested, in fact he came right out and said it, it sounds like socialism to him. And he speaks for so many Americans who are quite concerned now after hearing finally what Barack Obama's true intentions are with his tax and economic plan.”

I know some good old fashion red-baiting when I see it. The Governor from Alaska, not content with ripping off her taxpayers with fancy holidays for her family at taxpayer expense, does not even have the courage to stand forth honestly before America and tell us what she thinks.

Cowardice at its best; thank you, Joe McCarthy.

 Bill O'Reilly does not mince words, sort of:

 Bill O'Reilly Calls Barack Obama "Communist" on ABC's "The View"

Bill O'Reilly, the Fox News Channel host, called Sen. Barack Obama a "communist" while on "The View" on Wednesday.

O'Reilly, the host of Fox News' show "The O'Reilly Factor," called Obama a "communist," "No, let me take that back," said O'Reilly. "He's a socialist".

Funny thing about all of this is it revolves around their distress that Obama will not continue the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy. The logic is simple. If the wealthy pay more taxes, then their proportion of support for government programs goes up and the responsibility for the middle class and the poor drops. That is a redistribution of wealth. Take your pick, either socialism or communism.

As for the $800 billion bailout of the biggest corporations in the world with executives making over $300 million a year in bonuses, that is not socialism.

Tommorrow we prove Sarah Palin is a Communist.

AIG, Chase, Will Again Buy Congress, This Time With More of Our Money

As the Congressional hearings begin, Congress Begins Mapping Financial Reform,  as to how to reconstruct regulations in the financial services industry, one critical element is ignored.

To date, no one is discussing how to prevent the salvaged corporations, run by greedy, unpatriotic, egotists, from making corporate contributions that end up supporting the election of those Members of Congress who supported the bailout.

Elements of greed were identified:

...a decade-long surge in leverage, risk and mortgage-lending abuses that produced a bonanza for a handful of elite investors...

Self serving gems were offered:

"...never again have the taxpayers pay for Wall Street's mistakes," said Illinois Republican Rep. Judy Biggert

The obvious was repeated:

"There should be a moratorium on it, on bonuses, yes,"

The unregulated pirating must end:

Lawmakers at the hearing called for more disclosure by hedge funds and private equity firms, as well as more openness in markets for credit default swaps.

No one addressed what got us into this mess: the long arm of Wall Street reaching into bloated wallets and spreading the money around the United States Congress.

It allowed them to purchase our Congress with our money in an excessive and vulgar manner and:

• donate directly to campaigns.

• send the money to the United States Chamber of Commerce or All Children Matter who used it to directly influence campaigns.

• send the money to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce who funneled into front groups to indirectly influence campaigns.

• send the money to directly to front groups to directly influence campaigns.

Not one dollar of the bail out, or one dollar belonging to bailed-out companies, can be sent to any organization that attempts to lobby Congress directly or indirectly, or that attempts to influence elections, directly or indirectly.

They can have their free speech, but for now, there is no free speech for bailouts. If they want their free speech, they can reject the bailout.

Last time Wall Street purchased Congress, they used obscene profits. This time they will use our tax dollars.

Picking a Needed Fight in Milwaukee, Naive or Not.

Jay Weber decided to take on Dan Cody, Left on the Lake, who supports an increase in the Milwaukee County sales tax.

Weber enters the fray with A Naive View of the Sales Tax Increase contending that an increase in the sales tax is regressive and hurts the poor more than the wealthy.

Cody (contends) that we are wrong to suggest that this is a regressive tax that will hit the poor harder than anyone....Frankly, I’d expect this position from a condescending liberal. It’s offensive. Cody seems to be suggesting that poor people don’t ever spend money on anything other than food, medication, and gasoline. Dan, the poor eat out, too. The poor buy furniture, clothing, televisions, and other consumer goods, too.

Jay, without my being condescending, let me suggest you do the math.

We did a study in Madison in the 1990's on this very subject and found that when compared to the property tax, an increase in the sales tax was less regressive.

Take a family of four with a $3500 monthly budget. This family of four is going to spend $600 a month for housing, $600 a month for non taxable food, and $250 a month for health care. All exempt from the sales tax. Assume another $400 a month for child care for the two kids.

That leaves them with expenditures of $1650 for taxable items and I am including all tranportation costs including gasoline. A 1/2 cent sales tax per month will be $8.25 or 2.3 tenths of a percent of their income.

Now take a family of four with a $204,000 income or $17,000 a month. Housing (taxes, mortgage ) will run about $2500. Food will be $1100.  Health care will be only $200 a month since they have insurance. Lets assume $4000 a month in taxes, $200 for professional services, $800 for child care, and another $2000 saved.

Our wealthy family is now spending $6200 a month on taxable goods which includes car payments (rich people spend more on expensive news cars than do poor people), vacations, electronics and appliances, jewelry and more costly clothing.

Our wealthier family finds that a 1/2 cent sales tax is costing them $31 a month  or 4.5 tenths of a percent of their income or almost twice the rate of the low income family.

That sounds pretty progressive to me.

I do not have access to the original study but the findings were similar. The irony is that we prepared it to present to liberal Democrats in the legislature who were locked into the 1950's notion that a sales tax fell unfarily upon the poor and middle class.

That was true fifty years ago but it is not true today. The nature of our economy has changed and the wealthy have considerable expendable income that they use for items subject to a sales tax. It is almost as though the sales tax becomes an excise tax on the rich so long as exemptions remain for shelter, health, and non processed food.

If Jay would like to do something to really crush regressive taxes, he will support a more progressive state income tax so that there is no need for a sales tax increase and property taxes can be lowered.

The poor do spend a considerably smaller portion of their income on dining out, furniture, clothing, televisions, and other consumer goods including that expensive new car and computers.

Oh, we did find two groups on the low income end who did not benefit. University students living in state owned residence halls, and low income people living in public housing. Neither benefit from lower lower property taxes to the tune of about $5 a year.