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Entries for 'Carter Wrenn'
Carter Wrenn posted on March 08, 2013 12:42
President Obama just announced the Sequester spending cuts are so terrible he has no choice but to cancel White House tours;---that upset House Speaker John Boehner who immediately cried foul, saying Obama was grandstanding and he (Boehner) had kept the Capitol tours running and Obama could have done the same thing – which is no doubt true but misses the point.
Obama made a cut. And a pretty painless cut. No one will go hungry. No one will go without medical care. No great harm will be done to anyone. So why didn’t Speaker Boehner simply shrug and say, Well, that’s unfortunate but the world won’t end without White House tours.
Floating beneath all this Washington chatter is a simple question: Is it possible politicians will be voted out of office for cancelling a tour – or is this a sign politicians are so weak-kneed they can’t take even a little ‘heat’ over a painless cut?
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Carter Wrenn posted on March 06, 2013 12:27
Taking a deep breath, inhaling a lungful of the highly oxygenated Washington air, celebrity, intellectual, and poo-bah Newt Gingrich announced he, himself, personally, was about to deliver a ‘very-direct, no baloney’ manifesto on Republican politics – then lit into Karl Rove, saying Republican political consultants were arrogant idiots and that the country was better off in the old days when a candidate did his own thinking (rather than hiring a two-bit consultant to tell him what to think).
Then, just as he had landed on a serious idea, Newt changed directions and announced that anyone who wanted to see a real leader doing his own thinking ought to buy Gingrich Productions’ film, Ronald Reagan: Rendezvous with Destiny – and I thought, I’ll be darned – the whole thing was the lead-in to a pitch to sell a movie.
Taking another breath, Newt lit into Rove again, saying he was absolutely ‘unalterably’ opposed to a bunch of billionaires giving Rove’s Super PAC millions so that a political boss (Rove) could handpick candidates he liked in Republican primaries and destroy candidates he didn’t like.
Rove, Newt added, had been dead wrong about the Presidential Race last year and dead wrong about the Senate races Republicans lost then he changed directions again and said anyone who really wanted to know why Republicans lost the 2012 election ought to sign up for Gingrich Productions’ ‘Lessons to be Learned Reports’ – and I thought, He did it twice.
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Carter Wrenn posted on March 05, 2013 11:06
After the bell rang ending the Second Round of the Obama versus Boehner Fiscal Cliff-Sequester match-up, Obama danced around the ring arms raised as John Boehner staggered back to his corner wobbly-kneed.
Just six weeks ago, at the start of round two, the prim and proper Speaker was popular – viewed favorably by 29% of the voters and unfavorably by 21%. At the end of the round, Boehner’s buttoned down fastidiousness – along with his popularity – had vanished. He had a 23% favorable and 41% unfavorable – a drop of 26 points.
Worse, for a Republican Congressman needing the votes of Independents to be reelected, after Obama’s pummeling, the leader of the Republican Party’s popularity with Independents nose-dived to 14% Favorable and 49% Unfavorable.
Now Round 3 begins.
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Carter Wrenn posted on March 01, 2013 17:06
It’s a fault of human nature: When you spend your own money you look at it one way but when you spend someone else’s money it’s a different story.
Once, years ago, I served on a church-school board with a half dozen tight-fisted, hard-eyed businessmen who could squeeze a dollar out of a turnip. But whenever we’d start discussing raises for principals or teachers those tight fisted businessmen would turn to soft-hearted marshmallows.
Now in government no one spends their own money. And in state government, sometimes, they don’t even spend state government’s money – they spend Washington’s money. The State Medicaid Department is an example: It spends billions of dollars that come down from Washington each year.
Angie Sligh who heads the Department’s massive computer system that processes Medicaid claims has a tough job and a decade ago, when the department set out to replace its old computers, it got tougher. The conversion fell flat on its face. The state had to go back to the drawing board and start over. Then, a few years, later Mrs. Sligh found herself in another tough spot: She had to go over to the General Assembly and explain to a committee of irate legislators why the department’s new $250 million dollar computer system was $200 million dollars over budget and two years behind schedule. During the hearing, one irate legislator asked Mrs. Sligh how she’d rate her job performance and she explained why she’d give herself an ‘A’ – the legislators were skeptical but her bosses in the Perdue Administration agreed. The state auditor reports over the last three years they paid her $237,000 for working overtime and, just before Governor Perdue left office, gave her a 25% raise.
Now the department says the new computer system will be up and running by July 1st but the newspapers have reported another odd fact: The state’s new computer system runs on a thirty-year-old technology called COBOL.
It’s a classic example of how government works: Would someone spend $450 million of their own money to build a state-of-the-art computer system that runs on technology that was invented before the Internet?
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Carter Wrenn posted on February 27, 2013 12:01
Two years ago, Republicans controlled the County Commissioners and the School Board and were happy.
Then Democrats won the next School Board election – so they were happy and the Republican County Commissioners were unhappy.
Next the Republican Commissioners decided to redraw the Democratic School Board members’ Districts to get them out of office – which made the Democrats unhappy.
Then the Republican County Commissioners hired a lobbyist to lobby the General Assembly to pass their plan and the Democratic School Board members hired a lobbyist to stop them. Between them, the two boards spent $60,000 on lobbyists – which made taxpayers unhappy.
Next the two boards met to try to stop fighting long enough to agree to pass a $1 billion bond referendum. That made the Chamber of Commerce happy – until, in the middle of the meeting, a School Board member said the Republican Commissioners had ‘disrespected’ the School Board. Then Republican Commissioner Tony Gurley responded, I’m getting sick and tired of having this person whispering words like calling me a jerk into my ear as I’m trying to speak. And School Board member Susan Evans said, I didn’t say that. You told me 'tough luck' or something else.
Then they adjourned.
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Carter Wrenn posted on February 26, 2013 15:22
Back in 1980, Senator Helms’ political organization had won elections in 1976 and 1978. And after Reagan won, we figured the conservative millennium had dawned and we’d mastered the art of politics. Next election we lost five races.
Back in 1980, Jim Hunt had built the most powerful political machine ever seen in North Carolina and had never lost an election. He lost for the first time in 1984.
In 1980, when he was 32 years old, Bill Clinton was elected Governor of Arkansas – the youngest Governor in America. Two years later, after he lost the next election, he joked he was now the youngest ex-governor in America.
Hubris – thinking you’re smarter than you are – is a deadly vice.
Republicans in North Carolina have now won two straight elections. They worked hard and won the legislature in 2010 then kept it and elected a Republican Governor in 2012 – and they wouldn’t be human if they didn’t hear the genie of pride whispering in their ears.
But has a new Republican era dawned in North Carolina?
The polls don’t seem to say so. There’re still more Democrats than Republicans. And voters don’t see eye to eye with Republican legislation on Unemployment Reform, the Medicaid Expansion, or Tax Reform.
There’s no doubt it can be a good thing to pass an unpopular bill. But it’s a mistake to tell yourself voters agree with you when they don’t. And it’s an even bigger mistake (I know, I made it in 1982) to assume the good times will roll on and on – in politics that’s when the Good Lord throws you a curveball and you land on your backside in the dust, eyes wide open to a new kind of wisdom that comes with humility.
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Carter Wrenn posted on February 26, 2013 09:51
President Obama’s in full campaign mode with his eyes fixed on taking control of the House of Representatives next election. He’s put his campaign to work targeting Republican Congressmen and he’s telling voters because of the Sequester 7,450 children in Florida won’t receive vaccinations, 800 victims of domestic violence in North Carolina won’t receive care, and 1,200 teachers in California will lose their jobs.
Now the Washington Republicans could argue Obama’s wrong – the cuts aren’t that bad. Or that the tax increases Obama wants will do more harm to the economy than the cuts.
But they’re not doing either. Instead they’re agreeing with Obama that the cuts are terrible – then they add that the terrible cuts are all Obama’s fault – that it’s the Obamaquester.
Obama’s answer to that is to say – reasonably – that he hopes Republicans will help him avoid children losing vaccinations by passing a few tax increases on the rich and Republicans say, again, the terrible cuts are all Obama’s fault.
It’s a dead end.
I don’t understand why the Republicans don’t make a list of $85 billion in wasteful spending – like the government’s free cell phone giveaways – and put it in front of Obama and say, If you want to spare unvaccinated children in Florida – let’s cut this program.
That sure sounds better than Republicans saying, Sure the Sequester is terrible but we won’t raise taxes to stop it because it’s all your fault.
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Carter Wrenn posted on February 18, 2013 12:19
Like a bull seeing a red cape Karl Rove lowered his head and horns swinging, charged straight for Cole Porter’s adoring but unhappy wife;— as soon as actress Ashley Judd (who starred in De-Lovely) became a possible Senate candidate in Kentucky Rove had put out an ad out saying, “Ashley Judd’s an Obama-following, Obama-loving, radical Hollywood liberal and a carpetbagger who looks down her nose at hillbillies.”
Goring a hard-bitten politician is one thing – but goring a soft-spoken, doe-eyed actress is another. The same shoe doesn’t fit every foot. And Karl Rove’s been hollering ‘Obama-loving liberal’ for so long he’s now beginning to sound like a one-trick pony.
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Carter Wrenn posted on February 15, 2013 11:11
Cautiously holding their fingers to the wind most politicians avoid controversies like the plague – but State Auditor Beth Wood, a farm girl who put herself through East Carolina University, has a trait that’s all but extinct in politics: Grit.
Last year, after Wood audited the state’s new Medicaid Processing Computer System, she blistered fellow Democrat Beverly Perdue, saying Perdue had turned a $250 million project into a $500 million boondoggle that was two years behind schedule and hadn’t processed a single Medicaid claim.
Last week, she held a press conference with Governor McCrory, reporting her latest audit: This time she’d found the State Medicaid Department had spent $1.4 billion more than its budget over the last three years and has overhead costs that are $180,000 higher than the same costs in other states our size.
A long trail of wreckage (beginning with the benign neglect of Governor Mike Easley and compounded by Governor Perdue’s decision to appoint a lobbyist head of the Department of Health and Human Services) winds back across a decade to those two audits.
Lanier Cansler, the lobbyist, served as a Republican legislator from Asheville in the 1990’s, then, in 2001, Governor Easley appointed him Deputy Secretary of the DHHS; a couple of years later Cansler left government to become a lobbyist and one of his first clients was a company bidding for the biggest contract in state government – the State Medicaid Claims Processing Contract.
Cansler’s client won the contract but the new computer system never got off the drawing board – two years later (and twenty million dollars poorer) the state cancelled it. Then Cansler began to lobby for another company that was bidding to get the next version of the same contract and succeeded again. The state awarded his client the $250 million contract.
Then Governor Perdue appointed Cansler head of the DHHS and three years later, when Wood did her first audit, Cansler’s former client was two years behind schedule and $200 million over budget – which Cansler explained to legislators by saying, Yes, there was a problem – but on the other hand the federal government was paying 90% of the costs so the problem wasn’t as bad as it seems.
For years, Cansler had also praised another DHHS project, Community Care of North Carolina, calling it a paradigm of efficiency and a money saver. But, according to Wood’s latest audit, that was another illusion: She reported, “North Carolina’s Medicaid cost per eligible (person) is higher than any other state in Region IV and is higher than the national average. The question should arise, if Community Care of North Carolina saves significantly on Medicaid expenditures, why does North Carolina spend so much more on Medicaid than comparable states?”
Now Governor Pat McCrory has to figure out how to plug a $1.4 billion three-year old hole in the Medicaid budget, and figure out how to do the impossible: Turn a brother-in-law contract into an overnight success.
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Carter Wrenn posted on February 14, 2013 14:20
I settled into my chair, rocked back, opened a book, and a few minutes later Obama’s measured voice floated across the room saying John Boehner ought to delay the Sequester, then Obama explained how government ought to do more for people with less and it’s only fair the well off pay a little bit more – and whether you agree with him or not Obama’s voice sounds reasonable and logical.
Then the voice of a Republican Congressman speaking in short clipped sentences floated across the room saying Obama invented the Sequester, calling it the Obama-quester three times and it was like listening to a teenage child or Sean Hannity during a rant.
It’s odd: Even as I disagreed with Obama he sounded reasonable. While the Republican Congressman sounded petty and mean.
The next morning in the News & Observer there was a poll about Obama’s soaring approval ratings and Congress’s sinking popularity and Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal – explaining the Republicans’ demise – said, It’s time Republicans started sounding like adults.
As the Lord told St. Peter, The things that come out of a person’s mouth come from the heart: Obama’s got an old-fashioned liberal’s heart and words like ‘saving the middle class’ roll off his tongue like honey. Obama-quester is a kind of vision too but when the word rolled off the Republican Congressman’s tongue it sounded like a howl.
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