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10/4/2010
Suck it up America

Tonight, the Menasha City Council will take up a resolution advising Congress to nix the possible closure of the Oshkosh US Postal Service facility.

Whereas, this consolidation will not serve the public’s best interest due to: the potential loss and/or relocation of local living-wage jobs and benefits; the negative impact the loss of these jobs would have on the entire Fox Valley economy, housing and related commerce; degradation of current service levels; increased transportation costs; and consolidation and relocation costs; and,

Whereas, the potential loss and/or relocation of local living-wage jobs would have a detrimental effect on Fox Valley economies in terms of business and commerce; and would negatively impact local housing and the resultant tax base relied upon to support local municipal, school district, technical college, county, and State of Wisconsin tax base.

.... Resolved, that the Common Council of the City of Menasha, does hereby request Congressional intervention on this proposal until a General Accounting Office investigation can be conducted on the feasibility study concerning potential living-wage job loss and/or relocation, increased transportation costs, degradation of service, and consolidation costs now serviced by Oshkosh….

So, if somehow we're going to reduce the cost and size of government - how is it ever supposed to happen with resolutions like this? Somewhere, somehow, change must come. It’s time we peons suck it up, do our part and share responsibility with the politicians we find it so easy to malign.

Letters in Bottles says it’s leadership’s fault.

If Democrats, including President Obama, can't even manage a rational engagement with [Rep. Paul] Ryan's plan in the face of the clear and deep-seated problems we're facing, our nation's leadership is truly in denial, and we are going to suffer deeply for such shortsighted foolhardiness.

I disagree. We have found the enemy – and it is us.

Former state Representative Terry Moulton, running as a Republican in the 28th Senate District, said he found that “as a representative it was difficult to make budget cuts because of special interests and lobbyists insisting some areas not be touched.” Still, the Chippewa Herald headlines its piece “Candidates have no easy budget solutions.”

Duh, well, yeah.

The Tomah Journal joins in the candidate bashing chorus with its blaring headline – “Senate candidate whiffs on budget cuts.”

But credit the TJ, they also hit the nail on the head.

Johnson won’t offer specifics because there are precious few specifics that meet with public approval. His statement reveals much about Johnson and the kind of Senator he would be, but it reveals even more about the public’s attitude on how much government it really, truly wants.

Wow. Talk about honesty. Refreshingly straightforward?

“There’s billions of dollars . . . that from my standpoint would be available for cutting. But I’m not going to get in the game here and, you know, start naming specific things to be attacked about, quite honestly.”

Politicians often duck the question of specific cuts but rarely do so with such frank cynicism. Political campaigns, at least ones conducted in good faith, offer a platform of ideas and subject them to the scrutiny of the political marketplace. Naming specifics to be “attacked about” is part of the political process.

Indeed. Something Paul Ryan knows lots about. So do GOP candidates getting bashed by Dems lying about Social Security.

However, Johnson’s cynicism reveals more about public opinion toward government than his own campaign. If it’s politically damaging to offer specific budget cuts, then what does that say about the public’s real attitude about the size and scope of the federal government?.... [Emphasis mine.]

Indeed again. It’s up to us. Suck it up America.

Update: Seems the State Journal agrees with me today.

So what’s the answer? Continued hard-edged decisions on cutting staffing and other labor costs, closing unprofitable post offices and maybe even ending Saturday delivery. That and some relief from Congress on the retiree health benefits and legislative limitations on products and services.

Jo Egelhoff, FoxPolitics.net

COMMENTS

Right on, JO. NIMBY [Not In My Back Yard] attitudes cut both ways. Controversial proposals like wind power are often not welcome in one’s own backyard, though supported for everyone else. SOme of the other unpopular things NIMBY opposes: service cuts [the waste is in the other guy’s district], firing failing teachers [none in my district all in hers], sacking hyper-partisan Congressmen [mine’s fine, yours stinks].

timbeaux (Mon Oct 04 07:19:49 2010)

Yep, we all should suck it up. Including paying more taxes such as the end of the Bush tax cuts for the rich.

People want these services. The only reason to cut them is so the well-off can get even richer since the peons like most of us benifit more from their existance.

(Mon Oct 04 07:27:06 2010)

...which more or less explains why we have the the people in Washington that we do. After all, who put them there?

Andrew Ellis (Mon Oct 04 08:27:09 2010)

Jo, I sent a comment about two hours ago, a glitch?

Suck it up ideed, that also means that we need to pay taxes for those services we want. The end to the Bush tax cuts for the rich will benefit 98% of us peons.

You said >>>GOP candidates getting bashed by Dems lying about Social Security.<<<
Could you explain? GOP candidates should be bashed if they Lie.

Dean Weichmann (Mon Oct 04 09:49:11 2010)

No comment received from you earlier today. Checked SPAM too. Lost in the nether world? Dems lying about Social Security - Dean, my dear, where have you been? I don't have time to get all the links. PolitiFact WI, FactCHeck, NPR - all cited Kagen as pants-on-fire lying. Eeek. Here's one good source, with video. Here's another. And Dems across the country are doing the same thing. Grrr.

Jo (Mon Oct 04 11:55:54 2010)

Thanks for the link,

I wish that everone was completely honest, but I realize that won't happen.

Kagen was misleading but not without some truth there. What might Ribble's new plan be? He does not really say, he just says it will need to be gradual.

>>>We don’t agree that it "completely distorts" Ribble’s view. But it is misleading to say Ribble would force "Wisconsin seniors to fend for themselves," and to suggest that Ribble would phase out the program without replacing it with a new plan<<<

Dean Weichmann (Mon Oct 04 12:21:53 2010)

>>Yep, we all should suck it up. Including paying more taxes such as the end of the Bush tax cuts for the rich.

People want these services. The only reason to cut them is so the well-off can get even richer since the peons like most of us benifit more from their existance<<

I don't know who said this, but hurrah for "people wanting these services." The reason to cut them is, whether the people want them or not, they are not powers granted the Federal Government by the Constitution. And I fail to see how "us peons" from dependence.

Andrew Ellis (Mon Oct 04 15:41:15 2010)

Jo, I tried a search on NPR for "Kagen lied" and did not find anything.

Dean Weichmann (Mon Oct 04 19:54:07 2010)

Here you go Dean.

Jo (Mon Oct 04 22:47:54 2010)

Thank you Jo. I appreciate you taking the time.
Pants on fire is from Politi-fact. It appears Kagan is not one to stick to the high road. A strike against him for me.

Dean Weichmann (Tue Oct 05 05:41:32 2010)

Andrew, have you been reading Krugman?

Who is Spock with a beard?

I did not yet read an article on M D today. I have read about six articles so far, however I find it hard to make sense of them.

Dean Weichmann (Tue Oct 05 19:20:51 2010)

I don't know if anyone is reading this anymore except you Jo. This is from Ezra Klien. It really explains the point of view I agree with.

>>>Will America come to envy Japan's lost decade?
Perhaps the most depressing exchange of this morning's conference -- and believe me, there were plenty to choose from -- was between Goldman Sachs's Jan Hatzius and Paul Krugman. Hatzius started things off by questioning whether the Federal Reserve would really step up to the plate:

If we talk about what else could be done, I think the Federal Reserve could certainly do more. The question is whether what they'll do will have a substantial effect. It'll have some effect. But the numbers for the total amount of asset purchases really required to move the needle a lot is very large. There's a natural bias towards caution among monetary policymakers in this kind of environment.

So usually what happens is that you're in a liquidity trap and you're at the zero bound and you send the staffers away to try and figure out the optimal policy. They go away and model things and come back with some monstrously large number of the amount that needs to be purchased, and the policymakers say, 'Well, I'm not sure you've properly taken into account all the tail risks of this? How do you account for the tail risk that people will lose confidence?' So then the policymakers take a step back towards caution, and that's why in this kind of situation, stimulus tends to be underprovided compared to what's necessary. I think we'll do quite a lot, but it will still fall short of what we need.

Then Paul Krugman jumped in:

There's a trap, and it's the same thing that happened with fiscal stimulus. You do something in the right direction that's inadequate, and then people say, well, that didn't work, and instead of increasing the dosage and proving it right, you give the thing up altogether.

All of this is very familiar if you studied Japan in the '90s. In fact, we're doing worse than the Japanese did. Our monetary policy is a bit more aggressive, but our fiscal policy has been less aggressive. We have a larger output gap than they did, and we've had a surge in unemployment that they never had, and our political will to act has been exhausted much faster than theirs was. On the current track, we're going to look at Japan's lost decade as a success story compared to us. What we should be doing is a really big dose of stimulus on all of these fronts. Throw the kitchen sink at it. But if you ask me for ways to solve this problem that lives within the constraints of policymakers who don't want to be bold, I don't know that I have an answer for that.

So the political system is biased toward caution, which isn't a particularly good bias to have amid a financial crisis that requires massive, unconventional economic policy interventions. But because the policies were too cautious, they don't solve the problem, and that discredits them, which leaves the government without tools and the economy in tatters. It's a bit like taking too few antibiotics, noticing that you're still sick, and swearing off antibiotics altogether.

Oh, and this isn't even the most pessimistic thing I've heard -- well, read -- today. <<<

Dean Weichmann (Tue Oct 05 20:49:35 2010)

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