[Vette_Newb]

Fox may have trouble in their corporate sponsored video room, but MSNBC just flat out lies.. :laughing:

Earlier this month, PolitiFact — the fact-check website run by the St. Petersburgh Times — deemed claims Rachel Maddow made about Fox News “false.” Well, it seems Maddow is at again, and this time, PolitiFact is crying foul over bold claims made about Wisconsin’s budget numbers, mainly that there is no budget deficit.

On Thursday, Maddow spent a chunk of her show advancing the popular, liberal rumor that Wisconsin is not facing a budget deficit this year, but rather a budget surplus. The governor’s recent emergency budget bill — which strips unions of much bargaining power — is then simply an “assault” on hard-working people. Maddow, and others, point to an independent report authored by Robert Lang and Wisconsin’s nonpartisan Legislative Fiscal Bureau:

Sounds damning. But it’s not.

According to the Wisconsin division of PolitiFact, Maddow didn’t read the fine print:

We re-read the fiscal bureau memo, talked to Lang, consulted reporter Jason Stein of the Journal Sentinel’s Madison Bureau, read various news accounts and examined the issue in detail.

Our conclusion: Maddow and the others are wrong.

There is, indeed, a projected deficit that required attention, and Walker and GOP lawmakers did not create it.

More on that second point in a bit.

The confusion, it appears, stems from a section in Lang’s memo that — read on its own — does project a $121 million surplus in the state’s general fund as of June 30, 2011.

But the remainder of the routine memo — consider it the fine print — outlines $258 million in unpaid bills or expected shortfalls in programs such as Medicaid services for the needy ($174 million alone), the public defender’s office and corrections. Additionally, the state owes Minnesota $58.7 million under a discontinued tax reciprocity deal.

Someone get this ignorant cow a spell and fact checker.. ASAP.

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/once-again-rachel-maddows-claims-ruled-false/

 

[Texdentist]

Budgets aren't developed to deal with the numbers as they are today. They are (hopefully) written to address anticipated needs in the next 1,5,10 years. Do we want our leaders to ignore the approaching time bomb of public employee retirement benefits, or do we want them to begin to get a handle on them now before it become unmanageable. Most states will wait because it is difficult poliitically. You can be sure liberal states will wait. But the time will come when they can't ignore their problem. California and Illinois are already pretty much there along with much of the liberal northeast. Once again, Maddow has shown her true colors. Does Crayola make a color called "Airhead"?

 

[HardcoreABN]

yet more of the lies being spread about what is going on in WI to further the liberal union cause. I will have to find the link, but a family member pointed out the "bill" had provisions in it to completely remove all aspects of collective barganing from all unions, and to permanently decertify and disband them starting 2012....this family member was so enraged that I supported the bill and had to convince them to look at the actual bill that is on the WI gov website....after reading the actual bill, said person was confused as to why her union reps were lying to her about what the bill would do....

 

[fyreline]

yet more of the lies being spread about what is going on in WI to further the liberal union cause. I will have to find the link, but a family member pointed out the "bill" had provisions in it to completely remove all aspects of collective barganing from all unions, and to permanently decertify and disband them starting 2012....this family member was so enraged that I supported the bill and had to convince them to look at the actual bill that is on the WI gov website....after reading the actual bill, said person was confused as to why her union reps were lying to her about what the bill would do....

In the interest of following my own advice (get the facts, not the hype), I went to the Wisconsin state website and did read the entire bill. And you're right, it doesn't say what most people (including me) thought it did . . . or were told it did.

Facts are our friends. We should use them. Yes, that includes me.