The big surprise about the Ryan plan is that the older voters and current seniors probably agree with Ryan. As Bill Kristol noted Medicare is bankrupt and ready to cut services and payments. Doctors are fleeing from it – at least the good ones.

So if you are like me, 51 years old, and faced with a choice between a higher cost, lower quality government run disaster or a lower cots, higher quality private insurance plan where I pick my solution – well it is a no brainer. I’m with Ryan. I would take a lower guaranteed premium support so I can pick my health care than an overpriced solution based on the US Post Office.

The left’s entire argument is there will be more MONEY poured into the government solution than Ryan’s. They are dumb enough to think this false indicator still fools most voters. Most voters know they can make a better choice than some faceless bureaucrat working for a cost cutting death panel in the bowels of the federal government.

This simple and immutable fact is why Ryan’s plan will be the more popular solution going forward. Don’t misunderestimate the powerful combination of low confidence in government, concern with the debts and deficits, and the opportunity to keep our money to make our own decisions.

I think I have watched my last Fox News Sunday. The two liberals on the panel were in a fantasy world, spinning out lame DNC talking points. It was such a bad act I thought I was watching Charlie Sheen pretending to be deep and thoughtful.

As Brit Hume noted, the President and Senate leader praised the results of this debate – so either they are lying or Juan and Mora are. And if it was so bad, why are the liberals on Daily Kos fed up with Obama and the Democrat party? The left is fracturing and the right is congealing.

Forget the bubble heads inside The Beltway bubble. Watch the polls. The GOP and Tea Party will see a boost in support. And Obama is on the precipice. He has been flirting with the 20% mark on strongly approve in the Rasmussen approval index, all the while the folks lining up against him under the strongly disapprove have drop offed the typical mid-40’s mark to the mid-30’s. When the disapproval rises back up to the mid to high 40’s it will be a clear signal most of the nation has lost faith in the stormy and failed Obama administration.

Juan has just lost it. We need to find sane and sort of smart democrats to debate issues. Not the White Knights trying to confirm they are humankind’s last hope.

Update: Even more liberal gnashing of teeth:

These budget negotiations were a giant win for the Republican Party. President Obama initially cut $40 billion from his own budget proposal — and he got absolutely no credit for that. … The Republicans claimed in February that they wanted $32 billion in cuts from that point on. About a week ago, the president came out an announced that they had given the Republicans another $33 billion in cuts — a billion more than they originally asked for. And still the Republicans wanted more.

Why not? They’re dealing with the world’s worst negotiator, …

Update: If you doubt Boehner did not have a smashing win last night, then go read how demoralized and angry the left is and ask yourself why the left could be whinging so hard if Boehner had not won?

Update: From American Thinker, a good article and a great political cartoon:

Yep, a picture is still worth a thousand words – end update

If you are only fixated on the budget reduction number ($38.5B) that the GOP won over the next 6 months as part of the deal to avert a shutdown, then you probably don’t know the federal government as well as you think. My hat is off to Speaker Boehner – that was one hell of a negotiating feat he pulled off! He wrung more out of Reid and Obama than I ever thought possible. And he exposed how weak a negotiator our young and inexperienced President truly is. Let me explain.

The budget number is pretty good, mainly because it kills programs instead of lowering their budgets for 6 months. so those 6 month numbers expand and grow in the coming years:

The agreement will immediately cut $38.5 billion in federal spending – the largest spending cut in American history in terms of dollars …

The agreement begins to reverse the “stimulus” spending binge that began in 2009 …

The Obama administration has sought increased federal funding for the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) – money that could be used to hire additional agents to enforce the administration’s agenda on a variety of issues. This increased funding is denied in the agreement.

Obama even admitted in his speech infrastructure projects were being ‘delayed’ (i.e., de-funded in 2011). Once de-funded, they will not be back any time soon. As fox News reports, this is a lot farther than the Democrats said they would be willing to go when this all started.

But that is just some icing on the cake. There never was a big budget win in this, even at the paltry $100 billion the Tea Party wanted. Not when you are talking a $3.8 trillion budget with a $1.6 trillion deficit. As Karl Rove noted, all the discretionary spending and some of the mandatory is now being borrowed. So the money was never the prize.

However, Boehner must have had an incredible stick in those negotiations, because Reid and Obama agreed to put things to vote in the Senate which everyone deemed impossible just last week. That is the truly amazing part of what Boehner pulled off yesterday (back to the original link):

The agreement reached with Senate Democrats guarantees a Senate debate and vote on legislation that would repeal President Obama’s government takeover of health care in its entirety. The House passed such legislation in January as part of the Pledge to America.

…

The agreement with Senate Democrats guarantees a Senate debate and vote on legislation that would end federal funding for Planned Parenthood.

The last thing Reid or Obama want is a vote in the senate on Obamacare (or Planned Parenthood). But now they are going to have to vote and this is huge. If this happens, and 4 of those 23 red-state Democrats up for reelection in 2012 vote against Obamacare, then the President will have to veto a bipartisan bill that lines up with the overall will of the American voters. What could be better than isolating Obama and Obamacare from the will of the people and Congress heading into 2012?

This is gold. Every vote Boehner gets in the Senate is pure PR gold. It set’s the stage for 2012 and has the potential to destroy the false sense of inevitability the Dems have been trying to create around Obamacare. Harry Reid owns the Senate schedule. He was going to simply shut down debate and ride out these next two years as best he could. Without getting on the Senate schedule you could not even get PR points.

So what did Boehner have to beat the Dems with and get this much out of them? My guess is it was that moronic false choice between Planned Parenthood and paying our troops. As I said in numerous previous posts, only a political moron/novice would set up this false choice (see here for examples). Presidents should never forget, they will be fired before they can harm our brave men and women on the front lines of 3 wars and numerous police actions. There is no doubt here at all, unless you are a clueless and insecure liberal. The Commander-In-Chief had come out and said he would veto troop pay. He was checkmated right then and there.

Kay Baily Hutchinson was on last night and dropped a little noticed bomb shell. She had 80 cosponsors on a Senate bill – yes, I said 80 – to fund the DoD for the next 6 months. When combined with the House offer to do the same, Obama was facing a real mess. No stop gap CR, just a bill to pay the troops. The Dems in the Senate were jumping ship. The worst part? The Obama White House was using its CNN puppets to spread the word it was those very Senate Dems that asked to put troop pay in the shutdown mix. I sort of doubt it, given what Senator Hutchinson claimed. This is a clear sign that a bumbling political operation was getting whacked.

The Congress had decided which path they would take in the ridiculous false choice between Planned Parenthood and our troops. They stood with the troops and against the President. That is the only thing that could explain what we saw yesterday.

I am sure Reid told the President he was boxed in, and but good. The government would shutdown as the Congress passed legislation to remove the troops’ pay from the infighting. So what was left for the President? Make concessions and try to regroup. That is why we got that lame PR speech in the WH about people visiting the Washington Monument last night. All the administration could do was cobble together some PR imagery and pretend it was all their idea.

My guess is the left is going apoplectic about now. They lost the stimulus crap. Obamacare and Planned Parenthood will be up for votes in the Senate. And my guess is NPR and the EPA are still on the chopping block for 2012 – now only a short 6 months from today.

What did the Dems get in all this? Nothing.

Boehner, leading only one third of the government involved in legislation and funding, was able to walk all over the Senate and White House. I think there were more allies in the Senate than people realize. Senators Manchin and Webb come to mind.

At a minimum, the GOP has opportunities to establish a distinct and fiscally sound path for America’s future with respect to the Democrat insanity we have seen for the last 2+ years. And that was the real gold mined from the week of heated negotiations. Amazing.

Update: Ezra Klein at WaPo echoes my sentiments – not surprisingly.

Obama bragged about “making the largest annual spending cut in our history.” Harry Reid joined him, repeatedly calling the cuts “historic.” It fell to Boehner to give a clipped, businesslike statement on the deal. If you were just tuning in, you might’ve thought Boehner had been arguing for moderation, while both Obama and Reid sought to cut deeper. You would never have known that Democrats had spent months resisting these “historic” cuts, warning that they’d cost jobs and slow the recovery.

Boehner, of course, could afford to speak plainly. He’d not just won the negotiation but had proven himself in his first major test as speaker of the House. He managed to get more from the Democrats than anyone had expected, …

There is a reason Boehner quietly and happily walked away while Obama and Reid were busy getting lipstick out for their pigs.

Update: Ed Morrissey asks who won the fight:

This looks less like a victory for either side and more of a five-month truce.

As a warm up to the big fights coming, it was a smashing mission rehearsal. Now to the real battle.

Nancy Pelosi said the following in her inaugural speech to the House as the first female Speaker of the House:

And the American people told us they expected us to work together for fiscal responsibility, with the highest ethical standards and with civility and bipartisanship. After years of historic deficits, this 110th Congress will commit itself to a higher standard: pay as you go, no new deficit spending. Our new America will provide unlimited opportunity for future generations, not burden them with mountains of debt.

In 2007, the US debt was $9.815 trillion. Currently our debt is $14,259,761,986,879.66 During the four years that Nancy Pelosi was in charge of the branch of Congress that manages our budget she allowed roughly $4.5 trillion to be added to our debt. How is that “not burden[ing] them with mountains of debt?”

I applaud the House for sticking to their “guns” and pushing the hard spending cuts that need to be made. Our society is so stuck on having everything paid for by someone else. We need to cut spending, especially on entitlement programs and make people realize they have to earn what they receive.

Will this cause trouble and disaster for many people? Yes. Will they learn the necessary lesson? Some will. We need to make people accountable again.

Its not realistic now, but I would like to see Congress go back to being a part time job. If the government isn’t funding and running all of these programs that the government shouldn’t be involved in then we don’t need full time Congressmen.

DJStrata

Update: Harry Reid (no doubt with the full support and backing of the WH) has come out and claimed there is no greater priority to the nation than Planned Parenthood. Military pay, secondary. That laundry list of damage President Obama listed last night – secondary. Everything the government does and all the people who work for it or rely on it – secondary. We can all go to hell if it involves a few nickles to Planned Parenthood.

Shut it down then – and let the Dems reap their rewards – end update

Democrats want another shot at temper tantrum politics it seems. I watched CNN last night as Begala and Gergen attempted to ask a Tea Party rep if the GOP was willing to shut down the government over NPR and Planned Parenthood – on the stupid logic the money was insignificant!

Of course when the Tea Party representative turned the question around, the two liberals could not answer for their side. We all know NPR can survive without taxpayer funding, therefore the Democrats better not be causing all this pain over that!

We also know Planned Parenthood should be operating independently as many organizations do. So yes, cut them off too. If the money is so small, then by all means don’t shut the government down over it – DEMS!

And what about the EPA and CO2? Pulleaaase. The country is not buying that fantasy. Especially after 14 years without any warming and recent cooling. The reason the EPA is doing an end-around the legislature is there is no grass roots or congressional support for that nonsense. Even when the Dems held enormous majorities that dog couldn’t hunt.

So the Democrats are going to say we shut down the government (Dem senate won’t budge, Dem Emperor threatens Imperial veto) over these things?

I understand the myopic nature of ideologues, but one wonders what it takes for the light of logic to penetrate thick skulls?

Here is how a centrist, libertarian/Tea Party type will be balancing the options.

Is paying our men and women fighting for this nation less or more important than NPR? Dump NPR funding, they don’t need it anyway.

Is paying our men and women fighting for this nation less or more important than Planned Parenthood? Dump Planned Parenthood funding, they should survive without it.

Is paying our men and women fighting for this nation less or more important than the unproven theory of AGW? Since AGW is unproven, pay the military and put the brakes on the EPA.

When the Obama administration went on full moron, they set up these false choices and made them real choices. They threatened to stop paying the military if they did not get their way.

Oh well – they are not going to get their way.

Mr President – we would dump you and all of Congress if that was the choice verses paying our military!!! Buy yourself a clue (and a few gross tons of humility). Command authority does not equate to the level of American voter loyalty. If it is you or the troops, we always pick the troops. Even George W and Reagan knew that one.

Tags: Democrats, Military Pay, Obama, Planned Parenthood, Reid, Shutdown

Update: How expected! Prosser gains 7,300+ votes and AJStrata confirms unofficial vote tallies are rarely good to within +/- 1% (see below). Which means be patient – this could twist some more as the error is driven out of the count. Right now though, that is a huge lead for Kloppenburg to overcome (~0.5% of the vote total). It seems some folks are surprised over at Hot Air – I can’t see why. – end update

I told you so – OK, I feel better. One of the things about being a geek is you get to apply math and make a solid prediction and look prescient. The math is prescient.

The math I speak about was the error bars around election results. My estimates covered two scenarios: 0.1% and 1% error. In a race with over 14 million votes cast that computed to error bars of +/- 1,478 votes or 14,776 votes, respectively. With the current lead a razor thin 204 votes, it was not hard to predict the actual final tally would be much different. The only questions was whether it was 100’s of votes off (0.1% error) or 1,000 of votes off (1% error). Could even be more.

It turns out I was right. As a more precise and quality-assured counting process (called ‘canvassing’) is being executed, we already hear there will be a lead change today:

ncumbent Justice David Prosser is locked in a very close race with challenger JoAnne Kloppenburg but according to sources, Prosser may be leading by a significant number of votes by the end of the day.

Kloppenburg was foolish to try and claim victory on the unofficial count. She will have a hard time explaining why Prosser should not win on the official count after she wanted to win on the unofficial one. Any recount and challenges are now suspect and tainted.

Another smooth liberal move.

Tags: Election, Kloppenburg, Prosser, Supreme Court, Vote Tally, WI

Major Update: The Moron-in-Chief has spoken – PUNISH THE TROOPS!:

Really? Will Obama really argue that he can’t abide a one-week CR so much that he’s willing to shut down the government and leave the troops without income for an indeterminate amount of time? This statement concedes that this bill takes the troops out of the line of fire in the budget debate.

Really, the Leader of the Left is now on hyper-moron – end update

This is the 3rd in a series of posts about the Obama Administration’s idiotic plan to financially starve the men and women of our military in a viscous political ploy to use our military as sacrificial lambs in the government shutdown game of chicken (first post and second post). As I noted at the end of the second post, we will have plenty of examples on why this is a crass political decision by the Empire-Thinking White House, as we learn which services these morons consider ‘essential’.

The NY Times provides us with our first hint of the pure political calculation behind team Obama’s petulant mindset:

The I.R.S. plans to keep enough people on hand to cash incoming checks because the government needs the money.

Seems paying the White House staff will not be a problem. Taking tax payer money is more important than making sure our military and their families are ‘safe’.

The government would continue to make Social Security payments to the 53 million beneficiaries.

So we can pay seniors, but we can’t pay our troops? Seems Emperor Obama knows seniors vote reliably. Crass.

Post offices would maintain their regular hours and mail delivery would continue

Yeah, like getting pounds of useless junk mail a day is more important than our military and their families? There is nothing the Post Office does that cannot be handled now with a scanner and the internet. Another bow to unions over soldiers.

Bank examiners will continue to examine, federal deposit insurance will remain in place and the agency’s consumer response center, which handles inquiries and complaints about banking institutions, will continue to field calls.

Yeah, banking complaints are essential, just not feeding and housing military families? Another bow to the Wall Street types who roam the halls of the Emperor’s White House.

Trust me folks, lots more coming. Once a shutdown happens you will be shocked at what is more important than our military and their families.

BTW, the GOP has a bill ready to go that delays the shutdown one week and pays the troops. Reid and Obama have rejected it.

Confirmed – The White House is operating on full moron.

Confirmed: it seems the Obama administration is going to punish our brave troops for his and his party’s incompetence and stubbornness:

Troops are paid on the 15th and the final day of the month, and Mr. Gates [Defense Secretary] said that if a government shutdown began after Friday, troops would receive half a paycheck for the first two weeks of April. After that, troops wouldn’t be paid until a deal is reached in Washington to fund the government, although they would receive any back pay owed, he added.

“If it goes from the 15th to the 30th, you wouldn’t get a paycheck on the 30th,” he added. “But you would be back-paid for all of it. So that’s the deal.”

As I noted yesterday, the Obama administration could make the determination the administrative services of the DoD were under the “essential” list of activities. Hospitals are also essential services, and so would their administrative functions since you have to buy material and have basic services like trash collection, water, electricity, etc. VA hospitals will be fully operating, so why can’t the DoD payroll?

Because the Obama administration wants punish people so they will go scream at the GOP. Of course, the administration is so arrogant and out of touch in their little Empire-mode that it never occurred to them the American people will hold him and his party responsible. After all it was the Democrat led Congress and Obama’s White House that failed last spring to pass a budget for this time period. This is their mess the GOP is trying to clean up and do it in compliance with the voters’ wishes who gave them a historic win last fall.

Clearly, that failure to pass a budget last spring was a deliberate and crass ploy by the Dem so as to have a weapon to use against the electorate this year. The backlash against the dems in 2010 will look mild in comparison to the one coming in 2012 if the troops are used as hostages and punished until the country gives into Emperor Obama’s wishes.

It will be easy to see the administration’s game once we see what they determined was ‘essential’ (for their backers like unions and the EPA, etc). Watch for who did and did not make the cut if the shutdown happens

Update: A must read on this topic from my blogging colleague Bookworm. Bookworm links to this accurate observation:

Obviously, there are questions about why the Obama administration is emitting signals like this. They are politically stupid; no significant constituency thinks the US budget battle has to be fought across the monthly bills of our fighting men and women.

Read them both.

Update: If the DC morons continue down this path, it is a perfect time for businesses and utilities to come to the aid of our military. In response to this petulance, businesses could offer a line of credit (no interest) for our troops and their families until the shutdown is over and the paychecks HAVE BEEN RECEIVED.

If private business covers for our military, it will shatter the illusion of government being for the ‘little people’ and business being all about greed.

Somehow we need to begin to get pledges of support from banks, supermarkets, gas companies, utilities, etc to show DC how America works.

My Marine son and his brethren are fuming because the Obama administration has decided that paying our troops is something not required under a shutdown:

Programs that are essential for the safety and security of the country are exempted from a shutdown, but the administration still has to figure out where to draw the line between essential and non-essential functions …

In the event of a shutdown, all uniformed military personnel would continue to work but would stop receiving paychecks, an official familiar with the government’s planning told The Cable.

Emphasis is most sincerely mine. Let me just cut to the chase.

If the Obama administration felt our national safety would be maintained by making sure our troops could focus on their jobs instead of the financial risk of themselves or their families, Congress would have no problem exempting the pay of our brave men and women from the shutdown.

Only a liberal ass – operating on full moron – would attempt to use military pay as a way to try and scare or coerce budget discussions. Especially after congressional majorities of liberal asses – on full moron – failed to pass a budget for the year during the last Congressional session.

The President’s little game here is going to backfire big time – and permanently.

Time to exhale folks. As of now 99+% of the precincts are in, including the Dane County votes (Kloppenburg’s stronghold). It is now a question of absentee ballot GOTV and statistics. Kloppenburg’s lead is 447 votes in the unofficial (and rushed) tallies. The recount will take weeks and the results will shift throughout:

The Government Accountability Board has until May 15 to complete its canvas of the vote. No date has been set for the board to canvas the vote, which is dependent upon when the counties submit their results to GAB.

All 72 counties must begin to canvas the vote no later than 9 a.m. Thursday. The law gives them until 11 days after the election to submit those results to GAB.

Here is how tenuous any result is at the moment. Let’s assume these unofficial tallies have an incredibly good 99.9% accuracy (I doubt it, but it is not impossible with a stringent and well rehearsed process – thus my doubts). That means the vote results will be off by 0.1%. The total votes cast as of now (with some precincts still out) is 1,477,581.

That means the actual tally is +/- 1,478 votes under a 99.9% accuracy in the unofficial tally.

These off year, statewide elections probably will not come close to performing to this level – a level of performance NASA would love in some of its space systems. NASA is happy to see a satellite returning good data 98% of the time it is on orbit. So you can see why this 99.9% level is a very high bar for an activity like and election.

So what would be the margin of error in the unofficial tally if we went with 99% (meaning the results could be off by 1% – a demarcation used by many states to trigger automatic recounts)? The math is easy – the results could swing by +/- 14,776.

So exhale, relax and let’s see what happens.

Update: More votes in, the Kloppenburg’s lead shrinks to 224 votes. 3 precincts left: 2 from Milwaukee and 1 from Jefferson. Could go either way. And that will be plus or minus 1,000 or 10,000 votes, depending on WI election QA processes, procedures, skilled and experienced workers and for rehearsals for these situations. Most elections are undisputed, so being off by 1% means nothing.

Suffice to say I am leaning in the +/- 10,000 vote range.

Update: Milwaukee’s 2 precincts in – no change in the numbers. Now it is only 1 precinct in Jefferson, which is a Prosser stronghold (58-42%)