The CapTimes has an interesting and reasonably-balanced article (the lead article no less) called ‘The cost of clean air’ today.  Once you get past the opening premise that customers of MG &E are ‘voting with their pocketbooks’ for cleaner energy (10% opting in is not what I consider a vote for something), the article accurately portrays what is coming down the road for Wisconsin if the Cap ‘n Tax bill is passed in Washington.

Getting right to the point, the chair of Gov. Doyle’s own ‘Global Warming Task Force’, Roy Thilly, clearly and accurately points out that such a bill would be a ‘huge wealth transfer’ from states like Wisconsin to the states on the coasts.  Similarly, the National Association of Manufacturers is also saying that the bill could cost the state of Wisconsin another 50,000 jobs.  These are some of the most accurate and telling statement I can remember reading from the local media on what this really means for our state.   The only thing I can think to add is to remind everyone that Tammy Baldwin, our Representative, helped pass this bill. 

So what are we going to do?  Rep. Spencer Black (D-Madison) is going to sponsor a ‘Clean Energy Jobs Act’ bill!  That’s right, in other words, the federal government, with Tammy’s help, is passing legislation to kill jobs in Wisconsin so the state government would like to pass legislation to try and replace those jobs – but only if they’re the ‘right’ kind of jobs. 

The bright spot in all of this is that there is a small nod to nuclear energy.  Lifting our state’s moratorium on nuclear power plants would provide cheap, abundant energy to our state.  One nuclear plant alone would provide as much or more energy than if we committed the entire state to wind energy.  That’s a lot of windmills to make up for a single nuclear power plant (side note: what’s the environmental impact of all those windmills compared to a single nuclear power plant? Just asking).  In addition, wind power only works when the wind is blowing.  Last time I checked nuclear power plants can work round the clock, with or without wind, with or without sun (since solar is on the list too).  Lastly, after fully committing to wind, there is no room to grow.  With nuclear power, we could add a second plant or third plant as needed. 

The drawback to nuclear power?  Some democrats have said they won’t support lifting a ban until the long-term storage problem is figured out, environmentalists will fight nuclear power, and the process takes too long.  First of all, while they’re not named in the article but I’m guessing they’re likely the same democrats suggesting we are in the midst of a climate change crisis and we need to act yesterday.  The fact is we can deal with the storage; it’s not ideal but compared to alternatives nuclear power is the most attractive, realistic solution on the table.  The second and third points go together.  Environmentalists are a huge part of why the process to create a new plant is so cumbersome and time consuming.  Again, like those democrats, environmentalists that warn of global catastrophe with no time to spare want us to gamble on ‘green power’ that is not proven or reliable at this stage.  Wouldn’t it make sense to allow nuclear power to fill that gap until such a time when green power is ready for prime time?  Or does ideology trump reality?

In the midst of the ongoing national debate on healthcare reform (Tammy’s issue, remember?), wonder what Tammy has been working on lately? She introduced a bill this last week to protect “public, education, and government” channels. It’s good to have priorities.

Consider that the reason these channels are hurting for funding is because we decided on a state level to change how the funding is done. In comes big brother, or big sister in this case, to come fix everything. It’s ironic that Tammy, representing the people of Wisconsin feels the need to bring the federal government down to ‘fix’ what the people of Wisconsin decided to do in the first place. Shouldn’t what television we support and subsidize be determined on a local level?  If people want to watch this then they will pay for it, that's how the free market works. 

It seems to work for football when the Packers are featured on Sundays over other games. Being a Bear fan myself (I know, that's not a popular thing to admit, but it's true) I would love to see the Bears featured more locally but I won’t begrudge the Packers trumping them for TV rights – it’s what the majority of folks here want to see. Imagine if the Washington crowd decided we all should be watching the Redskins. Clearly, whether these stations have the local support to stay on the air should purely be a local issue.

While admittedly not a huge issue in the grand scheme of things, it does highlight another instance where the people in Washington, including Tammy, think they know better than the people of Wisconsin what's best for the people of Wisconsin.

Representative Baldwin has been busy tackling the tough issues now that she’s back in Washington. Recently in light of the controversy around ACORN she took a stand and voted against pulling federal assistance to ACORN – although a majority still voted against her and she failed in her attempting to keep funding ACORN’s various activities around the US. However, she found time help pass a ‘Resolution of Disapproval’ on her fellow Representative Joe Wilson for his outburst during the President’s speech the other week.

 In case you missed it, ACORN has recently been involved with a prostitution scandal in San Diego, a prostitution scandal in San Bernardino, a prostitution scandal in New York, a prostitution scandal in Washington DC, and a prostitution scandal in Maryland (in addition to operating illegally in that state). I think I’ve covered all the prostitution scandals but there are so many I can’t be sure. Sure seems like times are tough for ACORN but I’m sure it’s reassuring to them to have Tammy in their corner. This should be an outrage to her constituents that she finds herself representing us in favor of ACORN.

In summary, if you interrupt the President you’ll invoke her ire. If you’re involved in prostitution scandals and voter fraud across the US, Representative Baldwin will stand by you.

I realize that it may sound harsh to accuse the President or Representative Baldwin of lying about healthcare reform.  Supporters say that no one has a crystal ball and when they say if you you’re your current coverage you can keep it, they really, really, really mean it.  However, multiple news sources and people who have actually read the legislation in the House right now say that statement isn’t “entirely true” or “not literally true” and that's just the liberal, friendly media.  When something is not true, I consider it a lie.  Is that overly harsh?  For any parent with a three year old, I think they’d see it the same way. 

 According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, the act of lying is:

1: to make an untrue statement with intent to deceive

2: to create a false or misleading impression

Isn’t what the President and Tammy are doing is creating a “false or misleading impression” on their plans for healthcare?  To be fair to the President, he technically has never shared any details of “his” healthcare reform, the only plan we can judge right now is the plan in the House.  However, it is completely fair to judge Tammy on that content of that bill and with that bill it is completely false to be making the claims she and her colleagues are making.  In my book then it’s absolutely fair to say Tammy is lying about healthcare.

Tammy still hasn’t seen fit to schedule any listening sessions with people she represents.  It appears in lieu of actually talking to anyone she has sent out an electronic survey.  The survey hits on a variety of topics, one of which is the plan for government to take-over our healthcare.  On this survery Tammy attempts to boil down complex issues to “Yes/No/Unsure/No opinion” with no opportunity to elaborate in our feedback.  Of course many people would like to see us improve our healthcare system in the US.  That can take a variety of forms though and there are many, legitimate ideas on the table to do just that.  To boil it down to a yes or no question is dishonest and just feeds her propaganda machine since if you’re not for it, you must be against it right?

You also have to wonder how much weight this online survey will carry.  Not to get too philosophical, it has the same problem of that tree falling in the woods with no one to hear it.  Does it really make a sound?  Likewise, with no public forum, it makes you wonder if you express your opinion online and Tammy is the only one to see, does it really count (at least to her)?   The other significant problem this has is since it’s an online survey that would mean that anyone, from anywhere in the world, can answer and fill it out on our behalf – multiple times I bet.  Will it really be a shock when the results come back and the Wisconsin 2^nd Congressional District voted a billion to none for this bill?  It probably won’t be that obvious but I will wager a guess that we’ll find out that we support her bill.

Lastly, I wanted to share a useful site that I’ve come across recently.  Americans for Prosperity have put a couple great sites and one of them is www.fightbackwisconsin.com.  In additional to good, general information about local events, it also has links to listening sessions scheduled in Wisconsin.  Unfortunately as I wrote, Tammy has yet to schedule any so her part on this page is kind of blank.  On interesting thing is that Republican representatives in our state have scheduled three for every one of their Democrat counterparts while the Democrats outnumber the Republicans five to three.  I guess that answers my question in the previous paragraph about whether our opinion really matters to Tammy and her colleagues.   

Now the Democrats that control Congress and the White House are claiming that anyone who might disagree with them taking over our healthcare is an angry mob.  The hypocrisy is almost unbelievable except this is all too familiar of a tactic.  Remember “the debate is over” with respect to global warming?  Judging from the forums I subscribe many people are lining to be counted in that “angry mob”.  Well they can count me in too; I don’t believe the government should be running our healthcare either.  Too bad our local “representatives” don’t see fit to have an in person town hall or listening session on this issue.  This is Madison though.  Shouldn’t this be the place to go if they want feel good, photo-op crowds and this plan is so well supported by Democrats?  If Tammy doesn’t feel like having a town hall in the Madison area that’s saying something.

Tammy did however make an appearance on talk radio the other day to spread some of her talking points.  She was predictably elusive when the callers I heard asked her real questions.  She completely dodged the question of whether she would stand by this public health plan for members of Congress.  Her response was that she wanted all Americans to have the choices.  Choices?!?  How does creating a bill to drive out competition and put us on the path to single-payer create choice?  Furthermore, if it is so great, why explicitly exempt Congress from this?  Any time Congress exempts itself from the legislation they’re passing for the rest us then we know we are in trouble.    

Talking about choices sure makes for a great sound bite but it’s a lie.  There is a commercial on TV now where they ask two girls if they want a pony and both say yes.  One gets a little toy pony and the other a real live pony.  When the one with the toy pony asks why she didn’t get the real pony, the answer is: read the fine print, you didn’t ask.  Similarly, in another variation, a boy gets an awesome new bike but the “fine print” says he can only ride it in rectangular area not much bigger than the bike.  Both kids know they’ve been taken for a ride.  This is how I feel when Tammy and other Democratic leaders in Congress are talking to us.  They tell us “you’ll have choices” but if you read the bill you’ll see that you only have choices until something changes in your current plan – then you have to move to the public option.  A lie?  Maybe not technically but I suppose but even a child would know it’s wrong.

Side Note

Remember dissent was the highest form of patriotism only a couple years ago?  Now if you don’t like the idea of government-run healthcare then the White House is asking your neighbors to report you to them.   I’m generally not one for conspiracy theories and overblown rhetoric but that sounds eerie to say the least.  Frankly it sounds more like Nazi Germany and Communist Russia than the United States. 

Action for action’s sake is rarely a good idea.  Time after time we see the unintended consequences of rash action without a real plan.  One good example is the stimulus “plan” that passed through Congress earlier this year.  An AP story today highlighted the fact that in the rush to spend money on something, we neglected to spend the money on what was most needed.  In this case it was bridges.  It turns out that the bridges easiest and fastest to spend money on are also the ones that don’t need to be fixed.  The ones that are in most dire need of repair aren’t getting stimulus money because they’re not “shovel-ready” enough.

Unfortunately Congress is looking to take more action, this time on our healthcare, just to show they’re doing something.  Our own Representative Tammy Baldwin wrote a piece for the Wisconsin State Journal painting quite a rosy picture for she envisions the future of government-run healthcare will be like.  Unfortunately this is more, empty rhetoric.  She repeats the same lie about being able to keep your current plan if you like it.  How many independent sources that have read the bill do we need to keep point out that this is just not true?  Is she hoping that by repeating it enough times and wishing hard enough that we’ll believe her?  I realize it is strong to accuse someone of lying but I don’t know how else to characterize what she says.  The alternative is she hasn’t read the very bill she’s promoting but that would be incompetent to say the least.  Either possibility isn’t good and not good for the people she is supposed to be representing. 

Representative Baldwin also paints quite a picture of how she and the Democrats are bravely and courageously pushing forward on healthcare reform “against strong opposition”.  She tries to paint the Republican minority, who don’t have enough votes to truly stop this, as this strong opposition.  The truth is that the strong opposition to government taking over healthcare is the American people.  These same people have caused many conservative-minded Democrats in Tammy’s own party to question whether this is the right course of action.  A majority of Americans just don’t support this plan and an overwhelming majority of Americans are happy with the coverage they currently have.  We undoubtedly need changes to rein in costs but perhaps we should first look at overwhelming costs litigation adds to our healthcare or allowing private coverage to be more portable before we trash the entire system.

Trashing the current system is the ultimate plan; make no mistake about that.  Many Democrats have stated that single payer is the ultimate goal.  The current plan is a just to get their foot in the door and pave the wave for the government to be that single payer.   It is critically important that we keep up our strong opposition to this bill and let Representative Baldwin know that in no uncertain terms during this recess.  I do not believe she has yet scheduled any sessions to speak to the people she represents but when they are I will be posting them here.  Remember Tammy’s responsibility is to us, the people she is supposed to represent and not to make us the enemy and “strong opposition” to her party’s agenda. 

It’s “Tammy’s Time” in the current issue of the Isthmus (on newsstands now, when it’s online I’ll link it here).  In addition to pointing out how our long-standing U.S. Representative hasn’t delivered on her signature issue (healthcare reform), it dives into the complicated issue of healthcare in the U.S.   On a side note, I hadn’t realized that Tammy has been a consistent sponsor of a single-payer bill regularly introduced by Representative John Conyers (D-Mich).  Yes, this is the same John Conyers that just expressed disbelief that anyone should expect a representative to read the bills before voting on them.

The primary, anecdotal story in the article to highlight the need for healthcare reform was regarding an unfortunate woman who slipped and was hospitalized as a result.  There appeared to be two things we’re supposed to take away from her story.  The first was the failure of Medicare to pay for $20,000 worth of bills – that is a hefty sum and certainly is a life changing dollar amount.  This was due to the fact her particular situation required bed rest to heal properly and Medicare can only pay for the care if the patient is showing progress.  In this case bed rest wasn’t showing progress.  This is supposed to show a major failure of our healthcare system but what I see is government-sponsored healthcare, Medicare, imposing a bureaucracy on this woman’s healthcare and failing to cover the cost of her healthcare.  How is enlarging government-mandated, government-run healthcare going to improve situations like this?  Perhaps revisiting how the government currently rations care under Medicare could be one place to start.

The second take-away was the woman’s wistful recollection of how easy it was to obtain universal healthcare when she and her family were in the UK.  “No insurance card, no money changed hands, and no waiting time” was what she said.  First of all, according to the article, this was in 1970 – almost four decades ago.  Are we to believe that this is an example of what healthcare is like in the UK in 2009?  This is a nice thought but it’s as relevant to the discussion today as me recounting how my grand-daddy used to get his healthcare right there at home from ole’ Doc Tom who lived down the street.  It’s a nice story but just not relevant to today’s discussion.  If you’re curious, here’s article from the UK in 2007 explaining how they are rationing care.   Furthermore, no money changed hands?  Maybe not on that day but somewhere, sometime money was changing hands to pay for that doctor’s services, even in 1970. 

On a positive note, this individual likes Tammy but says “Tammy is not a leader”.  That’s quite a knock on someone who has spent a decade in Washington representing us.  In fact the article opens with a quote from another supporter who says “She’s been a disappointment to a lot of us”.  I couldn’t agree more.

I recently wrote both Representative Baldwin and Senator Feingold on the Cap and Trade bill before Congress now.  While I’m not necessarily thrilled with either’s response, there were notable differences between the two.  At least Senator Feingold made a stand on not using reconciliation when considering this legislation.  Reconciliation is a fast track procedure intended for budget legislation and would be a stretch to use in this scenario.  It is appealing to Democrat-majority though since it short-circuits the normal procedures (including the possibility of a filibuster) for debating legislation.  I don’t see eye to eye with him on many issues but I’ll give him credit where credit is due.

Representative’s Baldwin’s response though contained no highlights whatsoever and was text-book propaganda for climate-change alarmists.  It bothers me that on such an important issue all I get is stock platitudes from my elected representative when I take the time to write her.  My favorite part was her claim that this legislation would “create 37,000 new jobs in Wisconsin, alone”.  No mention of how many jobs it will destroy or how much it will really cost the average family in Wisconsin though.  I hate to consistently use this phrase but it seems she must consider us too stupid to completely understand this issue and we’ll accept these statistics as facts from her without further thought. 

Coincidently I was driving through West Virginia recently and they’re not convinced Cap and Trade is not a good thing for their coal industry either.  As one caller I heard said: “If they pass Cap and Trade in the Senate, they can just put ‘West Virginia is Closed’ on all our road signs”.  I wonder if their representative would write them a nice letter to tell them how many jobs will be created by this bill? 

The House passed the Cap & Tax bill today and we had a Representative from Wisconsin standing on the right side of this argument, unfortunately it wasn’t our local Representative Tammy Baldwin (D), it was Rep. James Sensenbrenner (R). I don’t have all the details yet but it sounds like it was an interesting day. The Democrats added 300 pages to the bill just this Friday AM and refused to allow extra time for anyone to thoroughly read that amendment and understand its implications before holding a vote.

Consider that, whether you believe in climate change or not, the Democratic majority in the House didn’t want to allow anyone time to read and understand the bill they were being asked to vote on. It was the same during the stimulus votes. Everything is too big of a crisis to allow anyone time to understand the implications of the bill before being voted upon. How is the stimulus looking now? We’ll be looking at this bill the same way in the weeks and months to come as we learn more about it after it has already passed.

Is it too much to ask for our representatives to read and understand the bills their voting on? At least some understand this now and our fighting for us. Too bad Representative Baldwin isn’t one of them, she appears content to push through legislation with little to public time for review.