If you’ve been looking for a good summary of “Why Wisconsin matters“, E.J. Dionne’s latest Washington Post column qualifies as both quick and meaty:
… Nobody denies that the recession has tanked state revenue. That’s why even progressive governors have been making budget cuts – and why Wisconsin’s state unions conceded to Walker’s demands for higher pension and health-care contributions. What the unions are rightly resisting is a shift in the long-term balance of political power that undercutting collective bargaining would represent.
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How do we know this is about power, not budgets? Even as they go after the unions, Walker and his Republican allies in the legislature are also trying to change the makeup of future Wisconsin electorates in their favor. They are pushing to end same-day voter registration (which currently empowers younger voters, who are more liberal than their elders and move around more) and to pass onerous voter ID laws that would especially burden those with lower incomes.
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Last week Walker signed into law a bill that will require a two-thirds supermajority in the legislature, or a statewide referendum, to raise income, sales or corporate franchise taxes. Imagine if President Obama had insisted that a two-thirds majority be required to repeal his health-care law? This is an anti-democratic effort to lock in the policies of what could prove to be a temporary conservative majority.
David Koch
Stop whining, I bought Wisconsin fair and square.
Ben
Someone, somewhere, just once, say that we need to raise taxes in order to get the states’ budgets to balance.
I just want to hear one person say it. Please. If EJ Dionne can’t bring himself to say it, we’re doomed.
Mike Kay (Chief of Staff)
@Ben: EJ lives in DC, they’re all brain washed down there.
Phyllis
This.
Fargus
Seems like pretty simple arithmetic. Do whatever you can do to stop Dems getting elected. Also, as a backstop, in case they do get elected, make sure they need to get elected in enormous numbers in order to do anything.
How can it be legal/constitutional to use a bare majority to pass a 2/3 requirement?
Emma
I actually did something I never do — read the comments. There’s an army of republican-points spammers out there. I always laughed when someone said that they were paid by someone but honestly, why else would you post the same things over and over again under cover of “discussion” if it wasn’t a job?
dmsilev
@Fargus:
If that’s legal, wouldn’t it also be legal for a bare majority to repeal said 2/3s requirement?
dms
R-Jud
This is amusing. I was doing some research on the history of US taxation for work and bopped over to Wikipedia to look at the references on their page for it.
Here’s the section on corporate taxation.
Coincidence? Or reasonably subtle prank?
Fargus
@dmsilev:
I’d imagine that’d be legal, right? Kind of like that part in the US Constitution that says everything except the part about the Senate can be amended. But if you first amend the part that says it can’t be amended, then you can amend it.
Fargus
Why do we cede ground linguistically to people? Anti-union people call states where they’ve quashed union activity “right-to-work” states. Why is this reported uncritically as though it’s just what it’s called?
Tim in Wisconsin
The 2/3 majority on taxes is pure symbolism. If they want to raise taxes, all they have to do is get a simple majority to change the law and then a simple majority to raise taxes.
What I find, disturbing, however, is the unintentional symbolism it projects: the best way out of fiscal difficulties is to act more like California.
john b
yeah. here in ohio, the new seceretary of state is hiding getting rid of same-day voting by adding internet voter registration at the same time. and to be honest, the status quo isn’t that great. coming from NC to OH, I know realize how liberal our voter registration policies were there.
Agoraphobic Kleptomaniac
Being in a “right-to-work” state, I’ve never understood why it’s called that. Everytime I asked someone what it meant, they answered, “Well, it means you can be fired at any time for any reason.” Never made sense how those two phrases could mean the same thing.
rachel
@Agoraphobic Kleptomaniac: It’s George Orwell’s America; you just live there.
priscianus jr
@Mike Kay (Chief of Staff): EJ lives in DC, they’re all brain washed down there.
Dionne knows perfectly well that any government needs tax revenues. The reason he doesn’t mention that: it’s called “rhetoric”. You always use your more effective arguments before your less effective ones. Limiting yourself to the truth (note: a rule largely ignored by GOP, who prefer to create “reality”, that still depends on your audience. So if his audience is inside the beltway, “raise taxes” is a shibboleth, you don’t say it. Dionne himself is not barinwahed, which one might infer from your comment.
priscianus jr
@Agoraphobic Kleptomaniac: “right-to-work” … Everytime I asked someone what it meant, they answered, “Well, it means you can be fired at any time for any reason.” Never made sense how those two phrases could mean the same thing.
You need to read George Orwell.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newspeak
Cliff in NH
How f’n stupid is this?
What is a filibuster?
Davis X. Machina
Maine’s new governor is making noises about ending same-day registration here. I can’t tell you how many of my students (HS seniors) have availed themselves of it over the years. I did the new-voter table at my town polling place in ’04 and the average age of our customer was a good 30 years less than that of the already-registered.
Decades of our having the highest or second-highest turnout in the country about to be flushed…
Triassic Sands
I’m curious, who are the “progressive governors?” Note, begin a Democrat does nothing to establish “progressive” credentials. To do that, you have to actually be a progressive, support progressive policies, and actively oppose right-wingers.
Uncle Clarence Thomas
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I am still the original Coke Brotha.
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