News Roundup for 7/6/11

Gov. Scott Walker

-Headline of the Day-
"Scott Walker's bogus 'mission accomplished' moment."

When Gov. Scott Walker decided to end collective bargaining for public employees in Wisconsin, you'd have thought the world was going to end. Everyone freaked out, commies and hippies turned the state capitol into occupied territory, and people marched around with the most uncomplimentary signs.

Well, Scott showed them! Mere days after the bargaining ban went into effect, the Kaukauna school district announced that a $400,000 deficit had turned into a $1.5 million surplus. Success! And they all called him mad...

There's just a little hitch; that would've happened without the ban. According to the report, "the teachers union had already offered up financial concessions that would have produced almost identical savings and an almost identical surplus."

"What's more, the use of this one district to declare Walker's policies a success is almost comical in its cherry-picking," we're told. "There are 424 school districts in Wisconsin, and as the AP recently noted, Walker's policies mean draconian budget cuts to 410 of them, with labor officials and school districts predicting increased class sizes and layoffs."

An unpopular Republican Governor just making crap up to cover his ass? Unheard of! (Plum Line)


-Republican re-engineering-
It blew up the last time, but GOP experts have detected the flaw in the design:


Click to embiggen

See, the problem was that the Hindenburg wasn't big enough. (Political Wire)


-Bonus HotD-
"If the Top 25 Hedge Fund Managers Paid Taxes Like You and Me, We'd Cut 44 Billion of the National Deficit."

But of course, that'd be godless communism. (Smirking Chimp)