Earmarks No Good? Tell That to Janesville

Update: Mike Madden in Salon - "President Obama urges pork reform and signs a bill with earmarks in it on the same day. Republicans make an unconvincing show of outrage."

From today's State Journal: "U.S. Sen. Herb Kohl D-Wis., added $951,000 to the federal Omnibus Appropriations Bill for Black hawk Technical College to provide job training and placement services for former employees of General Motors in Janesville and it supplier companies."

The horror ... because the job training and placement services are an earmark, according to Wisconsin's Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Middleton) and Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Janesville) and of-course the ever-foolish John McCain.

Reads Feingold's statement:

By passing the omnibus spending bill today, which included more than 8500 pet projects costing taxpayers $7.7 billion, Congress failed to show the American people that it is committed to spending their money wisely. When Congress passed the economic recovery bill to create or save millions of American jobs, it did so without including a single earmark. Congress should have done the same thing with this omnibus spending bill and it should do so with all future bills. The president should veto the omnibus, send it back to Congress to be cleaned up and make it clear to Congress that pork-laden bills like this are no longer welcome.

And from Paul Ryan's op-ed in Racine Journal Times: "If we can’t get this issue right, how are we ever going to tackle the more pressing challenges we now face? "

More "pressing" than helping autoworkers get a new job? Mere "pet projects"? Earmarks are less than one percent of the spending bill, and the projects are needed.

You would think that Wisconsin's Feingold and Ryan would know better than to throw more barriers in the way of helping these workers who lost their jobs at GM. Both Ryan and Feingold have intimate links to the community.

But they choose to join McCain and spout this nonsense that dedicated, federally-funded projects are the main problems facing Americans. Ridiculous.

And thank you Herb Kohl for your common sense on the issue!

- See also McCain's Nuts, Feingold and Ryan Following.

via mal contends

McCain's Nuts, Feingold and Ryan Following

Update: Herbert: "Freaking out over earmarks is like watching a neighborhood that is being consumed by flames and complaining that there is crabgrass on some of the lawns."

Sen. John McCain is like a man on the Titanic complaining to the bartender that there’s not enough vodka in his drink as outside the iceberg approaches.

Reads a fundraising e-mail from McCain complaining about “pork” in a big spending bill (now blocked by Republicans threatening a filibuster in the U.S. Senate) as McCain seeks reelection in 2010:

My Friend, … I have called on the President to take a principled stand and veto the bill if it is sent to him, but unfortunately, he appears ready to sign it into law, which is nothing more than politics as usual.

(I)n nearly 30 years, I have never witnessed the type of alarming and irresponsible spending as I have seen in Washington over the past few weeks. I am appalled to see this legislation being rushed through the Congress while containing so many egregious earmarks. It is unconscionable that while we are asking Americans to do more with less in these trying economic times we are about to spend $1.7 million for pig odor research in Iowa, $2 million for the promotion of astronomy in Hawaii ...

"(N)ever witnessed?" Was McCain in Congress the last eight years? "Alarming ... spending?"

Unfortunately, Wisconsin's Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Middleton) and Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Janesville) are joining McCain and spouting this nonsense that dedicated, federally-funded projects are the main problems facing Americans.

Ridiculous. Did you guys happen to read the newest jobs report? Do you know that the Dow has lost some 50 percent of its value over the last few months? Do you know that a world-wide depression is a distinct possibility, if we're not already there?

Feingold and Ryan are embarrassing themselves by teaming up with the self-promoting McCain who is proving again that he really doesn't care about the American people.

Maybe Feingold and Ryan can go tell the folks in Janesville that what they need to be really concerned about is helping our Iowa neighbors who are sick about pig farms (not pleasant). And that workers' losing their jobs as America heads into an uncertain future have to take a backseat.

McCain, Feingold and Ryan are not helping by working against a primary lever to stave off an economic catastrophe, distracting us with a ludicrous diversion that constitutes about one percent of a spending bill.

They are now part of the problem obstructing critical efforts to help Americans.

- via mal contends

Autoworkers and All Americans Are Worth Subsidizing

Excellent piece in the New York Times Sunday on the disaster of General Motors and its workers brings to the fore several questions.

- Should the United States government help American companies like GM by subsidizing the health insurance of employees?

- Should the government reward innovations that benefit the national war effort for the environment and alternative energy?

Sure, we have not yet declared war for a sustainable environment and the development of alternative energy; most of our domestic wars are ostensibly waged against something: Drugs and so forth.

How about a war for the environment and alternative energy? For full employment?

The 2,700-word piece illustrates well the desperation of and passion working people have for: Working.

Said ... Andy Richardson, who recently took office as the new president of (UAW) Local 95. 'If G.M. wants to build lawn chairs in Janesville, we’ll do it,' he said.

Beyond the make-believe, free market world of the Republicans who like McCain think buy-American initiatives are a "disgrace" lies the reality of a shattered community with families facing financial oblivion.

"Community and political leaders from Janesville have pleaded with G.M. management to consider putting a new, small car into the plant. Workers don’t expect that to happen, though, and they see little hope of a reprieve," reports the NYT piece.

A reprieve, a Manhattan-Project size regearing of industry and the social contract that recognizes the reality that those who want to work are, as LBJ used to say, worth the risk and deserving of the respect of going to the well with.

- via mal contends

Obama's Appeal to White Wisconsin Men

Much of what one hears in campaigns is anecdotal.

But after hearing something over and over, it is recognized as a pattern.

Such is Obama’s appeal to the white male demographic, especially here in Wisconsin.

A source said that who he describes as two male “red necks” listened to Obama at a Janesville GM plant on Wednesday, and walked away vowing to vote for him.

This cross-over appeal looks to deliver a victory to Obama here on Tuesday. Should that victory be something near 10 points, the talk of a Clinton campaign near death will amplify across the nation.