Another sign of the Two Americas: Government workers feel no pain.

The recession and the ongoing jobless recovery devastated much of the private-sector work force last year, sending unemployment soaring, but government workers emerged essentially unscathed, according to data released Wednesday by the Labor Department.

Meanwhile, the compensation for state and local government employees continued to easily outdistance the wages and benefits for workers in private business, a separate Labor Department report showed.

Private-industry employers spent an average of $27.42 per hour worked for total employee compensation in December, while total compensation costs for state and local government workers averaged $39.60 per hour.

The average government wage and salary per hour of $26.11 was 35 percent higher than the average wage and salary of $19.41 per hour in the private sector. But the percentage difference in benefits was much higher. Benefits for state and local workers averaged $13.49 per hour, nearly 70 percent higher than the $8 per hour in benefits paid by private businesses.

A new Gallup poll shows skepticism about Global Warming Hype at an all time high. Kind of looks like the old hockey stick doesn't it?

From the New England Journal of Medicine.....

What if nearly half of all physicians in America stopped practicing medicine? While a sudden loss of half of the nations physicians seems unlikely, a very dramatic decrease in the physician workforce could become a reality as an unexpected side effect of health reform....

Why would physicians want to leave medicine in the wake of health reform? The survey results, as seen in Market Watch, indicate that many physicians worry that reform could result in a significant decline in the overall quality of medical care nationwide.

Additionally, many physicians feel that health reform will cause income to decrease, while workload will increase. Forty-one percent of respondents feel that income and practice revenue will “decline or worsen dramatically” as a result of health reform with a public option, and 31 percent feel that a public option will cause income and practice revenue to “decline or worsen somewhat” as a result. This makes for a total of 72 percent of respondents who feel there would be a negative impact on income. When asked the same question regarding health reform implemented without a public option, a total of 50 percent of respondents feel that income and practice revenue will be negatively impacted, including 14 percent of total respondents who feel that income and practice revenue will “decline or worsen dramatically.” Additionally, 36 percent feel it would “decline or worsen somewhat.”

This just keeps better. Yesterday, we discussed the "Legilsative Alert!" sent out by State Senator Lena Taylor for a Beauty seminar that offers tips on everything from boob jobs to tummy tucks to nose jobs. See this post.

No we get a response from Taylor's own office -- and even though it's only March, it's already in the running for quote of the year. From Wispolitics:

Taylor's office said the email was sent to subscribers to her legislative email list to inform constituents about a community event. The event is taking place in Sen. Spencer Coggs district, just a few blocks from Taylor's district boundary.

"We as many other legislators do, send out information about community events that are happening that may have interest," said Taylor aide Eric Peterson, noting many constituents have concerns about skin care.

I'm guessing they also have concern about crime, poverty, illegitimacy, joblessness a failing public school system, social dysfunction....and utterly clueless political leaders. Via Wispolitics, you can see the flyer here: http://www.wispolitics.com/1006/100310taylor_email.pdf
 

Is The One...losing his base?

Liberal and progressive organizations that helped propel him to the White House are turning on him now, little more than a year after he took office. Their collective discontent, on issues from health care to nuclear energy to the handling of terrorism suspects, could mean bad news for Democrats during this fall's congressional elections.

Provocative question from Powerline.

Just what we need.. more unemployment on both the House and the Senate. Caroline Baum.

March 10 (Bloomberg) -- The public is mad as hell at Washington: at the corruption, the underhanded deals, the earmarks, the sense of entitlement that comes with lifetime employment. If we don’t want to take it anymore, we can do something about it.

We the People of the United States need to make clear to our representatives in Congress, or their challengers, that our vote in November is contingent on what’s-his-name’s support for term limits. No support, no vote. Got it?

State Senator Lena Taylor sent this Legislative Alert!! out on Tuesday:

From:        "Sen.Taylor" <Sen.Taylor@noreply.legis.wisconsin.gov>
To:        
Date:        03/09/2010 10:05 AM
Subject:        Senator Lena Taylor Legislative Alert!  Health and Beauty Seminar


Health & Beauty Seminar

Saturday March 20^th, 2010

Speaker: Elton Xavier Tinsley, M.D.

Every beauty topic Covered

Every Beauty question answered

This FREE seminar is hosted by:

Dr. Tinsley & Associates

Plastic Surgery & Cosmetic Medicine

Chicago Naperville Milwaukee

Warren McIver Foot Clinics

Doors Open at 1pm

RSVP at 414-831-0025 with number of guests

Park Lawn Assembly of God Campus

Cup of Life Café     Refreshment$ Available

3725 N. Sherman Blvd. Milwaukee, Wisconsin

Please See Attached Flyer!

**

Sheriff David Clarke Jr. comments:

Mayor Barrett flipped, before he flopped.

Emailer writes:

Barrett is a real turncoat.  Last July he joined other Milwaukee officials in lobbying the state to use Super Steel to build the trains.  Then at the last minute he pulls the contract out from underneath Super Steel so he can claim that he’s a big job creator.   creator.  I guess saving jobs at a 75 year old Milwaukee firm isn’t as sexy as building a new train facility on taxpayer funded land.

Last July:

Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett, state Rep. Jon Richards (D-Milwaukee) and other members of the state Legislature this week are requesting that assembly of the trains Wisconsin agreed to purchase earlier this month be done at the Super Steel plant in Milwaukee.

Uh, never mind.

Michael Gerson:

WASHINGTON -- Whatever the legislative fate of health reform -- now in the hands of a few besieged House Democrats -- the health reformers have failed in their argument. Their proposal has divided Democrats while uniting Republicans, returned American politics to well-worn ideological ruts, employed legislative tactics that smack of corruption, squandered the president's public standing, lowered public regard for Congress to French revolutionary levels, sucked the oxygen from other agenda items, re-engaged the abortion battle, produced freaks and prodigies of nature such as a Republican senator from Massachusetts, raised questions about the continued governability of America and caused the White House chief of staff to distance himself from the president's ambitions.

Robert Samuelson wonders whether the Millenials will turn out to be the Chump Generation. I'm guessing yes, and oh yes.

Regardless, more bad news may lie ahead. As baby boomers retire, higher federal spending on Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid may boost Millennials' taxes and squeeze other government programs. It will be harder to start and raise families.

Millennials could become the chump generation. They could suffer for their elders' economic sins, particularly the failure to confront the predictable costs of baby boomers' retirement. This poses a question. In 2008, Millennials voted 2 to 1 for Barack Obama; in surveys, they say they're more disposed than older Americans to big and activist government. Their ardor for Obama is already cooling. Will higher taxes dim their enthusiasm for government?

...that the world would love us. If we just apologized enough. If we were nicer to terrorists? Shut Gitmo? Gave them Miranda rights? If we elected The One?

A majority of Americans say the United States is less respected in the world than it was two years ago and think President Obama and other Democrats fall short of Republicans on the issue of national security, a new poll finds.

The Democracy Corps-Third Way survey released Monday finds that by a 10-point margin -- 51 percent to 41 percent -- Americans think the standing of the U.S. dropped during the first 13 months of Mr. Obama's presidency.

"This is surprising, given the global acclaim and Nobel peace prize that flowed to the new president after he took office," said pollsters for the liberal-leaning organizations.

On the national security front, a massive gap has emerged, with 50 percent of likely voters saying Republicans would likely do a better job than Democrats, a 14-point swing since May. Thirty-three percent favored Democrats.

Ann Althouse counts our blessings.

In fact, I'm making a list of Things I Like About Obama:

1. By continuing to fight the wars that George Bush started, he has crushed the hope of the people who bought into the campaign abstraction "hope."

2. By putting his name on many of the policies that George Bush was condemned for adopting, he has rehabilitated the reputation of George Bush .

3. ...

...of low expectations. Via Powerline, here come the racial bean counters.

The Obama administration's Department of Education has announced that it will crack down on "civil-rights infractions" in public schools, including alleged disparities in the disciplining of white and black students. This means that the administration will identify and investigate situations in which a facially neutral discipline system -- offense X brings punishment Y -- results in blacks being discplined more often than whites. School systems will face the prospect of being punished unless they can explain the disparities, presumably based on a painstaking analysis of each disciplinary decision.

As Roger Clegg points out, the easy way out for schools -- and what school bureaucrat won't prefer the easy way out -- is to make sure the numbers pass muster, i.e., to make discipline decisions based not solely on the merits, but also on the basis of race. And since administrators aren't likely to mete out punishment just to balance the numbers, they will balance them by going easier on black students because they are black.

How about we start with ACORN.

Five Wisconsin residents have been charged with criminal counts of voter fraud in the November 2008 general election, state Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen announced Monday.

Two of those charged - Maria Miles, 36, of Milwaukee, and Kevin Clancy, 26, of Racine - worked for the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), the embattled community organizing group.

Where the president of the school board... can't write.

It's bad enough that Detroit Public Schools (DPS) graduates a pathetic 1 in 4 students, the worst in the nation. That obscene graduation rate is only that high because DPS commits 'social promotion' - the practice of passing students onto the next grade who are not ready, a practice that DPS emergency financial manager Robert Bobb has just ended (Detroit Public Schools Finally Ends "Social Promotion" - Passing Students That Can't Read Their Diplomas). That same Robert Bobb has been fighting with the teachers union and with the Detroit school board for academic control of the district. The school board is led by Otis Mathis, who wrote a mass email last August:

Do DPS control the Foundation or outside group? If an outside group control the foundation, then what is DPS Board row with selection of is director? Our we mixing DPS and None DPS row's, and who is the watch dog?

And here's the beginning of an email to supporters a few days ago that started with this:

If you saw Sunday's Free Press that shown Robert Bobb the emergency financial manager for Detroit Public Schools, move Mark Twain to Boynton which have three times the number seats then students and was one of the reason's he gave for closing school to many empty seats.

Prosecutor says police dragging feet on voter fraud issues

Could it be because the City of Milwaukee -- in particular, it's mayor -- simply don't take voter fraud seriously? And are, in fact, in serious denial? Do you think Barrett's attitude might have had... a chilling effect?

FLASHBACK: From the Wall Street Journal on election day, 2008:

Last week Mike Sandvick, head of the Milwaukee Police Department's five-man Special Investigative Unit, was told by superiors not to send anyone to polling places on Election Day. He was also told his unit -- which wrote the book on how fraud could subvert the vote in his hometown -- would be disbanded.

"We know what to look for," he told me, "and that scares some people." In disgust, Mr. Sandvick plans to retire. (A police spokeswoman claims the unit isn't being disbanded and that any changes to the unit "aren't significant.")

In February, Mr. Sandvick's unit released a 67-page report on what it called an "illegal organized attempt to influence the outcome of (the 2004) election in the state of Wisconsin" -- a swing state whose last two presidential races were decided by less than 12,000 votes.

The report found that between 4,600 and 5,300 more votes were counted in Milwaukee than the number of voters recorded as having cast ballots. Absentee ballots were cast by people living elsewhere; ineligible felons not only voted but worked at the polls; transient college students cast improper votes; and homeless voters possibly voted more than once.

Much of the problem resulted from Wisconsin's same-day voter law, which allows anyone to show up at the polls, register and then cast a ballot. ID requirements are minimal. If someone lacks any ID, he can vote so long as someone who lives in the same city vouches for him. The report found that in 2004 a total of 1,305 "same day" voters gave information that was declared "un-enterable" or invalid by election officials.

According to the report, this loophole was abused by many out-of-state workers for the John Kerry campaign. They had "other staff members who were registered voters vouch for them by corroborating their residency."

The investigative unit believed at least 16 workers from the Kerry campaign, and two allied get-out-the-vote groups, "committed felony crimes." But local prosecutors didn't pursue them in part because of a "lack of confidence" in the abysmal record-keeping of the city's Election Commission.

Pat Curley, Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett's chief of staff, told me he was very upset by the surprise release of the report. "I don't believe all of the facts are necessarily accurate," he said. Which ones? He only cited the report's interpretation of state policy on homeless voters. He denies the mayor's office had any role in disbanding the unit.

Mr. Sandvick says the problems his unit found in 2004 are "only the tip of the iceberg" of what could happen today. His unit has found out-of-state groups registering their temporary workers, a college dorm with 60 voters who aren't students, and what his unit believes are seven illegal absentee ballots.

The CBO now says that policies of the Obama administration will an additional $9.7 trillion to the national debt in the next 10 years.

President Obama's proposed budget would add more than $9.7 trillion to the national debt over the next decade, congressional budget analysts said Friday. Proposed tax cuts for the middle class account for nearly a third of that shortfall.

Glenn Reynolds wonders whether the United States is losing its brand... like Schlitz.

How clueless is Harry Reid? 

...to latest Barrett attack.

Email from Scott Walker:

Tom Barrett's polls must show him as being way behind because he spends most of his time attacking me instead of pointing to real solutions.

The work we did at the Milwaukee County Research Park with Wauwatosa to attract some 2,000 jobs from GE Healthcare and the nearly 1,000 jobs at the airport from Southwest, Air Tran and Republic airlines are much greater than the city's work in the valley.

But the bottom line is that people create jobs and not government. The Mayor's plan is limited to tax credits which allow the government to pick winners and losers.

We need a better business climate for all - through lower taxes, less regulations and limited litigation.  Getting government out of the way is the best way to improve the economy!  

Since the Mayor doesn't have a plan to match that for Wisconsin, watch for him to continue to attack me. This is just the beginning of his attacks.

Scott

P.S. Mayor Barrett attacked the county for refinancing its pension liability while his budget spreads his pension losses out over 5 years to balance his 2010 budget. Talk about trying to create a distraction.

..about the state's failure to win the Race to the Top Funds. From State Re. Brett Davis:

Charlie,

The story on race to the top to me is Doyle lying about why we're not one of the top 16 states. Doyle blames his own party for lack of action on Mayoral takeover when Secretary Duncan himself has confirmed that Mayoral takeover is not a factor in it.

Doyle is covering for the teacher's union, the largest special interest spender by far this session, because they (and the Dem leadership) watered down the language about student assessment and teacher evaluation. They put up 425 firewalls by making it a mandatory subject of bargaining, rather than eliminating one. Even the school board association is telling members not to negotiate the point. I did a pulling motion on my bill AB 393 tonight, which would have accomplished what needed to be done.

All the Dem's rhetoric says "we'll work together on the second round of applications." It's such BS because session ends April 22. Applications are due in June. We're not coming back for special session on it.

The only saving grace is that it will be an issue again in September when we fail to get the second round of funding. That's when the announcement will be. Maybe it will be enough to take the education issue away from assembly and senate dems in swing districts.

Sorry for the long e-mail. I just feel very strongly about all of this. Such a waste of time and failure of leadership.

Brett Davis

Fortune gets on the bandwagon and profiles our hometown boy.