Wisconsin State Journal, Jan. 24
Don’t repeat dysfunctional shutdown
It’s hard to think of a better (or worse) example of Washington dysfunction than the federal government literally not functioning.
Most government offices and services were closed Monday, with employees furloughed, after Senate Democrats - including U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin, D-Madison - triggered the first partial government shutdown since 2013.
The Democrats deserve most of the blame for this brief yet troubling debacle. They were the ones who refused to advance a stop-gap funding resolution Friday that would have kept the government running for another month. Democrats blocked the resolution to pressure Republicans on immigration policy. Specifically, Democrats wanted permission for certain undocumented immigrants brought here illegally as children to stay.
The so-called “Dreamers” deserve leniency because they came here through no fault of their own. But using a single issue to shut down the government is going too far. It’s a severe sign of partisan belligerence, which the State Journal editorial board has long opposed, going back to then-House Speaker Newt Gingrich’s longer 1995 and 1996 shutdowns.
The Senate Democrats - including Baldwin - relented Monday, after gaining some limited assurance from Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Kentucky., that the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program would be dealt with soon.
But another shutdown could occur next month if either side of the political divide digs in too deep on its position.
President Donald Trump shares responsibility for the shutdown because he bungled a bipartisan deal to let many of the Dreamers stay. And his confusing statements and tweets didn’t help. Even McConnell said he doesn’t understand what his Republican president’s position is on the issue.
Trump initially signaled at a White House meeting with key lawmakers Jan. 9 he would sign whatever bipartisan immigration deal they brought him.
“I’m not going to say, ’Oh, gee, I want this or I want that.’ I’ll be signing it,” Trump said.
Yet when Sens. Lindsey Graham, R-South Carolina, and Dick Durbin, D-Illinois, proposed just such an agreement two days later, Trump balked, leading to the funding standoff and Democrats risking a shutdown of non-essential federal offices and services to try to get their way.
Besides sending mixed signals, Trump crudely disparaged America’s acceptance of immigrants from Haiti, Africa and El Salvador, while suggesting more immigrants come from countries such as Norway. Injecting vulgarities and racial bias into the debate heightened emotions. And the ensuing shutdown weakened America’s reputation and trust at home and abroad.
Trump now claims he won the standoff, while Democrats claim they gained some political leverage.
But America definitely lost. This stunt should not be repeated.
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The Capital Times, Jan. 24
Pocan’s right: Ryan’s Republicans do not have license to go to extremes
First, Republicans said that if they had control of the U.S. House and the U.S. Senate, they could govern.
Then, Republicans said that if they had control of the U.S. House and the U.S. Senate and the presidency, they could govern.
Now, Republicans have complete control of the federal government and, on the anniversary of the achievement of their goal, they proved that they could not govern by creating a crisis so severe that the federal government shut down.
The problem is no longer one of control for the Republicans. They have that.
What they lack is any sense of perspective, and proportionality.
They think that control of the legislative and executive branches of government means that they can do whatever they want - no matter how irrational economically and socially, no matter how cruel, no matter how destructive. But that is never how the governing process was supposed to work. Even when presidents and their parties have had overwhelming majorities, as Franklin Delano Roosevelt did in the 1930s, as Lyndon Johnson did in the 1960s, they have recognized a need to strike balances and to seek bipartisan balance. Even when presidents have enjoyed overwhelming personal popularity, as Dwight Eisenhower did in the 1950s and Ronald Reagan did in the 1980s, they have reached across the aisle to bring members of the loyal opposition into the governing process. There is a long tradition of wise leaders from both parties seeking common ground on behalf of the American people - not to advance their own partisan passions and ideological whims.
Unfortunately, the Republicans who are currently in charge refuse to recognize this history, and this possibility.
Nor do they recognize that their majorities are tenuous at best.
Donald Trump lost the popular vote contest with Hillary Clinton in 2016 by 2.9 million ballots. He secured only 46 percent of the vote and assumed the presidency only after his campaign narrowly prevailed in three battleground states that provided him with an advantage in the Electoral College. Though that advantage was enough to make Trump president, he has no historical or contemporary mandate. In fact, as political analyst Nate Silver noted last year, Trump’s Electoral College advantage was “decidedly below-average.” ’’There have been 54 presidential elections since the ratification of the 12th Amendment in 1804,” he explained. “Of those 54 cases, Trump’s share of the electoral vote - assuming there are no faithless electors or results overturned by recounts - ranks 44th.”
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Kentucky, has even less of a mandate. Only one-third of Senate seats were up for election in 2016, and the count is complicated by state-based quirks. (The Republicans were eliminated in the California primary, setting up a November contest between two Democrats; and Louisiana’s Senate runoff wasn’t held until Dec. 10.) With that said, Democrats actually picked up two U.S. Senate seats in 2016 and reduced the Republican majority in the chamber. And voters across the country cast dramatically more ballots for Democratic Senate candidates than Republicans. USA Today reported shortly after the election, “The White House may not be the only institution in Washington that Democrats lost on Tuesday despite getting more votes than Republicans. It turns out that Democrats also got more votes for the U.S. Senate than Republicans, and yet Republicans maintained their majority on Capitol Hill.” The final count had Democratic Senate candidates gathering 51.4 million votes to 40.4 million for Republican candidates. So it’s absurd to suggest that voters handed Senate Republicans a blank check to remake America. They didn’t.
It is equally absurd to suggest that House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Janesville, has a mandate. Republican House candidates earned just 49 percent of the vote across the country in 2016. Far from receiving the endorsement of an enthusiastic electorate, Ryan’s House caucus lost six seats. By comparison, when Barack Obama was elected president in 2008 (with 53 percent of the vote in a higher turnout election), Democratic candidates for the House won 13 million more votes, for a 53-43 advantage over their Republican rivals. Ryan’s current majority has more to do with gerrymandering and the speaker’s ability to raise money from billionaires and Wall Street interests than the enthusiasm of the American people for Republican hegemony.
These numbers tell us that Congressman Mark Pocan, D-town of Vermont, is precisely right to declare: “Republicans have control of the White House, the Senate, and the House of Representatives. However, complete Republican control is not a license to make outrageous demands and break promises to the American people.”
Republicans went to extremes during the budgetary wrangling that preceded the shutdown, as Pocan noted.
“For the last several years, Speaker Ryan and (former Senate Budget Committee Chair Patty) Murray have had an agreement on funding parity between the Department of Defense and nondefense domestic programs,” said the congressman. “Until now, Speaker Ryan and Majority Leader McConnell have honored that agreement. With their latest spending proposal, Republicans have once again abandoned the middle class and are refusing to negotiate. Most Americans want a long-term funding solution for the Children’s Health Insurance Program and community health centers. And most Americans want to protect the futures of 800,000 young Dreamers. These are not complicated ideas, nor are they exclusive of each other. President Trump, Majority Leader McConnell, and Speaker Ryan must offer Democrats a seat at the table and address these urgent issues.”
Pocan said the American people “deserve better than the hostage-style negotiating tactics that Republicans are undertaking.”
That is a truth Paul Ryan’s Republicans need to recognize not only when government shutdowns are in play, but as we move forward on other crucial issues. If they fail do so do, then they need to be removed.
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The Journal Times of Racine, Jan. 28
Walker offers tax credits, but only for some
There was much to like in Gov. Scott Walker’s proposed agenda outlined in his State of the State address last week - including plans to remove juveniles from the troubled Lincoln Hills prison, protecting the state’s SeniorCare prescription drug program, supporting school funding and guaranteeing insurance coverage for people with pre-existing conditions.
Many of those ideas are politically conciliatory ones - ones that have been backed by Democrats in the past and Walker alluded to that in his speech, saying, “These are not Republican or Democrat issues. These are just Wisconsin issues.”
But there was also a major clinker in the basket and that was the governor’s call for a $100-per-child tax credit for the parents of every child living at home under the age of 18.
It’s payable in cash - just before the November elections when Gov. Walker faces an election challenge as he seeks a third term. The proposal would cost the state $122 million in revenue and in future years would be a credit in the normal tax filing procedure.
“Vote-buying” may be too harsh a word for that, although some have called it that - and no, that did not come from a Democrat, it came from a conservative radio talk show host.
“I love Scott Walker & the reforms he and the WI conservatives have done,” tweeted Jay Weber, a radio host with WISN-AM, “But this idea to give a quicky $100 per child tax credit to parents before the election reeks of the type of vote buying & game playing we’ve ripped on the Dems for doing for 30 years.”
Walker defended the child tax credit, which would be taken from a state budget surplus, tweeting: “Sending the surplus back to the hard-working taxpayers is a conservative idea. With our child tax credit, we are making tax cuts and our reforms real.”
That doesn’t really address the timing of the checks being sent out no later than Sept. 1, just as the gubernatorial race heads down the home stretch. The back-to-school bonus would no doubt be remembered by those families when they go to the polls.
But, the fact is, too, that those bonus checks will go out to roughly 671,000 households, which represent a little less than 30 percent of the households in the state, according to U.S. Census figures.
Where are the checks for the other 1.6 million households in the state? Where are the checks for the millennials without children, for the working seniors on fixed income who could use a buck or two but whose children are grown, or for the couple that simply elects not to have children? Aren’t they too “hard-working taxpayers” as Walker termed it?
Plus, there is no income limit for the fall giveback and no drug testing, either - as the governor has proposed for other state aid programs.
We fail to see the tax equity for all taxpayers in the back-to-school bonuses that just goes to families with children. We are concerned as well that the $122 million draw-down of the state’s budget surplus would reduce it by a third to $263 million, which, according to some budget analysts, is lower than what is recommended for a state budget cushion.
Or perhaps those millions could be the seed funding for a long-term solution to the state’s still unresolved highway transportation needs.
We would urge the state Legislature to seriously examine the governor’s child tax credit proposal and assess whether it really fits the needs of Wisconsin and its taxpayers - all of them.
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