Anthony Weiner (D-NY) angrily chastised his Republican colleagues in the House after they shamefully voted against a bill to provide aid to sick rescue workers still suffering complications from their efforts on 9/11. I think his rage was completely justified, and I hope it will spread to other Democrats. After all, If the GOP will vote against this, they’ll vote against absolutely anything.

The House was debating a bill last night that would provide up to $7.4 billion in health care aid to rescue and recovery workers who have faced health problems since their work in the wake of the September 11 attacks. The bill ultimately failed to get the needed two-thirds majority, 255-159, and Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-NY) was not happy about it. Not one bit.
…
Weiner attacked those who “stand up and say, ‘Oh, if only we had a different process we’d vote yes.’ You vote yes if you believe yes! You vote in favor of something if you believe it’s the right thing! If you believe it’s the wrong thing, you vote no!” [via TPM]

Weiner is exactly right — the GOP doesn’t get to hide behind “procedure.” They’re voting against these bills, plain and simple. After all, they’ve adopted a scorched-earth strategy of using procedural tactics to try to kill absolutely every bill the Democrats bring to the floor. Think about this for a second — they voted against aid for 9/11 rescue workers just so they can help spread a political message that the Democrats in Congress haven’t gotten bills passed. This is a low point for Congress, and Weiner’s rage is 100 percent justified.

Ryan pretty much sums up his entire argument in answer Klein’s very first question, about how to reduce unemployment:

I know uncertainty is a new economic buzzword, but for good reason: If we can reduce it, we’ll unlock capital. I’d revisit some of the major issues over the last year. Health care, energy, taxes, financial regulation. I’m not saying these aren’t important issues. We need to reform the health-care system. But these are the wrong solutions. I would advance different solutions with an eye toward international competitiveness and encouraging saving and investing and encouraging certainty.

Then there’s our borrowing. If you look at the deficit, the problem is spending, not taxes. Revenues will come back up…. I really do believe that locking in budget reforms and spending control will help us in the short run by taking pressure off interest rates and monetary policy. Spending control is pro-growth in this age of sovereign debt crises.

So Ryan has one good, if somewhat obvious point: We need to reduce uncertainty. In fact, Klein made a similar point himself yesterday, when he wrote The economy can’t recover until the economy recovers. In other words, while corporate profits are up, they won’t start hiring and expanding until they’re sure that the economy has really improved and consumer spending is going to increase.

The difference between Ryan and Klein’s arguments in the type of uncertainty they’re concerned about. While Klein (and most liberals) make the argument that we need to reduce uncertainty about consumer spending, Ryan (and most conservatives) think we need to reduce uncertainty in capital markets. That’s why he claims that to fix the economy, we need to undo Obama’s entire first term so far, and then slash spending to balance the budget.

It’s hard for me to imagine how health reform — a package that reduced the deficit — could harm investors’ confidence; it’s even harder for me to see how curbing abuses in the financial market would do so. But while I don’t think Ryan’s prescription for reducing uncertainty makes any sense, I still think we can get what both liberals and conservatives want. Liberals want temporarily increased spending to stimulate demand. Conservatives claim they want a long-term balanced budget (of course, they’ve never actually balanced it themselves whenever they’ve had a chance). So why not pass a 10-year budget blueprint that would provide temporary spending increases, while providing a path to a balanced budget to show capital markets we’re serious about getting our house in order?

It seems to me that this would be the best of both worlds. We’re not going to need temporary spending forever — that’s why it’s called “temporary spending.” And in the long run, I do think we need to balance the budget and return to the surpluses of the Clinton years. By solving both problems with a single bill, but stretching them out over time, I think we can have it all. We can pass significant new spending for additional stimulus to fix the economy, but still show that we’re not going to have a European-style debt crisis.

This plan strikes me as a very productive compromise. This isn’t a stimulus-style compromise, where the Democrats took billions of dollars out of the bill and passed ineffective tax cuts to placate the Republicans. That was essentially both sides getting only the worst of their ideas included in the bill; this compromise would be both sides getting the best.

On his campaign website, Emmer said: “At the request of local prosecutors, Rep. Emmer agreed to author their bill to reform the court system and how DWIs are handled. The legislation prepared by the prosecutors and other interested parties with the assistance of nonpartisan House research staff would have provided incentives for early and immediate prosecution of first-time offenders.”

The Emmer campaign identified the “local prosecutors” as Tom Weidner and Sean Stokes, and said they are based in Stillwater, Washington County. Stokes and Weidner are attorneys specializing in DWI defense, according to the website of their law firm Eckberg, Lammers, Briggs, Wolff & Vierling. [Emphasis mine]

Local prosecutors? Excuse me? Once again, Emmer may not technically be lying, but he’s also definitely not being straight with us. He’s trying to make it sound like this bill was written to help local law enforcement officials, when in fact it was written at the request of DWI defense attorneys.

And let’s be completely clear: these weren’t attorneys contacted at random by WCCO. According to their story, they were specifically identified by Emmer as the attorneys he was working with. He was also identified by Emmer when WCCO first wrote about the story, after Marty Seifert brought the same attacks against Emmer.

Below the break, I’ve posted a screen capture from the firm Weidner and Stokes work for. You can see that these are clearly not the people who should be responsible for crafting our DWI laws.

Here’s the text from the screenshot:

Skilled Legal Representation for Your Drunk Driving Charges

In Minnesota and Wisconsin, DWI and DUI are serious charges with serious consequences. If you have been charged with drunk driving and want to best protect your interests, you will need an experienced DUI defense attorney. At Eckberg, Lammers, Briggs, Wolff & Vierling, P.L.L.P., we can effectively represent you.

If you are convicted of DUI in Minnesota, the consequences and penalties can be severe. In addition to serving jail time and paying substantial fines, you may have your driver’s license revoked, your vehicle license plates can be impounded and destroyed, and in certain cases, the State can forfeit and take ownership of your motor vehicle. Additionally, a DUI conviction will almost certainly result in a significant increase in the cost of automobile insurance, and, in some cases, can make it impossible to obtain insurance at all.

The best way to avoid these consequences is to avoid the conviction. Our primary DUI defense attorney is an experienced criminal defense lawyer who also spent time as a criminal prosecutor. With this experience, he understands how prosecutors think and can use this knowledge to your benefit. Furthermore, he is very familiar with all of the procedural challenges available to contest DUI charges. [Emphasis mine]

So when Emmer said he worked with “local prosecutors,” apparently he means he worked with someone “who also spent time as a criminal prosecutor.” Not quite the same.

Here’s what WCCO wrote about Weidner and Stokes after Seifert brought up the issue before the GOP convention:

Emmer referred most questions on the bill to Stillwater attorney Tom Weidner, who works for a law firm that handles prosecution for 10 municipalities in Washington County and also does criminal defense, including DWI cases.

Weidner said he first raised the issue with Emmer in 2008 but wasn’t acting on behalf of the cities he serves and didn’t collaborate with prosecutors outside the firm. One of Weidner’s colleagues, Sean Stokes, testified on behalf of the bill, identifying himself as a prosecutor.

Weidner said he personally doesn’t take many criminal defense cases and doesn’t believe he was representing anyone criminally at the time he raised the issue with Emmer. A check of court records showed him handling one DWI defense case in the past year. Stokes has more frequently handled such cases.

So apparently, when he requested this bill, Weidner wasn’t even acting “on behalf of the cities he serves.” He must have been acting in his capacity as a defense attorney.

WCCO’s Pat Kessler did a “reality check” yesterday on the Alliance for Better Minnesota’s latest ad. Their finding was that the ad was “generally accurate.” As a bonus, Kessler also showed that Emmer’s own claims about the bill he proposed to reduce penalties for DWIs are bogus.

A tough new ad against Republican Tom Emmer is raising the temperature in the governor’s race. It’s bringing up his past DWI arrests and says he tried to weaken DWI laws as a legislator. The ad from the Alliance for a Better Minnesota hits Emmer hard. It’s harsh, but it’s generally accurate.

I actually think the ad is more accurate than Kessler lets on, given that his big complaint about the ad is really just an issue of semantics. Kessler says the ad is “not completely accurate” because it uses the words “sponsored a law” instead of “sponsored legislation.”

“So when I heard that Tom Emmer sponsored a law to reduce penalties for drunk drivers I was outraged,” said Everson.

This is NOT completely ACCURATE.

Emmer did author legislation that included allowing people arrested for drunken driving to keep their licenses until they’re convicted. It also made drunken driving records private after 10 years. But neither one became law.

Okay, it didn’t become law. But Emmer was the author of it, he did want it to become law, and it did reduce penalties for drunk drivers. So is there really an issue here? I’d say this is very accurate.

Kessler made up for that by pointing out that Emmer is being misleading when he claims that he was just trying to help “local prosecutors.” It turns out that the “local prosecutors” were actually DWI defense attorneys.

On his campaign website, Emmer said: “At the request of local prosecutors, Rep. Emmer agreed to author their bill to reform the court system and how DWIs are handled. The legislation prepared by the prosecutors and other interested parties with the assistance of nonpartisan House research staff would have provided incentives for early and immediate prosecution of first-time offenders.”

The Emmer campaign identified the “local prosecutors” as Tom Weidner and Sean Stokes, and said they are based in Stillwater, Washington County. Stokes and Weidner are attorneys specializing in DWI defense, according to the website of their law firm Eckberg, Lammers, Briggs, Wolff & Vierling. [Emphasis mine]

This seems like a huge deal to me. Emmer isn’t technically lying, but he is stretching the truth to its absolute limits. He’s trying to make it sound like this bill was written to help local law enforcement officials, when in fact it was written at the request of DWI defense attorneys. I don’t know about you, but I really think that’s unacceptable.

1. The minority party always loves the filibuster, and the majority always hates it.
2. The filibuster has been abused to the point where it has crippled our Congress.
3. Although it has seriously damaged their ability to push their agenda, the Democrats lack the courage, unity, and messaging skills to successfully eliminate the filibuster.

All of these points ad up to a single conculsion: The next time they have sufficient power, it will be the Republicans who eliminate the filibuster. Sure, they defend the filibuster right now. But they railed against the filibuster when they were in power before 2006, and you can expect the roles to switch again next time the Republicans are in power. Remember, the Republicans already tried to partially kill the filibuster in 2005, during a fight over judicial nominations.

Since then, the debate over the filibuster has become even more strident, as they themselves have taken the use of the procedure to new extremes. Whenever the GOP gains power next, you can be sure that the Democrats will use it much like the Republicans have over the past four years — as a tool to practically shut down Congress. And you can also be sure that the GOP, unlike the Democrats, won’t tolerate it.

So I’ll say thanks in advance to the GOP. I wish the Democrats would have the courage to do it themselves in 2011, but they won’t. We’ll have to wait for the Republicans to get rid of the filibuster, and I say good riddance.

I think it’s effective, although I think that continuing the distinctive feel of her previous ads would have been more effective. What do you think? Watch it below.

Groups interested in raising taxes to fund additional government spending are already blanketing the airwaves with their message that “corporations” aren’t paying “their fair share.” They’re spending $500,000 on their first ad. (You can view it here http://abetter.mn/CutsVideo.) Some reports say this group and others allied with it plan to spend $10 million or more by election day.

The bottom line: This year there is an important and unprecedented opportunity to help elect candidates who support our agenda to create jobs and grow Minnesota’s economy. Others are organized and moving aggressively. It is important to take action now. [read the rest at Bluestem Prairie; emphasis in original]

This raises a question: are low taxes the only important factor determining job growth? Of course they’re not. If they were, as Matt Entenza likes to say, states like Mississippi would be national leaders. Why aren’t they? Because they have no history of public investment. They don’t have the infrastructure and the education system to make them attractive places to run a business. Without good infrastructure and a well-trained workforce, no business can succeed.

Amazingly, this lesson seems lost of MN Forward. Their website doesn’t discuss the benefits of public spending for businesses at all. In fact, it lists only three issues: “Tax Reform,” “Spending Reform,” and “Education Reform.” “Tax Reform” and “Spending Reform” boil down to lowering corporate taxes, while “Education Reform” seems to mostly be about union-busting. How can they not recognize the critical role our public investments have played in their success?

I can’t help but wonder if any of MN Forward’s contributors would really want to do business in the cold Mississippi that MN Forward seems keen on creating. I wonder if they would be willing to accept failing schools and infrastructure that made it difficult for them to move their products if they could save in taxes. How many of our state’s businesses would really consider that to be an acceptable trade?

Ironically, MN Forward’s home page features a prominent picture of Minneapolis’s Lake Harriet, a shining example of the value created by public investment. If their ideology had ruled 100 years ago, would Minneapolis ever have acquired the Chain of Lakes? Or would it have fallen prey to MN Forward’s “spending reform?”

In a new paper, the economists argue that without the Wall Street bailout, the bank stress tests, the emergency lending and asset purchases by the Federal Reserve, and the Obama administration’s fiscal stimulus program, the nation’s gross domestic product would be about 6.5 percent lower this year.

In addition, there would be about 8.5 million fewer jobs, on top of the more than 8 million already lost; and the economy would be experiencing deflation, instead of low inflation.

So the government — not just the Obama administration, but the Bush administration as well - - has saved 8.5 million jobs. And instead of continuing with those policies, we’re trying to reduce the deficit and head off non-existent inflation, leading ourselves right back into a depression. We also get to hear prominent Republicans gleefully asking “Where are the jobs?” Well, the answer is that about 8.5 million of them — which could have been lost — are still with us.

I desperately wish we could put partisanship aside for just one day and look seriously at the lessons in this report. Instead, we’re steering ourselves back toward the cliff.

The story about Target’s $150,000 contribution to MN Forward has spread like wildfire, and has appeared in many news outlets nationwide. The story is really a cautionary tale for corporations: Political contributions, while now legal, need to be approached carefully. Particularly with the extreme polarization of American politics today, a contribution to one party — or to a group that mainly supports a single party — is likely to anger a significant portion of any business’s customers.

In the past, corporate CEOs have often maxed out their contributions to Republicans, but these were (comparatively) small amounts of money, and it was understood that they reflected a CEO’s personal political beliefs. Now, however, direct corporate contributions mean that the corporation itself is taking a stance, and that is a lot more likely to engender strong feelings from partisans on both sides of the aisle. That’s amplified further because consumers understand that a portion of their purchases is going to pay for a company’s political contributions.

Target loves to advertise that 5% of their profits go to charitable causes, as do many companies. But it’s clear that they don’t want to brag about their political contributions  — they’d rather hide them. Of course, our campaign finance laws require transparency, so they don’t get to do that. They have to decide what’s more important — the political contributions or their image.