Are Wisconsin GOP senators getting the “wobblies”? Stephen Moore writes in the Wall Street Journal that conservatives are worried that three Republican senators may defect to the Democrats’ side to kill the governor’s union-busting bill.

If there’s any solid evidence Republican resolve is about to crumble, Walker doesn’t say. But Greg Sargent writes that an NBC Wisconsin affiliate is reporting that “four moderate Republicans are wavering and could break with the GOP and vote against Walker’s budget repair bill.”

When even Rasmussen polls show Republicans are losing ground, and with recall efforts underway, some senators must be thinking hard about their political futures and whether they want to be chained to Scott Walker if he goes down like the Titanic.

Last week, conservative apparatchiks like Jennifer Rubin were gushing about Scott Walker’s future as a presidential candidate. This week, Americans for Prosperity (e.g., David Koch) is trying to whip up support for Walker by sending a bus around the state. A Wisconsin ABC affiliate reported,

Americans for Prosperity brought a bus tour to Ashwaubenon Friday morning, looking for people to sign petitions in support of Governor Walker’s budget proposals.

High turnout at the “Stand Against Spending — Stand With Walker” campaign forced organizers to move from Perkins restaurant to the Holiday Inn next door.

Organizers say more than 100 people showed up to give their support.

Wow, that sounds so … rinkydink. And news stories say the bus tour is being met by protesters all around the state, also.

Rick Ungar writes at Forbes that Gov. Walker’s overreach already has cost him and Republicans dearly.

The Wisconsin governor’s desire to be at the forefront of his perceived GOP revolution may not only have doomed the anti-union effort, but it may forever label him has the man who gave the democrats the gift that keeps on giving – the return of the union rank and file into the arms of the Democratic Party.

The governor may be facing the downside of drawing media attention. Isthmus newspaper and the Wisconsin Associated Press today filed a lawsuit over Walker’s failure to respond to a request for access to emails. Scott had bragged that he had received 8,000 emails telling him to stand firm on his budget bill. So, let’s have a look, said news media. Um, we’ll get back to you, someday, said the governor’s office.

But those are The People’s emails, and under the state’s Open Records law, Walker is obligated to cough them up. Stay tuned.

Walker sent out layoff warnings today, although I thought he had promised layoff notices. Is he starting to blink? Or is he about to hit the iceberg?

That’s right; the state government of Wisconsin (no doubt on orders emanating from the governor’s office) is claiming it will take $7.5 million to restore the state capitol to its pre-protest condition.

All together now: Bullshit.

Most of the damage, the state says, was to the marble in the building. People taped stuff to the marble, and it’s going to cost the state big bucks to restore it.

They should talk to Steve M.

I found this company in Michigan offering to do marble restoration for commercial customers at a rate of $1.20 – $1.80 per square foot. For $7 million, even at his top rate of $1.80, this guy would apparently restore nearly 4 million square feet of marble. How big is this Capitol Building, anyway? (By point of comparison, there are 4 million square feet of event/exhibit/meeting space for conventions in the entire D.C. metro area, which covers nine major D.C. convention spaces, plus several in the surrounding suburbs.)

As for the trash pickup, Steve found that the 2008 “ticker tape” parade in Manhattan after the New York Giants Super Bowl win cost the city around $331,000 for floats, added police protection, and clean-up. The clean-up included picking up 36 tons of paper. That’s, um, a lot of paper. And the work was done by those “overpaid” union goon sanitation workers Councilman Dan Halloran was complaining about.

Steve also found that the cost for cleaning up New Orleans’ annual Mardi Gras mess runs about $1.5 million total, or about $100,000 a day.

David Dayen writes,

A Dane County court judge, John C. Albert, [ruled] all Capitol access restrictions must be lifted by the Department of Administration. This allows open access to the Capitol for the public, including protesters, during business hours. Albert gave a deadline of March 8 at 8am (next Monday) for full implementation; if Gov. Walker and the DOA do not comply, they can be held in contempt of court. Albert also said in his ruling that there have been, based on his investigation, “no injuries or damage to personal or government property,” which is a direct shot at the bogus claim of millions of dollars in damages.

So the $7.5 million damage is just bare-assed propaganda. Even some righties expressed skepticism, although they still blame unions for the expense.

This reminds me of the claims from 2001 by bushie staffers that the outgoing Clinton administration staff had “trashed” the White House. The GAO investigated and found the amount of “trashing” was minor and about what it had been after the Bush I administration had cleared out. Not that righties ever acknowledged the debunking. More from an old Salon article.

Protesters have left the Wisconsin capitol building after a judge ruled that it be temporarily closed to be cleaned. But the same judge also ruled that “the state violated constitutional protections for free speech and assembly by restricting access to the building,” MSNBC says. I just heard on the Ed Show that the protesters left peacefully once they were reassured they would be allowed back in after 48 hours.

Gov. Walker is threatening to send out layoff notices tomorrow if the impasse he created isn’t resolved, and I can’t see how it would be. He’s basically trying to blackmail the Dems, telling them that 1500 state workers will lose their jobs if the Dems don’t return.

Meanwhile, the Republicans in the state Senate passed a resolution holding the absent Dem senators in contempt. Some of those same Republican senators may face recall, however.

Possibly the most interesting news tonight is that even Rasmussen’s polling is finding that Gov. Walker is losing public support to the Democrats and unions in Wisconsin. Even more interesting, the poll finds that younger voters are siding with the Dems, big time, more than older voters.

In relatively recent times, it has been more common for older voters to be more pro-union than younger voters. But as Steve M. points out, younger voters these days have little memory of unions doing much of anything, especially wielding power. They don’t remember Jimmy Hoffa (senior); they probably don’t even remember the air traffic controller strike that Reagan busted. “How do you sell younger people on the notion of ‘greedy unions’ and ‘union thugs’ when all they’ve ever seen is union shrinkage and union givebacks?” Steve asks.

See also: Palm trees found in Wisconsin; Bill O’Reilly vindicated!

I forgot to mention that Monday was International Dyscalculia Day, meant to achieve recognition of dyscalculia, a learning disorder related to arithmetic. I don’t have all of the symptoms, but I do have several of them. Perhaps mine is a mild case. But the truth is I do struggle with third grade-level arithmetic, and as far as I’m concerned Calculus was a Roman emperor.

So with that in mind, perhaps y’all can help me out with this — Awhile back, Paul Krugman wrote a column in which he pointed out that states governed with an anti-tax, “deficit hawk” philosophy have a pattern of providing a substandard public school education for its children. He called out Texas in particular —

The high school graduation rate, at just 61.3 percent, puts Texas 43rd out of 50 in state rankings. Nationally, the state ranks fifth in child poverty; it leads in the percentage of children without health insurance. And only 78 percent of Texas children are in excellent or very good health, significantly below the national average. The high school graduation rate, at just 61.3 percent, puts Texas 43rd out of 50 in state rankings. Nationally, the state ranks fifth in child poverty; it leads in the percentage of children without health insurance. And only 78 percent of Texas children are in excellent or very good health, significantly below the national average.

Along with this, the Economist via Scott Lemieux posted some figures showing that students from the five states that have completely eliminated teacher collective bargaining rights — South Carolina, North Carolina, Georgia, Texas, and Virginia — tend to have very below-average standardized test results. Scott withdrew these numbers, however, because he decided they were faulty, and are also based on very old data. Here is the original data, if you want to look.

Anyway, a rightie blogger, Iowahawk, called bullshit on Krugman’s column and on the figures Scott cited and then withdrew. Iowahawk argues that the reason Texas looks bad compared to Wisconsin is that Wisconsin has a much smaller percentage of racial minority students than does Texas, and if you compare student test scores by race, you see that Texas beats Wisconsin. In other words, Texas white kids outscore Wisconsin white kids, and the only reason the Wisconsin school system ranks higher than Texas’s is that Wisconsin has a much higher percentage of white kids. And yeah, there’s more than a whiff of racism here, but data is data.

Iowahawk is getting his data from the National Center for Education Statistics, a branch of the Department of Education. The center has data from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), which appears to be a standardized test administered to 4th and 8th grade students nationwide. And I’m going to assume he is accurately representing the figures he got from NCES.

If you go to this page you can get simple graphics for each state showing how the state’s test scores compare to the national average. The states all along the southern border, including California, are below average, except for Texas, which is just exactly average. So, compared to neighboring states, Texas does pretty well. (Note — here and throughout, I’m only looking at 4th grade scores, because I’m short of time to go into this further. But I think the 4th grade scores give us a good general comparison.)

States above the Mason Dixon line tend to have above-average test scores, with a few exceptions — Oregon, Illinois, and Michigan are struggling. And note that Oregon is slightly “whiter” than Wisconsin — the racial demographics are very similar — but the most recent test scores are closer to those of Texas, around average.

I assume the southernmost states have a much higher percentage of English as a Second Language (ESL) students than the northern states, and I assume that could have some impact on standardized test scores, although I don’t know that for a fact.

My quibbles — First off, the data I would like to see, and which the NCES does not appear to provide, would compare groups by income level, not race. I postulate there is at least as strong a correlation, if not stronger, between income disparity and test disparity than you would find for race. The racial disparity you see in some states would be a reflection of the income disparity.

And repeat after me: Correlation is not proof of causation.

I suspect also that Texas has a higher percentage of what might be called the “upper income” middle class — not rich, but comfortable — compared to next door neighbor states — Louisiana, Arkansas, Oklahoma, New Mexico — all of which fare worse compared to national test results than Texas.

Texas public school spending per pupil statewide is not that high compared to other states, but I’d bet there is a big difference in per pupil spending between wealthy suburbs and the colonias along the Mexican border. And I postulate that the suburbs of Dallas and Houston have a high enough tax basis to support pretty decent public schools — about half of the money that pays for pubic schools in Texas comes from local sources, which would be property taxes and, I assume, school bonds.

(Yes, California has wealth, too, and worse test scores than Texas. But California shot itself in the foot by drastically limiting property taxes awhile back. Before Proposition 13, California had the best public schools in the nation. Now a much higher percentage of pubic school costs are paid by the state, which doesn’t help the state budget any.)

Anyway, it might be illuminating to line up data from Texas and Wisconsin that compared test results of students from families with the same level of income. I postulate you would see that Wisconsin is providing a better education to its lower-income residents, a large part of which are rural whites.

And for what it’s worth — Wisconsin has a slightly higher median household income than Texas — $52,094 to $50,043, or ranked 21 and 27, respectively, among the states. Texas has a much bigger percentage of population below the poverty level, however — 15.8% compared to Wisconsin’s 10.4%; the two states ranking 8 and 38 in poverty level. My theory is that Texas has lots of impoverished communities with substandard schools, dragging down the statewide assessment scores.

Conservatives like to claim that there’s no correlation between per pupil spending and educational results, but lets take a look at that. This chart ranks per-pupil spending per state, and there’s a big difference between the top spending state and the bottom. The guy who compiled the chart wants to make the case that spending doesn’t matter, because, he says, there’s no correlation between per pupil spending and SAT scores.

However, I’ve seen an argument that the SAT scores are not necessarily a good indicator of a school system’s performance, since not everyone takes the SAT. And, interestingly, studies have found a strong correlation between family income levels and SAT test results; the higher the family income, the higher the test scores.

I wish I had the time to line up the per-pupil spending chart with the test data from NCES, because I suspect there is at least some correlation there. The states with the highest per-pupil spending — Vermont, Wyoming, New Jersey, New York, and Maine — all have above average results, especially Vermont and New Jersey. And New Jersey has lots of those ethnic minorities that allegedly pull down scores. As I remember, some school districts in New Jersey have very high percentages of ESL students, but I don’t know how the state overall would compare to Texas.

The states with the lowest per-pupil spending — California, Texas, Nevada, Arizona, and Utah — are less impressive. Utah — a much “whiter” state than Texas, note — is around average — slightly below average in reading, just a hair above average in science and mathematics. Wikipedia says Utah is 95.20% white, so if race were such a strong factor in test scores, you’d think Utah would be above average. It ain’t.

Nevada — also a “whiter” state than Texas, although not as much as Utah — is way below average in everything.

And unrelated to income, there’s another aspect of Texas that you have to factor in, which is the infamous Texas TAKS system. The biggest reason textbook publishers for years have had to create “Texas edition” textbooks is that Texas has its own assessment system, and lessons plans and textbooks must “teach to the test.” The teacher’s editions of Texas textbooks — which I have helped to produce — are filled with standardized test directions that don’t appear in the national editions. So one would expect Texas students to have an edge with assessment tests. Whether than translates into a better overall education is a point to be debated.

Getting back to the argument of whether teacher’s unions help or hinder education — three of the the five “no arbitration whatsoever” states — South and North Carolina and Georgia — have mostly below average standardized test scores (North Carolina has above average reading scores though). Texas, as I’ve said, is average. Virginia, however, is above average. Again, one suspects median income has something to do with that — Virginia ranks eighth among all states in median household income.

So what are we learning here? First, racial demographics by themselves are no excuse for poor public schools. We can find nearly all-white states with below average schools and racially mixed states with above average schools.

I postulate there is some correlation between per-pupil spending and NAEP scores, although I don’t have time to run through all the numbers. There does appear to be a strong correlation between median household income and NAEP scores, but again, I don’t have time to work that out for every state.

And does any of this show what effect teacher’s unions have on education? I don’t think so. That’s not to say there isn’t an impact, but you can’t see it by looking at the state-level data. There are too many other variables from one state to another.

Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour thinks Mississippi’s poor people are too well off.

Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour (R) said states should also be free, for instance, to compel Medicaid patients to pay for part of their medicine, saying, “We have people pull up at the pharmacy window in a BMW and say they can’t afford their co-payment.”

Glenn Kessler fact checks this statement, and notes,

Mississippi provides some of the lowest Medicaid benefits to working adults in the nation. A parent who isn’t working can qualify only if annual family income is less than 24 percent of the poverty line. Working parents qualify only if they make no more than 44 percent of the federal poverty level. Seniors and people with disabilities are eligible with income at 80 percent of the poverty line. Pregnant women do better — they’re eligible with income up to 185 percent of the poverty level.

Translated from the federal poverty guidelines, that means a working Mississippi couple with one child could earn no more than $8,150 a year and still qualify for Medicaid, seniors and people with disabilities could earn no more than $8,700, and a pregnant woman could earn no more than $20,000 a year.

Kessler then checked classified ads in Mississippi newspapers and found “Four grand, for instance, would get you a 1996 BMW 328i with 237,000 miles on it.” But four grand seems a stretch for people with an annual income of eight grand, don’t you think?

And what does it say about the decline of American cars that the Cadillac has been replaced by a foreign car as the metaphor for decadent luxury?

Anyway, reading further into Kessler’s article, Barbour says that people on Medicaid only have to say they can’t afford the co-payment, and then they don’t have to pay it. Lucky duckies! Gov. Barbour wants to put an end to that and make those people cough up their co-payments, because they are cheating the providers.

However, seems to me a working couple with one child making no more than $8,150 a year probably can’t afford much of anything, including co-payments.

Elsewhere: Palm trees grow in Wisconsin! But wouldn’t that be proof of global warming?

Yesterday the President spoke to a group of governors and explained to them that if they really didn’t want their states to be included in the federal Affordable Care Act, there is a way to opt out –

“Beginning in 2017, if you can come up with a better system for your state to provide coverage of the same quality and affordability as the Affordable Care Act, you can take that route instead,” Obama told the governors.

And Obama said he supported moving that date up to 2014, as proposed by Sens. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., and Scott Brown, R-Mass., to “give [governors] flexibility more quickly, while still guaranteeing the American people reform.”

In other words, they can opt out “if your state can create a plan that covers as many people as affordably and comprehensively as the Affordable Care Act does, without increasing the deficit,” the President said.

We’ve talked about this before. Basically, the deal is that if a state can come up with a way — any way — to insure the same percentage of citizens, with comparable coverage, at no additional cost, they are free to do that, and they can opt out of the ACA, mandate and all.

So far, the reaction from the “free market” libertarian right is a big howl of “that’s not fair!”

Peter Suderman of Reason‘s Hit & Run explains:

But the supposed flexibility the opt-out provision gives the states to innovate is fairly limited. Theoretically, they can get out of the mandate. But to do so, they have to submit a proposal that is judged to cover the same number of people, for the same cost (or less), with the same benefit and coverage levels as mandated in the law. That will make it easier for states—like Sen. Bernie Sanders’ home state of Vermont—to experiment with, say, single payer at the state level. But the high bar for coverage set by ObamaCare means that proposals that would rely on higher levels of cost-sharing, on increased use of catastrophic insurance, on allowing consumers to choose what benefits they actually want to pay for are less likely to pass muster.

I’m not even entirely sure how states will get out of the mandate. If, as is my preliminary understanding, they are required to keep some form of guaranteed issue and community rating—insurance regulations requiring insurers to sell to all comers and prohibiting discrimination based on preexisting conditions—then patients will have even less incentive to purchase insurance.

In other words, if you actually want to set up a system in which most citizens can obtain comprehensive insurance coverage, your options are single payer or something like the Affordable Care Act, mandate and all. Even the libertarians admit that. Of course, in their minds, it’s better to have some gawdawful Rube Goldberg mess of a system that is eating our economy and doesn’t cover a large part of the population, so long as markets are free.

Our buddy DD posted a video, made yesterday, of the Wisconsin protest that he seems to think makes the protesters look bad. The little bit of narrative at the beginning reveals that the person making the video is hostile to the protest (he refers to the protesters as “sheep” at one point).

But I watched the whole thing, and it was inspiring. These are patriotic citizens peacefully assembling to express their grievances of government. This is what America and the Bill of Rights are all about. You watch it and see what you think; maybe I missed something.

Now, my question is — on what planet does this video make the protesters seem bad or corrupt? Or, put another way, how twisted do you have to be to watch this video and interpret it as being anti-protest?

This illustrates brilliantly why it is Right and Left talk past each other. Even when we look at the same thing, what we see is radically different.

At the very beginning of the video, the narrator is baffled by a sign that says “Ethics Trumps ‘Values’ in a Civil Society.” Next to the word “Values,” someone has written in “whose?” Eerily, the video itself makes the same point. The filmmaker’s “values” are that he hates the people he is filming and cannot see them as anything but wrongdoers who don’t deserve to be allowed into the state capitol. And for this reason, he thinks the state is justified in treating the assembled protesters as second-class citizens whose right to be inside the capitol building can be denied. In other words, his subjective “values” trump ethics.

But a democracy, never mind a civil society, cannot operate that way. When people in power can demand their so-called “values” can override ethics and even the law, that’s totalitarianism.

Note that these same righties march around in their pro-liberty T-shirts claiming that they are for “freedom,” but when push comes to shove they run into the waiting arms of the dictator, every time.

Update: Althouse has the same video, and the, um, quadrupedal, ruminant mammals (Ovis aries) that flock to her site are dutifully sneering at the “libtards.”