Random Nuclear Strikes

Is most likely how barely Governor of Washington Christine Gregoire decided to take her college level economics courses.

And this report by the Cato Institute shows the grades she probably got.

Excerpt from Sound Politics

Christine Gregoire, one of the worst new governors [sic] in the nation, was elected [sic] in 2004 in one of the closest and most contentious elections in Washington history–a controversial Palm Beach-style recount made her the winner [sic] of the gubernatorial race by only 129 votes [sic]. Famous for being the lead negotiator in the $206 billion shakedown of cigarette companies known as the 1998 multistate tobacco settlement, Gregoire quickly took aim at state taxpayers upon entering office. She’s raised multiple taxes already: the cigarette tax (by 42 percent), the gas tax (by 34 percent), the state’s liquor tax (by $1.33 a gallon). And she resurrected the estate tax, too. Gregoire even helped the legislature overturn the law that required a supermajority to raise taxes in the future. All of this to fuel her spending binge, which expanded the general fund budget by more than 8 percent in fiscal 2006 alone. Tax activists have placed a repeal of the estate tax on the ballot in Washington, and Gregoire has already stated her opposition. In the meantime, she was quick to propose new ways to spend the $1.6 billion budget surplus this year. With a legislature controlled by her own party, perhaps the only check on Gregoire’s big-government ambitions in years to come will be the usually feisty tax activists in the state.

I’m sure they’re only giving Bush a D or a D+, but I think I remember the Gregoire supporting leftists comparing him to a monkey.

So, would that make Gregoire a Three Toed Sloth?

The liberal/progressive left has been screaming for years about raising the national minimum wage to what they like to call a “Living Wage”. This dollar figure is usually somewhere around $10-$12 per hour for unskilled labor which, despite what their farcical brand of mirco and macro-economics says, would kill most small businesses and maim a good number of medium and large ones which depend on unskilled labor.

But they keep on demanding it. Over and over and over again, until it becomes background noise.

The “liberal” party of Canada, on the other hand, has seen the light

Raising the minimum wage to $10 would hurt more poor people than it would help because employers would have to cut staff, Finance Minister Greg Sorbara said yesterday.

The comments came as New Democrat MPP Cheri Di Novo (Parkdale-High Park) introduced a private member’s bill calling for the minimum wage to be increased to $10 after about 150 anti-poverty activists rallied in the pouring rain outside the Legislature.

But the proposed increase is too expensive for employers to swallow with Ontario’s minimum hourly wage of $7.75 already scheduled to rise to $8 next Feb. 1, said Sorbara.

“There would be some significant job loss,” he predicted.

Progressive Conservative Leader John Tory agreed, saying a $2 hike would be “very substantial” for companies to absorb.

I wonder if this story will appear in any of those ‘Right-Wing Media’ outlets the left is always jabbering on about?