Illinois Should Look to Wisconsin
Yup.
Contrast Wisconsin to Illinois; Wisconsin made reforms to its system for salary, pensions, and health care of government workers. In the last fiscal budget, Illinois cut Medicaid spending by $1.6 billion while Wisconsin increased Medicaid funding by $1.2 billion.
Conservative politicians in Wisconsin took the initiative to help those most vulnerable, even though they are not politically powerful and will probably not vote for them. Liberals in Illinois sided with politically powerful groups that are also their donors and help them get elected.
So if liberals believe that government should help the poor and most vulnerable, then how could they vote for policies that oppose these beliefs?
We all know elected Democrats in IL are almost criminal in their fiscal behavior.
What scares me is: WI Democrats still thinking IL is the way to govern.
It’s almost like Democrats want to bankrupt everything and everyone.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on January 19, 2013 at 2220 hrs
It’s interesting how the two factions and sub factions work. The republicans seem to have 2 factions. The social conservatives and the fiscal conservatives. I think most fiscal conservatives (like myself) are getting pretty sick and tired of the social conservatives who will give away any budget to a candidate who will claim to fight against gay marriage and abortion (how’s that fight been going by the way?) The problem the Republicans have right now is you have people like myself who couldn’t care less if 2 dudes get hitched, but want to secure an economic environment where a dirt poor orphan can grow up to be anything (don’t think that can happen anywhere else in the world so win for us!) This rift has kept the Presidency out of reach when there is no way President Obama should have been reelected.
The Democrats though is even more interesting both now and in the future. They have a much larger group of sub fractions and amazingly enough have been able to keep them all happy at the same time. They have gays, NAACP, lawyers, Hollywood, Big Banks, environmentalist, women, PETA, Unions,anti gun, pro choice, Colleges, Media….....the list goes on and on and I’m sure I’m missing a bunch of them, many of who are not on the same page as each other. For example, most of the group above hates guns except for Union workers and Hollywood’s weird relationship with firearms. Also if you’ve been to Cabelas recently and you’re white you might be a minority in the gun section. The future with the Democrats will be very interesting (especially if Margaret Thatcher is right). Right now they keep all of these groups happy and voting by promising them all other peoples money. Seems to me that sooner or later one or several of these groups will start to get greedy or they will simply be accustom to a lifestyle that is unsustainable. My prediction is at that time all of these sub factions will all turn on each other imploding the Democratic party. Another interesting thing (if I am right) is the tight rope the Democratic leaders have to walk to keep everything in their favor. They can never win total wealth distribution because they won’t have an enemy to rally the troops against (and of course the Thatcher thing). It would seem that to keep themselves from imploding they actually need to keep the good ole USA in top financial standing in the world. I think Clinton understood this a lot better than the current group of Obama, Reid and Pelosi.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on January 20, 2013 at 0720 hrs
I know that was a off topic rant, but that’s the beauty of blogs
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on January 20, 2013 at 0722 hrs
Very good post by Hello above. Agree with all of it.
Because Bill Clinton came of age in Arkansas with some business interests backing him, he understood that commerce makes the government spending state possible.
Obama grew up abroad and when he got here he settled in with the radicals in Chicago who got all their funding from government. So he just assumes the money and jobs that have made country so strong the last 100 years will exist in perpetuity. Almost child like in his naïveté.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on January 20, 2013 at 1345 hrs
So if conservatives do not believe that government should help the poor and most vulnerable, then how could they oppose abortion, quality k12 education, free birth control and birth control education, issues that when access is reduced dramatically contribute to the number of poor and vulnerable, people who seek and receive welfare?
I want to side with the conspiracy theory that the Plutocrats are simply using anti-abortion conservatives’ votes to keep the quantity of poor high so that they can receive government subsidies for food and services, have a cheap labor pool to exploit, and plenty of bodies applying to the armed forces to defend the Plutocrats’ interests.
Ayn Rand, libertarian, supported a women’s right to an abortion 100% because she argued the state does not have say over a women’s body nor does the fetus have more rights than the mother. She also collected social security though she argued she was against it in her many writings.
The founding fathers were against standing armies like our own.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on January 20, 2013 at 2148 hrs
Dismas,
1.) Abortion helps the poor unborn child? Conservatives seem the only ones that defend this poor constituency targeted for extermination.
2.) Conservatives do believe in quality K-12 education. They support school voucher and school choice! Liberals support MPS, 42% H.S. graduation rate! Liberals block, with rare exception like Polly Williams, from any real proposal for improvement through market competition.
3.) “Free” birth control and education. Private charity can handle this. There is no reason to make Catholics pay for things that are against their faith. But I guess the constitution guaranteees your right to worry free sex in you view.
I’d like a guaranteed Carribean vacation for 11 months a year, can you get me that too?
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on January 20, 2013 at 2214 hrs
Dismas,
Here’s what I believe and I suspect many others would at least partially agree:
Abortion always kills at least one human being. Yes, I know it’s cliche to say that, but it’s important to some of us. People say I’m (we’re) going to have a baby. they don’t say I’m (we’re) carrying a fetus that will turn into a baby when it’s delivered. People get excited about an ultrasound because it’s a picture of their baby, not the fetus that will become a baby after it’s delivered. Also, there’s always a precipitating event for the pregnancy. Always. Usually by choice (see below for further comments on that). Usually by choice, but I admit not always. Instead of using rape and incest as a reason to give the poor pitiful victim women abortions, why don’t we more strongly teach our men to be men and not hurt innocent women by raping them or making them victims incest? And as for a woman’s right to have sex, read on.
As for Free K12 education, we support it. I just think that poor children should be equal to richer children in having a choice of where to get it other than public schools. Yes, some School Choice schools are less than adequate for the task. However, if women should have the choice of having sex as they choose, even if in poor relationships or no relationships, I think parents should have full choice of where their child is educated, even if the school is gives a poor education.When we point out all the poor School Choice schools, we lose sight of the fact that many of them turn out students just as well educated as public school students.I don’t believe that just because a my children are no longer connected to me by an umbilical cord that I have given up all my rights as to his or her destiny to the state to decide. Sending him to school in dorky clothes will impact his future just as much as sending him to the wrong school. Seeing she does her homework and reading to her and having a good relationship with her will impact her future as much as sending her to the right school.
As for Birth Control access and education, I don’t believe that women should engage in sex unless in a stable committed relationship that can nurture a child. Not for the well being of a potential child that birth control hopes to prevent, but for the well being of the woman. Sex is fun, I’ll fully admit. But having sex with men who women are not in good or even any relationship with is not in the long run beneficial to a woman and can bring lots of problem, the including unwanted pregnancy and STDs. Yes, both are possible in a good relationship. But they can be better dealt with by a woman in a stable loving relationship. While any sex can leave you physically satisfied, most women will feel emotionally much more satisfied with sex in an good relationship, which I see as beneficial to women. Also, a committed relationship will usually be more financially secure.
Ok, end of my rant. But permit me a question. Other than relieving a woman of an extra financial burden, how does it benefit her to have an abortion (do you assume there are no emotional consequences for any women) and free birth control and education as to how to use it, given that they will not protect her from STDs for the most part and certainly not encourage a lifestyle that will give her a chance to improve her financial condition?
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on January 21, 2013 at 0739 hrs
The intersection between social conservatism and conservatism is the growth of fatherless households.
For most women, raising children without paternal or government support is not a financially viable option (yes, of course there are exceptions).
In a pure libertarian world, women making this choice would simply have to accept the natural consequences. In this world, these children are essentially used as hostages to secure government support for these single mothers and their children as this is seen as being in the best interest of the children. And so, growth of fatherless households with children inexorably leads to growth in the welfare state.
Marriage may be just a piece of paper, but that piece of paper seems to matter as cohabitation relationships with children last, on average, only about a third as long as marriage relationships.
And so, the question is: is small government even possible in the absence of at least some measure of widely accepted socially conservative norms?
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on January 21, 2013 at 0937 hrs
Huh. Two people actually answered Dismas as if it was a fair and valid question. Conservatives don’t want quality k12 education? It wasn’t until Act 10 that conservatives finally received a say in the matter of education. To that point it was plutocrats giving to and receiving from the union. Do you, Dismas, think that if we just put the out of control spending back out of control our education would improve? Conservatives think we need quality education and we think we really can afford it too. Liberals seem to believe that we can only get a quality education if educators are paid upper class wages. That is both stupid and untrue as Professors in Colleges are proving today.
Further, there is no proof of a relationship between birth control ed and free birth control methods and the number of people who seek and receive welfare. Seekers and receivers have increased dramatically in the past 5, 10, and 20 years. The same years that birth control ed and free birth control measures have been offered free. If anything, the evidence points to the opposite. Personally, I don’t think the BC ed has had anything to do with the increase of welfare receivers. There is no cause and effect relationship there in the first place. Dismas says there is, though, so despite the boom in welfare recipients of the last decade I am just to believe that BC ed and free product has decreased welfare seekera na drecipients…It doesn’t track.
Abortion is a tough nut. In the New Testament, Jesus tells us to follow the laws of the land and the precepts of his faith. i.e., the law may say abortion is legal or illegal, but Christians should treat it as only wrong (or illegal before God) for them. It is not the Chritian’s job to write the law. The only time you should flout the law would be if the State demanded abortions in certain cases. That is when the law would conflict with the Christian’s beliefs. Before converting someone, christian ‘laws’, mores, etc. do not apply to non-christians. I am against abortion and would vote against it as my beliefs dictate. However, if the will of the majority votes for all abortion to be illegal it is not my place to fight that law or judge those people. It really has little to do with conservatism, and it falls under category 1 in Hello’s rant above.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on January 21, 2013 at 0943 hrs
Nice to see that absolute fallacy is still passing as truth around here.
So, Wisconsin’s GOP is now taking credit for increasing Medicaid expenditures by $1.2 billion, even though that amounted to an effective $600 million cut from cost to continue current service levels. Classy.
And I can only assume that Owen took into account eligibilty requirements of each state when evaluating the relative expenditures, you know to make sure this was an apples to apple comparison. Oh, and the fact that $350 million of the Illinois cuts comes from simply cleaning their lists, and eliminating people who no longer met those eligibility requirments from continuing to receive aid? Because Owen wouldn’t gloss over a point like that just to score a cheap political rhetorical point would he? He wouldn’t tacitly advocate continuing to expend taxpayer dollars on people who shouldn’t be receiving them just to make his prefered political party look good right. Right?
Speaking of that, I’m also sure it was an oversight to not mention that Wisconsin’s GOP attempt to cut the state Family Care program. You know the magical program they implemented 12 years ago that was going to cut costs while increasing the number of people eligible for long-term care? And the fact that that it took action by the Federal Government to reverse those cuts was simply an honest omission, right?. Of course Owen would also like everyone to know that because the GOP’s magical service expanding/cost cutting program isn’t working exactly how they planned, that they have frozen final implementation of Family Care in 15 counties because they don’t want to absorb the cost of the increased enrollment in Walker’s budget.
Keep up the good work filling the right-wing echo chamber Owen.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on January 21, 2013 at 0958 hrs
Tuerqas,
Abortion is a tough nut. In the New Testament, Jesus tells us to follow the laws of the land and the precepts of his faith. i.e., the law may say abortion is legal or illegal, but Christians should treat it as only wrong (or illegal before God) for them.
Acts 5:29 “We ought to obey God rather then men.”
Abortion is against God’s law. It is wrong whether one thinks it is or not.
It is a Christians duty, as part of Christ’s kingdom, to discourage sin (in this case, murder) as the Holy Spirit gives them strength.
The legal status of abortion does not matter to a Christian. Murder comes from men, not God.
Acts 5:29 clearly indicates we, as Christians, are to follow the laws of God, not men.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on January 21, 2013 at 1022 hrs
Actually Kevin, you are wrong again about one of your own touted strengths. Romans 13:1-7 begins:
Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God. Therefore whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment.
To not follow duly approved laws of the land is to go against God’s word. Here is your mistake. Acts 5:29 is not equating laws of the land to men. It does not say: We ought to obey God rather than the law. Mine is apples to apples, yours is apples to oranges.
You might say that not all Gov’ts are Godly, and I would agree, but then I would also ask if overall, the constitution of the US fits Romans 13:1-7. I would say yes. Jesus clearly states that the rules of Chrisitianity should hold you more tightly than any law of the land. It is wrong for Christians to get abortions regardless of the law. God will judge that. It is not the milieu of men to make that judgment, but you want to put it in the hands of human judges? Now God is totally out of the loop. Man made his own law, he judges, he penalizes. Now when a woman has served her time, is she forgiven? Why not? You have already taken everything else out of God’s hands and mere men already did every part of it.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on January 21, 2013 at 1306 hrs
Tuerqas,
Simply, if the government “law” goes against what God says, it is not an authority instituted by God. I mostly agree with your comment.
My main beef with your statement was that: abortion is not wrong outside of Christian circles.
Murder is wrong from the divine perspective, whether non-Christians acknowledge it or not. Christians have a duty to encourage, lobby, persuade, or admonish those acting contrary to Christ’s kingdom. That includes efforts to change the man made law to bring it into alignment with God’s law.
I have a question for you:
Does Romans 13 1-7 cancel out Acts 5:29 if the law, authority, public school, or other government entity prohibits you from expressing your faith in Christ?
In another way, spreading the good news of Christ is one of the primary duties of Christian faith. If government inhibits that Christian mission, (which is commonplace in liberal institutions of authority today) does Romans 13 still apply?
Many liberals say it does, but ignore Acts 5:29 completely.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on January 21, 2013 at 1323 hrs
We always had control over education spending.
It was often court rulings and increased state and federal standards that raised the costs and expanded the schools:
Remember when 4 years of college got a person a teaching certificate?
Remember when the special needs kids could be contained in a small room all day and not taught at your expense until they were 21?
Remember when we could drop out at age 16?
Remember what happened to dropouts during Vietnam?
I think women should have all the consensual sex they want and can mentally and psychologically enjoy in their personal pursuit of happiness without other men or women or governments telling them what they can and cannot do with their bodies - their personal property.
As the others have begun subjectively quoting and interpreting Bible passages and I am a devout atheist, I am going to enjoy a beer.
Regardless if there is God or gods and goddesses, what goes around comes around, quite quickly in fact.
Life, people, time, thoughts, actions, consequences, accomplishments, self respect and true happiness are firmly interlocked. One does not need religion to realize that and respect it.Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on January 21, 2013 at 2032 hrs
My goodness… you’re a lunatic. Please don’t purchase any assault weapons.
Posted by Owen on January 21, 2013 at 2051 hrs
“women should have consensual sex they want and can mentally and psychologically enjoy in their personal pursuit of happiness without other men or women or governments telling them what they can and cannot do with their bodies - their personal property.”
And after their bodies have produced children (who surely are not their personal property, what is society to do when they are unable or unwilling to raise them without government “help” (which can be obtained only by a government that takes the personal property of some and redistributes it to others)?
Is it really necessary to point out that all societies are in part organized around the reality that (heterosexual) sex tends to produce children—and that functioning societies must concern themselves with the well-being of children?
Which is to say, a free people must retain some measure of personal responsibility for if they will not then it shall surely be imposed upon them?
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on January 22, 2013 at 0857 hrs
My main beef with your statement was that: abortion is not wrong outside of Christian circles.
I thought I was pretty careful not to say that. That is why I said it was a tough nut. I believe abortion is wrong, but I have a problem with the traditional right to life definitions as well. In my second marriage my wife had 3 eptopic pregnancies. This is where the fertilized egg(what right to lifers call a ‘person’) attaches itself to the fallopian tube rather than traveling all the way down to the uterus. If left unaborted, it is always fatal to the child and usually to the mother as well. What does a diehard right to lifer suggest? Usually they hem and haw and then mutter that the life of the mother does indeed take precedent if it is one or the other or neither. Guess what? That means that there is indeed a measure other than conception where the mother’s life takes precedent and in this case, the child’s life is 100% doomed. Once you start allowing conditions, why is your line in the sand better, stronger or more in line with God’s than someone else’s?
Abortion is not clear cut unless you are ignorant. I don’t presume to believe my line in the sand is better than yours or Dismas’, because it is personal. Laws have to draw lines in the sand. When is murder not murder? In war, in self defense, in eptopic pregnancies. When is abortion not abortion…A law has to make the distinction and how could everyone agree on the same line? That is why I would prefer there to be no laws against abortion. It is a choice.
We always had control over education spending.
I don’t think so. Technically, a majority agreed that teachers were underpaid, but instead of paying them more, they gave them future considerations in forms such as double retirement benefits, then cheap insurance, early retirement, etc. We knew those things were being passed out, but nobody could have predicted the cost and they didn’t try. Our control was in the form of letting bureaucrats have our children pay for future teachers and current teachers, but at the time, the children being given the bill could not vote.
Remember when 4 years of college got a person a teaching certificate?
Yes. Back when a Professor made 40-50k and thought it a decent living wage. Today they are often paid upper 80s to start at a decent college and the highest paid don’t even teach. TAs do that. Payroll is the overwhelming portion of school budgets and really, they should be. However, when a degree starts costing more than your first 3-5 years of salary, I think the costs no longer support the education. Recently someone said that there was an education bubble much like the housing bubble and it was due to pop soon. I 100% agree. Obama has already declared the cost not worth it when he ordered that student loan debt be forgiven after 20 years regardless of dollars still owed. Of course, that too just puts the financial burden on future generations. Pretty soon employers will start acting on what they already see, that a college degree does not prepare a graduate to a point where the additional wage is worth paying.
Life, people, time, thoughts, actions, consequences, accomplishments, self respect and true happiness are firmly interlocked. One does not need religion to realize that and respect it.
As a former devout agnostic, I agree. However, I think too much. The thought I can’t stand, the reason I kept looking for God was this: One has a long full life, but filled with too much hard work and too little enjoyment. Then one dies and anything and everything he was is a memory that fades to nothing. No meaning whatsoever. He lifted many people, but so what, they all died too. He hurt many people, so what, they died too. In a world of no God, no future after death, why not murder or rape if it makes you happy? Why not bleed your workers to the bone if you are a factory owner? We all go to the same oblivion anyway.
Believing in something beyond death makes me happier. Why should I deny myself that satisfaction? If I was wrong, it didn’t matter. If religion is real, I’ll be feeling as good about myself as you will be feeling bad your decision. It gives me reasons to be happy doing good things, to do what is moral, etc. What keeps you from doing whatever you want to others, dismas?
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on January 22, 2013 at 0923 hrs
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