Friday News Roundup - Hour 1
http://thedianerehmshow.org/shows/2011-02-25/friday-news-roundup-hour-1
Neporsha Hamlin, center, of Madison, Wis, protests the governor's budget bill at the State Capitol in Madison, Wis., Saturday, Feb. 19, 2011. The Wisconsin governor, elected in November's GOP wave that also gave control of the state Assembly and Senate to Republicans, set off the protests earlier this week by pushing ahead with a measure that would require government workers to contribute more to their health care and pension costs and largely eliminate their collective bargaining rights.
AP Photo/Andy Manis
The Obama administration says it will no longer defend the federal law that bans same-sex marriage. House Republicans propose a plan to avoid a government shutdown. And Wisconsin’s fight over collective bargaining expands to other states. A panel of journalists joins Diane for analysis of the week's top national news stories.
Guests
Major Garrett
congressional correspondent, National Journal.
Sheryl Gay Stolberg
White House correspondent, The New York Times.
Chris Cillizza
author of The Fix, a Washington Post politics blog, and managing editor of PostPolitics.com.
Friday News Roundup Video
The panelists discuss the ongoing tensions between public employees in Wisconsin and Gov. Scott Walker (R) over the governor's proposal to cut pay and benefits and strip unions of their collective bargaining rights in the state. The "budget math" clearly shows that the issue of collective bargaining is "unrelated" to the state's deficit, said Major Garrett. The panelists also agreed that the governor's statements during a prank phone call this week were damaging, but not likely to be career-ending:
Comments
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Collective Bargaining
When I think of "bargaining" in our government, I think of lobbying. If 2 companies, that hired lobbyist (maybe oil companies), colluded, wouldn't that also be "collective bargaining"
Kelly from Kitty Hawk, NC
Reducing the Deficit
If we are looking to save money in government, why don't we do what any large corporation would do, Outsource. Get rid of about 15-20% of congress and hire 20 people from India to take up the slack. They can live in India and work by phone, to save more money.
This is a bit of a joke but the proposal should be out there to let congress know we can think "outside the box" and to ensure they value there jobs.
Kelly from Kitty Hawk, NC
It's funny how things work out. First Wisconsin voters toss out democrats and vote in republicans primarily because of the economy and lack of jobs so they say. Then republicans do what republicans do. They take middle class jobs and send them to China, India or trash the union so that they can hire illegal aliens or keep Americans working poor.
Now they want to complain. They got exactly what they deserved. No problem though, the great thing about America is that like clock work theire is always a next election. I guess this time you will understand that when a republican says "where are the jobs?" he is trying to find more jobs to send to China.
I heard a report on marketplace the other day that said it cost $1.2 million a year to keep a soldier in Afghanistan and $600,000 paer year to keep a soldier in Iraq. Given that and the fact that we still have large, expensive bases in europe,Japan and Korea, how can we possibly justify continuing these expenses?
As evidenced by the latest arrest of a jihadi from Saudi Arabia we can wipe out foreigners commiting terrorism in the United States by banning travel by anyone travelling from or transiting a handful of countries and Saudi Arabia is one of them.
@ozkar,
Republicans are going to replace the incompetent striking socialist Wisconsin teachers with illegal aliens? Do you write for The Onion?
My impression of propsed budget cuts is that sacrifices are asked of the poor and the middle class. Other than tax increases for those who make over 200K in the President's budget proposal, what sacrifices are asked of the wealthy?
My gosh, Harry Reid using such harsh language for a bill as "Dead on Arrival", unions in Wicsonsin saying "Kill the Bill", lots of threatening language after the shooting a few weeks ago of rep. Giffords.
Why does it seem that the Democratic party is acting as if the Republicans have all of the power? When faced with this budget confrontation, John Boehner goes golfing and Harry Reid starts talking about more social programs we can cut; something is wrong with this picture.
It seems to me that since the death of Senator Kennedy, the Democrats have rolled over like an abused dog and have continuously responded to the Republicans as if they held both houses and the Presidency.
Please correct Stolberg's comments on Social Security.
It is making me sick to see the ultra conservatives taking and taking from the middle class then turning around and giving the money right to the rich and their Wall Street companies who are shipping jobs overseas. How can you in any good conscience take things from teachers and give a taxbreak to wealthy corporations? I don't understand how people can't see through this. The Gov of Wisconsin and fellow similiar minded republicans should be embarrassed. Cutting budgets is ok if you don't take the savings and put it into the savings accounts of the rich.
I am concerned about the lack of money being invested into the people. I live in Florida and Gov. Rick scott refused 2.8 million for our TGV highspeed train, thats money not being invested into our state. What about the cuts to education budgets and transportation? Where will the money come from when we have reduced consumer spending, high unemployment. Our deficit is a problem, but these Republican Senators talk about cutting programs that doesn't affect them. Perhaps its my ignorance of the dangers of a high deficit, but logically i would stop spending money on a ten year war, before i cut budgets that invest and help our people.
Wisconsin school district was closed for three days after hundreds of teachers engaged in a mass sick-out so they could attend protest rallies at the State Capitol. That could cost the district $2.7 million.
Too sick to teach, but not too sick to be part of a spectacle? These healthy "teachers" were finally contributing to their students education by not showing up to class.
Cowardice, incompetence, selfishness, and downright foolishness. Government and public sector employees are the easy targets. The harder task would be to sit down and study and fix what went wrong with our economic policies. The braver task would be to put corporations under a microscope, not the honest joe earning a middle-class income providing decent breakfasts to children of the poor, or running arts programs, or providing libraries. These are the heart of democracy. Pandering to corporations is the heart of the darkness that is obscuring our best selves. Yelling about public employees is easier than letting go of the group-think of our two-party system. The basic job of Congress is to run the government -- so why aren't they buckling down and doing the necessary? I'm disgusted, and deeply deeply saddened by the conduct of these so-called leaders.
Is there any doubt who Diane voted for in 08 and why? There is no place for Liberal talk show hosts in the federal budget. Stop funding this liberal drival.
The Wisconsin legislators and governor won't take the union's concessions on wages and move on because, as the governor said, the point of their actions is to destroy the unions.
A large number of people seem to be viciously angry that union workers have better benefits than they do. Instead of demanding that those union workers give up those good benefits - why on earth aren't those angry people demanding benefits equal to what the union employees have? Make things better for all instead of worse for all. This seems like a serious case of acting against your own self interest.
bollenski: well said.
Middle class taxpayers are paying the price so that unions can elect Democrats to provide them with uneconomic contracts that will bankrupt our children.
As a Hoosier Republican, I welcome Mitch Daniels' presidential aspirations because his failed welfare and tollroad privatization, bankrupt unemployment fund, refusal to release job creation accounting and public school and teacher assaults will be exposed. I support the House walkout as the only solution to the Daniel's overreach. He did not campaign on any of this.
Sure, now that they will lose votes if speaking out against gay marriage, Republican candidates all of a sudden are very quiet about it. So where are those principles now?
Sheryl said that "both sides were behaving badly" in Wisconsin--sorry, but those opposing the Republican attack on the middle class are behaving heroically, and many are doing it out in the cold! The reporter from the Daily Beast who pranked the Governor was doing what the press too seldom does: showing the real agenda of the GOP and the super-rich.
Good morning Diane:
If govement workers are baned from collective bargaing, this could be the start of removing all collective bargaining in other area's.
If repulublicans what to save money then they should not have tax payers pay for there heathcare, but should by it like a lot of other people have do.
Regards
GARTH COLOMBO
Diane asks why are the people in Wisconsin up in arms. Didn't the people in Wisconsin listen to the platform promises that the Governor ran on. Many blacks and other ethnicities as well as liberal whites knew what was coming. We wondered why more people didn't see that middle and lower classes were the targets of the Republicans. This is a class struggle. Corporations and corporate advocates vs the middle and lower classes. I assume that many whites think they are protected no matter what class they fall in. They are wrong.
i believe the (deficit)problem has to do with what we spend on our defense and medicare is more important to cut then our american workers!
Cutting programs, particularly social programs seems to be the favorite subject in cuts yet where is the common sense, the consideration of consequences and really, why is there no real dialogue of practicality -- such as: "We are going to turn the lights down low or off at night in every governmental office not being in use at any given time." and "We will be limiting our governmental employee travel -- carpool when necessary." and oh there is so, so much more. If the government could see itself as part of the American Family, a full member, and yes, we have, like in any family, different personalities, dreams, ideas, likes, dislikes, etc. yet with all those differences there is the unit, the team to uphold for survival of the whole, then we actually might get somewhere towards a solution. Undoubtedly there will be excuses from every group as to why not, probably even whining, and even dismissal of "such silliness" yet, those types of attitude are what break up the "family".
Gov. Walker had 20 minutes to talk to a "money man" from out of state but would not meet the teacher associations. The assocition members are those people who he was elected to serve whether they voted for him or not. Negotiation is simply talking. It is done at the school district level and good talks especially about non-wage items improve the education opportunities for the students. Did any one at the exit polls say they voted to put an end to collective bargaining?
Diane, why is no one asking about the businesses not paying there fair taxes, we would not need to worry about the unions if the business paid for what is owed in taxes. Jan C
@Cicero. So sorry you didn't receive the education you thought you deserved in school. I will make the daring assumption that you did learn to read and write from somewhere. Where? School or Home or Television or Self Taught?
So why don't you fix the problem and become a teacher and give the students the education you think they deserve? People need to stop trashing the education system and step up and fix it. A simple mind can always find fault/problems, it takes the active mind to come up with a solution, and no the solution isn't firing all the teachers, mostly because who do you replace them with?
Sheryl Stolberg could not be more off base in claiming that the reason public employees are turning out in Madison, Columbus, Indianapolis and elsewhere is because wage and pension cuts are now a reality rather than a threat!
The facts are that thousands of public employees have already voted to ratify contracts with concessions and, to be sure, will face more in the future. The protests are focused on the threats to eliminate meaningful collective bargaining for public employees, not health care or pension contributions--which the unions have already said they will accept.
Why can't those covering this situation keep this simply fact straight?
cicero talk about what you know about. Here in Dallas one of the biggest scandals in the Dallas Independent School District is how they hired Mexican teachers as bilingual teachers, and gave them a fake social security number to work under. The number was something like 888-88-8888 so it makes you wonder how they got away with it for as long as they did. What no one is talking about now is that all of those Mexicans are still there and with a bilingual stipend earn more beginning pay than 30 year veterans who top out around $63,000 per year.