Waukesha Carnival 02/08/2009

Welcome to this week’s edition. It’s gettin’ late and I have to work tomorrow, so let’s get to it.

First sad news, Darryl Enriquez at Waukesha FYI tells us about the Waukesha Freeman layoffs. One of those laid off was photographer and Waukesha blogger Byron Houlgrave, who shared the last picture he clicked for the Freeman.

Continuing in Waukesha city, Jeff reviews the fish fry at Michael’s Italian America Restaurant at Five Points Blog.

James Wigderson went to the Waukesha Common Council meeting and shares his thoughts with us at Wigderson Library & Pub.

Spiralling out a little, Linda Richter at Inside New Berlin finds the security cameras in schools unsettling and it’s not just the price tag.

At peterepublic, Pete Fanning drops by to remind us he’s still alive, just very, very very busy.

Kyle Prast at Practically Speaking reminds us that US Rep. Sensenbrenner and state Rep. Leah Vukmir will have several town halls. One is past, two are upcoming.

In posts about state news, Wisconsin Sen. Mary Lazich (chief aide Kevin Fischer?) points out at Conservatively Speaking that the Wisconsin Covenant program could be costly.

In a couple of miscellaneous posts, Curt Otto gives us the question to last week’s answer, or something like that. Any way it’s all over at Maple & Main.

Meanwhile, over at the Spring City Chronicle, Michael Phelps gets the Bonehead of the Week award. Pretty much a unanimous vote, I would say.

Then in posts on national issues, MommaBlogger takes time out to rant over that Florida case of the botched abortion at Homemakers Guide to the Galaxy.

Dan Deibert shows us how fast government can move when they want to, with pictures at The D Spot.

Alex has some thoughts about Republican votes and raises at A Little off Main.

At The Other Side of  My Mouth, Tim Rock has some thoughts on the Republican vote on the stimulus package.

Silent e tells us why Democrats are unpatriotic at silent e speaks.

Cindy Kilkenny has a two-parter over at Fairly Conservative on building our own stimulus package.

Dad29 points out that the American people seem to be understanding the ramifications of the stimulus package.

Whew, that’s it for another long one. As usual, if you have one you liked add the link in the comments below or e-mail me at thoughtfulconservative [at] yahoo [dot] com. Same for posts you’d like to nominate for next week’s carnival. It doesn’t have to be one of your own. Links to our archives and future editions can be found here.

Filed under: Barack Obama, Blog carnivals, Democrats, Economics, Ethics, Fifth Cong. District, Republican, Sports, Taxes, Waukesha, Waukesha Carnival, Waukesha blogs, Wisconsin, government spending, policy , abortion, Blog carnivals, blogs, Democrat, James Sensenbrenner, layoffs, Leah Vukmir, Mary Lazich, Michael Phelps, New Berlin, privacy concerns, recession, Republican, Rod Blagojevich, Stimulus package, Waukesha, Waukesha Carnival, Waukesha Common Council, Waukesha Freeman, Wisconsin

Here’s how one state closed their budget gap

From TBO.com

By raiding the trust funds and cutting planned spending, the Legislature came up with about $2.5 billion to close the gap in the $66.3 billion budget. That’s a larger amount than expected because tax collections and other state revenue have continued to decline since the deficit was estimated at $2.3 billion.[Emphasis mine]

No new taxes yet they came up with $2.5 million.

• The Lawton Chiles [former Florida governor and senator] Endowment anti-tobacco fund, from which interest normally pays for child welfare, child and elderly health care programs and anti-smoking efforts, lost $700 million, more than half the assets in the fund.
• A trust fund intended to provide low-income housing lost $190 million.
• They made cuts on schools, universities, health care programs, and the judiciary among others.

Transportation fund? Spared.

The budget deficit increase roughly $200 million since the Florida legislature started working on the budget. Will it increase more in this economy?

Wisconsin’s budget deficit is twice as large.

Filed under: Economics, government spending , Florida, state budget, state budget deficits, Wisconsin

Budget Office predicts $1.2T deficit

From David Rogers at Politico.com

The Congressional Budget Office released a grim forecast Wednesday for the coming year that projects a federal deficit of almost $1.2 trillion in 2009 as revenues fall off and housing prices continue to decline even as unemployment rises.

The jobless rate will exceed 9% early in 2010, CBO says, and even then the recovery will be sluggish with GDP growing by only 1.5% — not enough to match the 2.2% contraction this year.

Which, naturally, will be blamed on Bush and the failed Republican policies.

Filed under: Economics, government spending , deficit, economy, federal spending, unemployment