Spotted today on a vehicle in west central Missouri:

National Rifle Association Life Member and Extremely Rightwing.

They stuck ’em on their vehicle…

Last night, via Twitter:

Rep. Stacey Newman ‏@staceynewman

Expect Fireworks in MO House Tues. Rep Stanley Cox/ his Voter ID const amendment. No fraud/No reason to take voter rights away. #moleg 10:58 PM – 24 Feb 2014

HJR 47 will suppress the vote of qualified voters in Missouri who tend to vote for the current minority party in the General Assembly. Ah, yes, for the republican veto proof majority that would be a feature, not a bug.

Previously:

Secretary of State Jason Kander (D): on attempts to suppress the vote (February 23, 2014)

Secretary of State Jason Kander (D): with Melissa Harris-Perry on MSNBC on voter ID (February 9, 2014)

Finally, documentation of voter impersonation fraud in Missouri. Zero. (August 12, 2012)

Candidate filing for the 2014 election cycle commences at 8:00 a.m. tomorrow. The speculation has started:

Sean Nicholson ‏@ssnich

Any guesses on what Leonard Steinman runs for this year? 2:46 PM – 24 Feb 2014

Michael Bersin ‏@MBersin

@ssnich Catherine Hanaway is hoping he files for State Auditor and wins. 3:05 PM – 24 Feb 2014

Candidates for one statewide race (State Auditor), the eight Congressional Districts, seventeen state Senate seats (even numbered districts), 163 state House seats, and circuit court judge file at the James C. Kirkpatrick State Information Center in Jefferson City. Candidates for local offices file with their local election authority.

Candidate filing closes on March 25, 2014.

We’ll be keeping an eye on the list of filed candidates over the course of the month.

Michael Bersin ‏@MBersin

Quip by KSHB-41 TV am anchor after story on NJ Gov Christie leaving early and not attending WH dinner “Hope the traffic wasn’t bad.”

5:43 AM – 24 Feb 2014

Heh.

The Reactionary Right hates defined benefit pensions for public employees.  As best as I can tell, they make two arguments: they are a huge unfunded liability and they are more generous than pensions in the private sector.

Show Me Institute, Rex Sinquefield funded “think tank” to provide “research” to defund the private sector and privatize everything, just issued a new report “Missouri Transition Costs And Public Pension Reform”.

This report is written by a grifter at the American Enterprise Institute. (More on that at the end of this posting.)  

If you open up the report on the link above, you find it is a very strange report on Missouri public pensions.  If you do a search, there is no analysis of any public pensions in Missouri.

In the actual text, the report mentions only Missouri four times: one identifying the executive director of MOSERS and three times in a paragraph I will cite after the fold.

The executive director of MOSERS provides a quote on a defined contribution system that the report attempts to refute.  

This paragraph is in that refutation with the three other mentions of Missouri.

One might argue if public pensions were reduced, the lower incomes of retired public employees would cause them to rely on public assistance, thereby transferring costs to the government.  These payments would not be, of course, liabilities, but more important is that these payments are unlikely to be significant in any case.  Full-career public employees in most states retire with benefits far exceeding any level at which public assistance would be payable.  In Missouri,for instance, an average full-career state employee retiring today would receive almost $24,000 annually in pension benefits, based on the Missouri State Employee Retirement System’s annual report, plus another $13,000 or so in Social Security benefits.  Based upon U.S Census data, such a public employee would have a retirement income greater than about 83 percent of new retirees in Missouri. (p. 18 of the PDF file)

Wow!

Missouri public workers’ pension along with Social Security provide them with a retirement income ($36,000/year) which is greater than 83% of new retirees in Missouri, so it is no big deal to cut their pensions.  

(I wonder what the average education of those workers are and their income in relation to the population as a whole.)

I always thought that one of the characteristics of being middle class is to be able to retire in some comfort.  I wonder how comfortable anyone is with $36,000/year.  As someone approaching retirement, I could get by on that, but with increasing health care costs, it will not be comfortable.

In a better world, we would be appalled that a retirement income of $36,000/year is greater than 83% of all new retirees in Missouri and we should be thinking about how to raise their retirement income and NOT reducing the pensions of others so everyone who works for a living is equally poor.

Remember this is the “research” from one of the richest Missourians that will be cited by the reactionary right to end defined benefits for state workers.

The author of this report worked in W.’s administration, Andrew Biggs is a real piece of work.  Because this report has next to nothing about Missouri’s public pensions, it reads like something that he has done for other states.  On his website, I couldn’t find one.

However, he does have this report on Federal worker pensions titled “We’re No. 1 – in public employee pay.”. It has a lot of charts comparing Federal workers at various pay grades to governmental workers in countries of “Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the “rich man’s club” whose membership includes most of the world’s developed, high-income countries.”

The argument he makes is that US federal workers are paid more than in these other “rich man’s club.”. Here is the membership of this “rich Man’s club.”

Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Chile, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Korea, Luxembourg, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovak Republic, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, United Kingdom, United States

[Biggs says he compares US worker pay to 18 countries, but never mentions those countries.]

Given how expensive health care is the US, it would be good to know how much health care costs those workers in other countries in relation to what it costs in the US.  Likewise, in those other countries, public universities don’t have the tuition costs in the US.  

The intellectual dishonesty of Biggs is breath taking.

Let’s keep in mind what these “reports” are arguing: These workers are better off than others; therefore, we can (and should) cut their wages and benefits. In other words, because a lot of people are already poor, let’s make that number even bigger.

How much one gets paid to comfort the very, very comfortable by proposing ways to make people poorer.

Does this argument work the other way? American CEOs are paid significantly more than CEOs anywhere else in the world.  Shouldn’t we enact policies to correct this huge inequality, too?

 

Previously:

Secretary of State Jason Kander (D): with Melissa Harris-Perry on MSNBC on voter ID (February 9, 2014)

Finally, documentation of voter impersonation fraud in Missouri. Zero. (August 12, 2012)

Welcome to Rep. Shane Schoeller’s (r) world… (March 7, 2012)

Rep. Shane Schoeller (r): reading comprehension isn’t a strong point (January 12, 2012)

Rep. Jason Kander (D) in Higginsville (January 10, 2011)

An op-ed in today’s Columbia Daily Tribune by Secretary of State Jason Kander (D):

Voter ID is a false crusade

Impersonation fraud imaginary.

By JASON KANDER

Sunday, February 23, 2014

Nearly every year during the past decade, the Missouri General Assembly has tried to pass, or has passed, a strict voter photo identification requirement. And every year, the legislation either gets stopped somewhere in the legislative process or a court rules it unconstitutional….

….this yearly crusade can’t actually be about voter impersonation fraud because everyone agrees Missouri hasn’t had a case of it….

….Trying to stop 220,000 eligible Missourians from voting doesn’t protect our democracy, but it weakens the integrity of our elections.

And that’s exactly what it’s all about – suppressing the vote of an eligible constituency which doesn’t tend to vote for republicans.

…and then someone will write the same amount to my campaign. You can bet on it.

Previously:

Campaign Finance: stocking up (February 21, 2014)

…$10,000.00 appears to be the new standard…

HB 1955: a modest proposal (February 21, 2014)

Today, at the Missouri Ethics Commission:

C111150 02/22/2014 FRIENDS OF TOM SCHWEICH Jeff Fox 26 W Brentmoor St Louis MO 63105 Harbour Group CEO 2/22/2014 $10,000.00

C031159 02/22/2014 MISSOURIANS FOR KOSTER David Johnson 104 Armour Road North Kansas City MO 64116 Maxus Properties Chairman 2/20/2014 $10,000.00

What will some people do if we get campaign contribution limits and they can’t write $10,000.00 checks? Nah, it’ll never happen.

Somebody in the 4th Congressional District is unhappy enough with Representative Vicky Hartzler (r) that they affixed a “Recall Vicky” sign to their building along a well traveled highway.

It could be buyer’s remorse. We don’t know.

In Post Oak, Missouri in rural Johnson County along Highway 13 just north of the Henry County line:

Approaching Post Oak, Missouri from the south on Highway 13.

Yep, there it is – “Recall Vicky”.

“Recall Vicky” – Someone took some care to attach the sign to the building. It looks like it’ll be up for a considerable amount of time.

We’ve noted that there haven’t been as many open to the general public town halls in the district with Representative Hartzler (r). We miss them, though we seriously doubt we’re a reason why there are fewer. Maybe it’s all those Benghazi truthers who obsessively respond to Represenative Hartzler’s (r) posts on Twitter.

Senator Roy Blunt (r), via Twitter today:

Senator Roy Blunt ‏@RoyBlunt

The Obama Admin broke its promise to millions of seniors by cutting Medicare Advantage payments to pay for #ObamaCare. 6:55 PM – 21 Feb 2014

The White House response:

Jesse Lee ‏@jesseclee44 1h

Guess what? He voted for it http://www.senate.gov/legislat… … http://nyti.ms/1c97qoC  MT @RoyBlunt: Obama broke promise to seniors on Medicare Advantage 7:29 PM – 21 Feb 2014

From March 2013:

House G.O.P. Plans a Budget That Retains Tax Increases and Medicare Cuts

By JONATHAN WEISMAN

Published: March 6, 2013

WASHINGTON – House Republicans will preserve Medicare cuts that their presidential nominee loudly denounced last year and accept tax increases they sternly opposed just months ago in a new tax-and-spending blueprint that would bring the federal budget into balance by 2023, senior Republicans said Wednesday.

….Also, Mr. Ryan offered tempered praise for the cuts to Medicare that helped finance the Affordable Care Act, cuts that he denounced as his party’s vice-presidential nominee but that will help him avoid subjecting people older than 55 to his Medicare changes. “Because of Obamacare, you have – for a moment in time – lower Medicare spending rates,” he said.

With higher taxes, Medicare cuts and an unexpected slowdown in health care spending, budget experts say the House budget needs only about $100 billion in additional cuts toward the end of the decade.

In Mr. Ryan’s last two budgets, he also banked the $716 billion in Medicare cuts for the health law for deficit reduction, but when the Republican presidential nominee, Mitt Romney, attacked the president for those cuts and pledged to restore that money, Mr. Ryan fell in line….

Fancy that. The vote in the Senate:

Vote Summary

Question: On the Amendment (Murray Amdt. No. 433)

Vote Number: 46 Vote Date: March 21, 2013, 08:36 PM

Required For Majority: 1/2 Vote Result: Amendment Rejected

Amendment Number: S.Amdt. 433 to S.Con.Res. 8 (No short title on file)

Statement of Purpose: To amend the resolution.

[….]

Missouri:

Blunt (R-MO), Yea

McCaskill (D-MO), Nay

[….]

[emphasis added]

From the Congressional Record, CONCURRENT RESOLUTION ON THE BUDGET, FISCAL YEAR 2014 — (Senate – March 21, 2013) [S2132]:

[….]

 AMENDMENT NO. 433

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Washington.

  Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, this next amendment is the Ryan budget. The House Republicans have doubled down on failed policies by passing the same budget that was rejected by the American people just a few months ago. Now Senate Republicans are going to have to decide whether they agree with this approach.

  This budget would be devastating for the middle class and the economy. It would cause millions of our workers to lose their jobs and dismantle programs such as Medicare that seniors and families depend on. It relies on gimmicks and tricks to eliminate the deficit by an arbitrary date and does all that while giving the wealthiest Americans a tax cut.

  I encourage my colleagues to oppose this amendment.

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time?

  The Senator from South Dakota.

  Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, the House Republican budget does something the Democratic budget does not do–it balances. It actually balances in 10 years, and it does it not by taxing more but by spending less, spending at a slower rate–3.4 percent over that 10-year period.

  If we look at what the House Republican budget does, it is focused on growing the economy, not growing the government. What the Democratic budget, before the Senate this evening, does is it grows the government, not the economy.

  In fact, if we look at the analysis that has been done, it is suspected the Democratic budget would cost us 850,000 jobs and reduce take-home pay for middle-class families by $1,500. The House Republican budget takes seriously the challenges that are facing this country, takes the steps necessary to save and protect Medicare for future generations of Americans, something this budget–the Senate Democratic budget–does not do.

  I urge my colleagues to support this budget, and it is a serious one, that balances the budget in 10 years and puts our economy back in growing mode and our fiscal house back in order.

  Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays.

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second?

  There appears to be a sufficient second.

  The question is on agreeing to the amendment.

  The clerk will call the roll.

  The bill clerk called the roll.

  Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from New Jersey (Mr. Lautenberg) is necessarily absent.

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Are there any other Senators in the Chamber desiring to vote?

  The result was announced–yeas 40, nays 59, as follows:

[Rollcall Vote No. 46 Leg.]

[….]

[emphasis added]

Senator Roy Blunt (r) voted for the cuts. He obviously has no shame.

Is anyone surprised?