The Necropolitan Sentinel

Yesterday brought news that Republican candidates lead in all the Wisconsin legislative recall elections, according to a poll:

Again, courtesy of the notoriously right-wing DailyKos/SEIU/PublicPolicyPolling.

District 21 is worrisome, with John Lehman (D) at 46% and Van Wanggaard (R-inc) at 48%, so Wisconsin Republicans need to keep their obvious engagement and momentum going. However, the rest range from cautiously hopeful to cakewalks for the Republicans:
SD-23
Kristin Dexter (D): 41
Terry Moulton (R-inc): 51
SD-29
Donna Seidel (D): 37
Jerry Petrowski (R): 51
SD-13
Lori Compas (D): 40
Scott Fitzgerald (R-inc): 54

Read the whole post by CAC at Ace’s, then come on back.

Yesterday, @TamaraHolder on Twitter pissed me off with this:

Has Gov. Walker left our capitol yet? He needs to go back home & fix his own toilet economy. Beat it, buster.

— Tamara Holder (@tamaraholder) April 17, 2012

Wisconsin: Flush with success

“[O]ur capitol”? Would that be anything like Eric Holder’s “my people”? Keep in mind that Tamara didn’t seem too darned upset when the Occupy crowd had invaded and inhabited the capitol belonging to all Wisconsinites, and now, as Althouse chronicles, Madison’s hard-left Mayor Paul Soglin is having a devil of a time getting rid of a shanty town set up in a disused parking lot that Occupiers are representing as shelter for the homeless.

Let me get this straight: Walker’s not welcome to talk about Wisconsin’s reforms in DC, but Obama bringing The Chicago Way to the entire Republic is cool? Nuts.

“Reactionary” is pseudo-intellectual d-bag claptrap for “you started it” and “shut up.”

Despite such diversions from Dane County, the differences between Wisconsin and Illinois persist:

While Wisconsin’s GOP-controlled Legislature and its embattled Republican governor cut deeply — in draconian fashion, Democrats charge — to fill a $3.6 billion state budget shortfall, Illinois’ Legislature and governor’s office, controlled by Democrats, imposed the largest tax increase in state history.

“Little more than a year has passed, and Illinois is right back where it started,” Malanga notes in the report, pointing to about $9 billion in unpaid bills dogging the state’s finances. The deficit comes even after Illinois posted tax revenue gains of 15.3 percent, among the top states in tax revenue collection, according to the U.S. Census Bureau‘s 2011 Annual Survey of State Government Tax Collections.

“Meantime, Wisconsin’s state and local governments have made substantial strides toward long-term budget stability,” the Manhattan Institute report states.

“The different fiscal outlooks of the neighboring states illustrate a crucial fact in today’s budget wars: You can’t tax your way to a better future.”

Malanga declares Illinois as a “poster child for fiscal irresponsibility,” a statement Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn is sure to take umbrage with.

Quinn’s website in advance of Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker’s speech to Illinois business leaders Tuesday in Springfield, blasted Walker’s record of job creation and his handling of the Badger State’s economy at large.

“One would wonder what a governor with a terrible economic record could have to say about jobs and economic growth,” the website said. “While Governor Walker might be fond of anti-worker and tea party rhetoric, the facts aren’t on his side.”

“Team Quinn” noted Wisconsin’s six consecutive months of employment contraction in the latter half of 2011 compared with gains in Illinois, although it does not note that Wisconsin’s economy has added thousands of jobs in the first two months of the year, the latest federal data available.

What Quinn does not note, and what the Manhattan Institute points to in particular, is Illinois’ deep pension problems.

Would you rather do business in Upper Draconia or Illinois? Seems to me Meep might have written on the subject of Illinois’ pension problems once or twice.

Real Revo notices the chiaroscuro:

I don’t understand why Illinois doesn’t just cut out the middle man and have the residents of that state just send their tax dollars to Missouri and other surrounding states.

In January 2011, facing a forbidding budget deficit and a backlog of unpaid bills, Illinois officials decided that a massive tax increase would lay the groundwork for the state’s recovery. As Barbara Flynn Currie, the majority leader in the state house of representatives, said at the time, the nearly $7 billion in new revenues would allow Illinois to “pay our old bills and deal with the structural deficit.” The taxes passed with little controversy.
…
Little more than a year has passed, and Illinois is right back where it started: the state’s unpaid bills now top $9 billion.

And the Feds have gotten to the draconian point where they’re threatening to have the IRS snag the passports of citizens, including active duty soldiers, who are in arrears on their taxes. Considering how many fed employees, including White House employees, are significantly in arrears, that might pose some problems for them. As far as I know, though, illegal aliens who owe back taxes aren’t going to be subject to the same regimen, so . . . just another way in which being an American citizen disadvantages one, which is only fair, after all, you imperialists.

Given all the “structural disadvantages” the administration is imposing on American citizenship, it’s no wonder, really, that Americans abroad are renouncing theirs in record numbers.

So, let Tamara bitch about the indignity foisted on her by the elected Governor of Wisconsin having the chutzpah to visit DC. When Obama comes here to campaign, I hope Badgers send him back to Mordor on the Potomac under a chorus of boos. He’s surely entitled to them.

UPDATE: And, doubling down . . .

@vermontaigne @steveegg @GovWalker Sorry but he needs to go back to his own state.

— Tamara Holder (@tamaraholder) April 18, 2012

Inquiring minds want to know: Where does Tamara think Jon Corzine needs to be?

ADDITIONAL: [Meep] Illinois, Wisconsin differ in approach to unions

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