Buyer's Remorse, or Voter's Remorse...
phobicsquirrel
Posts: 7,347 ✭✭✭
...
With all the GOP victories over the primaries in 2010 and the koch directed Tea Party, most if not all of these states are winding up in worse shape then they were in and now it seems as though these people who voted for these corporate shills are wishing they didn't.
NEW JERSEY: Last year, Gov. Chris Christies (R) budget raised taxes on the working poor and middle-class by cutting the states Earned Income Tax Credit and homestead rebates yet still found money for lucrative corporate tax cuts. This year, Christies budget calls for $200 million in business tax cuts, while cutting mental health services, $540 million from Medicaid, and witholding property tax rebates for seniors until public workers give up many of their health and pension benefits. Many New Jerseyans have said they prefer a tax on millionaires to Christies draconian cuts.
MICHIGAN: Gov. Rick Snyders (R) budget would make Michigans already regressive tax system even more unfair for the states poorest residents. The plan cuts taxes on business by more than 86 percent while slashing $1.2 billion in funding for schools, universities, local governments and other areas. Snyder also wants to raise personal taxes by 30 percent an increase that will fall disproportionately on Michigans lowest income residents.
GEORGIA: Last week, the Georgia House passed an austerity budget that will increase health insurance costs by more than 20 percent for state workers, teachers and retirees and cut funding for state universities by $75 million. The House has already gutted the states HOPE scholarship program, and is now considering implementing a regressive new tax system that would lower income taxes for the rich while raising the sales tax on basic necessities. House Majority Leader Larry ONeal (R), meanwhile, has introduced a bill that would implement a flat income tax rate and cut corporate taxes by 33 percent.
FLORIDA: At a Tea Party rally last month, Gov. Rick Scott (R) unveiled his budget, telling supporters he would make the state the most fiscally conservative in the nation. The budget would slash corporate income and property taxes, lay off 6,700 state employees, cut education funding by $4.8 billion, and cut Medicaid by almost $4 billion.
OHIO: Gov. John Kasich (R) has proposed cutting 25 percent of schools budgets, $1 million from food banks, $12 million from childrens hospitals, and $15.9 million from an adoption program for children with special needs. A Kasich staffer revealed yesterday that these cuts are more about politics then budget-balancing, telling the Cincinnati Dispatch that even if there werent an $8 billion deficit, wed probably be proposing many of the same things. The plan includes tax cuts for oil companies, a repeal of the estate tax and an income tax cut for the rich that former Gov. Ted Strickland (D) halted last year because of the states fiscal crisis.
IOWA: Gov. Tom Branstad (R) began this year proposing a budget that included a $200 million tax cut on commercial property taxes and corporate income but would freeze spending on schools, cut $42 million to state universities and lay off hundreds of state workers. Since then, the Governor has already begun laying off state nursing home workers and frozen funding for mental health services. The budget is now moving through the politically divided legislature, where Republican-controlled House committees have gone even further, approving tax refunds for upper-income Iowans while cancelling infrastructure investments, eliminating preschool for 4-year-olds, closing Iowa workforce development offices, and making even deeper cuts to public universities.
PENNSYLVANIA: Gov. Tom Corbett (R) presented a budget last week that would cut taxes for corporations, while freezing teacher salaries, cutting dental care for Medicaid recipients, and eliminating more than half of the states universities. Yet the state has lots of revenue potential in northern Pennsylvania, where out-of-state energy companies fracking of natural gas has reaped them hundreds of millions of dollars in profits. Corbett has refused to tax these companies, many of which helped fund his gubernatorial campaign, and has instead opted to lay of more than 1,500 state workers.
MAINE: Despite calling for shared sacrifice Tea Party Gov. Paul LePages (R) budget would cut income taxes for Maines wealthiest one percent, while actually raising property taxes for the states middle class. This so-called jobs budget freezes healthcare funding for working parents, cuts money for schools and infrastructure and raises the retirement age for public workers. Yet LePage was still able to find more than $200 million in tax cuts for large estates, business and the rich.
WISCONSIN: The tax cuts Gov. Scott Walker (R) signed earlier this year (120 million after a couple of weeks in office) worsened his states fiscal condition, so now Walker is planning to raise taxes on the poor, eliminate $26 million in tax credits for seniors and single mothers and cancel property tax rebates for low-income Wisconsinites making less than $24,000 a year. He is also pushing for ending all collective bargaining rights to public workers even though they agreed to a lot of the proposed cuts. He also has put up in his "budget saving Bill" that he would have the right to sell off public energy sources without bidding. Speculation has it that koch industries would be the buyer since this group has such a foothold on Walker's governorship.
SOUTH CAROLINA: Gov. Nikki Haley (R) has proposed ending the states corporate income tax, even while she calls for cutting physical education, K-12 schools, and Medicaid. Haley has received pushback from Republican colleagues: last week the legislature rejected her plan to force state employees to pay more for health insurance.
KANSAS: Facing a $493 million budget shortfall, Gov. Sam Brownback (R) has called for eliminating the corporate income tax while proposing a $50 million cut to education. With majorities in both Houses, Republicans have proposed a cut to the federal Earned Income Tax Credit that would push 6,500 families below the poverty line.
ARIZONA: Last October, as she ignored 26 other possible funding solutions, Gov. Jan Brewer (R) implemented painful cuts to the states Medicaid program, which resulted in 2 deaths and left 98 Arizonians waiting for transplant funding. After months of protests, Brewer finally agreed to set aside $151 million in an uncompensated-care pool to pay health-care providers for life-saving procedures, including transplants. However, House Republicans refused to restore funding for organ transplants because, as House Appropriations Committee chair Jon Kavanagh (R) said, not enough lives would be saved to warrant restoring millions in budget cuts. Then, while peoples lives were in danger, Brewer eagerly signed tax cuts for businesses that will cost the state $538 million.
This is all just a small little tidbit of what's going on. And the sad thing is, it seems as though it's okay to keep cutting workers and public worker's benefits or pay or even social programs, it's not okay to raise the taxes on the very people who have had it so good over the last decade. But the right is demonizing teachers, union workers and even firefighters but not mentioning a word about what really is causing these so called "budget" cuts on working families. On a national stage the GOP have already been pushing for eliminating the EPA, FDA, cutting any regulation on wall street, attacking women on their rights - including re-defining rape, and the list goes on.
Michigan Governor Snyder also recently signed his new "take over" bill ......
This week, the governor of Michigan signed a bill into law giving himself the powerthrough a state-appointed managerto declare cities insolvent and hand them over to a handpicked emergency manager vested with the power to cancel collective bargaining agreements, fire elected officials, call millage elections and dissolve a municipal government.
Thousands of union protesters rallied inside and outside the state capitol as Gov. Rick Snyder, a Republican, signed the bill late Wednesday. And when the governor appeared Thursday at an auto plant ceremony in Wayne, Mich., celebrating the launch of the 2012 Ford Focus, he was booed by unionized workers (see video below).
Synder and his supporters claim that emergency management will only be needed in rare emergencies. However, Snyder's 2012 budget all but guarantees an epidemic of municipal financial crises. The budget cuts $92 million in revenue sharing with cities and towns.
Revenue sharing is a longstanding policy where the state helps local governments pay for for essential services like police and fire protection. Local governments will now have to compete for the remaining $200 million in revenue sharing under criteria that are as yet unclear.
Michigan already had legislation that allowed the governor to declare a fiscal emergency. However, under the old law, the Local Emergency Financial Assistance and Loan Board chose the manager. Under the new law, the emergency manager is chosen by the governor and serves at his pleasure.
The new law gives the emergency manager the power to modify or terminate collective bargaining agreements between governments and public employees.
However, the U.S. Constitution limits the power of a state to unilaterally dissolve a contract between a state and a private party.
According to an analysis of Michigan House Fiscal Agency, the Michigan Chamber of Commerce and the (Koch-foundation-supported) Mackinac Center for Public Policy urged the state to give greater power to emergency managers.
Snyder's policies are setting up a conflict of interest. The more he starves cities and towns for funding, the more likely they are to end up in financial emergencies. The more cities fall into financial crisis, the greater the governor's power to impose his anti-union agenda.
With all the GOP victories over the primaries in 2010 and the koch directed Tea Party, most if not all of these states are winding up in worse shape then they were in and now it seems as though these people who voted for these corporate shills are wishing they didn't.
NEW JERSEY: Last year, Gov. Chris Christies (R) budget raised taxes on the working poor and middle-class by cutting the states Earned Income Tax Credit and homestead rebates yet still found money for lucrative corporate tax cuts. This year, Christies budget calls for $200 million in business tax cuts, while cutting mental health services, $540 million from Medicaid, and witholding property tax rebates for seniors until public workers give up many of their health and pension benefits. Many New Jerseyans have said they prefer a tax on millionaires to Christies draconian cuts.
MICHIGAN: Gov. Rick Snyders (R) budget would make Michigans already regressive tax system even more unfair for the states poorest residents. The plan cuts taxes on business by more than 86 percent while slashing $1.2 billion in funding for schools, universities, local governments and other areas. Snyder also wants to raise personal taxes by 30 percent an increase that will fall disproportionately on Michigans lowest income residents.
GEORGIA: Last week, the Georgia House passed an austerity budget that will increase health insurance costs by more than 20 percent for state workers, teachers and retirees and cut funding for state universities by $75 million. The House has already gutted the states HOPE scholarship program, and is now considering implementing a regressive new tax system that would lower income taxes for the rich while raising the sales tax on basic necessities. House Majority Leader Larry ONeal (R), meanwhile, has introduced a bill that would implement a flat income tax rate and cut corporate taxes by 33 percent.
FLORIDA: At a Tea Party rally last month, Gov. Rick Scott (R) unveiled his budget, telling supporters he would make the state the most fiscally conservative in the nation. The budget would slash corporate income and property taxes, lay off 6,700 state employees, cut education funding by $4.8 billion, and cut Medicaid by almost $4 billion.
OHIO: Gov. John Kasich (R) has proposed cutting 25 percent of schools budgets, $1 million from food banks, $12 million from childrens hospitals, and $15.9 million from an adoption program for children with special needs. A Kasich staffer revealed yesterday that these cuts are more about politics then budget-balancing, telling the Cincinnati Dispatch that even if there werent an $8 billion deficit, wed probably be proposing many of the same things. The plan includes tax cuts for oil companies, a repeal of the estate tax and an income tax cut for the rich that former Gov. Ted Strickland (D) halted last year because of the states fiscal crisis.
IOWA: Gov. Tom Branstad (R) began this year proposing a budget that included a $200 million tax cut on commercial property taxes and corporate income but would freeze spending on schools, cut $42 million to state universities and lay off hundreds of state workers. Since then, the Governor has already begun laying off state nursing home workers and frozen funding for mental health services. The budget is now moving through the politically divided legislature, where Republican-controlled House committees have gone even further, approving tax refunds for upper-income Iowans while cancelling infrastructure investments, eliminating preschool for 4-year-olds, closing Iowa workforce development offices, and making even deeper cuts to public universities.
PENNSYLVANIA: Gov. Tom Corbett (R) presented a budget last week that would cut taxes for corporations, while freezing teacher salaries, cutting dental care for Medicaid recipients, and eliminating more than half of the states universities. Yet the state has lots of revenue potential in northern Pennsylvania, where out-of-state energy companies fracking of natural gas has reaped them hundreds of millions of dollars in profits. Corbett has refused to tax these companies, many of which helped fund his gubernatorial campaign, and has instead opted to lay of more than 1,500 state workers.
MAINE: Despite calling for shared sacrifice Tea Party Gov. Paul LePages (R) budget would cut income taxes for Maines wealthiest one percent, while actually raising property taxes for the states middle class. This so-called jobs budget freezes healthcare funding for working parents, cuts money for schools and infrastructure and raises the retirement age for public workers. Yet LePage was still able to find more than $200 million in tax cuts for large estates, business and the rich.
WISCONSIN: The tax cuts Gov. Scott Walker (R) signed earlier this year (120 million after a couple of weeks in office) worsened his states fiscal condition, so now Walker is planning to raise taxes on the poor, eliminate $26 million in tax credits for seniors and single mothers and cancel property tax rebates for low-income Wisconsinites making less than $24,000 a year. He is also pushing for ending all collective bargaining rights to public workers even though they agreed to a lot of the proposed cuts. He also has put up in his "budget saving Bill" that he would have the right to sell off public energy sources without bidding. Speculation has it that koch industries would be the buyer since this group has such a foothold on Walker's governorship.
SOUTH CAROLINA: Gov. Nikki Haley (R) has proposed ending the states corporate income tax, even while she calls for cutting physical education, K-12 schools, and Medicaid. Haley has received pushback from Republican colleagues: last week the legislature rejected her plan to force state employees to pay more for health insurance.
KANSAS: Facing a $493 million budget shortfall, Gov. Sam Brownback (R) has called for eliminating the corporate income tax while proposing a $50 million cut to education. With majorities in both Houses, Republicans have proposed a cut to the federal Earned Income Tax Credit that would push 6,500 families below the poverty line.
ARIZONA: Last October, as she ignored 26 other possible funding solutions, Gov. Jan Brewer (R) implemented painful cuts to the states Medicaid program, which resulted in 2 deaths and left 98 Arizonians waiting for transplant funding. After months of protests, Brewer finally agreed to set aside $151 million in an uncompensated-care pool to pay health-care providers for life-saving procedures, including transplants. However, House Republicans refused to restore funding for organ transplants because, as House Appropriations Committee chair Jon Kavanagh (R) said, not enough lives would be saved to warrant restoring millions in budget cuts. Then, while peoples lives were in danger, Brewer eagerly signed tax cuts for businesses that will cost the state $538 million.
This is all just a small little tidbit of what's going on. And the sad thing is, it seems as though it's okay to keep cutting workers and public worker's benefits or pay or even social programs, it's not okay to raise the taxes on the very people who have had it so good over the last decade. But the right is demonizing teachers, union workers and even firefighters but not mentioning a word about what really is causing these so called "budget" cuts on working families. On a national stage the GOP have already been pushing for eliminating the EPA, FDA, cutting any regulation on wall street, attacking women on their rights - including re-defining rape, and the list goes on.
Michigan Governor Snyder also recently signed his new "take over" bill ......
This week, the governor of Michigan signed a bill into law giving himself the powerthrough a state-appointed managerto declare cities insolvent and hand them over to a handpicked emergency manager vested with the power to cancel collective bargaining agreements, fire elected officials, call millage elections and dissolve a municipal government.
Thousands of union protesters rallied inside and outside the state capitol as Gov. Rick Snyder, a Republican, signed the bill late Wednesday. And when the governor appeared Thursday at an auto plant ceremony in Wayne, Mich., celebrating the launch of the 2012 Ford Focus, he was booed by unionized workers (see video below).
Synder and his supporters claim that emergency management will only be needed in rare emergencies. However, Snyder's 2012 budget all but guarantees an epidemic of municipal financial crises. The budget cuts $92 million in revenue sharing with cities and towns.
Revenue sharing is a longstanding policy where the state helps local governments pay for for essential services like police and fire protection. Local governments will now have to compete for the remaining $200 million in revenue sharing under criteria that are as yet unclear.
Michigan already had legislation that allowed the governor to declare a fiscal emergency. However, under the old law, the Local Emergency Financial Assistance and Loan Board chose the manager. Under the new law, the emergency manager is chosen by the governor and serves at his pleasure.
The new law gives the emergency manager the power to modify or terminate collective bargaining agreements between governments and public employees.
However, the U.S. Constitution limits the power of a state to unilaterally dissolve a contract between a state and a private party.
According to an analysis of Michigan House Fiscal Agency, the Michigan Chamber of Commerce and the (Koch-foundation-supported) Mackinac Center for Public Policy urged the state to give greater power to emergency managers.
Snyder's policies are setting up a conflict of interest. The more he starves cities and towns for funding, the more likely they are to end up in financial emergencies. The more cities fall into financial crisis, the greater the governor's power to impose his anti-union agenda.
0
Comments
On-topic: Considering the cadillac benefits packages these unions get, plus the fact that they're paid for with MY tax dollars, really doesn't endear them to me in the slightest. Lest you forget - Gov't workers are SUPPOSED to be paid less than their private sector counterparts in exchange for job security - they can almost never be fired, but the tradeoff is that they're (theoretically, but not in practice) paid less.
So no, I don't have any Buyer's remorse, and I think that in 4 yrs, once the cuts have begun to take effect, the Governors will be re-elected in a landslide. Indiana's Haley Barbour (spelling?) cut Gov't contracts, and was massively unpopular (I think around 30% approval ratings) - but after 4 yrs, it turns out his cuts reinvigorated the State and brought in new business, and the guy was re-elected with 60% of the vote.
Now let me set you straight - unions aren't necessarily a bad thing; in the private sector, they've done good work in the past, and have helped a lot of people.
But answer me this Pheebs - who exactly do Gov't workers need to be protected from? These are people employed by the State. I know you think corporations = evil, but I also know you probably like Gov't programs, which means you trust the Gov't to administer them.
This is a contradiction in liberal thought I've never understood - on the one hand you trust the Gov't to take my tax dollars and spend them on social programs, but then you turn around and say you don't trust the Gov't to deal fairly with the people it employs. Which is it?
EDIT - almost forgot - what's wrong with people donating to the tea party or Republican party? Why are you singling out the Kochs? Lately the Left wing has been in a tizzy ever since they found out that the Kochs, some rich businessmen with conservative leanings, donated to Republicans (no surprice - the Kochs had listed this giving on their website for years and no one cared until Nov. 2010).
Why would you single them out, but give a pass to all the billionaire/trust fund babies supporting the Democrats? From Progressive Insurance founder (forget his name) to George Soros - you can't condemn people for giving to Republicans without pointing out the people who have, for decades, been giving to progressive causes.
Personally I think Virginia has it right no public sector unions! One of the only things FDR ever said that I agree with: All Government employees should realize that the process of collective bargaining, as usually understood, cannot be transplanted into the public service. It has its distinct and insurmountable limitations ... The very nature and purposes of Government make it impossible for ... officials ... to bind the employer
The cuts the states are making are the cuts we need at the national level.
But the cowards in Washington print money rather than making tough decisions. It is sickening.
http://host.madison.com/wsj/news/local/govt-and-politics/article_c7c57cc8-51b3-11e0-a99f-001cc4c03286.html - RE: sale of power plants.
cutting tax credits for the poor: http://www.jsonline.com/news/statepolitics/117501518.html
http://host.madison.com/wsj/news/local/govt-and-politics/article_4821b170-4b60-11e0-9fba-001cc4c002e0.html Collective Bargaining cuts
And another +1
Marty
"If you do not read the newspapers you're uninformed. If you do read the newspapers, you're misinformed." -- Mark Twain
someone will insult another, be it by accident, or joke, or on purpose and then its all down hill from there.
gone from this forum are the days when a serious civil discourse can be had about anything political.
"If you do not read the newspapers you're uninformed. If you do read the newspapers, you're misinformed." -- Mark Twain
i was kinda disappointed being he told me he wouldnt be. but at some point im not his father. i cant tell him what to do and would never try to.
and i hope i am wrong. i see that as i was posting so was someone else clarifying the situation. yes i see that it has started off well. i am just going off the past experience in this type of thing. ill stay out and just hope that it doesnt degrade.
That said, being civilized, we don't have to insult one another - we can have heated debates and call the other side's view naive or dumb, without attacking the person (slight difference, I know, between attacking the view and attacking the person). No need to completely withdraw from all arguments just because some feathers might get ruffled
Vulchor - you forgot naive in that list
BTW Smokey, the more I look at your avatar (if thats what its called) the more I want to have a cigar with that freaking duck......since Gilbert Godfried isnt available anymore and whatnot.
its happened before.
vulchor: why would i be disappointed? because i respect laker and his word. we discussed with each other that we would stay out of this type of thing because it seems to bring out the worst in people. we dont want to be a part of something that brings out the worst in people.
as said before, i cant tell him what or where to post and never would. we are all adults here and can, as you said, handle our selves.
i'll just hope for the best.