FREE MARKET SOLUTIONS

According to some recent articles in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Democratic legislators are “stunned at the choices they face to rebalance a budget with a deficit now as high as 6.5 billion…” Stunned, they say! What, they never saw this coming? Apparently there is no minimum IQ level required to serve in the state legislature. Last year there were over 70,000 private sector jobs lost in Wisconsin. Businesses are fleeing Wisconsin and relocating to states that won’t tax them into oblivion. And legislators can’t figure out why tax collections are down nearly 800 million over the last ten months! Gov. Jim Doyle has proposed 1.7 billion in tax and fee increases with the new biannual budget. This is on top of the 1.2 billion in tax and fee increases he signed into law in February as part of his super duper budget repair package. Nearly 3 billion in NEW taxes and yet it’s still not enough! Now Democratic legislators are, gasp!, looking at the possibility of cutting spending. Not without some trepidation though. These liberal dopes are all in a tizzy over Doyle’s pathetic little plan to require state employees to take 16 days of unpaid leave over the next two years and to forgo a planned 2% pay increase. Oh, the humanity! Senate president Fred Risser of Madison (shocker) said it’s unfair to require “dedicated and loyal” state workers to take unpaid furloughs. He added that he would rather raise taxes because state workers aren’t responsible for the budget mess. Another breathtakingly stupid remark by a liberal that goes unchallenged. Who’s fault is it Fred? Private businesses and those 70,000+ people that lost their jobs last year? I don’t think so. In 2007, Wisconsin taxpayers paid 12.3% of their income in sales, property and state income taxes. This puts us at 7th on the list of highest taxing states. No Fred, I think it’s your fault. And Doyle’s. And all your liberal colleagues in the state legislature. I think government employees bear some responsibility too. How much, I don’t know but with the liberals theory of joint and several liability, it doesn’t matter.

So what should Wisconsin do? When looking at the state budget, it is necessary to also include local government functions as well. There are myriad government programs ostensibly under local jurisdiction that are funded in large part by the state. For instance, 67% of public school costs are funded by the state. There are so many different programs, incentives and subsidies that it’s like trying to decipher a mobster’s money laundering scheme. Ultimately, everything government does is funded by the taxpayers so I include local government in this analysis.

According to the Census of Government Employment, there were 282,000 people working for state and local government in Wisconsin in 2009. If we exclude those that provide essential or legitimate government services, police and firefighters, that leaves us with 261,000 employees. The average wage of these employees is $46,200. According to U.S. Census Bureau data, the government spends 35 cents on benefits for every dollar in wages. So the actual cost to employ each of these people averages $62,370. per year. Liberal politicians are always telling us that we need to make sacrifices in tough economic times. They also prattle on incessantly about “fairness.” Then lets be fair with the sacrifice. The unemployment rate for Wisconsin in March was 9.4%. In the interest of fairness, state and local governments should immediately lay off 9.4% of the non-essential workforce. That’s 24,534 employees. This would save taxpayers 1.5 billion a year. That’s 3 billion over the course of the biannual budget. Liberals won’t like this but they won’t be able to argue the fairness aspect of it.

Now comes the really hard part. We apply free market principles to the government workforce. The lefties won’t understand this at all. The free market to a liberal is as a rubics cube in the hands of a 4 year old. They have no idea how it works or what it does. They will want to cast it aside and go back to their milk and cookies. We conservatives need to educate them. Conservatives know that the free market is really good at maximizing productivity and minimizing costs. In a word, it promotes efficiency. So, after the layoffs, government is left with 236,500 employees. I’m guessing that many of these people are going to start to realize that they are damn lucky to have a job. Here is where we inject a little free market reality. We cut all wages and benefits by 10%. This saves taxpayers another 3 billion over the two years. Budget crisis averted! But why stop? Oh sure, the government workers will scream and whine and wallow in self pity. But will they quit? I don’t know but in two years the free market will tell us if we can cut another 10%. We can continue to cut until there is no longer a surplus of applicants for these jobs. The government workers will call these actions “draconian.” Any cut in government spending is always called a draconian cut. What a bunch of crap. It’s called competition and those of us in the real world deal with it every day. I think it’s time that government workers experience the existential pleasures of market forces in the real world. They will be better people for it.

Liberals will accuse the taxpayers of greed and selfishness. I don’t think so. What is selfish (and immoral) is politicians currying favor with one segment of society by overpaying them with other peoples money.

100 FREAK'N DAYS

President Obama held a press conference last Wednesday in celebration of his first 100 days in office. The teleprompter was in good working order and he delivered his opening remarks with a style and grace befitting the smoothest of the smooth. I’m sure liberals around the country “felt a thrill going up their leg” during his presentation. Being a conservative, I was able to maintain my composure and actually listened to what he said. Of particular interest to me were his comments on enhanced interrogation or what the lefties call torture. Of course, subjecting a murderous jihadist to anything beyond polite conversation is considered torture by Obama.

The president stated: "We have rejected the false choice between our security and our ideals, by closing the detention center at Guantanamo Bay and banning torture without exception."

One of the pre-approved reporters asked Obama if he thought that the previous administration sanctioned torture. His response in part:

"…waterboarding violates our ideals and values. I do believe that it is torture. And that’s why I put an end to these practices.

I am absolutely convinced that it was the right thing to do – not because there might not have been information that was yielded by these various detainees who were subjected to this treatment, but because we could have gotten this information in other ways – in ways that were consistent with our values, in ways that were consistent with who we are.

It corrodes the character of a country."

It’s easy to make ridiculous and unsupportable statements when you are never called to explain or defend them. Obama knows that we obtained a great deal of valuable information as a result of these interrogations. Yet he flippantly states that we could have gotten this information in other ways.
Really? What ways would those be? And how much time would these unmentioned techniques take? Intelligence gathering is, by its very nature, time sensitive. Intelligence gathered after the fact isn’t intelligence. It’s history. If a bad guy says they are going to blow up some buildings in two weeks and Obama’s PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE TELLS US WHERE technique takes two weeks and a day to work, well, what’s the point?

From 2001 to 2008, the time frame we were “torturing” terrorists, there were more than 10 million abortions in this country. That’s fine and dandy with Obama. No moral implications there. No “corrosive” affect on the character of the country. But when we dump a bucket of water on three, that’s right three, murderous psychopaths and obtain information that saved countless lives, Obama gets all indignant and proclaims: "It corrodes the character of a country." Come on now. Really?

Recognizing that he has no credibility on this issue, Obama invoked the name of a true leader, Winston Churchill: "And Churchill said, 'we don’t torture,' when the entire British – all of the British people were being subjected to unimaginable risk and threat."

Leaving aside the obvious facts that Churchill and Obama would have far different definitions of torture and that if Churchill did authorize torture he wouldn’t tell the whole world, let’s assume Obama is correct. If Churchill did not authorize torture, he had at least two good reasons:

1. Both Great Britain and Germany were signatories to the
Geneva conventions. Churchill might have refrained from
torture with the idea that Germany would reciprocate. We
are not bound by an agreement that our enemy has not
signed!
2. There was probably not much that the typical German POW
could tell Churchill that he didn’t already know. In 1941,
Great Britain, with a big assist from some Polish
mathematicians, had broken the enigma code used by the
German armed forces for all sensitive communications.
This was no small thing. Many historians credit the Allies
intelligence gathering capabilities with shortening the war
by at least two years.

Obama finished up his answer with this liberal tripe: "At the same time, it takes away a critical recruitment tool that Al Qaeda and other terrorist organizations have used to try to demonize the United States and justify the killing of civilians." Here is a list to consider:

September 11, 2001 - Terrorists hijack four U.S. commercial airliners taking off from various locations in the United States in a coordinated suicide attack. In separate attacks, two of the airliners crash into the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York City, which catch fire and eventually collapse. A third airliner crashes into the Pentagon in Washington, DC, causing extensive damage. The fourth airliner, also believed to be heading towards Washington, DC, crashes outside Shanksville, PA., killing all 45 people on board. Casualty estimates from New York put the possible death toll close to 5,000, while as many as 200 people may have been lost at the Pentagon crash site.

Oct. 12, 2000 - A terrorist bomb damages the destroyer USS Cole in the port of Aden, Yemen, killing 17 sailors and injuring 39.

Aug. 7, 1998 - Terrorist bombs destroy the U.S. embassies in Nairobi, Kenya and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. In Nairobi, 12 Americans are among the 291 killed, and over 5,000 are wounded, including 6 Americans. In Dar es Salaam, one U.S. citizen is wounded among the 10 killed and 77 injured.

June 21, 1998 - Rocket-propelled grenades explode near the U.S. embassy in Beirut.

June 25, 1996 - A bomb aboard a fuel truck explodes outside a U.S. air force installation in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia. 19 U.S. military personnel are killed in the Khubar Towers housing facility, and 515 are wounded, including 240 Americans.

Nov. 13, 1995 - A car-bomb in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia kills seven people, five of them American military and civilian advisers for National Guard training. The "Tigers of the Gulf," "Islamist Movement for Change," and "Fighting Advocates of God" claim responsibility.

February 1993 - A bomb in a van explodes in the underground parking garage in New York's World Trade Center, killing six people and wounding 1,042.

Dec. 21, 1988 - A bomb destroys Pan Am 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland. All 259 people aboard the Boeing 747 are killed including 189 Americans, as are 11 people on the ground.

April 1986 - An explosion damages a TWA flight as it prepares to land in Athens, Greece. Four people are killed when they are sucked out of the aircraft.

April 5, 1986 - A bomb destroys the LaBelle discotheque in West Berlin. The disco was known to be frequented by U.S. servicemen. The attack kills one American and one German woman and wounds 150, including 44 Americans.

December 1985 - Simultaneous suicide attacks are carried out against U.S. and Israeli check-in desks at Rome and Vienna international airports. 20 people are killed in the two attacks, including four terrorists.

November 1985 - Hijackers aboard an Egyptair flight kill one American. Egyptian commandos later storm the aircraft on the isle of Malta, and 60 people are killed.

October 1985 - Palestinian terrorists hijack the cruise liner Achille Lauro (in response to the Israeli attack on PLO headquarters in Tunisia) Leon Klinghoffer, an elderly, wheelchair-bound American, is killed and thrown overboard.

August 1985 - A car bomb at a U.S. military base in Frankfurt, Germany kills two and injures 20. A U.S. soldier murdered for his identity papers is found a day after the explosion.

June 1985 - A TWA airliner is hijacked over the Mediterranean, the start of a two-week hostage ordeal. The last 39 passengers are eventually released in Damascus after being held in various locations in Beirut.

April 1985 - A bomb explodes in a restaurant near a U.S. air base in Madrid, Spain, killing 18, all Spaniards, and wounding 82, including 15 Americans.

October 1983 - A suicide car bomb attack against the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut kills 241 servicemen. A simultaneous attack on a French base kills 58 paratroopers.

April 1983 - A suicide car bombing against the U.S. embassy in Beirut kills 63, including 17 Americans.

November 4, 1979 – A group of Islamist students in Iran take over the American embassy in support of the Iranian revolution. 52 U.S. diplomats are held hostage for 444 days.

Two things all these attacks have in common:

1. They were all perpetrated by Muslims.

2. Not one of the terrorists ever said they did it
because the U.S. engaged in waterboarding.

The terrorists hate us because we support Israel and, despite what Obama says, we are a Christian nation. The terrorists hated us before it became official U.S. policy to reveal state secrets to the world and they hate us now. I’m sure now that we are fighting back this upsets them even more. So what? Obama and the left’s unwillingness to accept this reality puts us all in serious danger.