Independent voters see Pres. Obama in a negative light by a nearly 2-1 margin, according to a new Marist College survey, while almost half of voters say he has failed to meet their expectations.
The poll, conducted Feb. 1-3, showed just 44% of registered voters approving of Obama's job as president. 47% disapprove. But among indie voters, Obama's approval rating sits at a terrible 29%, while his disapproval rating is at 57%.
Obama's 44% job approval rating is the lowest he has scored in any non-internet poll since moving into the WH, according to a review of data compiled by Pollster.com.
And while GOPers strive to avoid attacking Obama personally, for fear of offending voters who see him in a favorable light personally, even that aura of invincibility is wearing off. Independent voters view Obama negatively, too, by a 39% favorable to 52% unfavorable margin. All registered voters still see Obama favorably by a 50%-44% margin, but that's down 5 points in just 2 months.
Voters are disappointed in what they got with Obama's first year. The poll shows 47% believe Obama has failed to meet their expectations -- including a quarter of Dems, 65% of GOPers and 53% of indie voters -- while just 42% say he has met their expectations. 38% say Obama's policies are moving the country in the wrong direction, while 37% say they're making the country better.
The political need for Obama to make such a bold move is underscored by his relatively low 36% approval rating on his handling of healthcare. Obama’s healthcare approval rating is statistically little different from the 37% he received last month, but the two ratings are the lowest of his administration.
Americans give Obama his lowest rating, 32%, on handling the federal budget deficit, down from 38% when this was last measured in September. His ratings on the deficit have trailed his overall approval rating each time they have been measured. In late March, for example, Obama received 49% approval on handling the deficit while at the same time his overall approval rating was above 60%.
If there is ever a contest to pick which word has done the most damage to people's thinking, and to actions to carry out that thinking, my nomination would be the word "fair." It is a word thrown around by far more people than have ever bothered to even try to define it.
This mushy vagueness may be a big handicap in logic but it is a big advantage in politics. All sorts of people, with very different notions about what is or is not fair, can be mobilized behind this nice-sounding word, in utter disregard of the fact that they mean very different things when they use that word.
Some years ago, for example, there was a big outcry that various mental tests used for college admissions or for employment were biased and "unfair" to many individuals or groups. Fortunately there was one voice of sanity-- David Riesman, I believe-- who said: "The tests are not unfair. LIFE is unfair and the tests measure the results."
The highest paid city government employee last year wasn't the mayor. It wasn't the police chief. It wasn't even the head of Metro Transit.
Nelson earned $159,258 in 2009, including $109,892 in overtime and other pay. He and his colleague, driver Greg Tatman, who earned $125,598, were among the city's top 20 earners for 2009, city records show.
They're among the seven bus drivers who made more than $100,000 last year thanks to a union contract that lets the most senior drivers who have the highest base salaries get first crack at overtime.
And there was a lot of overtime - $1.94 million last year, $467,200 more than the bus system budgeted for and the most ever for the system - as employees exhausted sick leave and took advantage of unpaid leave through the federal Family Medical Leave Act, officials said.
In 2013, when President Mitch Daniels, former Indiana governor, is counting his blessings, at the top of his list will be the name of his vice president: Paul Ryan. The former congressman from Wisconsin will have come to office with ideas for steering the federal government to solvency. ...
Ummmm, did this really sell Audis? I was with them until the very end.....And somehow can't imagine that eco-activists were really happy with this portrayal of their dystopian fantasy.
Hasn't a gaffe famously been defined as when a politician inadvertently speaks the truth. Take State Senator Jim Holperin (D-Conover):
"You know the Governor's got enough little tax and fee hikes in that budget of his to sink a good sized battleship. So there's no shortage of revenue 'uppers' for the legislature to consider and for the voters to get mad over ..."
Late last year, in a December letter to the editor sent to local newspapers, state Sen. Jim Holperin (D-Conover) lauded the progress he said the state was making under the leadership of Gov. Jim Doyle and the Democratic-controlled Legislature.
Holperin pointed to the state's improved tax ranking - Wisconsin is the nation's 15th highest taxed state; it had been higher - and said the new 2010-11 budget should keep the rate moving steadily downward by reducing spending and raising taxes negligibly.
However, in several emails last year to Beth Tornes, a grant writer at the Great Lakes InterTribal Council, Holperin had an entirely different take on taxes and the state of the state's budget: there were lots of new taxes, he wrote, and the Democrats were responsible for them.
Tornes had written Holperin last Oct. 7 asking him to support comprehensive drunk driving legislation, as well as a beer tax to help fund law enforcement, treatment services and prevention programs.
Holperin replied, saying the beer tax was not going to happen.
"We Democrats authorized all kinds of new taxes in the recently adopted state budget (cigarette taxes, capital gains taxes, solid waste fees, cell phone tax, boat registration fee, etc. etc.) and took a lot of heat for that," Holperin wrote. "Nobody is eager to be voting for 'another' tax increase ... especially on beer! We're a brewery state, for crumb sakes (which maybe also explains our alcohol culture...)!"
As the Assembly Speaker deals with the fall out from revelations he has ‘dated’ a registered lobbyist for the payday lending industry (or as he said ’a gal’) look for Wisconsin businesses and our economy to bear the burden of any of his alleged personal indiscretions.
That some of the more liberal members of the Assembly caucus have been concerned with Sheridan’s tepid support for many of the anti-business planks of their agenda is well known in and around the Capitol. In fact, the much-reported lengthy caucus which took place last week centered on more than just Sheridan’s perceived reluctance to advance new regulations on the payday loan industry and included the airing of grievances on multiple issues. ...
Either way, look for the State Assembly to appease their labor union base during this turmoil and take up and pass three key pieces of legislation whose fates had otherwise been uncertain prior to “Gal Gate.”
*Wage Lien - Establish the priority of a wage lien over the pre-existing lien of commercial lenders. This would remove the current $3,000 cap in the state’s wage claim lien law (already the most generous in the nation). This would make it impossible for a lender to calculate how much of a business’ collateral can be pledged against a line of credit or other loan. This severely hampers businesses’ access to credit at a time when we need businesses to expand and provide more jobs.
*Minimum Wage - Increase the state minimum wage from $6.50 per hour to $7.60 per hour and indexes the rate as of June 1, 2009. In addition, the bill repeals the state preemption of local living wage ordinances in Wisconsin. Making it more expensive to create entry level jobs will prolong Wisconsin’s participation in the current economic crisis.
*Mental Health Parity - Require all group health plans to provide mental health and substance abuse disorder benefits at the same level as benefits for physical conditions. This would make it more expensive to employ any and every person, if the employer provides medical health benefits. Employers will either stop providing the benefits, or employ fewer people as they absorb this new cost.
All three of these bills have passed the State Senate and are awaiting action by the State Assembly. Out of necessity, if not out of conviction, look for the Assembly Democratic leadership to now move on these in the near future.
CCAP. That's the website that quickly helps you see whether someone's been involved in a WI court case-- from a traffic ticket to a murder. But some want to restrict our access to CCAP and the knowledge the government actually supplies to the average guy who wants to search for it. Why?
BusinessWire - Boston College's Center on Wealth and Philanthropy today released a study showing that from 2004 through 2008, $70 billion dollars in wealth left New Jersey, while the state's charitable capacity declined by $1.13 billion. ...
From 1999 through 2003, New Jersey saw an in-migration of wealth of $98 billion and, in the same period, charitable capacity increased by $881 million. From 2004 through 2009, the complete reversal of that trend occurred, which amounted to a total decline in charitable capacity of approximately $2 billion.
"This study is important because it is the first time we have captured the movement of household wealth from one part of the country to another," said John Havens, Senior Research Associate at the Center on Wealth and Philanthropy. "The migration of wealth out of New Jersey is substantial and significant."
Last Friday, Rep. Paul Ryan looked like President Barack Obama’s new Republican best friend. The president showered praise on everything from his substantive budget proposal to his family during the now-legendary question-and-answer session with House Republicans.
But rather than opening a hopeful new avenue for bipartisanship, the White House and Hill Democrats quickly went to work ripping apart Ryan’s “Roadmap for America’s Future” — which Obama himself said he had read.
Democrats accused the Wisconsin Republican of trying to privatize Social Security, cut taxes for the rich and increase them for the middle class. Medicare would be allowed to “wither on the vine.” Here we go again, Rep. Xavier Becerra (D-Calif.) said Thursday of Ryan’s proposal. On Capitol Hill, Office of Management and Budget Director Peter Orszag deconstructed the plan, saying it would address long-term fiscal problems but in a way that many policymakers might find “objectionable” because it would shift risks and costs onto individuals and their families.
In just a week, Ryan had gone from being seen as the smart conservative whom Obama might take seriously to being seen as the symbol of how Democrats believe Republicans would dismantle the social safety net if the GOP took control of Congress.
Democrats voted to raise the national debt limit by a staggering $19 trillion Thursday. How much is $1.9 TRLLION?
WASHINGTON – A 1.9 trillion-mile trip is about the same as 8 million trips to the moon.
Unfortunately, the $1.9 trillion in new borrowing authority Congress is giving President Barack Obama won't take people quite that far. The additional $1.9 trillion raises the debt ceiling to $14.3 trillion, but that limit may have to be increased again after the November election.
No matter how you look at it, 1.9 trillion is a lot. In dollars, it equals about $6,000 for every man, woman and child in the U.S. It's almost twice all the money America has spent on military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan since 2001.
That amount would buy about 422 Nimitz Class aircraft carriers, which run about $4.5 billion apiece. It would be enough to provide Pell grants of $5,000 to some 380 million low-income students, a number exceeding the entire population of the country.
And 1.9 trillion feet would take you to the top of Mount Everest 65 million times, or to the bottom of the 36,000-foot Mariana Trench, the deepest point in the Pacific, about 53 million times.
In terms of time, 1.9 trillion seconds adds up to about 60,000 years. And 1.9 trillion hours ago, or almost 220 million years ago, dinosaurs were just beginning to dominate the Earth.
A year later, after stunning Democratic setbacks in Virginia, New Jersey and Massachusetts, Obama gave a stay-the-course State of the Union address (a) pledging not to walk away from health care reform, (b) seeking to turn college education increasingly into a federal entitlement, and (c) asking again for cap-and-trade energy legislation. Plus, of course, another stimulus package, this time renamed a "jobs bill."
This being a democracy, don't the Democrats see that clinging to this agenda will march them over a cliff? Don't they understand Massachusetts?
Well, they understand it through a prism of two cherished axioms: (1) The people are stupid and (2) Republicans are bad. Result? The dim, led by the malicious, vote incorrectly.
Liberal expressions of disdain for the intelligence and emotional maturity of the electorate have been, post-Massachusetts, remarkably unguarded. New York Times columnist Charles Blow chided Obama for not understanding the necessity of speaking "in the plain words of plain folks," because the people are "suspicious of complexity." Counseled Blow: "The next time he gives a speech, someone should tap him on the ankle and say, 'Mr. President, we're down here.'"
A Time magazine blogger was even more blunt about the ankle-dwelling mob, explaining that we are "a nation of dodos" that is "too dumb to thrive...
Paul Ryan calls out Nancy Pelosi as Democrats vote to raise the national debt by another $1.9 trillion.
“The Speaker of the House came and just said something to the effect that this was a proud moment – a happy occasion – a bill she’s really excited about. The bill we’re about to vote on, Madame Speaker, raises the national debt ceiling by $1.9 trillion. Even if I were a supporter of this bill, I wouldn’t be proud of it…This, Madame Speaker, is a fiscal charade.
“Real people, from both parties, need to step up and solve this problem. I’ve thrown out a few ideas of my own. I hope other Republicans and Democrats do the same. Because Madame Speaker, if we don’t tackle this problem, it’s going to tackle us.
“Our constituents sent us here to be a part of the solution, and not a part of the problem. We know irrefutably we’re going to bequeath this mountain of deficit and debt onto the next generation. Both of our parties share in the blame. No one party corners a virtue on fiscal responsibility. But we’re going to together have to come down here and fix this problem once and for all, and this doesn’t do it. This bill raises the debt limit by $1.9 trillion. It’s a fiscal cop-out so that we can talk tough in the election about how we did this and that, while we bequeathed the next generation an inferior standard of living.
“I didn’t come here to make sure that my three kids are going to have a life that’s worse off than ours. Nobody here wants that, so let’s get this fixed, defeat this bill, come together, and exercise real fiscal discipline. The American people are not under-taxed – we overspend.”
Despite all the uncertainties, if the election were held today, the Crystal Ball can outline its early projections: Republicans would pick up nine governorships currently held by Democrats, but lose three they currently occupy. Therefore, the GOP would have a net gain of six governorships, plus opportunities to play offense in three more toss-up races in states where Democrats now reign. The Crystal Ball foresees sizeable Republican gains in both houses of Congress, so it isn’t a great surprise that the GOP would add statehouses, too. The same voters will cast ballots simultaneously in federal and state elections. However, the overall number of probable governorship gains for Republicans may raise a few eyebrows in the political community.
Like, for instance, the notion that during “the last eight years,” as the phrase goes, it was all abstinence, all the time. Thus state Sen. Judy Robson (D-Beloit) was hysterically insisting the other day, as she voted to ban abstinence-ed programs in Wisconsin schools, that “we have done it your way” and “it failed miserably.”
Did we? Did, under the Bush administration, the federal government push abstinence only?
Well, no, as The Foundry points out. In the latter Bush years, the Heritage Foundation’s blog points out, “the federal government spent four dollars on condom education and distribution for teens for every dollar spent on abstinence.”
By that measure, the Bush years were the Rubber Age...
This has gone beyond embarrassing... The Administration's job "saved or created" metric simply redefine absurdity. It's almost like they no longer care whether anybody believes them.
A new report touts more than 10,300 jobs created or saved in Wisconsin by federal stimulus money in the last three months of 2009.
But the jobs listed are based on new accounting rules that make it impossible to track the total number of jobs created or saved by the program. And the updated guidelines also make it impossible to avoid double counting from quarter to quarter.
Many in the media have cast 2009’s sentencing reforms as early release for “non-violent offenders.” However, the changes actually give violent felons – including homicide offenders – multiple new chances to get out of prison early and to shorten their state supervision in the community.
Felons who beat up or point guns at cops or who cause a death while fleeing an officer? They can get time shaved off their sentences now. So can those who batter judges, witnesses, and jurors. Those who cause mayhem or subject someone to false imprisonment? Some stalkers? They can get time off too.
Arsonists, hostage takers, carjackers, armed robbers, some homicide offenders, some weapons offenders (such as those who modify firearms to make them into machine guns), some aggravated batterers, some child and elder abusers, some felons who neglect children leading to their deaths, and felons who ask children to participate in gangs?
They are also eligible to get out early. That’s just for starters. Furthermore, that partial list doesn’t even include those now eligible to get out early based on health problems or age – provisions that apply to everyone who qualifies, no matter the offense. Corrections now interprets “health problems” so expansively that they can mean only mental illness.
Congressman Paul Ryan: I brought up page 146 in your budget which is your S-1 budget totals (http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/fy2011/assets/budget.pdf). When you take a look at this, I just find this amazing. You’ve got budget totals here, which by your own admission, from your own Budget Director, and you’re a smart guy, you’ve got smart economists over there, all of them say, that for the medium and long-run budget deficits have to get below 3% of GDP, yet this budget plan that you’re bringing to us doesn’t even get close to it.
Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner: You’re exactly right.
Ryan: Since I have three minutes, you have this warning under here. It’s like a warning on a cigarette pack. You have this little magic box underneath your budget totals that says: we’re going to have a commission do it. We’re going to have this partisan commission that will give us a report after the election.
Geithner: Let me say it slightly differently, we’re going to solve our part of the mess we inherited. We inherited a structural deficit and to bring that down, we’re going to have to work together.
Ryan: Why don’t you solve this problem in your Budget? You run the government, if you are going to solve our fiscal situation, why don’t you do that? Why don’t you give us a budget that actually gets our deficits to sustainable levels? Let me read a quote from OMB Director Peter Orszag in the Wall Street Journal: “The unusual situation that the government finds itself in with other countries willing to finance U.S. debt at low rates won’t last.” He added, when it flips, the question is: how do you get ahead of that to avoid the downward spiral of rising interest rates, plunging dollar, a sinking economy.
Geithner: I think it’s a good quote, too. I agree with that.
Ryan: The vigilantes in the bond market are going to get us and the American people are going to get hurt. And so, why aren’t you giving us a budget - not punting to a commission - why aren’t you giving us a budget that using your own standards and definitions actually is sustainable?
Geithner: Congressman, we are proposing a budget that takes the huge mess we inherited and cuts that deficit dramatically.
Ryan: You can blame Bush only so long. You obviously inherited a tough situation, but you are making it worse by your own admission.
Expect a lot more of this to come in the coming months-- there is a lot of dirt on Giannoulias that goes beyond just this, and there will be a lot of muck to rake on this guy. Democrats made a phenomenal mistake in nominating him, no matter how you look at it: this is the guy Mark Kirk desperately wanted to run against, and national Republicans are chomping at the bit on this one knowing that even if by some miracle, Giannoulias pulls this off, his apparent tendency to behave in an ethically-challenged manner will prove an ongoing headache for national level Democrats, including Obama (with whom he is close friends) should he ever make it into the US Senate. Roland Burris has been bad enough on this level, but those who have observed him closely believe Giannoulias could easily become the new Burris-Blago cross-- something that Illinois, and the country, undoubtedly does not need, but which probably represents about the biggest windfall Republicans could hope to get all year long-- and in a year where Democrats are already deep in trouble, that's saying something.
U.S. Sen. Kohl: Statement on President Obama's proposed budget 2/1/2010
“We need to focus on creating jobs and growing the economy. And we need to balance that against the necessity of reducing and eliminating our deficits. This budget begins to tackle our deficit problem by freezing spending for many programs. More should be done to get deficits under control, and it should be done in a bi-partisan manner, and I look forward to being part of that effort.”
Campaign finance reports and state e-mails show former Racine lawmaker Jeff Neubauer made a campaign contribution to the author of proposed environmental legislation with benefits to Neubauer’s company on the same day the proposal was unveiled at news conferences.
Just filed reports for the campaign committee of Rep. Cory Mason (D-Racine) show Neubauer made a contribution of $100 on Sept. 25, 2009.
State records show on Sept. 22, Neubauer e-mailed a member of Mason’s staff with “the final language for the bill” on requiring schools to use cleaning methods approved by Atlanta non-profit firm, Greenguard Environmental Institute (GEI).
The e-mail also included media instructions. “Announce and release the bill in the form that is attached on Friday.” The date associated with Neubauer’s directive is Sept. 25, when Mason unveiled the proposal publicly.
MADISON...State Representative Brett Davis (R-Oregon), State Senator Robert Cowles (R-Green Bay), and State Representative Bill Kramer (R-Waukesha) have requested an audit of the contracts and contracting procedures used to meet the state’s renewable energy purchase goals that have come under scrutiny in recent days.
In a letter to Senator Kathleen Vinehout (D-Alma) and Representative Peter Barca (D-Kenosha), co-chairs of the Joint Legislative Audit Committee, the legislators expressed their concerns with a 2008 state contract with WPPI Energy. The letter questions the details of a contract that has left taxpayers paying an overcharged rate of $1.4 million.
“Families and businesses across Wisconsin are already paying too much in taxes,” Davis said. “I think we owe it the taxpayers to ensure all details of this questionable contract are revealed.”
Davis first raised concerns in a letter to the Department of Administration last week after initial reporting in the Wisconsin State Journal highlighted the fact that WPPI Energy received a 2009 rate from the State of Wisconsin that was 3.3 times the rate they charged their residential customers for the same renewable energy. Further investigation into the situation revealed the state, for the first time ever, locked itself into a set rate for many years with WPPI Energy. ..
The State of Wisconsin has been purchasing the energy to help meet a goal of increased renewable energy consumption by state government. The state has contracted with Madison Gas and Electric and Wisconsin Energy at a rate of about 1 cent more per kilowatt hour for the renewable energy, compared to 3.3 cents more for WPPI Energy.
“Taxpayers should not have to pay 29 percent more for this energy,” said Kramer. “I look forward to reviewing any information that this audit would uncover.”
For years, mind you, the “progressive” refrain has been that if only the “rich” would pay their fair share, we’d be sitting in clover. Yet a trillion bucks sucked away out of the productive economy vanishes with no appreciable effect on Washington’s death-spiralling finances.
The typical accelerants to ignite a recovery -- expanding credit and fiscal stimulus -- are lacking however.
The Federal Reserve found no let-up in tight bank-lending standards in its latest quarterly survey of senior bank-lending officers released Monday.
And the Obama Administration's proposed fiscal 2011 budget includes massive tax increases on upper incomes -- those who pay the lion's share of taxes and are most likely to invest, expand new businesses, and hire employees.
The tap on bank lending was shut tightly in the credit collapse of the fourth-quarter 2008, and as yet hasn't been opened up meaningfully. The only faint sign of easing in the latest survey was in commercial and industrial loans for large and mid-sized firms -- just the sort of borrowers that can tap the capital markets, where credit is readily available, and thus have no need for bank loans. Precisely three banks in the Fed's survey said they were loosening up a bit, while 52 said they were maintaining their previous -- that is, stringent -- standards.
As Gluskin Sheff's Rosenberg noted in his Monday missive to clients, bank lending continued to contract in the latest reporting week, with C&I loans down $500 million, real-estate loans down by $2 billion and consumer loans down by $4.6 billion. All told, the contraction in bank credit has totaled some $600 billion. This may be why the sustainability of the recovery once government stimulus programs end is being questioned by Mr. Market, he adds.
On the fiscal side, the reversion of taxes to former peak-marginal rates as high as 39.6% on high-income individuals would come as part of a $1.9 trillion tax hike across the economy under the proposed Obama Administration budget for 2011. Regardless of your opinion of the equity of those tax rates, the increased burden won't help the feeble economy.
In addition, the budget proposes increasing the current 15% federal-tax rate on dividends and capital gains to 20% for upper-income taxpayers. All in all, the only winning investment to come out of the budget proposals appears to be tax-exempt bonds.
