Entitlement spending bankrupts a country

Of course he didn't write the column

Way too many multi-syllabic words for him.

Instead of joining our Governor in honoring the brave defenders of our nation on its birthday, you instead choose to insult him.

Wow, your mothers must be proud...

Mr. Hoffa, these individuals understand pandering when they see it.

Had I ghostwritten this puff piece I would have done so in Walker's "voice," that is to say, first person plural. ; )

Exactly how? You must like being a serf of the health insurance companies.

Typical knee-jerk, Obama-did -it-so-it-must-be-bad, right wing reaction. Educate yourself. If R-money had done it (which he did in Massachusetts), you would be celebrating, as would all of us lefties.

If Obama came out in favor of oxygen, the republicans would suffocate themselves.

If the republicans came out in favor of oxygen the liberals would first call it a discriminatory racist gas, and then ask it to pay its fair share.

Yeah, I'll be sure to give the garbage guy an appropriate salute next time he stops by to almost get all the garbage in the back of the truck.

Cry me a river. The public sector has managed to avoid the worst of it for years and now has been asked to make some concessions. Deal with it or quit.

Bob....your response validates my point. Unappreciative, angry, and dismissive....again.

Don't honestly care, Frasko. If they don't like the compensation they get for the job, they can move on. If they want a hug they can join a support group.

The OVERPAID public workers forced to sacrifice .. Iam laughing my azz off ... Everyone is an American no one is more special than any other

Blowhard Bob thinks everyone should be dragged down. Rather imagining how much public employees make and then whining about it, how about fighting for everyone to be there. But of course that would mean dropping the bogus cynicism act.

Keith, exactly how are you "fighting for everyone to be there"?

I mean, besides complaining about Walker and the Republicans on Patch.

You guys should stop crying and recall Walker already.

Oh wait.........

carry on

Not angry, just annoyed by the continual whining, Frasko. It's unbecoming, unprofessional and unnecessary. Do your job, collect your pay and benefits - or quit. There's really nothing more to say about it than that. I'm not interested in your feelings.

Yeah Frasko, Blowhard Bob wants you to shut the hell up. How dare you stand up to Walker and blowhards?

Once again, how is whining on Patch "stand(ing) up to Walker and blowhards"? How are you "stand(ing) up to Walker and blowhards"? Last action that might conceivably fall into that category that you admit being a part of failed miserably.

Got anything else there, Keith?

At least Frasko and others have diagnosed the problem with Walker and is talking about. Not defending this bagman for billionaires and foreign owned corporations?

Walker said that he was going to divide and conquer. I'll be the first to admit that the unions and Democrats have done a piss poor job of making the case, but like it or not, class warfare has been underway for 30 years and no amount of denial will change that. The middle class needs to hang together, and the unions have done their part by fighting against policies that knock us back further.

Members of the middle class working the private sector are fighting the wrong people.

Frasko thinks my garbage man has made sacrifices similar to those made by members of the military and that he should be held in the same regard and thanked for his sacrifices, which he sees as being of equal value.

That's insane.

If you're of a like mind on that, Keith, then I guess I understand how you think by supporting stuff like AHA, which is as much a handout to the insurance companies as anything, your side is standing up against the same.

Maybe if your arguments made sense I'd be more inclined to at least accept the sincerity of your "efforts".

And, BTW, Keith...speaking of bagmen for billionaires and foreign corporations...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/13/obama-trade-document-leak_n_1592593.html

The mistake you make repeatedly is believing that any of these guys are anything beyond interchangeable. If you'd stop allowing yourself to be distracted by the wet willies you get from the ones on your side, you'd look a lot less foolish.

how do you know they are overpaid? ... I base it on being a MONOPOLY with no free market input .. if you need more money for pay you send people with guns that threaten us with jail time if we don't pay our taxes .. so based on the MONOPOLY plus EXTORTION = OVERPAID .. I don't need some BS statistic

You guys talk about blowhards like it's a bad thing. Last i checked I never received a job from a soft spoken nice poor guy.

JB.....really? I won't even justify your absurd comments with a response. I think you may listen to the Limbaugh/Sykes/Belling propaganda machine too much. Let me guess....you are a member of the Michigan Militia.

Bob, thanks for treating us to your usual bogus cynicism. It they are interchangeable" you seem reliably and solidly on the side of the GOP.

Four year olds expect their presidents to be perfect and the world of politics is full of compromise, but experience has shown us that Obama's policies worked. Why else wouldn't the GOP in Congress want to fund them? It can't be because the GOP has something better. They don't.

Anyone who claims that Obama and Romney are "interchangeable" is yet another display of bogus cynicism. There are sue whacko liberals who will claim that. So you are in good company Bob.

Keith,

Thanks for the input. I'll weight it properly based on what I've seen of your political/business/analytical acumen in action.

So you're on board with equating a garbage guy with someone serving in the military as well? Think the sacrifices are similar? Think we need to go beyond paying garbage men for doing their jobs by "thanking them for their sacrifice", also?

Go ahead. Next time one's bravely putting up with smell associated with collecting garbage, you run out, thank them profusely and give them a big hug. I'm sure you'll make his day. If nothing else he'll have a story to relate when he gets home about the nut-wad he ran into on his route.

Good lord...

Most of the garbage collection in the state of Wisconsin is done by private sector businesses, they don't complain.

Sounds like someone hasn't gotten laid in a while.

Let's see. Elected TWICE as gov in the same term. Seems like a lot of people like him. But you really nailed him on not finishing college, wow really burned him on that one. Bet he is hiding under the covers instead of being freakin' Governor with a schedule that would make your head spin.

Because he's a "personality" star, rather than a star performer. Too many people take what they see at face value and are too lazy or intellectually incurious to look further. They support his actions even though he himself has admitted making significant tactical errors. He (using the words provided by his benefactors) pleases small-minded people by demonizing a highly intelligent population subset (teachers) and a larger subset of people who have something they covet, retirement pensions, to get their support. They'll support him in 2014 too, even though a fraction of those 250,000 new jobs promised will not have materialized, etc.

And yet that "personality" star with the 2.0 GPA is still running the state better than the clown with the JD.

Is he? I would disagree that Walker is doing a better job than Doyle, especially as the latter would never have deliberately set out to "divide and conquer" his constituents, etc.

@Bren -

Doyle better than Walker - sorry, I just fell out of my chair from laughing so hard!

Bren got divided and conquered

Maybe if God sent you an illness you might be more appreciative of this healthcare that you 'don't want'.

Linda, GOD wants me to pass on that you should volunteer for the Romney and other conservative campaigns.

@Randy1949 -

What a totally brilliant solution - are you honestly advocating that the Democrats hand out 'free blankets' to conservatives in order to try and sell them on the merits of Obamacare? Why would it take such an extreme measure in order to sell conservatives on the idea? If it was good legislation, wouldn't it stand on its own merits?

Essentially, Obamacare is little more than a giant hypocrisy in and of itself - force everyone to pay under the guise of preventing 'freeloaders' in order to pay for even more freeloaders. Yep, that makes a whole lotta sense all right!

My point to Linda, JRH, was first that everyone wants 'healthcare' if they get sick. Illness sometimes happens despite our best efforts. No one wants to get that diagnosis of ALS, MS, cancer, etc. but it happens every day.

Interestingly, the feature of the Affordable Healthcare act that has drawn the most ire -- the individual mandate -- is the idea first espoused by the Republicans. All the way back to Bob Dole.

Interestingly, the feature of the Affordable Healthcare act that has drawn the most ire -- the individual mandate -- is the idea first espoused by the Republicans. All the way back to Bob Dole.

******************

It's only "interesting" if you look at this solely as a political football. Given the way AHA is set up, individual mandate is a bad idea regardless of what party or what side of the political fence is pushing it. It's essentially a hotdog on a stick offered to the insurance companies to go along with the rest of the plan. The gamble, on the part of the administration, is that if it turns out to suck badly, the net result will be a call for UHC which is what they actually wanted right out of the box, but couldn't get a consensus on.

Bob, Republican's have NEVER espoused forcing people into a health care program.

For years we have pointed out that, yes, uninsured medical treatments are a large cost of the current healthcare costs. There are other solutions out there.
1) Under the Paul Ryan plan, health insurance participation is encouraged by offering huge tax incentives.
2) Allowing more competition in the health insurance field to lower costs, including simple major medical coverage with minimal costs that only provide coverage to huge expenditures.
3) holding those that choose to be uninsured responsible by removing medical bankruptcy.

We can fix this system, but the best way is for government to ease regulation!

Tosa, a refresher course on reading comprehension would do you a world of good.

This is your comeback Bob in lieu of a cogent reply? You did fine Tosa. Bob fancies himself as a towering intellectual cynic. He feels he has to answer every post. He apparently doesn't have a life.

Hanging out at Alterra all day pretending you're running a business while you cruise the lefty websites utilizing their free WIFI is a "life"? Once again, I'll give your analysis the proper weight it deserves.

"I'll give your analysis the proper weight it deserves."

LOL. LIke any of us care.

I think most people probably got the gist of the comment w/o the translation, Keith. I'm rather surprised you picked up on it, though. Good job!

I'm not trying to insult you. I'm suggesting you go back and read what I and others have written here. Your comments, made in response, don't jive with the contents of the same.

And you still haven't answered my question. Do you agree with Frasko that the "sacrifices" made by public employees are equal to those of our military forces, thus making them deserving of the same recognition accorded the troops?

That was the point of my comments, which you misread and/or misinterpreted.

Stating that there is parity of some sort is ridiculous. Public employees are paid and get benefits for what they do. They've been asked to make some relatively meager sacrifices as compared to those made by many in the private sector. Suggesting that they need to be recognized for making those sacrifices and celebrated for having done so by folks who've probably sacrificed more themselves and, yet, can still recognize that what they've sacrificed is nothing compared to what troops in battle sacrifice, is the height of overwrought self-interest and immaturity.

The thread speaks for itself. Frasko made a direct comparison between the "sacrifices" made by public employees and those made by members of the military. Couldn't be any more obvious. If you can't see that, well....

Tosa, you have to forgive Bob. Like all Republicans he has a reading comprehension problem. It is not enough they are uninformed. They are purposely uninformed and proud of it, thinking that if you repeat the lies enough they become the truth.

No wonder this country is in trouble. And THEY want to suppress people's votes?

You see what you want to see. You read between the lines. Frasko's statement is what it is. Regardless of what you think it's about, his comparison is ludicrous. The sacrifices he mentions on the part of public employees were minimal in comparison to what many in the private sector made and to even infer some sort of relationship between public employees and what they deserve in terms of recognition and what troops in the battlefield deserve for their service is obscene. It demonstrates an enormous lack of perspective that completely overrides whatever point it is he's trying to make.

As for Walker, you've had two opportunities to vote against him - 1 more than you deserved - and he won both times. Regardless of your personal opinion, the majority don't agree with you. The rhetoric coming from your side, bombastic as it has been for the past year and a half, hasn't even come close to hitting the mark. You folks can continue to pout and complain about him and look like sore losers, or you can act like grown-ups, suck it up and move on. Your choice.

I could go on and on about how the neophyte in Washington let opportunities to pursue his stated agenda slip through his hands early on in his term and then attempted to blame his own ineptitude on the opposition, but what's the point in that? The majority put him in office. If they put him back in office in 2012, so be it. It's not the end of the world.