Daily Archives: November 21, 2011

And This is Surprising How?

Farleigh Dickinson University (yeah the one COD supposedly went to) has come out with a poll showing that FOX News viewer are not as informed as they think they are.

The poll — which asked New Jerseyans where they find news and information about current events — found that Sunday morning news shows are the most informative, while Fox News actually leads people to be less informed than those who consume no news at all.

Wow. I’m speechless. 🙂 I mean, I thought FOX News gave everyone a fair and balanced view of current events.

The poll focused partly on popular uprisings in Egypt and Syria. Asked whether the people of Egypt successfully topped Hosni Mubarak’s regime, 49 percent of Fox News viewers answered “yes” — the lowest on the scale — while 68 percent of NPR listeners answered in the affirmative, the highest on the scale.

They also probably think that Libya is a term for a progressive from the South.

“The (poll’s) results show us that there is something about watching Fox News that leads people to do worse on these questions than those who don’t watch any news at all,” said Dan Cassino, a political science professor at Fairleigh Dickinson and an analyst for the poll.

So, I wonder how O’Liely will spin this tonight in the “No Spin Room.”

In Which We Find That John Sigler Doesn’t Know What He Is Talking About

But I guess that’s how you know he’s in the GOP, right?

In yesterday’s Delaware Voice (New Journal), Representative J.J. Johnson reminds GOP chair John Sigler that he should stick to refereeing the food fights in Sussex County and leave the business of governing to those who will care about its details.

Sigler apparently spent his time writing about “runaway tax and spending”, which isn’t borne out by looking at the numbers. But no member of the GOP ever went broke waving the Tax and Spend flag at the local bulls. And as impotent as they are right now, they still haven’t decided to commit themselves to some better numeracy. But here is the *data* as cited by Representative Johnson:

Since fiscal 2009, our budget has grown by $145.7 million, or 4.3 percent, over a three-year period. That is less than 1.5 percent per year, which is hardly runaway spending. Of that $145.7 million, $112.4 million is due to increases in Medicaid, Welfare and teacher unit counts.

More than 75 percent of our budget increase is due to things we are required to fund. A recent News Journal article noted that there are an additional 48,000 people receiving Medicaid and 63,000 more people receiving food stamps since fiscal 2009, and our teacher unit counts are tied to student enrollment. And those numbers will continue to increase.

Unless Mr. Sigler thinks we should cut seniors off the Medicaid rolls or increase classroom sizes, these cost increases are unavoidable. I would hope he agrees with me that we cannot afford to abandon those Delawareans who depend on this aid.

Sigler has called for clearly failed policies, like super-majorities to pass tax and budget bills, TABOR, and other stuff that localities that submitted to this kind of GOP experimentation are working hard to get rid of. Places like Arizona and Nevada have had their bond ratings downgraded by Moody’s in part because the supermajority gives the power of stopping any rationality on budgets and spending to a few people. Meaning that they are likely to become much like California, where they haven’t been able to do much to address their fatal budget issues because a few Republicans won’t be responsible. But here is Representative Johnson:

Mr. Sigler also calls for a constitutional amendment requiring a two-thirds “supermajority” on all tax and fee bills and our “money bills” — the budget, Bond Bill and Grant-in-Aid. First off, state law already requires a three-quarters majority for Grant-in-Aid and the Bond Bill and a three-fifths majority for all tax and fee bills. Mr. Sigler is blowing smoke and then yelling “fire.”

Hello.

Mr. Sigler needs to stick to his knitting and get the in-fighting stopped in his own party — so maybe they may be competitive again, you know? — and then get themselves wrapped up in the actual facts of how this state is governed, so maybe they’ll not just sound smarter but they may come up with some interesting solutions to real problems here in Delaware.

Who said it? (cross posted at Democrats4Kovach)

Was the following Republican sounding gibberish spouted by “Democrat” John Carney, or Republican Tim Kovach?

For too long, leaders in Washington — from both sides of the aisle — have put the U.S. in a severe financial mess.

Carney or Kovach ?

America’s debt isn’t just an economic problem, it’s a national security problem as well. We’re leaving future generations with trillions of dollars owed to foreign governments.

Carney or Kovach ?

The people of Delaware understand that everything must be on the table. … And when I say everything must be on the table, that means that everything should be on the table: discretionary spending, entitlement programs, revenue, defense, tax reform, and other areas.

Carney of Kovach ?

I’ll put the answers in the comments section after a while. In the meantime “Who said it?” is going to be a regular feature of the Democrats4Kovach blog. “Regular” anyway, until John Carney decides to stop muddying the waters as to what it means to be a Democrat.

Monday Open Thread [11.20.11]

Bill Dunn makes his announcement for NCCo Council President! Did anyone go?

Newt Gingrich thinks that child labor laws should be rolled back so kids can be janitors. This is all kinds of awful, and apparently one feature of a new Contract On America that will try to make over America into some Dickensian debtors prison.

Now here’s a constitutional amendment that we can get behind (listen up, John Carney!):Rep. Deutch Introduces OCCUPIED Constitutional Amendment To Ban Corporate Money In Politics Who’s in?

From The Onion, Libertarian Reluctantly Calls Fire Department:

#Fail

That seems to sum up (as of this writing, which is shortly before the Super Committee deadline) the rather expected results of the work of said Super Committee.

It isn’t as though many people expected them to get to their set targets or to the target the Go Big crew wanted them to get to. Republicans wanted to treat this exercise as a way to cut more taxes for their wealthy funders, even though Democrats did show up with some cuts to Medicare and Medicaid. And even though the media will be doing their both sides do it dance today (they were doing it over the weekend), an honest look at this thing shows that Democrats showed up to govern while Republicans showed up to get more goodies for their pals. They’ll point to a completely bogus deal where the GOP would trade some small increase in revenues in trade for making the Bush tax cuts permanent. Which, if you just think about the math for a minute, *still* leaves a pretty big hole in the budget that they didn’t do anything to fill.

But E.J. Dionne last week wrote about how to get $7.1 trillion in budgetary savings — and it is as easy as doing nothing. Absolutely nothing — which should be a position right up this Congress’ alley — and should be something of a comfort to those who keep screaming about the crisis of the budget. And how many times to you get to deal with a crisis by doing nothing?

How it works:

Budget experts agree that federal budget deficits and debt will grow to unacceptable levels in coming years and decades if policymakers do not make changes in current policies. What’s also true, but less widely discussed, is that, under current law, changes in current policies that would reduce deficits to acceptable levels will take place unless Congress intervenes to stop that from occurring. That is, Congress can reduce deficits to acceptable levels simply by not passing certain new legislation.

The savings:

● $3.3 trillion from letting temporary income and estate tax cuts enacted in 2001, 2003, 2009, and 2010 expire on scheduled at the end of 2012 (presuming Congress also lets relief from the Alternative Minimum Tax expire, as noted below);
● $0.8 trillion from allowing other temporary tax cuts (the “extenders” that Congress has regularly extended on a “temporary” basis) expire on scheduled;
● $0.3 trillion from letting cuts in Medicare physician reimbursements scheduled under current law (required under the Medicare Sustainable Growth Rate formula enacted in 1997, but which have been postponed since 2003) take effect;
● $0.7 trillion from letting the temporary increase in the exemption amount under the Alternative Minimum Tax expire, thereby returning the exemption to the level in effect in 2001;
● $1.2 trillion from letting the sequestration of spending required if the Joint Committee does not produce $1.2 trillion in deficit reduction take effect; and
● $0.9 trillion in lower interest payments on the debt as a result of the deficit reduction achieved from not extending these current policies.

And as E.J. notes, all of these cuts may not be the smart ones. But $7.1 trillion in savings by not doing anything should make the deficit hawks very happy. Watch, however, how they’ll all come out of the woodwork to argue against the sequestration (and the 10% defense cuts) and argue against the Bush tax cuts. Meaning that they really don’t care much about resolving the budget problem, that they don’t believe in the “balanced and fair approach” and that all they are doing is fighting over what special interests get the greatest amount of tax dollars sent to them.

While I’m at it, bonus points for journalists who ask politicians about the essential disconnect between screaming for budget cuts, but getting set up to restore alot of this stuff in 2012.