Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA) and Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI)

Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA) is my senator. She couldn’t deliver ice to polar bears. Hell, she’s chair of the Transportation Committee and can’t manage to get local bus service restored to the park and ride next to my apartment complex. It is full of disabled people. Many have had to relocate.

Food stamps have been slashed.  Housing vouchers are in jeopardy.  I haven’t had medical insurance since June 1, and it looks like I won’t have it again until sometime in January.  I’ll be paying about $325 in Medicare premiums in November and December, but I won’t actually be able to access health care because I can’t afford the deductibles.

And, the Democrats keep sending me messages begging for my support.  I have a message for Democrats:  stop whining and start delivering.  I have knocked on doors for 62 years to get y’all elected, and this grumpy old lady is done, done, done.  Don’t ask me for another damned thing until you learn how to deliver for me.  If you don’t know how to block pit bulls like Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI), you have no value to me.  Y’all control the White House and Senate, but you allowed a handful of freshman Tea Party terrorists shut down the government.  It took you almost three weeks to get it back open.  Pathetic.

Rep. Ryan knows how to give the Walton family, for example, exactly what they want:  taxpayer funding of their employee’s fringe benefits.  And, how much does this cost the taxpayers?  Almost $1 billion/store in Rep. Ryan’s home state of Wisconsin.  Now, that’s an entitlement.  Beats the crap out of my sorry-assed Social Security check.

If Senator Murray and her staff can’t figure out how to get it done, I’ll invite them to become friends on Facebook.  Sen. Murray’s an old school marm.  She ought to know how to send a recalcitrant miscreant like Rep. Ryan to the corner for a much needed time out.  If she needs some ammunition, my Facebook friends do a phenomenal job of discrediting the Republican bullshit with cold, hard facts.

Eileen King, for example, posted a link to this graph that shows Pres. Reagan was the real big spender president.  Who knew?  Rick Ungar at Forbes, which caters to Republican billionaires, explained:

So, how have the Republicans managed to persuade Americans to buy into the whole “Obama as big spender” narrative?

It might have something to do with the first year of the Obama presidency where the federal budget increased a whopping 17.9% —going from $2.98 trillion to $3.52 trillion. I’ll bet you think that this is the result of the Obama sponsored stimulus plan that is so frequently vilified by the conservatives…but you would be wrong.

The first year of any incoming president term is saddled—for better or for worse—with the budget set by the president whom immediately precedes the new occupant of the White House. Indeed, not only was the 2009 budget the property of George W. Bush—and passed by the 2008 Congress—it was in effect four months before Barack Obama took the oath of office.

Mr. Ungar goes on to expose the flipflops on ObamaCares by the Heritage Foundation.  It is an exceedingly effective pseudo-think-tank organization which channels bribes and marching orders to guys like Rep. Ryan.  If you don’t deliver for them, they find somebody to run against you.

Gov. John Kitzhaber (D-OR)

Terri Marshall Gilfillan posted three articles which made my eyes pop out.  Although it is tough for me to say anything nice about Oregon, they kicked butt in signing 56,000 people up for ObamaCares thereby cutting the state’s uninsured population by 10%.  Bravo!  I’ve always thought Gov. Kitzhaber was a sexy dude.  He’s an emergency room physician who consistently delivers on health care issues.  Think Progress quoted him:

This is tremendous news for the thousands of Oregonians anxious to get access to quality, affordable health care.  We still have a ways to go, but in reducing our uninsured rate by 10 percent in just two weeks, we’re showing what’s possible when a state is committed to fundamentally changing the health care system to provide better access, better health and lower costs.

Meanwhile, in Rep. Ryan’s home state, WalMart is fleecing the taxpayers to the tune of almost $1 billion/store to fund fringe benefits for WalMart employees via food stamps, Medicaid, etc.  The Walton family is one of the world’s wealthiest.  They don’t need a government bailout.  They can afford to pay for their own damned fringe benefits for the people who made them stinking rich.

Jim Sinegal, CEO of Costco

The Harvard Business Review is the platinum standard for the uber-wealthy.  In 2006, Wayne Cascio did an analysis of the cost effectiveness of Costco vs. Wal-Mart’s philosophies on compensating employees:

Wal-Mart’s legendary obsession with cost containment shows up in countless ways, including aggressive control of employee benefits and wages.  Managing labor costs isn’t a crazy idea, of course. But stingy pay and benefits don’t necessarily translate into lower costs in the long run. . .

These figures challenge the common assumption that labor rates equal labor costs. Costco’s approach shows that when it comes to wages and benefits, a cost-leadership strategy need not be a race to the bottom.

Click to enlarge

Related links:

Five things to know about the Ryan-Murray budget conference committee by Sean Sullivan, Washington Post, 10/17/13

Who Is The Smallest Government Spender Since Eisenhower? Would You Believe It’s Barack Obama? by Rick Ungar, Forbes, 5/24/12

Thanks To Obamacare, Oregon Cut Its Unsinsured Population By 10 Percent Over The Past Two Weeks by Tara Culp-Ressler, ThinkProgress, 10/17/13

Wal-Mart’s low wages cost taxpayers by Emily Jane Fox, CNN Money, 6/5/13

The High Cost of Low Wages by Wayne F. Cascio, Harvard Business Review, 12/06

If You Can’t Run a Campaign, Can You Run the White House? 9/23/12 [Rep. Ryan’s plan]