Caption Contest

Source.

Bad Reporting

This report is so unprofessional that it makes me cringe.

Republicans and conservative tea party members railed against health care reform, global warming legislation and government spending at a convention Saturday that attracted about 2,000 people.

The meeting, organized by the conservative group Americans for Prosperity and dubbed an unofficial tea party convention, brought together numerous Republican officeholders, party leaders and candidates in addition to national speakers like “Joe the Plumber” and Michael Reagan, the son of former President Ronald Reagan.

[...]

The meeting came roughly a year after the first tea party rallies in the state and nationwide. Wisconsin tea party organizers say they have no interest in starting a third political party and instead want to work closely with Republicans.

The reporter doesn’t even bother to share the actual name of the gathering.  For the record, it’s the Defending the American Dream summit.  Also, although some may have dubbed it an “unofficial tea party convention,” it is the third annual such event in Wisconsin.  For those of you paying attention, that means that it was happening well before the tea parties started. 

Pathetic reporting.  On the bright side, 2,000 folks turning out (assuming the number is somewhat accurate) is pretty dang good.

Wisconsin Debates Increasing Subsidies for Burials

Huh.

The Legislature’s budget committee is considering whether to expand a program that helps pay the funeral and burial expenses of low-income Wisconsin residents.

The Joint Finance Committee on Tuesday is expected to vote on a bill that would allow the program to pay for funerals and burials that cost up to $4,500 instead of the current $3,500.

The maximum funding for each claim would remain at $1,500. But the Department of Health Services says the expanded eligibility might increase claims by 15 percent, or by 500 per year.

The department estimates the bill might increase the program’s costs by $538,000 per year. It estimates the program cost roughly $7.8 million in 2009.

If you run the math, that means that the taxpayers subsidized roughly 5,200 funerals in 2009.  I couldn’t find death statistics for 2009, but there were 46,526 deaths in Wisconsin in 2008.  So the taxpayers are subsidizing roughly 11% of the funerals in Wisconsin.  The state poverty rate is at about 10.7%.  Interesting, no?

Breaking the Deals

Prickly situation.

“We’re going to do what we have to do to get a bill out of the House and Senate,” said James Manley, spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev. As for Obama’s wish list of deletions: “We’ll certainly keep it in mind as we pull together a final bill.”

That tepid salute underscores the prickliness with which many senators have greeted what they consider Obama’s meddling in their business and raises questions about how successful the president will be in erasing the special projects from final legislation.

It also highlights a spat between a White House and Senate, dominated by the same party, that the president has ignited just as he needs to garner support to finally push his No. 1 legislative goal to passage over monolithic Republican opposition and nervous Democrats.

Obama’s proposal to eliminate state-specific items comes with polls finding heightened public opposition to backroom political deals. Republicans have been happy to fan that discontent. Many Democrats, particularly House moderates facing tight re-election battles this fall, are eager to dissociate themselves from such spending.

The president wants votes from House Democrats “who were deeply offended by those provisions in the Senate bill,” said Sheryl Skolnick, who analyzes federal health legislation for CRT Capital Group of Stamford, Conn. “Clearly the math was, ‘I gain more in the House by taking out those provisions than I lose in the Senate.’”

Obama has railed against the “ugly process” of cutting special deals, but the president and his top advisers were prime players in negotiations on the agreements to win votes and push the legislation forward.

Here’s the problem for Reid… he cut those deals to get the legislation passed.  Now, even if they reverse the deals, those senators can’t take their votes back and are hung out to dry.  If that happens, Reid will have zero credibility to make any deals in the future to get anything done.  Once again, Obama is wanting everyone else to take the pain and sacrifices for his benefit.

Costly Census

It’s like they spend money just because they can.  Wait, it’s not “like” that.  That’s what it is. 

This week West Benders received a notification letter from the U.S. Department of Commerce. The letter read: “About one week from now, you will receive a 2010 Census form in the mail. When you receive your form, please fill it out and mail it promptly. Your response is important.”

   The letter is signed by Robert M. Groves, director of the U.S. Census Bureau.

   U.S. Census Bureau paid for the pre-sorted, firstclass mail postage and fees. The bulk-mailing supervisor at the West Bend Post Office said the cost was about 35 cents per letter. Regular postage is 44 cents.

   Don Zimmer is the local census office manager in Oshkosh. He said the Census Bureau mailed 123 million letters to households nationwide. At 35 cents postage, that’s about $43 million. The population in West Bend is 30,400.

   “We used global positioning systems to get local addresses and we sent out the form letter,” said Zimmer. “So as many residence we could identify that were occupied, those were the letters that went to people. Again they weren’t addressed to people but to housing units.”

   State Sen. Glenn Grothman of West Bend said this one more example of wasteful spending.

   “This just shows, one more time, how completely oblivious too many government officials are to spending other people’s money,” he said. “I would guess the advance letter will result in zero more people filling out their form.”

Suicide Pact?

Perhaps.