Thanks for researching this. Of course, law suits will follow this like crazy and, in the long run, it will cost Wisconsin more money than if they had left it all alone. But that's nothing new for this governor, apparently.

I don’t know more about the law than you but judging from what I’ve heard so far it is illegal; and even if it isn’t what they’re doing is definitely an undemocratic form of class warfare that relies on any manipulation tactics they can get away with. In this case the only reason it wouldn’t be illegal is because those that make the laws corrupt them or vice-versa.

It's all a mess and we need someone with a brina to go in there and straighten this all out.
It's always THEIR way or the highway.
Rated with hugs

Kent, I agree that what's going on in Wisconsin constitutes a breakdown in civil order, but I think the recent action is perfectly within the law.

Since these rules apply to public meetings of the legislature the reference to forfeitures actually refers to cases in which the legislature attempts to seize private property by eminent domain since that is the only case in which the legislature may seize property.

You've also reversed the sense of the statement since the section you quoted specifically exempts forfeiture actions from the general rule.

The minimum two hour rule was met on the basis of the prima facie evidence that the senators attended the meeting. If notice were not given, they would not have been there.

The rules you have cited are so vague as to be meaningless and will be thrown out by a court of superior jurisdiction when the case gets there....but the real issue here is that we have forgotten that government is a process.

The senators who voted for this measure should be turned out of office via recall proceedings for malfeasance in office.. Failing that, the public workers affected by this heinous action should do what unions have always done to obtain redress of grievances.

Strike. God damn it. Stop whining and strike. Shut down the state government.

Strikes are the last hope we have short of armed insurrection.

Sage, the issue is not just when the meeting was called but whether there was due notice of what legislation would be voted on. I've been a member of organizations with such notice requirements and can assure you that you can have a duly-called meeting that still has items raised that are out of order on a notice basis. Moreover, the opinion of the sitting AG, as cited in the video, was that in the case of question, a full day's notice must be used. The two-hour notice is a minimum rule that should have forced at least an adjournment. It was foolish of them not to allow this, and I almost wonder if they did it just for show, as seems to be increasingly common, offering red meat to their base without actually creating damage. Nonetheless, these are dangerous games. But there was clearly question about whether notice was properly given, and in all such cases 24 hour notice seems to be called for. That it might later be found that the doubt is construed in favor of the majority is irrelevant. The purpose of the notice is not to vindicate the doubt but rather to find time to explore the doubt. The fact of the doubt is sufficient to justify the longer move. I wrote actually two posts today—this is only one of them. In the one tomorrow, I'll more clearly detail my concern about the abstract issues involved here. But I hope I've at least made a decent case for why your analysis, while it seems to be made in good faith, is not the final word. The bottom line is that due process protects the right of the citizenry to deliberate and thoughtful response, and this meeting was a blatant attempt at an end run around that, so definitely violated the spirit (and almost surely the letter) of the Open Meetings Law.

Midwest, yes, lawsuits will follow. It's a shame that will all cost money. It should later be a point made clearly and often that the reason for notice requirements is that rushing things means creating questions about whether rights have been preserved, and that the natural and forseeable consequence of that is a costly court battle. So the Republicans should reasonably have known they were provoking that, and they should be seen as the cause of that avoidable cost.

Zachery, indeed, that's the heart of it. It is really anti-democratic.

Linda, is a brina some term for a cleaning device that I don't know about, or is it just a scrambling of “brain.” Were I to make an ad hominem, I might say something about the possibility of a few scrambled brains being in there already... But I don't like to take that particular conversational approach, so I won't say that.

Nice post, Kent. The open meetings law seems pretty clear-cut, with the goal being transparency, and not to other members of the legislature but to the public. This isn't good governance.

Oh, like sagemerlin, I also think that the forfeiture bit is a red herring; the law you've linked to does list a bunch of reasons for exemptions, but I don't think that this act falls under any of those cases (and of course IANAL either).

Rob, I agree, the forfeitures quote may be more of a stretch to apply in some literal way. But I cited it primarily to remind people that all documents require that the reader make choices between liberal and conservative readings. And I think the core value in that remark is that we ought not rush things when someone stands to lose big. And certainly that applies here.

Stellaa, thanks for the support. I agree, and my reply to Rob pretty much explains why.

Even if it was illegal, that alone wouldn't effectively negate the action. There is no punitive sanction that would prevent another vote, and the result would be the same.
Overall, the Wisconsin anti-union action is yet another example of "conservative" deceit -- as Walker "wisely" didn't run on trashing the middle class. Destructive ideological movements have always used deception, as dishonesty isn't considered a bad thing to those who are convinced the ends justify any means.

And what will happen when REAL Americans sue to correct what these clearly ANTI-Americans have done yet again to deliberately wreck our state as they have constantly attempted to do?
Any law suit will ultimately be decided by repiglicorporately owned judges against we, the REAL Americans.
I live in the state in which too damn many did not get off of their lazy asses to vote to prevent the puppet from invading the governor's orifice to sit there and have his strings pulled by his owners.
I have voted in EVERY election since JFK so, I am very pissed at the lazy bastards who could have prevented this.

Yeah, that was long winded butt, this is a never ending war against these fucking weasels and, I AM PISSED ABOUT IT.

Paul, that's not necessarily so. Recall elections may occur and there may be procedural moves that can delay the revote until after that. Ironically, it would be to the Republicans' best advantage to withdraw this or otherwise give in to claims it was done improperly, since then it could be re-voted properly. But if they drag it out, they may find it doesn't play out that way.

XJS, it's possible the sitting Supreme Court, inappropriate as some of its actions seem to be, feels a need to maintain the illusion they are working by procedure. I have to believe that shame and embarrassment (or fear of same) are at least slowing them in their agenda, even if not outright stopping it. I could imagine them throwing this out to preserve the illusion of fairness.

But, that said, I also am not sure it will get to them. This seems to my lay understanding of law like an entirely internal matter to Wisconsin, so presumably (ignoring the historical precedent for overreaches like Bush v. Gore) there is no reason for the US Supreme Court to get involved.

Which explains why Wisconsin's Republican Attorney General is taking it to court.

John, if you're referring to my response to Paul, that's perhaps so. If you're referring to something else, I'm not sure what that is—even though I might also agree if I knew. :)

Good for ypu. Thanks....another outrageous action!

Taking your research as a guide the the conclusion is the same here. This was an illegal act, unfortunately we know where the U.S. Supreme Court stands on this, having declared corporations to be equal to the people leaves them the power to force issues in courts that would have been unimaginable in the past. We are seeing the results of unbridled reactionary fascism in Wisconsin. We see that this power is abused and that our representative republic is dying. When we allow a single party to wholly dominate without regard for the people who are still citizens but of an opposing viewpoint, when we have a party that seeks not only to force it's will on the people, when we have a group that seeks to legislate and gerrymander any opposition to its will out of existence we are no longer the masters of our government but its subjects. Will the people allow this to stand?

Thanks for the informed update on this horrific travesty.

Listening to AFSME's legal counsel this morning during which she offered a number of grounds for possible challenges, I thought the open meetings law was the one that might stick without going first to the Wisconsin Supreme Court and most likely losing there. Good research and analysis, Kent!

Kent,
In my view that is a separate issue. The vote could be crammed through again regardless of the move to recall the slippery Senators. The reason the union-busting bit was broken off of the budget was because that vote didn't require a quorum.
That's how I see it, although without examination of procedural rules. If there were a way to use procedure to delay the vote, wouldn't that mean a Dem or two would have to show up to do that, and if they did, there would be a quorum, and the budget gets passed as well?

That isn't a rhetorical Q, as I don't know the answer.

Fortunately, the legality issue will be decided by bigger and better brains than those making or supporting this post.

The concept of inconsequence comes into play here. Would the result have been any different if more advance notice have been given? Of course not. It's silly to make an issue of it.

Actually, I wish that more notice had been given. It might have induced the cowards who fled to the home of political corruption to return to their duties, in which case the WHOLE law could have been passed.

Let's face it. The unionists have been outsmarted and outmaneuvered. And they are now experiencing the unlubricated experience of having legislation, much less drastic than universal health care, shoved down their favorite aperature.

aperture Sorry

Kent, Thanks for this explanation and your thoughtful comments.
I agree there may have been a law broken, and the ones in power are using the economy's current problems to justify a deeper and more well thought out agenda. I am worried for the folks of Wisconsin, and even more worried for labor in general around the whole country.

great work, Kent. I'm assuming that it will now be up to the Supreme Court of Wisconsin to sort out the mess.

I can assume only that Stellaa was asleep during the gross sausage making that went on during Obama's salad days, particularly in the area of health care.

Thankfully, due to the genius of the American political system, those salad days are over, along with the power of Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, who should pursue a career as a cowboy poet in northern Nevada.

"wouldn't that mean a Dem or two would have to show up to do that, and if they did, there would be a quorum, and the budget gets passed as well? "

You bet your sweet bippy it would. Broken clock; right twice daily.

It may not be illegal, but it certainly is IMMORAL!

@Gordon, you call the Democrats who stayed home as cowards. I think they were heroes! They had the nerve, to try and tell the rethugs that they would not be part of the carnage that was to take place.
I only wish the rest of the Democrats in Congress had that much nerve!

Are we gloating gordo? It baffles me how any of this affects you while you dodge taxes down in Brazil.

Thank you, Kent for your clear and level--headed explanation. I hope this brings Wisconsin Republicans a world of legal hurt and humiliation, and above all, removal from office through recall via the legally expressed outrage of the citizens of Wisconsin.

rated

You bet your ass I'm gloating. Particularly when I see these union savages break the peace in order to impede the democratic process. But not to worry, Stellaa will always stand up for them no matter how barbaric their conduct.

And thanks for joining the other OS faux intellectuals who believe that my residence has something to do with my arguments.

Good post Kent. I'm not sure that Sage doesn't have a possible legal point, but intent of the law will come into it too, as Stellaa points out.

@ Gordon - You just come off as soooo reasonable and intelligent when you use the phrase "union savages". Nice to see how a "real intellectual" discourses. Thanks for schooling us "savages".

Actually, Gordon, I beat you to the point of "inconsequential."
I'd be happy to put my 'broken clock" up against your Broken Record any day of the week.

The legality of this move will not be relevent in the long run. Political wars are won and lost by the sum of political battles, and who has won or lost in the long-term is not always clear. The Republicans might have won this battle, unless the legality is successfully challenged. But the long-term effects of this saga is what matters, and when you consider that, a major defeat looms just over the horizon for the Republicans.

At this point the people of Wisconsin are so enraged by the heavy-handed actions taken by Walker and the Republicans that they will dump a large number of them in the 2012 election. A huge turn-out by Democrats is guaranteed. Walker himself is up for a recall when eligible in 10 months. People from Wisconsin are open-minded and flexible, but they will not tolerate a government that rams through legislation, forces their will on people without the proper political give and take, and seems to be more interested in pushing their party's political agenda than doing what is best for the state.

Back in the Cold War days, one of the criticisms of the Communist nations was that they didn't allow free trade unions. Instead, the unions were controlled by the State. When Solidarity, the Polish shipyard workers union was created, the government tried to destroy it, but eventually was forced to negotiate with it.

It's ironic that the Republican party, once fierce opponents of communism, have now adopted the communist attitude toward unions and unionized workers, or "union savages" as Gordon Osmond calls them.

To be Fair and Balanced, Mish, the fascists also did the same.

Rich people and businesses, many who contribute to Republican election campiagns, can't believe their luck. They not only don't have to help pay for the budget, but their Republican politicians are giving the money that they take from state employess to them in the form of more tax breaks! Nobody is asking them to help keep the state solvent. And nobody, including Democratic politicians, has the guts to stand up and say "Raise enough taxes to pay the budget. We can afford it. We're not an impoverished third-world country!".

Even people who have sense and are pragmatic are scared to death to say "Raise enough taxes to pay the budget".

This ain't over yet. There will now, I'm sure, be court challenges. I think this particular act of the WI Senate is an illegal act. We'll have to see. However...I also believe that there is merit to some aspects of the proposals. The key word in the previous sentence is "some".

Kent--

The answer is in the statute. When the Wisconsin Open Meeting law conflicts with a rule of the legislature or either house, the legislative rule takes precedence, Wis. Stat. 19.87(2). So either house can create a rule to shorten the notice or change how it is given and thereby avoid the statute--doesn't even require an emergency.

A cynic would say this is just another example of how legislatures exempt themselves from the laws they pass for others to live by (e.g., Congress always exempts itself from federal employment discrimination laws), but it may have had a practical basis when passed (and I don't know whether the legislature was Dem or Repub when the law passed). You can understand how a legislature's style would be cramped if it was up against a budget deadline and had to give two days' notice before authorizing the refinancing of a bond issue that would mature in one day.

I'm pro-open meeting law, having recently resigned from a municipal board whose members continued to send group emails and "reply all" responses after I'd pointed out to them that our state A.G. takes the view that group emails are "meetings," but I think in this case it is unlikely that a court would find the legislature's action to be unlawful.

Gordon might serve his case better if he wasn't so insulting to people. Too bad. Thanks for this Kent, thought provoking, as usual.

You and others here that claim to be "fighting the good fight" are actually fighting on the wrong side.

Governments at the local, state, and federal levels have to shrink or arguments over whose pay/benefits will be cut and whose won't will be a moot point...there'll be no country left to fight over.

Taxpayers are tapped out...you cannot expect to continually give raises in pay and benefits to union workers in the public sector...the math doesn't add up.

So what are you "fighting"? Are you saying the country isn't broke? Do you want public sector employees to be able to continually receive raises when the government's already close to default?

Forget emotions, and stick with reason.

Random Internet Dude, you perhaps were not following the news as it was breaking all week, but quite a few days ago the unions offered to concede all the economic requests that were being asked for. The governor declined that offer, effectively revealing that he was never really worried about getting the concessions, or would have lept at the offer. Rather, he seems to have been interested in creating this wedge issue out of thin air. He was given a budget surplus coming in and squandered it on giving an ill-advised tax break to the wealthy, only to find he was then running a budget deficit—he did that either accidentally, and hence incompetently, or intentionally, and hence with the intent of precipitating this situation. I'm guessing the latter. You're welcome to argue he's simply incompetent. But either way you do it, it's not about the money.

This is the most gobsmacking government meeting that I have ever seen in my 40 years of public service!!! I believe that the right judge would not only interpret it as illegal, but unconstitutional under Article 8, Section 8 of the Wisconsin Constitution.

I can only conclude that Governor Walker is insane, as he is trying to turn a good government state into something resembling Northern Ireland.

At this rate, the most corrupt satrapy of Mexico is looking like Scandanavia in comparison to the legislative halls of Madison.

Gordon looks to me like a trouble maker, just trying to start an argument. I have an idea Gordon, why not go look for WMD, you moron

Gordon looks to me like a trouble maker, just trying to start an argument. I have an idea Gordon, why not go look for WMD, you moron

I am very happy to see this well researched post Kent. The thought that this was illegal crossed my mind when I read it.
I do have my doubts as to the perception of what happened being illegal. When people have something happen they 'perceive' as illegal things usually change. I think the way this is perceived will affect what happens later. Not good for either side. This fight will continue for a long time. Me thinks

Kent, I really enjoyed reading this post and then reading all the comments. You know a post is good when it invites such different and divergent comments. I appreciated the different interpretations of the law. Glad this got an EP and cover. You took a lot of time and attention on this and it shows.

Kent,

I wondered the very same thing when I heard the charges of illegality. I think the question that I don’t see being addressed is this: Does it matter whether it is legal?

The Federal Government has engaged in illegal acts with impunity over recent years and those broke those laws are walking around making money selling books, making speeches, teaching at universities. Does it matter whether what they did/do is legal?

If this goes to court, it will ultimately come down to whether the court making the final decision leans Left or Right, I think.

Kent,

I suspect that your analysis is incorrect. However, I won't debate this point directly with you.

I will point out that the Wisconsin Senate Democrats have had ample, and many, opportunities to return to the venue at which they are paid to do their jobs.

@UncleChri
That's what I think is so cool too. They could have caved, like so many disappointing Democrats these days, instead they stayed strong. It is a thing of beauty to watch the Republicans choking on their own bile.

Very interesting point you have raised. I agree that if the wording changed (i.e., sentences or words are removed), then this should be considered a new document/piece of legislation. Hence, the original parliamentary rules that are needed to introduce or discuss the so-called document should apply.

This whole issue about what’s going in Wisconsin is extremely troubling. Since a collective agreement is officially a contract (between employees via a union and an employer), one party cannot modify or annul the agreement that both parties have signed. You would never see something like this up north, where the government would out-of-the-blue, especially for political gain, cancel or recant a collective agreement. After all the Wars against Drugs, … against Terror, …against Women, etc., the GOP is now at War against State Employees! Lovely. That should encourage Americans to work in the public sector (sic).

As I said before, our good old Californian resident Gordon O. should stick to correcting grammar. However, since he had trouble spelling “aperture,” he may not be up to the task.

Kent, as usual, you cut right to the smart stuff. Yes, it was an illegal maneuver, most likely meant to bring the Democratic senators back for another vote. And so it did.

I too view the Democratic senators as heroes. They did their jobs, trying to represent their constituents. And I'm betting that, were the opposite to occur, and Republican senators left the state, Gordon and all the foolish others would be saying that they were the heroes. It can be hard to look objectively at a situation and see the other side.

But the governor and his fellow corporate slavewits are not considering their constituents, which I find repugnant. Are they not public servants themselves, with their salaries paid by taxpayers? Why, yes, they are.

This is an unbridled move to a sort of corporate dictatorship. I've tried to see the other side myself, but I don't understand how anyone, in either party, could stomach the destruction of the republic democracy, but well, clearly, those who agree with this business want that. Otherwise, why would they support this? They don't seem to see how dangerous all this is to freedom in this country. I mean, it's not like it's a subtle kind of problem! It's pretty obvious.

As I wrote somewhere else, perhaps they envision putting on their jack boots and jackets and killing anyone who disagrees ... or putting them in a camp somewhere. I just don't know. All of it defies clear, critical thinking. To win their arguments, they falsely inflate the salaries of teachers and ignore the pleas that these things will affect children adversely. The average teacher in Wisconsin makes $52, 000 a year, depending on type of job. Some make less at $24, 000. They have their own money funding their retirement and healthcare. They pay taxes like everyone else. But, somehow, they are evil and must be crushed, and inflated, crazy ass salaries in six figures are discussed as if they are real, when they are so patently not. As a friend of mine in Wisconsin who is a teacher said, "Who the hell are those teachers making that? Because neither I nor the National Association has heard of them."

Meanwhile, bankers and Wall Street get bailouts and bonuses, and Fox News defends that voraciously. And those people really screwed up. But somehow they are great and must be supported. It really is like that joke about the rich corporation taking the 11 cookies and saying to the poor or middle class Republican "Look out! That union guy wants some of your cookie!" I mean, it's so clear, but none of them see it.

Honestly, I have to conclude that they are stupid. I just don't know what else to think. Is it so important that the President be a white male that they are willing to crush our entire republic to get that back? It's just whacko.

So, between crazy or stupid, I select stupid. Apparently, it starts with not being able to count.

One hope: This situation was a serious over-reach on their part. It's too clear that they want to make the rest of us servants and slaves to the corporation at this point. They always claim the liberals want us all at the lowest common denominator, but it is their policies that will accomplish that. Amazing how they can't see that.

I hope it means these public "servants" are recalled and/or not elected to another term.

Legal or not, the question is probably moot:

(1) because now that the Wisc 14 are back in town, the bill can be passed in keeping with Wisc law

(2) because whether the question comes to Wisc courts or not, Repugnants have already lost in the court of public opinion

(3) because judging by present polling, several Republican legislators are likely to be recalled

It they are, that will necessitate subsequent elections to fill those seats. All this is likely to leave the Wisconsin legislature crippled until the 2012 elections, putting a serious crimp in Walker's plans. And if there is any justice in this world, Repugnants will be the ones getting shellacked in the 2012 elections.

I am an attorney in Philadelphia and therefore I have no knowledge of the law in Wisconsin. There is some things that I can note.

First, the issues seem to focus on procedural issues of Administrative Law and issues regarding Constitutional Law.

Second, these are areas of the law that are highly complex therefore this will take a very long time to sort out. I mean a number of years.

If I had experience in Wisconsin I may be able to tell you more.

Maybe this will help clarify things:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a5sx-4i5y0E

Pardon me, but I forgot to include this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GG7V2XkIAE4

And, this:
http://www.thewheelerreport.com/releases/March11/0310/0310madisonmayorcieslewicz.pdf

Hope this helps, Kent.

Wisconsin law 19.87 (2) also provides: "No provision of this subchapter which conflicts with a rule of the senate or assembly or joint rule of the legislature shall apply to a meeting conducted in compliance with such rule."

The following was posted in wislawjournal.com: "Defenders of the meeting’s legality cite a Senate rule (Senate Rule 93) that states “no advance notice is required other than posting on the legislative bulletin board,” according to the release from Marchant. Notification of the meeting, according to the release, was e-mailed to all legislative offices as a courtesy, but the notice appears to have satisfied any legal requirements."
Source: "Open meetings challenge faces long odds", Thursday, March 10th, 2011 at 9:30 am, BY: Jack Zemlicka, http://wislawjournal.com/blog/2011/03/10/democrats-assert-law-violation-in-senate-action/

RJB, that's an interesting construction and if true it might indeed make it legal. Sadly. It certainly guts the significance of the open meetings law, though, and is a travesty for Democracy. See the rest of my thought on this in my blog post today (actually “penned” yesterday as part of this one, but I wanted to put it up in two parts). It covers the more abstract issues, which relate to whether it's appropriate to have a rule such as you cite.

Jane, several people have now cited this part of the law about it yielding to senate rules, which makes the law kind of weak. See my other post today

Unfortunately everything you all are talking about really doesn't matter because they have the votes to pass the law. Elections have concequences so get over it. If the Dems hadn't run away it would have been done much sooner. The union rule is over and the spending has to stop. Get use to it.

Recall is a joke because once you get out of Madison this has strong support. Other than Government workers no one cares other than how much it will cost them. If voteing mean taxes have to go up, your side looses big time that is why they lost in the last election. In Point the school referendums have lost twice now and there is no more money to give. If you have some more you want to donate go ahead, I don't. So stay out of my pocketbook. My kids go to private school that I pay extra for and I want my tax money back. I don't want to spend it any more on the declining schools anymore. Bring on the Vouchers

See what I mean? Stupid. Wailing about taking money out of pocketbooks? What in the hell do you think will happen without unions, you incredibly dumb person?

And again, they don't think it will affect them, not understanding how, even without a union themselves, the union deliberations ended up keeping everyone's wage higher and kept everyone's benefits stronger. Also, notice the complete ignorance in the way that they believe raising taxes for wealthier Americans would be bad for the middle and lower middle class. How could that possibly be?!? Well, you know, it couldn't.

It is just sheer, unadulterated stupidity. It's stunning, really.

Can it be a deliberate stupidity? Or, honestly, is it real, honest-to-god dumbness, lower IQ, etc.? Because I can't tell anymore.

The stupidity is thinking that the government actually has its own money to pay people. It takes money from the population and gives it to others. As far as the rich, I think we should tax them at 95% to make you feel better. That would work well till they leave and take the jobs they create with them. Ask them in Massachusetts and New York how that has worked out for them. Revenues went down. When you only tax a few people when they leave you are screwed. I have never recieved a job from a poor person and never will. You need capital to build a business and take on alot of risk to try to make it. The harder you make it for people to succeed the more they give up. That is why 35% of America get a welfare check from the government. At least the Dems could get that over 50% and they might win an election. They are trying. Government needs to be cut in half especially your job. Schools need to be privatized as well as most other services. My daughters private school does better than the public school at half the cost. I really don't care that a liberal looses their job to give everyone else a better opportunity to flourish. We spend more every year and get alot less and have alot less to pay for it. I hear Europe is nice and has everything you want. Oh yeah they are broker than us.

rushdman’s intellectual abilities are as good as his written English: mediocre.

rushdman, I've moved the most offensive of your comments to The Cornfield. Please focus on the topic, not on your opinion of the other participants in the discussion.

C Berg and SheilaTGTG55, thanks for the support.

bobbot, I hope the people won't allow it to stand. Time for the pendulum to swing back the other way.

Steve, later comments seem to suggest that there are loopholes in the Open Meetings Law I didn't notice, but that render that law almost toothless. My comments in the second part explain why this is an issue for me even if it's not a violation of law.

Paul, I agree there are ways this could be (and seems to have been) rammed through. I think there is a quorum requirement only for votes on fiscal matters, by the way, but I'm not 100% sure on that. I think that's the reason the budgetary items had to be removed from the bill before they thought they could vote on it. I believe there was at least one Democratic member still attending, though, who could have done the procedural parts.

Gordon, your remark about “bigger and better brains” is uselessly provocative and if I had more energy, I'd move your remark to the Cornfield, too. Calling them cowards is likewise provocative. Were the Republicans who used the filibuster on everything in the last few years likewise cowards, by the way?

Stellaa, excellent summary.

FLW, thanks. Yeah, perhaps. Although the faster thing would be just to re-vote it voluntarily, I'd think. They may be confident enough of their actions to let them stand, though.

Joisey, I would. Lawful certainly in a free country. Ethical? Well, they were elected and so a majority of their constituents presumably supports their cause. Procedurally correct? Well, a parliamentarian didn't rule their actions out of order.

Kenny, yes, I agree this stuff the Republican senators did was at least immoral.

Bobbot, let's not be pointing fingers at conversational participants. It may feel satisfying, but it will feel better to just confront him on the topic at hand.

Kent, I'm a fan of open government -- even painfully open.

I'm not aware of any state legislature, or indeed, any body whatsoever, who have imposed an open meeting law on themselves without effectively exempting themselves from it.

To be fair, I don't think a state legislature could actually function if they did. While I applaud the goal of openness, I don't think the typical open meeting law scales to a body of that size.

I think we might have to take more drastic measures to get openness -- for example, limit legislative business to 8 am to 12 midnight, and require a full audio/visual record of each member's day as a public record, in real time -- so the public can get as much notice as the members.

We see a foreshadowing of that in this case, although I don't think we'll go that far -- but I think we'd have better government if we did.

I offer the following links, with commentary.

Freedom of Information Center's letter to Senator Harry Reid, 2006

Comment: Let anyone accuse me, or anyone interested in open government, as being a left-wing liberal...I concur with this letter completely, and it's interesting to wonder how things might have been different 4 years later, had the Democrats taken it to heart.

Open Meeting Guide

Comment: Openness in government accomplishes nothing if the citizenry are not active. Know your state's open meeting and open records laws.

Here in California, we've had an open meeting law, the Ralph M. Brown act, on the books for over 57 years. I shudder to think what would happen without it.

But open meeting laws don't solve all problems.

By the way -- I don't have a lot of sympathy for unions, especially public unions. I've been a union member -- Teamsters -- and my wife is a member of the Animation Guild. I'm not anti-union, but I think they've created a lot of animosity and distrust and resentment while at the same time often failing their own members. The details vary by union, but I'm speaking here of the aggregate effect of various unions being shortsighted or union bosses being self-aggrandizing.

Public employees often get pensions that private workers have not gotten in decades -- and a degree of job security unrivaled anywhere. The share of our economy which is "the government", in one way or another, is huge (though on a per-capita basis, the government payroll is down from its highest levels). And unlike in the private sector -- public officials are beholden to public unions for their financial and political support.

But regardless of what should happen, or what I think should happen, with the public unions (I don't really have an answer I'm satisfied with anyway), it needs to happen openly, with each legislator -- and the governor -- being entirely accountable for their actions.

Rushdman -- 35% of Americans receive a welfare check? Really? How do you get that number?

By comparison, I used Google, and found this January 25, 2009 New York Times article.

Since it's hard to see the totals, I've taken that data and captured it as a spreadsheet with totals.

Note that welfare recipients in the US in 2008 numbered about 4.25 million -- a far cry from 35%. If you add in food stamps, you get quite a few more -- 34.6 million in 2008. Still a far cry from 35% -- and you said welfare checks -- food stamp recipients do not get checks.

Now, I don't know how the Times defined 'welfare'. I don't know, for example, if they include Bear Stearns, a corporate person who was bailed out in 2008. More seriously, I don't know if you are considering Social Security or Unemployment Compensation to be welfare payments. I would argue vigorously that you should not -- you and your employers have paid for those. Although in the case of unemployment, I grant that during times of recession those state insurance funds are extended with federal dollars.

Maybe we should include farm subsidies -- sure, I'll consider that welfare. Although it doesn't quite fit -- all those lazy farmers sitting around collecting checks to do nothing. Yeah, those are the farmers I grew up with. Right.

Maybe you're including government paychecks?

Still, I'm finding very difficult to get your 35% number past my plausibility filter no matter how I stretch it. It really sounds like some number made up by the Fox News organization.

(And don't get on my case about the liberal media -- I just blasted the NYT on their journalistic standards).

Anyway, I highly recommend that you CYA by fact checking your postings, especially if they include numbers, and citing sources.

Otherwise, someone is likely to come along and fact-check your ass (FCYA).

Yours for a Reality Based Discussion,
Bob Kerns

1. Wisconsin open meetings law states: notice is 24 hours in advance and for good cause may be no less than 2 hours. However, Section 19.87 of Wisconsin open meetings law states it "does not apply where it conflicts with a rule of the Legislatur¬e, senate or assembly."

2. The meeting creating all the stir was a "joint committee of conference." Therefore, the Joint Rules apply.

2. Joint Rule 27 states: "Unless otherwise provided by law, every committee hearing, executive session, or other meeting shall be open to the public. If time permits, advance notice of every regularly scheduled committee hearing, executive session, or other meeting shall be published as provided in joint rule 75."

a. Rule 75 only goes to methods; it has no time limits for advance notice.

b. Also, the " Unless otherwise provided by law" wording of Joint Rule 27 only goes to the matter of being open to the public; not advance notice.

3. Joint Rule 27 sets no minimum advance notice for this "joint committee of conference" meeting the action in question. Hence, advance notice of only 5 minutes is permitted under Joint Rule 27 which Rule would actually permit no advance notice, if time did not permit. Hence the minimum 2 hour advance notice required by the Open Meetings Law conflicts with Joint Rule 27 which requires an advance notice but sets no minimum advance.

4. Given the fact that that the meeting was a "joint committee of conference" and was not a Senate or an Assembly meeting, Senate Rule 93(2) notice rules and similar Assembly notice rules, although also requiring no minimum advance notice, as well as Senate Rule 25 (1) (b) notice rules, are not applicable.

5. It is true that Joint Rule 3 (1) requires that "At least one member from each house shall be a member of the minority party", but nothing in that Rule requires the minority party member to be present.

6. The Wisconsin Legislative Reference Bureau (LRB), reports that on March 9, the Senate requested a Committee of Conference and the Senate appointed Senators Fitzgerald, Ellis, and Miller as conferees. The Assembly agreed to the Committee of Conference and appointed Representatives Fitzgerald, Suder, and Barca as conferees. http://legis.wisconsin.gov/spotlight/index.htm

7. So you see, Senator Miller (D) was a member of the Committee of Conference and therefore, membership of Committee of Conference did in fact have a minority party member from each house. Again there was no requirement under Rule 3(1) for Committee member Senator Miller to be present. He was AWOL.

I am really enjoying this conversation. I like how you don't consider unemployment welfare. Running a business when you pay someone for not working, I think that would be called welfare know matter who pays for it. We have seasonal people that are hired for a seasonal position that are retired collecting multiple pensions who file unemployment and there is nothing you can do. Great system. Why don't we just continue to pay people forever, then no one will have to work. What happened to people actually having to do something productive. I know at least 10 people scamming the Social Security disability system and many that scam the Medicare system. When you give people an opening to steal from others you get what we have now. Bankruptcy. I don't think the public employees are stealing but all they do is complain about how bad things are and they have it better than the majority of the citizens of Wisconsin. These citizens are the same people paying for them. Once you pull yourself out of the Government sector support for your position dwindles quick. The reason is that the only other option is to pay more in taxes. Good luck with that. You could tax the rich more which would be a good idea if they would stay in the state and not take the jobs with them. So until you can get the people paying the bills to cough up more money so the gov workers can keep what they have you are SOL. We just had that election and you lost big time. Good luck on the recalls. Everyone I know is ready to vote so bring it on. I cant wait to vote out Julie Lassa. This will totally backfire.

I would like to know who advised the Governor et al about this interpretation of the Wisconsin laws...did they figure this out on their own? Did the DOJ or any federal lawyers weigh in?

The laws were available to use the first day there was not a quorum...

Rushdman -- when you buy insurance, you are entering into a contract, and you are paying your expected costs + a profit margin, to avoid the risk of having to pay > your expected costs.

That's approximately what unemployment, disability, and social security retirement are -- insurance.

Unless you want to consider all insurance to be "welfare" once you receive it, it hardly seems right to pick these and call them welfare.

Let's not confuse welfare and insurance fraud.

By your standards, it would seem we should also consider paid vacations and sick pay to be welfare, too.

I wonder if that 35% number might be the number of people who receive welfare (under some definition) at some point during their lives? That might be believable. There are a lot of people who end up on welfare for a short period -- often divorced women whose husbands stop or delay child support payments. We could save a lot of $$ by going after that particular problem.

Then later, a lot of elderly end up impoverished, as do people with critical illnesses who cannot get health insurance.

So maybe 35% of people end up on welfare during some period of their life, while paying taxes which go in part (maybe 5% or so depending on what you count) to support others on welfare.

That's a lot closer to the world I live in.

I will have to say, what you have said made some sense. I did some research on this becuse I usually don't repeat something unless I have heard it a few times from a few different sources. One of my sources was on CNBC where they were talking about it. So when I did my research, this story had been reported on a number of programs and their research was a combination of welfare, social security, medicare, medicaid, veteran payments and unemployment insurance. I do agree with you on the insurance side of things excluding unemployement insurance. (Unemployement insurance is unearned income forced on the employer to pay someone not to work.) They had included the programs that you have paid into as a wage and salary which I don't agree with. I think the way this started was that they were explaining that 35% of the population is reliant on the government to pay them for something. When this many people are counting on government for their well being, it becomes very dangerous because of the governments ability to adequately manage their finances. So the real number receiveing true welfare benefits is probably between 15-20%. When the government starts to falter on their payments to such programs, what will happen to the people that actually rely on those payments. Social security actually ran a deficite this year which I believe is quite a bit earlier than expected. The one other thing I forgot is once Healthcare is done through the govenment the number of people relying on them will go up dramatically. If the government does change these programs not because they want to, but have to, we will see unrest that makes Wisconsin look like a frat party. Not an exciting future. Just reading your Social Security statement is about as depressing as it gets and for the government to tell you it is broke, it must be really bad. Thanks for making me look into things more.

Thanks for looking into it more! And for reporting what you learned. We have too much "damned-the-facts, full speed ahead", especially in the political arena.

I still don't agree with your characterization of unemployment as "unearned income". It's earned income -- just like the "employer-contribution" share of your Social Security tax is earned income. It has the effect of reducing your salary, but since your employer mustn't tell you it's part of your salary in the first place, it's a hidden tax (involuntary insurance payment).

I would guess that characterization wouldn't change your opinion of it! It doesn't seem the "unearned" part is important to your point.

I quite agree that 35% of the population relying on the government for payments is, well, I'd call it a vulnerability, both to the economy and individually.

Once you're on Social Security, say, you're dependent on whatever the political winds may do to that program (or may have already done, whose affect we have not yet seen).

It even applies to government salaries. I'm not sure if they were in the 35% -- but I'm sure state workers in Wisconsin are feeling a bit vulnerable these days!

Here in California, Governor Brown is pushing for something I've long advocated -- returning of money and control to local governments. There are problems and downsides, of course, but a lot of the problems we have now are from over-centralization. Something the folks in Wisconsin will learn about in the future, if their governor has his way!

Local school boards are held hostage to state policies. Every time the state legislature can't balance a budget, local school districts have to scramble to come up with funds, including raising taxes in special elections.

It becomes a way for the legislature to escape the consequences of their own actions. It also hurts the local districts that are the poorest the most -- they likely cannot raise the taxes so easily. Perhaps they could if local people saw better where their money was going and that the local school district were well run, fiscally -- but even if true, that's a hard message to convey when the news is full of the legislature's financial meltdowns -- year after year, budget after budget.

I hope the connection here to your 35% number and point is clear. Sending money to Washington, or Sacramento, or Madison, and asking for it back in benefits or school aid, is a form of dependency.

There may be times and places where it is needed. I'm happy my tax dollars to helped rebuild and operate schools after Katrina, and hope our own schools don't end up in the same situation after the Rogers Creek fault on one side or the San Andreas fault on the other let go.

In the case of education, we should make no mistake -- this dependency is explicitly about control. Federal education dollars are tied to Federal education agendas. State tax dollars are tied to State education agendas. That's not entirely bad -- it helps to prevent bad education from going uncorrected. But it's also not entirely good.

So I wonder what terms and conditions are imposed as part of that 35%? I know in the case of unemployment, the terms are "you must not be working, but you must be looking for work". For Social Security, "you must not earn more than $X". For education benefits -- "you must be a full-time student".

But I don't agree with your comment about Healthcare through the government. People already rely on it. The costs are already buried completely. Our current system, of having it essentially only reliably available through employers, forces people to work for larger companies. Small companies, startups, self-employment are thus severely, extremely severely penalized, as they cannot offer people health insurance.

Unfortunately, neither blinking side in Washington seemed much interested in fixing that. And we don't have government-run Healthcare, either -- what we have is an expansion of Healthcare run by bureaucracies which might as well be governments, because they are completely firewalled against any sort of economic feedback.

Corporate welfare, really.

So often, the political parties depart from reality in the opposite direction, proceed around the circle, and meet in battle on the other side -- while all sanity and economic reality are left 180 degrees on the other side. I think we have that situation with Healthcare.

But do you wonder what would happen, if every conversation with every Healthcare lobbyist, and every strategy meeting of each party on the topic, were suddenly to be posted to YouTube?

Contrast that with how Healthcare policy is currently made -- behind closed doors of huge insurance companies, with no accountability at all? (But make no mistake -- it is government policies which insulate them from any economic accounting.)

This is a bit disjointed, I apologize. But I hope you can see where I'm going with this. The key thread in all of this is "feedback loops". When you insulate governance from the corrective influences of feedback, by blocking information flows, or aggregating and centralizing, you get problems. And when you have government applying economic pressures through centralized payments, you invite a whole other class of problems.

These two threads intertwine. This whole "liberal" vs "conservative" thing distracts us from how tangled we have become in this web.

Hey Bob

I think the points you make are good and there were so many I will try to address a few. The unemployment insurance in Wisconsin is a insurance plan with the employer not the employee. No place in my check do they take out for unemployment unless you count state and federal taxes. The employer is forced by the state to pay a percentage to the state to cover unemployment. If you have people collecting they will raise your rate to cover those increases. When someone is hired their unemployment is really not considered as wage because you plan on keeping that employee. It is only when that employee is not needed any more that this kicks in. So even though you might not need the services of the employee any more, you are forced to continue paying this employee. I understand the social aspects of it, but to not call it welfare I don't understand that. At least in social security and medicare you pay into those programs, so I wouldn't consider them welfare but unemployment I think would. In our business, we hire mostly seasonal employees. Wisconsin doesn't consider any employee seasonal. So even though these people know going into the job that they will only be working 8 month, when they get laid off they collect on us. It is a huge drain on business. As far as looking for work we have called the state and they say they have no way to enforce this measure so their is no requirement. I believe maybe 4-8 weeks of unemployment is sufficient for someone to locate other employment, but after that it becomes to comfortable for some people. There are many jobs out their paying more than unemployment, but most people do not want to do them. We also have people with kids that only want to work 20 hours so they can still collect all their government goodies. We have work for them but they choose not to work. People know the system and once you know it, you can play the game. Trust me, this in not everyone, but we are seeing it more and more as the government programs become more lucrative. Healthcare being provided by the government would only be an issue if they gave it to people and then had to take it away. This will happen because the government will never take in enough money to pay for everyone to go to the doctor. Looking at all the people who are paying for medicare and not receiving benefits and the program is still failing is showing you what is to come. The costs of healthcare do not start at the insurance company, but at the doctors offices. The insurance companies do make a profit but getting the doctors to charge less is a problem. They are already declining medicare patients on the premis that they are not getting paid enough. So this is the hurdle not the insurance companies I think. Well that's enough for now. Good Conversation.

rushdman, I'm busy just now and only skimming and may have misunderstood, but I think one reason to avoid the term welfare is that the Right has successfully charged the word to mean “undeserved”—a thing about freeloaders. Social programs that are just insurance paid into by people is not rightly classified as that, and so it's probably worth being sensitive to the fact that some people are trying to send coded messages. Even the word “entitlement” has somehow been besmirched. If I pay for a car, I'm entitled to receive it. If I pay into social security, I'm entitled to receive it. That's a sense of entitlement. But there is also a sense of entitlement that is where I haven't done anything but still feel entitled. Ironically, this is true both of some welfare recipients and of some children of rich people receiving inheritance. The terminology is full of landmines and I won't say there is any one right or wrong way. Sadly, if you catch someone trying to reclassify some of these things, it may be in order to obscure things or unfairly target people or it may be an attempt to de-obscure and more fairly highlight useful distinctions. Terminology is double-edged in other words. Maybe this helps in reading Bob's remarks. I haven't had time to go through them in detail myself, but Bob's a good guy and even where I disagree with him I still trust him to give you an honest account.

Regarding, “I believe maybe 4-8 weeks of unemployment is sufficient for someone to locate other employment, but after that it becomes to comfortable for some people.” I should note that this is a belief, so one can't tell you that you don't believe it, but it may not actually be true, especially in the current economy. And you should understand that it's not just vanity or laziness that might make it take longer. The sad truth is that if I or any of my friends were unemployed at a high tech job for 8 months and faced with a lower paying job, it is outright devastating. I was once unemployed and took a job at a $20K salary hit just for the expedience of being re-employed. I liked the job and figured the salary didn't matter. But all future jobs I've had offered salary based on that baseline, so it means not only did I take $20K less every year for the 6 years I worked for this company, but for each future company I also did. So the cost of “just swallowing one's pride and going back to work” is a permanent one, and much, much more huge than is commonly acknowledged. Businesses don't talk about this, but they know it. I have seen hiring managers speak about knowing that this or that person they're going to make an offer to is over a barrel and can't afford to bargain for all kinds of reasons. In the case of that salary drop, the person offering me the lessened salary said straight out that he was offering me something he knew was low and basically because he didn't think I'd find better. I'm not complaining for myself—I am not rich, but my life has been OK. Still, these effects hit lots of people who aren't as lucky as me. It's an ugly business with brutal, lifelong consequences. That's from personal experience. But this is what the issue is for business and why they're fighting so hard. They don't just want to pay less per hour now, they want all future salaries to be based on less. This is a gigantic transfer of wealth from the underclass to employers. And then those people don't have as much with which to pay for all the services, so it looks like they're asking for more. But they're still doing the same work they were doing before, and the businesses are better able to pay. You know this because the businesses probably aren't skimping on their salary to the guy at the top—they aren't saying “it's make or break, you have to take a salary cut, too” but instead are saying “great job getting money out of those people who can't defend themselves.” In effect, the “competition” is a leveling action between the US and other countries, bringing us down until we finally equal the salaries paid in other countries. That has two advantages to them: The US doesn't cost as much and also the faster they can lower our salaries, the faster they can eliminate upward pressure on salaries in those other countries.

"If I pay into social security, I'm entitled to receive it."

False. . . .

See http://www.ssa.gov/history/nestor.html

Uncle, I was not trying to incorporate the literal law. I understand it's complicated. My point in context was that if I pay in, I'm not asking for charity if I ask for money I am owed under the plan.

I think both you and Bob sound like nice guys that care about what is going on and it is nice to have a discussion about things. Being in business and seeing how unemployment is used I would still consider it welfare. It is someone getting paid for doing nothingand is not part of. It was not part of the origion deal and it is the states way of forcing employers to pay for these people. I see the social aspect of it, but there is a point where it becomes a burden for the business and a crutch for the employee. From someone that has had to reinvent themselves a few times I know it is hard, but that is life. So insted of the business paying someone to work they pay people to not work. This is giving no flexibility to the business. When times are tough you need that flexibility to stay in business. If you have never owned a business it is easy to think all employers are gready and cold hearted, but the truth is that most employers want to keep good employees and pay them well. That is how they make money. Most cuts are made for a reason. Even though you think the business makes alot of money, it takes alot of money to be in business. Some businesses are crooks, Ill give you that, but most are not. Once you have to make a payroll or make a budget work it changes your perception of alot of things. The one other thing that gets me is that wages are somehow lower than they were a few years ago. It might be true in some industries but in most they are up, way up. Before the recession it was even more prominent. When times are tough businesses have to do what they have to do to survive but then go back to normal. I think the problem is wages are not keeping up with the constant pull from different things on your wallet. Everything is much more expensive and technology keeps adding more mothly bills. It just feels like you make less money. Thats enough for now.

rushdman, my business experience is quite limited but not non-existent. Some of it is mere speculation after study of things I wanted to do and then didn't do, other parts are based on experience that was small but instructive.

I will say that what bugs me is not the cost of things but whether others can do things I can't. A big company can offer medical care because the incremental per-person cost of having an administrator is not bad. But a little company really can't do that, and so it's a pain to offer decent stuff. I'd rather have the government offload such matters as health care and retirement because in my experience those are hugely expensive and very distracting to administer. I'd rather pay the government a tax and know it was properly tended to. You might say (and you wouldn't be alone) that I should pay a private company, but then I have to compete with what another company does. Not in the market of products (although it falls to that as well as it affects the prices I can charge) but in the market of hiring, which is a separate parallel marketplace. Big companies would be able to afford better service companies (health care, retirement, etc.), and so they'd have their pick of who to hire. The best employees want the best health care. But why on earth should my ability to afford health care determine whether a guy who was good at programming or making widgets should work for me. I'd want to hire that person because he was good at what he did and he liked the business I was in, not the incidentals I could offer. And not just incidentals, but incidentals that are not even work-related. It seems to me that little companies may tend to get second-string people who the big companies don't want. It shouldn't be that way.

Little companies should be able to get people if they have interesting projects to do—the question of what health care someone gets should not be involved in the decision to be hired by me. That's just so artificial and it skews the market. And if there's volatility and I might have to lay someone off, I want them taken care of, so I don't mind paying tax when I'm making money as long as I don't have to feel guilty when I'm not. You seem to model unemployment as someone getting something free, but in my experience it's about the fact that the business owner gets to gamble on making money, which maybe he wants to do, but he is forced also to gamble with people's lives, too. It's OK if I start a business and it folds, but if I employ someone it's not OK for me to take them with me. I see unemployment insurance as more than just a free lunch—it's a way of insulating day-to-day workers from the gambling casino aspect of businesses that hire and fire all the time. It's not the regular worker's fault that the businesses these days aren't stable.

They may have to retrain, they may have to move to a new location, they have a lot of problems. It's oversimplifying to say that all people who are unemployed are just home being so comfortable they won't go back to work. Unemployment pay is just not that cushy. There may be the occasional person who finds it enough, but I bet that is very rare. I bet it's used as an example because it serves somone's political agenda. I bet there aren't nearly as many cases of that as certain people are happy having you believe. I also bet the overall cost of it is not the major cost in the system.

Rushdman -- here's a completely different way of thinking of Unemployment.

Think of it as a penalty for victimizing your employees, whom you have induced to depend on you, by mismanaging your business.

Yes, that's over-dramatizing it -- but so is your characterization, and in the same way.

But the point is, when a company's unemployment insurance goes up -- it is because they have a history of making people unemployed. That part of it is not under the control of the employee. It is the employer's action that leads to the situation, and this is insurance against your actions.

I do understand your point about flexibility -- up to a point. Many industries are inherently variable. But you -- and your employees -- must both consider that as part of doing business in that sector. Think of it as sharing the risk between you and your employees. (That's what insurance is, after all -- risk sharing).

Unemployment pay is a fraction of regular pay. And it maxes out -- $425/week in California. Unemployment is at best a stop-gap, and for most people, if you stay on unemployment too long, you'll exhaust your savings.

BTW, I have been a small business owner -- though never successful enough to hire a full-time employee. I would make a serious stab at doing so again -- except for the little matter of health insurance, which forces me into the hands of larger corporations.

I have also read all of the precedent decisions for the CA Unemployment and Disability Insurance Appeals Board. It's actually a quite fascinating glimpse into the history of labor and business.

It's also quite fascinating the ways that people try to cheat. And make no mistake -- businesses try to cheat; it's not just individuals. Often, this takes the form of labeling a departure as "voluntary" and contesting the benefits, when the departure is the result of abusive employment practices.

(Here's one type of employer unemployment fraud.)

But it also gives you a good historical perspective on why we have unemployment insurance -- why it was created, and why it continues.

I have also won a case before the appeals board -- and on a second appeal on another matter, they folded before it went to the appeals board. Neither one opposed by my former employer, but against the EDD itself. (Matters that related to due process, efficient government, etc., as well as basic facts and whether they're allowed to make them up -- I started to write a comment to Kent's post on efficient government describing that experience.)

That was my one time getting unemployment in a long career. It was my second time filing -- the first time, I ended up falling into a Catch-22, not eligible for unemployment because I ended up in the hospital 2 days after being laid off, and ruled not eligible for disability because of having received severance pay, and not able to appeal, because, well, I was hospitalized -- and then employed.

So I can tell you first-hand it's no picnic being on unemployment. It's not a lot of money even at the max -- and that's only if you've paid in at over 46K/year. How would you fare, if your income were suddenly cut to 20% of its former value, but your costs remained the same?

(And in my case, it was over 6 months of unemployment before I saw a the first penny. Definitely not an easy time of things. I won't go into the details why it took me a another six months to find another job -- but I'll point out that where I ended up finding work I first applied to within days of being laid off -- my very first resume out the door, in fact.)

So I know perhaps a bit more about Unemployment Insurance than your average commentator, and I've looked at it from a lot of different sides, having a general interest in public policy, business, and economics.

Much of the CA precedent stems around being available for and seeking work. You have to be looking for work to be eligible. If you're just sitting back, "being paid to not work", that's fraud -- not welfare.

So if you'd like to recast your concern that, as an insurance program, it's open to fraud, that's fine -- but I really feel it doesn't belong in the welfare category. (And remember, it's open to fraud on both sides! Not to mention malfeasance by the state agency!)

Potential better ideas are certain worthy of discussion.

But whether you classify it as welfare or not has little bearing on your point about the 35% and dependence on government checks -- so we don't really have to agree on the category to discuss that point.

Unsecured muni bonds in someone's retirement account -- that's a dependency on government checks, too.

Kent,

I understand the point of view you are trying to establish. My point is that this viewpoint incorporates an expectation of government that can NOT be met, unless drastic changes are made to Social Security.

Frankly, Social Security is a Ponzi scheme in the sense that those first to contribute and first to benefit will reap the gold in the mine, while the rest of us will get the shaft. Some argue that the USSC's decision in 'Nestor' advertises this truth; and therefore Social Security is only a "semi" Ponzi scheme, since those who will not be fully funded have ample advance notice of this potential failure.

The current estimate of the Social Security insolvency places its initial inability to meet all of its obligations in 2037. Thus, you, and those who follow you, are truly contributing to a charity.

Moreover, as in any Ponzi scheme, no dollar collected under FICA from Mr. Pitman is held for the benefit of Mr. Pitman. In fact, the cash flow for Social Security today is such that those dollars collected from you are paid almost immediately to CURRENT beneficiaries.

Further, Social Security doesn't INVEST your contribution in any sense associated with creating wealth before you are old enough to collect its Old Age benefits, or infirm enough to collect its Disability Insurance Benefits, etc.,. Hence, it is a very poor retirement investment vehicle.

Hence, when you retire, if nothing changes, then the Social Security benefits you receive will derive from the involuntary, forced, charitable donations collected under FICA from those who remain working -- just as they are now. . . .

Chris

Very well said on Social Security. If this was done in the private sector the people responsible would be in jail. It is theft to the third degree. A person making $30,000 a year pays into social security, between their contribution and the employer, 12.4% which equals $3720 a year. If this was invested in a cd making 3% over 35 years you would have a nest egg of $231,666. At 5% is would be $352,791. At 8% it would be $692,300. Lets take the 5% for an example. If you continued to make 5% but took that in income at retirement, you would get $1470 a month. Probably a little more than social security. But what is different is you own this money and when you die you could pass it on to your family. This is a very conservative investment with someone considered to be in poverty. If you make $50000 a year your monthly payment would go up to $2449 a month. Remember that Social Security was suppose to be a suppliment to your retirement. I think if it was set up right in the beginning this nation would have so much wealth. But like most government programs it is a disaster and when I get to retirement not only will I get nothing but probably pay more in taxes to support the people that actually got it. I also like how they dropped the contribution rate this year by 2%. That should help the solvency problem. Once you put the numbers to it you see how bad it is.

On our other topic, I think you are really starting to see the divide in this country. You have one group of the public that collects a paycheck and one group that pays the paychecks. I think a good place to start is to ask if you were to start a business with an idea. Spend alot of money to get it started, and grow it through long hours and effort and it becomes a success you should prosper from that success. I think that this is what america is all about. So as you grown this business you probably have to hire employees to handle the growth so you do. Some are good and some are not. You decide to keep the best people and let the people go that are not, so you can find better. You do this because the best people give you the best chance for success. The best workers are in demand and in order to keep them, you need to pay them more because at any time they could leave on their own and you are back to trying to find someone good. As the business grows, you start to reep the rewards by making money. You think this is going to work great so you expand your business hire more people usually take out loans to do it. Now you have a bank to answer to. As long as the business grows things are good. There comes a point in any business that things go the other way. So profits go down but everyone still wants to get paid. Especially the bank, the government and the employees. So as profits decrease most things in the business are fixed expenses except labor. This is one of the few spots you have flexibility. So in order to preserve the business which has created all these jobs they constrict the work force. This could be temporary or permanent depending on the situation. So knowing that the business cycle is there, it is how we look at it that is different. A conservative thinks that the business has the right to conduct that business under the law in the manner they feel is beneficial to their situation. This means they have control over who they hire, what their responsibilities are, and when that employee is no longer needed. They also believe that wages should be set by the employer. There is a spot where salaries need to be to keep your good help. If you don't provide enough people will leave. To think that turnover is not expensive is false. The amount of time and resources to train that new employee are steep. This is not in the employers best interest unless the job requires little skill. Businesses are the golden goose in this country. If they are not allowed to roll with the environment they will fail and go away. This is what is happening in this country. In a perfect world everyone would have the job of their dreams and get paid lots of money, but thats not reality. A job is a privilage not a right. Like most things in life the more you try to control the output the more people pull away from the system. Wealth is good not evil. Wealth gets spread around, that is what makes things work. The govenment has no wealth. They just redistribute it. I still believe if you work hard and educate yourself you can be wealthy and enjoy the life you want. I just think more and more people think they should just be wealthy without the work and sacrifice part. Look forward to hearing comments.

I can't see Social Security as a Ponzi scheme, not even a semi-Ponzi scheme. In a Ponzi scheme, it's sold as an investment with fantastic returns.

I would agree, however, that most people tend to make assumptions about it that, taken in place of the reality of its design, would equal a Ponzi scheme.

But it's really something much more direct.

It's a nearly-direct transfer of wealth from the young to the old. Without even the pretense of a Ponzi scheme.

The closest I can see it coming to a Ponzi scheme are that you get periodic statements suggesting what you might get when you retire. That contributes to the perception that you own something. But that perception is incorrect. You get taxed now. Later, you are on the other end of the hose, with whatever they give out then. But beyond a certain minimum point, you don't even get more benefits because you paid in more.

So it's a tax on one side, and an entitlement on the other, with no investment -- real or fake -- between.

I'm not 100% happy with Social Security's design and implementation. I will observe that, without it, you'd have people going on welfare because they had spent every penny -- either foolishly or out of desperate need.

One of the problems I have with it is that it serves as a pool of free money for Congress to borrow.

However -- the Republican idea of substituting various investment accounts is, well, bankrupt. As in, the financial meltdown would have done to Social Security (or its replacement) what has happened to all our 401(k)'s, etc. (Speaking of transfers of wealth!)

But I don't have a problem with discussing sane alternatives to the current system. Just so long as everyone is willing to acknowledge that any replacement will come with its own set of issues and drawbacks.

But I think it's not enough to fix Social Security. You also have to fix people's attitudes toward spending and savings. Especially young people. (Hey, younger me, are you listening?)

I almost agree with you about the divide. The problem is, it's an over-simplification. You have the recipients of corporate bailout money on the one side, and you have the working poor on food stamps on the other. Each resenting the other for what they get from the government.

You have farm subsidies -- almost a billion dollars for tobacco subsidies alone during the last decade.

We could go on and on with stuff like that. We have a money problem in Washington, and it's worse than a budget problem. Politicians spend our money to buy votes, wherever they can find them for sale.

And corporations and other groups spend money to buy politicians votes to send more money their way.

I think that's the real cause of the divide you perceive. But so many who resent their tax dollars being handed out so freely, are reluctant to look at the tax dollars that are directed their own way.

I don't know the solution -- but regarding corporations as persons with a free-speech right to spend gigabucks on politics isn't the right direction.

The rest of what you had to say about business, I agree with. I think that companies that lay off workers too freely are making a serious mistake, because they're undervaluing those workers, and the investment they have made in training, team building, morale, etc.

Unemployment insurance is an attempt to strike a balance, between the flexibility a business needs to stay in business (and thus not throwing even more people out of work), and the commitment that workers make in working for a company, and the risks they take on in choosing to work for you, rather than someone else.

Perhaps you would feel better about it if the numbers were organized such that it was the worker who paid the insurance premiums. Let's assume (for the sake of a more direct comparison) that it was likewise mandatory, but it came out of the worker's check.

In this scenario, if you lay off workers -- now your remaining workers would see their paychecks reduced. They'd start demanding a pay raise, or start rethinking their continued employment with you, even more than they otherwise would after a layoff.

This would tend to insulate you from the direct consequences of your layoffs -- higher unemployment insurance pricing due to your actions -- but would make workers much more aware of the risks in choosing to work for you.

I tend to not favor insulating people from the consequences of their actions, but this seems to add insulation on one side, and remove it from the other. Maybe half-way would be ideal.

There are some interesting congruences here with health insurance. Why the BEEP is health insurance tied to employment? That one messes up employers and employees alike. And now it's mandatory. Insane.

To my mind, the Republicans really blew that one. They could have stood up for principle and the small businessman, and brought the Democrats to a more sane solution; instead they protected the insurance companies, and rewarded them with millions of new customers. ($ = Votes). As did many Democrats. That, and the chance to use it as a wedge issue.

(Lest you think I'm being partisan here -- I have a similar rant about how the Democrats blew it on the issue of the deficit, and handed the Tea Party a bunch of seats on a platter when they could have owned the issue. I am not a Democrat.)

Hi Bob.

It's probably hard to believe but I agree with you on alot of what you said. I think corporate welfare is wrong. To invest in a community to help business locate their is one but paybacks to big corporations is wrong. Farm subsidize make no sense other that to control markets and that never works. I have a great idea on social security. Why don't we use the money coming in to buy our own treasury bonds so this way the american people would own the debt not foreign governments. Solve 2 problems in one. The 30 year bond pays about 4% so it would be a decent return. I would agree it is not a ponzi scheme if the government actually had the money set aside in an account to pay out benefits. Since in order to pay benifits in the future they will have to tax us more to pay benefits. It is just like Madoff who need the new money coming in because he had already spent the old money. When the money didn't come in, this was the only time he had a problem. Could be our government soon. I also kinda like your unemployement plan but for different reasons. I think if the employee did pay it on their paycheck it would be part of their negotiated salary. The longer they work at a place the more funds they accumulate incase they got laid off. This would also work like an extra retirement plan that if you stay at a business till retirement you would recieve the unused money in your account. This would solve both problems. The employee/employer would be responsible for the unemployment, it would get negotiated in your salary so the business is part of it and the business would not be on the hook to support the employee once their services were no longer needed. I think we might have just solved it. There is one problem. Who keeps the money. If it is in a general government account bad, employee account good. This would also give workers incentive to find a job so they don't depleate their account. I like it. We pay for all sorts of insurance why not this. On another point in Washington we don't have a money problem we have a spending problem. If they can't take care of the poor, the military, and health care on a 3.5 trillion dollar budget, they wouldn't be able to do it on a 10 trillion budget. If they did things right they could afford health care and it would be an easy sell to the public. Too bad they do everything wrong and really don't care. This is why the people are so mad. They see an innoficient bloated mess that nobody wants to fix.

Funny you should mention the idea of having Social Security invest in US Treasury bonds -- because that's exactly what it does, and always has.

I'm not sure of the exact number, but the trust funds (retirement and disability) hold about $2.5 trillion of the US debt. That is, of the $14+ trillion that our children will have to repay, they owe about $2.5 trillion to us when we retire. It is debt held by us, not other countries.

That's where the long-standing surplus from the social security taxes has gone -- helping to finance our ongoing budget deficits. The trust fund isn't broke, though it has just recently started running a deficit, so that $2.5 trillion number will slowly start coming down.

One consequence is, social security taxes are no longer feeding our borrowing. In a sense, they've been holding down the price on our borrowing, but that's tapped out.

That $2.5 trillion is pocket change compared to the total implied obligation to all of us who have not yet retired and died, but have paid into the system. If payments stopped coming in, it would run dry very quickly -- I don't know how quickly, but it's not worth considering, as whatever we do, it won't be that.

But Social Security itself, as well as the bonds in the trust fund, and the federal debt, all represent a transfer of wealth from our children (and our future selves so long as we remain taxpayers) to us, now. That doesn't make it inherently wrong, but it does mean we need to think carefully about it, in an context where it will paid by a smaller future generation. And fairness requires they get a like benefit from the system... I think we're way past the point where the burden on the next generation exceeds the benefit.

But Social Security isn't on the verge of collapse. That's a political scare tactic. When the trust fund is depleted, then one (or more) of four things will happen: We'll reduce benefits, increase SS taxes, borrow the money to pay the benefits, or pay the benefits anyway with newly-printed (in a virtual sense) dollars, thus diluting all dollar holdings (including the debt).

We call that last effect, "inflation", and there is much precedent to erasing debt, both public and private, through inflationary policies. I fully expect a good share of our national debt (and private) to be paid in inflated dollars some time down the road. Indeed, if we continue on our present road, it's hard to see how it could be otherwise -- except to default.

Now, if you are a net debtor, that's kind of good news. On the other hand, if you have investments valued in dollars -- bonds, say, public or private, or mortgage-backed securities, money market funds, etc. -- then you're who the wealth is being siphoned from to pay off those debts.

Politically, the discussion won't be in these terms, of course. But for as long as we've had central banking, debtors and debt holders have been in conflict. Now we're all debtors, to the tune of over $177,000 per citizen.

So a little inflation, viewed simplistically, would be good for us. (But then it gets factored into interest rates, making the next round of debt much more expensive, etc. etc. Not so nice in reality).

I think you have more faith in the government to make sound fiscal decissions than I do. If the government does buy our own debt, wouldn't this really just be an accounting gimmick. We the people are paying interest so that Social Security can look better than it is. It is all a shell game used to make things look better than they are. The one thing that is saving this country is that the economy hasn't recovered. Sounds sad but the government is rooting for the economy to not recover to fast. If this were to happen then the Fed would have to start raising rates to fight inflation. Once they do this, the cost of our debt will skyrocket. If there comes a time when people stop buying our debt we will cease to exsit like we do today. You are begining to see this in Europe. When you have to start taking things away from people you will see riots in the streets and things will get worse very fast. As long as the fed can continue to flood the US with new money and not reep the concequences things will be fine. This is a very fine line. The next house of cards to fall will make this recession look small. I hope for the best, but there is no way to pull this one back. Wisconsin is just a small vision of what happens when you give people something and take it away. I think the people in this country would rather keep their stuff and bankrupt the country than give up things to survive. The path is bleak.

I don't have time to fully articulate my thought here, but the way I think differently than you, rushdman, is that you're thinking in terms of quantifiable dependence—you're reducing it to how much investment and measuring whether it goes up or down. I would prefer a society which merely commits to caring about its sick and its elderly. This will necessarily be more difficult in some times than in others, and society must take that difficulty seriously. But reducing it to numbers makes you concerned it can't be done. Even in a crisis, say, when one is being attacked in a war or undergoing an earthquake, we commit to taking care of each other. The level of care is different when we have resource than when we don't. To me, the commitment is not a dollar amount, it floats according to capability. And so to me it can never go bankrupt. If it can, that's an artifact of a poor accounting system that allows rich people to think they own the right to be callous. That was never what money should have become about. With great power comes great responsibility, and that seems to have been lost somewhere.

This is obviously a complicated case, but I don't think you need to give up yet. The vaunted §19.87(2) conflict clause does not actually come into effect. Why? Because there is no conflict.

1. First of all, the Senate Rule 93 as quoted here is wrong - it doesn't say "No notice" it says "A notice":
(2) A notice of a committee meeting is not required other than posting on the legislative bulletin board, and a bulletin of committee hearings may not be published.
from: http://nxt.legis.wisconsin.gov/nxt/gateway.dll?f=templates&fn=default.htm&d=rules&jd=top

2. What this rule is thus stating is the TYPE of notice being utilized. It is not a rule declaring whether or not a notice should be given. Indeed, it states that a notice IS required. THUS, this does not represent a conflict between Senate rules and the Open Meeting Law.

3. Therefore, the Open Meeting Law is still applicable to this meeting and even its shorter requirement of two hours has not been met, as indicated by counsel representing the Bros. Fitzgerald.

came across this in guardian uk, amazing that it is not front page across the usa?

"So how many Tea Partiers are happy now that it turns out Scott Walker's law meant he could hire unqualified political cronies

State Rep. Brett Hulsey noted that the recently approved law that made collective bargaining changes converts 37 top agency attorneys, communications officials and legislative liaisons from civil service positions to jobs appointed by the governor.

iow...

Walker appoined the son of one of his top donors, Jerry Deschane to an $81,500 per year job overseeing environmental and regulatory matters and dozens of employees at the Department of Commerce. Brian Deschane is in his mid-twenties, has no college degree, very little management experience and two drunken-driving convictions, yet in two months he earned a promotion and a 26% pay raise. Jerry Deschane is executive vice president and longtime lobbyist for the Wisconsin Builders Association, which donated $121,652 to Walker over the past two years.

Scott Walker: Change You Don't Want to Believe Is True (rofl)"