Democrats hold seats in Wisconsin recall elections

Two Wisconsin Democratic state senators beat back Republican challengers on Tuesday in the last of a series of recall elections triggered by a fight over collective bargaining rights for public sector workers.

Both Democrats and Republicans were claiming victory on Tuesday in a series of nine summer recall votes in which Democrats unseated two incumbent Republicans but fell short of winning control of the state legislature.

Democrats had hoped to win a majority in the state senate following a fierce battle with Governor Scott Walker and his Republican allies earlier this year over public workers' union powers that involved mass protests, legislative maneuvering and court challenges.

"This was a political Rorschach test in that anyone can read anything into the result," said Mordecai Lee, a University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee governmental affairs professor and former Democratic lawmaker. "Politically, it was a draw."

He expected the results would embolden Democrats to try to recall Walker, which would require a half a million signatures just to schedule an election. "By November, we'll know if they're pursuing it seriously or not."

The Democrats who successfully defended their seats on Tuesday, Robert Wirch and Jim Holperin, were among 14 Wisconsin state senators who left the state in an attempt to prevent passage of an anti-union measure earlier this year.

Holperin beat political novice and Tea Party activist Kim Simac by 54 percent to 46 percent, according to WisPolitics.com. Wirch beat Republican lawyer Jonathan Steitz by 58 percent to 42 percent.

Overall in the recall elections, a total of three Democrats and four Republican incumbents kept their seats, while two Republicans were unseated.

CONTROL OF SENATE

Republicans managed to keep control of the state senate -- 17 to 16. But state Democrats point out that one Republican state senator, Dale Schultz, voted against Walker's curbs on public sector unions. They argue that the balance of power actually shifted away from the conservatives.

"The state Senate as now constituted would NOT have approved Walker's extreme, divisive assault on the middle class and working people," Democratic Party of Wisconsin Chair Mike Tate said in a statement.

Brad Courtney, chair of the state's Republican Party, congratulated Simac and Steitz for mounting what he described as well-fought challenges.

"Wisconsin now emerges from this recall election season with a united Republican majority who has beaten off an attack from national unions and special interests and emerged steadfastly committed to carrying forward a bold job creation agenda," Courtney said in a statement.

Holperin told supporters in Rhinelander that he hoped the recall results would signal a change in Wisconsin politics.

"I do hope (these recalls) signal a new era of what I hope is a more moderate approach to public policy in the state, starting with the governor," he added.

Governor Walker fought for the union curbs, which restrict the bargaining rights of public workers and also make them pay more for health care and pensions, saying they were needed to help Wisconsin close a $3.6 billion budget deficit.

Democrats cried foul, saying public workers had already agreed to steep benefit cuts. They called the effort union-busting, designed to hobble organized labor -- a major source of Democratic Party financing -- ahead of the 2012 elections.

The fight thrust Wisconsin into the national spotlight, igniting massive pro-union protests and political fights that led to the recall efforts against six Republicans who backed the union curbs and three Democrats who opposed them.

Until this summer, there had been only 20 state-level recall elections in U.S. history, and the money poured into the recall campaigns has been something for the record books.

Mike Buelow, research director for the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign, estimates that candidates and outside groups spent as much as $37 million on the recalls.

With the recalls acting as somewhat of a rehearsal for 2012, experts say the spending could be a harbinger of record outlays next year.

'Doomsday' defense cuts loom large for select 12

For the dozen lawmakers tasked with producing a deficit-cutting plan, the threatened "doomsday" defense cuts hit close to home.

The six Republicans and six Democrats represent states where the biggest military contractors — Lockheed Martin, General Dynamics Corp., Raytheon Co. and Boeing Co. — build missiles, aircraft, jet fighters and tanks while employing tens of thousands of workers.

The potential for $500 billion more in defense cuts could force the Pentagon to cancel or scale back multibillion-dollar weapons programs. That could translate into significant layoffs in a fragile economy, generate millions less in tax revenues for local governments and upend lucrative company contracts with foreign nations.

The cuts could hammer Everett, Wash., where some of the 30,000 Boeing employees are working on giant airborne refueling tankers for the Air Force, or Amarillo, Texas, where 1,100 Bell Helicopter Textron workers assemble the fuselage, wings, engines and transmissions for the V-22 Osprey tilt-rotor aircraft.

Billions in defense cuts would be a blow to the hundreds working on upgrades to the Abrams tank for General Dynamics in Lima, Ohio, or the employees of BAE Systems in Pennsylvania.

For committee members such as Sens. Patty Murray, D-Wash., Rob Portman, R-Ohio, and Pat Toomey, R-Pa., the threat of Pentagon cuts is an incentive to come up with $1.5 trillion in savings over a decade. Failure would have brutal implications for hundreds of thousands workers back home and raise the potential of political peril for the committee's 12.

"I think we all have very good reasons to try to prevent" the automatic cuts, Toomey told reporters last week when pressed about the impact on Pennsylvania's defense industry. "That is not the optimal outcome here, the much better outcome would be a successful product from this committee."

The panel has until Thanksgiving to come up with recommendations. If they deadlock or if Congress rejects their proposal, $1.2 trillion in automatic, across-the-board cuts kick in. Up to $500 billion would hit the Pentagon.

Those cuts, starting in 2013, would be in addition to the $350 billion, 10-year reduction already dictated by the debt-limit bill approved by Congress and signed into law by President Barack Obama this month.

Not surprisingly, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta has described the automatic cuts as the "doomsday mechanism." He's warned that the prospect of nearly $1 trillion in reductions over a decade would seriously undermine the military's ability to protect the United States.

For the Pentagon, "we're talking about cuts of such magnitude that everything is reduced to some degree," said Loren Thompson, a defense analyst at the Lexington Institute, a think tank. "At that rate, you're eliminating the next generation of weapons."

Committee members will face competing pressures as they try to produce a deficit-reducing plan.

As chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and a possible successor to Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton if Obama wins a second term, Sen. John Kerry is certain to be protective of the budget for the State Department.

Yet the Massachusetts Democrat, who recently said he would seek a sixth term in 2014, represents a state that was fifth in the nation with $8.37 billion in defense contracts this year, behind Virginia, California, Texas and Connecticut, according to data on the federal government's website USAspending.gov.

In Tewksbury and Andover, Mass., deep defense cuts could have serious ramifications for thousands of Raytheon employees working on the Patriot, the air and missile defense system. It was heralded for its effectiveness during the 1991 Persian Gulf War and is now sold to close to a dozen nations, including South Korea, Taiwan and the United Arab Emirates.

Whatever decisions Kerry and the committee make will affect Massachusetts-based Raytheon, which was fourth in defense contracts this year at $7.3 billion, behind Lockheed Martin, Boeing and General Dynamics. Raytheon also has operations in Arizona, home to another committee member, Republican Sen. Jon Kyl.

"While some will argue there is peril in serving on this committee, we believe there is far greater peril in leaving these issues unaddressed," Kerry said in a joint statement with Murray and Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., after they were selected by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev.

In February, Murray celebrated when the Air Force ended a decade-long saga of delays and missteps and awarded one of the biggest defense contracts ever, a $35 billion deal to build nearly 200 air refueling tankers, to Boeing, a mainstay in her home state.

Boeing was fourth on the list of donors to Murray from 2007-2012, with its political action committee, individual employees and family members contributing $102,610.

Michigan is home to two committee members, Republican Reps. Dave Camp and Fred Upton, and General Dynamics work on the Abrams tank. The state is struggling with a 10.5 percent unemployment rate, which is above the national average.

Already facing the prospect of $350 billion in defense cuts over 10 years, the Pentagon could look to scale back some projects, such as the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, the stealthy aircraft that has been plagued by cost overruns and delays.

Lockheed Martin, in conjunction with Northrop Grumman and BAE Systems, is building 2,400 of the next generation fighter jet for the Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps, as well as working with eight foreign countries. But the cost of the program has jumped from $233 billion to $385 billion; some estimates suggest that it could top out at $1 trillion over 50 years.

Questioned about the defense cuts, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Adm. Mike Mullen recently said that "programs that can't meet schedule, that can't meet cost ... requirements are very much in jeopardy and will be very much under scrutiny."

The Joint Strike Fighter is being built in Fort Worth, Texas, and Palmdale and El Segundo, Calif. Those are the states of committee members Reps. Jeb Hensarling, R-Texas, and Xavier Becerra, D-Calif. Lockheed Martin and BAE Systems also have operations in Pennsylvania.

The Pentagon could decide to scrap the program or scale it back while upgrading the existing F-15 and F-18 aircraft, a troubling prospect for lawmakers from the states that benefit from F-35 production.

In the military world, however, reducing the number could make it more costly.

"The problem when you cut back in numbers is you increase the number for one, you increase the cost for one," said Laicie Olson, a senior policy analyst with Council for a Livable World and the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation. "Sometimes it's almost better to buy more."

Boeing, in a statement, said it has been "anticipating flattening defense budgets for some time." Company spokesman Daniel C. Beck said that while Boeing is trying to improve production and efficiency, it's moving into new markets such as cybersecurity and energy management.

Democrats take a Senate seat in Wisconsin

Democrats picked up one state Senate seat in Tuesday's Wisconsin recall vote and had razor-thin margins in two other races.

Six seats held by Republicans were up for grabs, with two Democratic incumbents facing recalls next week, a legacy of the bitter battle in the state legislature over Gov. Scott Walker's bill stripping public employees of most collective bargaining rights. A net gain of three seats would shift control of the Senate to the Democrats.

By 10:30 p.m. CDT, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel had called three races for Republicans and one for a Democratic challenger.

With 67 percent of the precincts reporting in the 8th district, Democrat Sandra Pasch led state Sen. Alberta Darling 52 percent to 48 percent, the newspaper said. In the 18th district, with 97 percent of the vote in, Democrat Jessica King had 51 percent of the vote to 49 percent for state Sen. Randy Hopper.

Republicans control all three branches of state government in Wisconsin, holding a 19-14 advantage in the Senate. The Senate's 14 Democrats fled the state to stall consideration of the collective bargaining bill that later was revised so it could pass without the absent senators.

Joe Heim, a political science professor at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse, said Democratic and Republican voters have become more engaged because of the state's bitter political climate.

"It's extremely historical and unprecedented," Heim said. "[Republicans] woke up a sleeping giant and energized a group of people that had not been … particularly active in politics in recent years."

President Says More Work Still Needed on U.S. Economy

President Obama noted yesterday that the bill that passed to raise the U.S. debt ceiling, and trim a big portion of future spending, is a good first step to ensuring the full recovery of the U.S. economy, but that more must still be done. For those unemployed or underwater on their mortgages this is, of course, a very obvious statement. Still, at least the thinking is going in the right direction here. The president also noted that he expects tax reform to come out of a new committee comprised of both Democrats and Republicans that was established by the new legislation and that he wants a "balance approach" that sees the "wealthy" pay more taxes to help reduce the deficit.

Obama did not mention that the bottom 48% of earners in the U.S. pay no taxes, and that the top 10% of earners paid 70% of all income taxes. It is disingenuous of the president not to admit that the wealthy are already paying their "fair share" – along with the share of about 50% of the entire nation – when they write their checks to Uncle Sam each year. But honesty is not one of the president’s virtues and, in that, he has plenty of company in Washington, DC.

Noted the president, "Both parties share power in Washington. And both parties need to take responsibility for improving this economy." This is, of course, in stark contrast to the first two years of Obama’s presidency, when Democrats controlled both houses of Congress and the White House – at that point, it was Democrats’ responsibility to get the economy on track. They failed. But, of course, that is common knowledge to the masses who remain unemployed and for those who will have to wait a decade for their homes to be worth as much as their mortgage obligations. Maybe the latest showdown in DC will lead to some honesty and some real action in the future, but it’s not advisable to hold your breath waiting for that.

GOP hammered for food-safety cuts

A leading U.S. House Democrat is citing a recent deadly Salmonella outbreak to slam Republicans for their slashing of food-safety funding.

Rep. Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut, senior Democrat on the Appropriations Committee's health subpanel, said GOP budget cuts aimed at the Food and Drug Administration and the Department of Agriculture could mean more food-borne illnesses like the salmonella linked this week to ground turkey produced by food giant Cargill Inc.

A drug-resistant strain of Salmonella linked to ground turkey produced by a Cargill processing plant in Arkansas has sickened about 80 people and left one person dead, resulting in a massive recall, The Hill reported Thursday.

"The House majority has slashed funding for the FDA and USDA, choosing to preserve tax cuts for the wealthy over investing in and improving our food safety system," DeLauro said in a statement.

"By cutting their funding, we have limited their effectiveness and asked FDA and USDA to do more with less, and the impact of these cuts is starkly clear with this most recent recall."

GOP hammered for food-safety cuts

A leading U.S. House Democrat is citing a recent deadly Salmonella outbreak to slam Republicans for their slashing of food-safety funding.

Rep. Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut, senior Democrat on the Appropriations Committee's health subpanel, said GOP budget cuts aimed at the Food and Drug Administration and the Department of Agriculture could mean more food-borne illnesses like the salmonella linked this week to ground turkey produced by food giant Cargill Inc.

A drug-resistant strain of Salmonella linked to ground turkey produced by a Cargill processing plant in Arkansas has sickened about 80 people and left one person dead, resulting in a massive recall, The Hill reported Thursday.

"The House majority has slashed funding for the FDA and USDA, choosing to preserve tax cuts for the wealthy over investing in and improving our food safety system," DeLauro said in a statement.

"By cutting their funding, we have limited their effectiveness and asked FDA and USDA to do more with less, and the impact of these cuts is starkly clear with this most recent recall."

House passes debt limit bill

The U.S. House Monday passed the deficit reduction bill and sent it to the Senate for consideration.

The vote was 269-161 with 95 Democrats joining 174 Republicans in voting in favor of the measure, and 95 Democrats voting with 66 Republicans against it.

The Senate is to vote on the measure Tuesday.

In a huge surprise, the "yes" votes included one cast by Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz., who is recovering from a bullet wound to her head, suffered during a shooting spree at a constituents' gathering in Tucson in January.

Giffords, in her first appearance in Capitol Hill since being wounded, waved to those gathered in the House chamber for the historic vote to avoid the risk of a first-ever default by the U.S. government and blew them kisses. She was greeted with a standing ovation.

After the vote, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said Giffords' "presence here in the chamber … brings honor to this chamber."

The debt reduction plan would cut deficits by at least $2.1 trillion over 10 years, the Congressional Budget Office said in a letter sent to House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio.

The CBO "estimates that the legislation … would reduce budget deficits by $917 billion between 2012 and 2021," in up-front savings and another $1.2 trillion in savings coming from work done by a special bipartisan, bicameral committee, the letter read.

The non-partisan office's review of the framework came a day after President Barack Obama and congressional leaders reached agreement to raise the federal debt limit that includes steep spending cuts but no new taxes, breaking an impasse that flung the country toward default. Tuesday is deadline for a deal to be struck before the country loses its borrowing authority and risks the possibility of defaulting on its obligations.

The agreement would raise the $14.3 trillion debt limit in two stages by as much as $2.4 trillion.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's hope of quick passage in the Senate could threatened by South Carolina Republicans Lindsey Graham and Jim DeMint, who said they would not vote for the bill, The Hill reported.

"I'm not going to tell Americans that we're doing everything when we're not," he said. "We're planning on adding another $10 trillion in debt."

DeMint said he will not permit a Senate vote until he and his staff have reviewed the measure thoroughly.

"I'll be asking for the right to read it and go through it. That takes a while. They need to get us the bill so that we can print it out and start going through it," DeMint told The Hill. "This idea that you have to pass it to find out what's in it doesn't work. I'd like to read it to find out what's in it, and I think a number of Republicans feel that way."

Graham, in a statement, said he couldn't "in good conscience" vote for the bill.

"Simply stated, it locks us into more debt, bigger government and most devastating of all, a weakened defense infrastructure at a time when we face growing threats," Graham said.

Reid said neither side got what it wanted in the legislation, "but it's the nature of compromise."