Jake's complete lack of surprise- A Walker deficit appears

Big day down at the LFB today, as the annual revenue/ budget estimates came out late this morning. I'd been waiting a couple of weeks for this report, and sure enough it revealed what I thought it would. Scott Walker's budget is not balanced, and in a $208 million deficit. Think they'll be changing the Koch Brothers' ads running in support of Walker's "balanced budget?"

Now, the common number used is $143 million, because that's the negative balance, but we also need to have $65 million in our rainy day fund, so in reality, we need to find $208 million in savings over the next 16 months, not $143 million.

So, why did we end up here? The same reason we've had issues at the federal level- low revenues caused by low taxes and a lack of job and income growth. Page 10 of the report explains it:

As shown in the table, total general fund tax collections are estimated at $13,194.6 million in 2011-2012 and $13,603.5 million in 2012-13. These amounts are lower than the previous estimates by $99.9 million in the first year and $172.9 million in the second year, for a biennial decrease of $272.8 million...

The revised revenue projections reflect year-to-date collections data, the new economic forecast, and the effects of a number of law changes that will reduce revenues during the remainder of 2011-12 and 2012-13.

Among these changes include tax breaks for the rich like health savings accounts, "reinvesting" capital gains (which are gains from gambling on assets, not making stuff), and corporate taxes are also expected to be about 2.5% lower, partly due to Walker/WisGOP givewaways. Walker's union-busting is also showing itself in the deficit, as income taxes are also expected to be down due to lower incomes as a result of Act 10, and Real Estate Transfer fee taxes are down nearly $9 million due to fewer home sales. Cigarette taxes are down by about $55 million, and even the beer tax is expected to be down 4-5% (c'mon guys! Light 'em up and throw 'em down!). Heck, if the LFB didn't count the $31.6 million that the state government will take recent settlement banks made with almost all states as damages for screwing homeowners into foreclosure, we'd be looking at $300 million down in revs. (And yes, the state will keep that $31.6 million instead of giving more back to homeowners, as they could).

But hey, maybe the economy will turn around in Wisconsin over the next 6 months and we can close this revenue gap through strong growth? Let's see what the Philly Fed tells us.

Awwww, DAMMIT!

So I guess all those tax breaks and pro-corporate legislation really doesn't help bring in the dough, does it? In fact, the LFB might be giving Walker a break in these revenue estimates, because it bases some of it on the expectation that the U.S. economy to continue with slow and steady growth of 150,000+ jobs a month, while not mentioning the Walker jobs gap that has kept Wisconsin 40,000 jobs below what we should be.

And as tends to be the case, "but wait, there's more!", as the LFB admits that there are other items that could drive the deficit higher, starting on Page 3. (any emphasis added is mine)

...[the deficit] does not reflect the estimated shortfall in the private bar appropriation of the Office of the State Public Defender. It is projected that this appropriation will incur a deficit of $5.8 million by the end of the 2011-13 biennium. Third, [the figures do] not reflect any appropriation changes to the Medical Assistance (MA) program. On January 26, 2012, this office distributed a memorandum to the members of the Legislature entitled "Medical Assistance Program Status." That memorandum inidcated that the MA program faced a potential shortfall of $140.9 million in the biennium. The memorandum further listed a series of savings initiaitives identified by the Department of Health Services that are inteded to address the shortfall (and this is why it isn't counted)

Ah yes, the Medicaid deficit, which I pointed out last week is only closed based on lots of rosy scenarios and hope that the Obama Administration bails them out. And if they don't get the federal bailout, or if the Walker folks don't get savings from allowing Grandma to get a pill dispenser at home, then there's more money that has to be made up in our deficit. So in reality, there could be another $146 million you have to add in, so then we'd have to make up $354 million, not $208 million.

So let's see if the media lets this Administration continue its remarkable 4-in-1 lie of "Walker balanced the budget (WRONG!) while avoiding public sector layoffs (12,000 public sector jobs lost) and holding the line on taxes (ask anyone who got EITC or Homestead credits, and property tax rates are significantly UP), so he shouldn't be recalled." (HE'S EARNED EVERY ONE OF THOSE SIGNATURES). After the liberally biased operation of math has exposed the truth about Walker's job-killing, deficit-inducing budget, there really isn't anything else Scotty can cling to once he gets back from another out-of-state fundraising jaunt. And we can't let them lie their way out of their failures.

Your Walkergate/ Recall links for the day

Can't find time to do all the minutae on the many developments over the last few days in Fitzwalkerstan, so I'll direct you to some quality work by others.

First off, let's go to John Peterson with a great rundown of Baggers being laughed out of the building by the GAB when it comes to recall signatures. And those "illegal" recall signatures and duplicates? Often done by Walker-supporting trash, like this ass-clown Demet in Racine County. By the way, why are the only people left in GOP-supporting groups immoral politicos, clueless middle-aged white men, or 20-something kids mooching off of the Bradley/Koch machine? Just curious.

Now, here's the Root River Siren following up on the amazing report where GOP legislators were told to "ignore public comments" and were sworn to secrecy by Michael Best and Friedrich regarding redistricting plans (despite MBF andTroupis Law getting $400K in taxpayer money....God forbid we have a right to know what they're doing it for).

Even better in that story is where Jeff Fitzgerald aide Adam Foltz tells court officials in a deposition that the new maps have nothing to do with increasing GOP majorities in the legislature...and then memos show that the new maps are intended to do exactly that. And who writes the memos in question? Adam Foltz! BRILLIANT! Wonder how much that perjury will get ol' Adam in the slam?

Speaking of going to the slam, check out Cognitive Dissidence, where Capper asks Hey Scotty, what's in that dumpster filled with papers? I bet Darlene Wink knows what's in that dumpster...and she'll let the DA know if she doesn't want to join what looks to be an increasing number of slimeballs from this Administration in the joint.

The fun just never stops...

Upon further review, U.S. doing even better, Fitzwalkerstan worse

On my way down to the Super Bowl, the BLS came up with the January 2012 jobs report, and it featured very good economic news, with 243,000 more jobs created in January, and 257,000 in the private sector. It continues a strong last few months after a Summer swoon caused by Teabaggers trying to cause a debt crisis, and the unemployment rate is as low as it's been in nearly 3 years, at 8.3%.

But even more than that, the BLS released revisions to all of the months in 2011, which they do every year. These shouldn't be ignored, and a good example is when a review 2 years ago showed that the country lost 1 million more jobs in the 2007-2009 recession than what was previously thought. Well, the revisions went the other way this year, as page 5 shows, 2011 addedd 266,000 more jobs than we previously knew, which means in January 2012 we were actually 500,000 jobs better than what was in the report released last month, and over 2 million jobs better than 12 months ago. Not a full-fledged boom, but certainly a steady recovery and one that seems to be picking up steam.

Which makes Wisconsin's pathetic job performance for the last half of 2011 even worse. Look at the gap that continues to widen between Wisconsin and the U.S. since Walker took office in January 2011.

Wisconsin vs. U.S., 2011-2012

If Wisconsin had merely kept up with what the country did as a whole, we would have added 35,950 total jobs between January and December, and 42,350 in the private sector, which wouldn't have put us too far behind Walker's goal of 250,000 jobs in 4 years. But unfortunately, we do have Scott Walker as governor, and so here's the result.

Walker job gap, 2011
Wis. actual total job performance- -4,500 (GAP: 40,450)
Wis. private sector job performance- +2,200 (GAP 40,150)

That's right, WALKER POLICIES HAVE COST US OVER 40,000 JOBS. This is really hard to do, but then again, it's not every day when a governor is so arrogant, corrupt and incompetent that a million people sign recall petitions against him, either.

The failures in Fitzwalkerstan are also reflected in Wisconsin's lag in manufacturing growth (Wisconsin's largest sector of jobs), which was picking up in the rest of America while Wisconsin was diving for most of the 2nd half of 2011.

Manufacturing jobs 2011-2012


Shoot, who needs reasons like the first conviction in Walkergate or illegal deceit and secrecy in redisdtricting to take Walker and the WisGOPs out of power, when their disastrous results in job loss in a time of U.S. growth should be enough on its own.

Super Sunday thoughts

Been down in Indianapolis checking out Super Bowl weekend as well as some old acquaintances. I mean, I didn't miss anything when I was down there, did I? You know, like our Governor going in front of a DA in a corruption probe, or anything like that?

1. The Super Bowl festivities are surprisingly accessible for a non-celebrity. They blocked off numerous downtown Indianapolis streets and regular folks were able to check out all of the pregame open concerts and live coverage just like any NFL player or rich person could. You get a good idea of the cross-section of NFL fans and locals, and especially on Friday, when it was sunny and mid-50s (!), it raises spirits even more than your typical big event. There's even the Mardi Gras-ish "drinking on the street" part that's a nice boost, and extra bonus to RAM and Rock Bottom Breweries to sell a $10.50 32 oz. "to go" carrier of their beer, not a bad deal when bottles of Bud Light on the street go for $7. It looks like an old medicine bottle, and me and my buddy had numerous people asking us on Friday "Hey, what's that and where do you get it?" On a related note, here's a good article on the beer carriers, as well as on the many other microbreweries that Indiana has been adding in recent years.

In fact, the only down sides from Indy putting on the show that I could tell were that so many people showed up on Friday night that certain streets had to be shut down to pedestrians and some people suffered injuries in the mash of people. A friend of mine was down there on Friday (biggest event was an LMFAO concert, and apparently LMFAO is a big deal), and she said the surging mass of humanity was at the "scary" level. I wasn't down at those points in the evening, but even at 4pm on a Saturday, you could see traffic and crowds getting massive, making it very tough to get around, so I can't imagine what Friday's post-work crowd must have been like.

2. Good side of Indy services- free bus rides allowed us to park for free in the Broad Ripple section of town and then grab a bus within walking distance of the festivities. Smart move to keep the traffic down and improve convenience as much as you can for an event like this. Down side of the services- they decided to keep with only 1 bus for a given time (and IndyGo has some of the lowest levels of service for a city of its size to start with), and many of the buses were listed as "full" once you got toward the middle of town. They should have at least taken a tip from Madison and ran an "extra bus" following a main one, to grab overflow traffic. In addition, is it too much to ask to run service past 10:30pm in a major city? We left well before those points on Friday and Saturday, but how would you like to have to make a decision on whether to throw down $30 to park and deal with awful traffic, or cut out from a concert in time to make the bus back to the North side?

3. When Scott Walker next calls Mitch Daniels' Indiana a low-tax haven that he wants to copy, will someone remind Scotty of the 9% sales tax I paid on every beer and food item this weekend? (7% is statewide, 1% is for the Indy Convention Center, and 1% is for Lucas Oil Stadium) Oh, and that Indiana is one of only 9 states in the country to have that 7% sales tax also apply to gasoline (page 19 has the list, you'll see Wisconsin has no sales tax for many of these items....yet) And while Indiana's beer tax is relatively low at $3.57 a barrell, that's still almost twice what we pay in Wisconsin. On a more positive note, this great LFB paper will tell you that Indiana charges $1.53 a pack less in cigarette taxes and also charges less than Wisconsin for liquor, so fill up on your smokes and booze when you're down there (just remember that there's no carry-out booze or beer on Sunday).

But in all, Indy has handled this rather well, and as a former resident of the city, it was great to see it mostly rise to the occasion on the biggest stage. It deserves another Super Bowl in a few years. I highly recommend that you go and give it a shot, just to say you've done it and to meet fans and people from all over. And from looking on the street, the Giants will have a definite home-crowd advantage, because their fans outnumbered the Pats 2 to 1, and the Colts fans attending will also be rooting and Brady and Belichik (there were an impressive amount of Colts fans representing at the Super Bowl festivities, especially with all the Peyton Manning turmoil starting to bubble up).

The only downer was not seeing the Packers be one of the teams in this Big Game, because judging from the hundreds I saw in Packer gear this weekend, having the Pack playing 6 1/2 hours from Green Bay would have thrown beer, brandy, and ticket demand through the roof. Guess I'll have to settle for having the Pack tattoo Andrew Luck and the Colts next Fall instead.

More Medicaid hijinks in Walker World - Just trust us and give Grandma the pills!

Looks like the Walker boys are still trying to live out their fantasies of screwing up Wisconsin's successful medical assistance programs in new and creative ways. This week, the Legislative Fiscal Bureau released updated Medicaid numbers, and it showed that Medicaid faced a deficit of nearly $141 million GPR through 2013. Interesting in that number is that it is up from the $92.3 million GPR deficit from the original Medicaid deficit figures released earlier, and like earlier, moves by the Obama Administration are lowering the costs to Wisconsin taxpayers, while Walker Administration screw-ups are causing the situation to be worse than it should.

I'll break down the LFB release that explains how we got here. First off, it goes over why the reduced deficit was first revealed at the start of January- lower-than-expected costs for many Medicaid-related programs, and lower costs from the Obama Administration on items such as Medicare part A and B and drug rebates (THANKS OBAMA!). The Walker Budget also overestimated the amount of people on Badgercare without children by NEARLY 50 PERCENT (oops!).

Then it's on to the good stuff- the costs of having to follow the Obama Administration's mandate to lift the Family Care cap. (remember that giant fuck-up and lie that Walker tried to pull?) The LFB says that it won't cost as much as the Walker folks thought it would, $71.8 million vs. an original estimate of $80.4 milllion, but that still won't keep ALEC cabin boy Robin Vos from whining "We can't afford it! We need to move these old and disabled folks into nursing homes so my contributors can get more income!" (Oh sorry, the second sentence only comes out in private, kinda like when he talks voucher schools with Mike Ellis at Inn on the Park).

The next is $23.2 million in savings due to a waiver given by the Obama Administration "that allows states to fully or partially restrict MA eligibility for non-disabled, non-pregnant adults with incomes over 133% [of poverty] if the state certifies that it has a state budget deficit in the current yearor...in the upcoming fiscal year." Yep, this is from the Walker Administration's admission that we have a GAAP deficit of around $3.0 billion each of the next 2 years. This despite the budget being "balanced," of course.

Oh, and this $23 million isn't guaranteed either, as

Although CMS did not approve all of the components in the Medicaid 2014 Demonstration waiver by the December 31, 2011 deadline, it is the administration's position that CMS hs preliminarily approved enough of the Department's request to consider the waivger "approved."

Of course, what happens if the Obama Administration DOESN'T approve it? Well, there's another $23.2 million in cuts to go, now isn't there!

This "hey, trust us" sketchiness continues on the other cutbacks, as they assume the Obama Administration will allow the Walker boys to cut off 29,100 from BadgerCare Plus, and that the "barely above poverty" group on BadgerCare Plus will be pushed onto an "Alternative Benchmark Plan", which is another $26.2 million in cuts and higher premiums for people that are already living on the edge. Again, what happens if CMS says "No, cover people if you want to get paid by us."? Well, there's another $93 million to figure out.

There's another great group of $20 million in planned savings when it comes to elderly and disabled home care, only made possible by lifting of the Family Care caps that the Walker folks didn't want to raise in the first place. Nearly $14 million in savings are to be from people who go onto Family Care and get assistance at their homes instead of through a nursing home or other assisted-living facility, and another $6.2 million come from getting nursing-home patients to head home or to other living arrangements, due in no small part because of the cheaper costs to have that person on Family Care.

Another at-home program the DHS wants to put in is $36 million in estimated savings resulting from "...medication dispensers to [be placed] in the homes of approximately 6,700 elderly, disabled, and mentally ill MA patients", and it would reduce the need for hospital and nursing home stays due to people not taking their medication. That's right, Grandma and the disabled are going to get to take their prescription drugs home. (what could go wrong there?) Even the LFB paper admits the reasoning is iffy at best, since the idea was based on a study done in Oregon 30 YEARS AGO.

This study may have limited relevance to the DHS proposal for several reasons, including the study's age, the possibility that Oregon's population may not be similar to Wisconsin's, and that Wisconsin has had managed care for many years while Oregon did not in 1981. [And] Wisconsin's current nursing home population is much smaller and has greater care needs (acuity) than it had 30 years ago...

Oh, and there are other examples listed in the LFB write-up that show this study doesn't come close to applying to Wisconsin's situation and that little should be assumed to happen here. But otherwise, no problem, and I'm sure those $36.0 million in savings will materialize right away (sarcasm off).

Lastly, there's an assumption of $75 million in "Administrative" savings that the Legislature doesn't get to vote on. This includes DHS intiatives like better reporting systems and "Auditing Enhancements." Now, they can't guarantee any of this will happen, but hey, they're workin' on it, and shouldn't that be enough?

Uhhh, no that isn't enough. Almost all of the Walker Administration's methods to solve this $141 million Medicaid deficit (which proves the budget was never balanced) are based on hopes, prayers, half-baked ideas and rosy scenarios. It's a pathetic act, but it's become par for the course with these guys, and it's why I have to write out these long posts breaking down all these lies and trickeries, because you have to see how many ways these guys are wrong to understand the severe danger these guys are trying to impose. It's really like the college kid who's writing a paper on a subject he doesn't have a clue on - if you throw enough bullshit and random information together, maybe the grader gets confused, and you'll be able to slide by with a grade you don't deserve.

Sorry, but when you're talking health policy for our most vulnerable, we can't let that happen. Once these plans fail to come through (which you know will happen, it always happens in Walker World), then Dennis Smith and Company in DHS will use that "emergency" to dismantle the successful Medicaid program and give their insurance company donators a new group of fresh meat to grab high premiums from. So we have to cut this off and expose it NOW, or else be stuck in a bigger hole later.

Walkergate- sometimes others say it better

While I also have plenty of thoughts related to the arrests of two more major Walker aides in the last week, but other than to say the words "destruction of digital evidence" probably means there's a LOT more to come out, I'll hold off for now.

Instead, I'll forward you to Jud Lounsbury's excellent work showing Walker aide Tim Russell was working outside of Walker's County Exec's office when Walker sent the "smoking gun" email of "We can't have this happen again...no laptops, no websites." If Russell was out of the County Exec's office in May 2010, why was he being ordered to tell County Exec staff to cut it off? Ruh roh!

I'll also direct you to Capper's excellent rundown of the John Doe charges, as he has been on this case for a long time, and he hints at a lot more to come.

And despite Walker's "I am not a crook" protestations, those of us who weren't born last night can put together the fact that he hired a Caucus scandal crook in Kelly Rindfleisch in early 2010 for a plum taxpayer-funded job, and she admitted in webchats that "half my job is policy for the (GOP guv and Lt. Gov) campaign." You'd have to be a damned fool not to know that campaign work and meetings with donors were the main part of Tim Russell's and Kelly Rindfleisch's real jobs. It's just a matter of who the Milwaukee County DA's office indentifies as the connections.

The real story abut Vos/ Ellis conversation

If you haven't seen the youtube that Politiscoop originally unearthed with Rep. Robin Vos along with Sens. Mike Ellis, Sheila Harsdorf and Glenn Grothmann hanging out at Inn on the Park, well, here it is! Ellis does most of the talking, and his Fitzgerald rips are early on, while the "Green Bay Preble is a sewer" talk comes near the end.



A couple of quick notes that aren't being hit hard enough from this story.

1. When they get around to talking about the voucher bill and the plans to make Green Bay eligible for them, notice that Ellis and the others say that vouchers need to be contained to high-poverty areas (this is why Ellis wants to only have the voucher schools be in the Preble district, because it "has all the poor people" vs. the other GB schools). So the legislators admit that poverty is a huge factor in low school performance. It's not the teachers, not the union situation, not the kids. IT IS POVERTY that is the source of this problem.

But God forbid the GOP ever do anything to deal with poverty, in fact, these same legislators complain about the cost of programs such as Badger Care, technical colleges and mass transit that help to reduce the chances of people going into poverty, and reducing the chances of poverty-stricken people to get access to jobs that reduce the chances of them coming out of poverty. They'd much rather get big money from Scooter Jensen and the voucher lobby and send kids (and the state money that follows) to the operators of those schools instead of doing something that might be effective and reduce the "problem' that leads to voucher schools being discussed in the first place.

2. Vos's comment about "$200 million in venture capital" for voucher schools is interesting, because if these guys have $200 million to throw around, what's the need to use taxpayer dollars for private schools? (Answer: because this isn't about saving money or better outcomes, it's about sending taxpayer money to campaign contributors with no accountability for what happens to those dollars). I'll also remind you that Vos was the guy who took $147 million away from the state's general fund in the most recent budget (which funds public schools, among other programs) and sent it off to the Transportation Fund, to reward his buddies in the Road Builders' lobby. And Vos is the same guy who complains that the state can't follow the Obama Administration's order to raise the Family Care caps because he claims the state doesn't have extra money to pay for it. Well Robin, if you stopped paying off your campaign contributors with taxpayer dollars, I think we'd have plenty of money to solve these problems, and with much more efficient results than the waste you promote.

So this video is another excellent example of GOP complicity and cynicism, where they claim to be stewards of the taxpayer dollar and people concerned over less-than-ideal outcomes in education. But the reality is that the GOP knows the real problems are poverty and inequality of opportunity, but taking the steps to solve the problems wouldn't get them paid, and therefore, they want nothing to do with coming up with a real solution.