Where's the data in this state?

I've hinted at this previously, but there has been a suspicious blackout of certain economic information in recent weeks here in Fitzwalkerstan. The information on Quarter revenues for Fiscal Year 2016 was slipped out at the same time that the State Legislature was voting to legalize corruption and money-laundering earlier this month- 3 weeks behind previous years. Those subpar numbers have pretty much taken away any fiscal cushion that might have existed at the start of this two-year budget, although obviously there is plenty of time left for that trajectory to change (for good or for bad).

But the bigger issue is the secrecy, and selectivity in releasing the information. The same has occurred with the state's monthly report of Receipts and Disbursments, which you can find on this page. Usually this report is out on the first week of a given month, but the Waker DOA haven't released either the September or October report as of today. Is it because there are some bad hints that this report might give, and throw the spotlight even stronger onto the economic failures of the WisGOPs over the last few years? That's what the blink test tells me.

We are promised to get more state data later this week when the monthly jobs report for October comes out this Thursday. But even then, the Walker folks will change what time of day that information hits, depending on whether it is good (usually earlier in the day) or bad (later in the afternoon). It's kind of an odd and fun little game to play, if you're a silly geek like me, to figure out the angle before the numbers are released.

Of course, if this group doesn't want to release data to the public, then I'll just have to make up the assumptions myself, and I'd encourage others to do so as well. Because I'd say "no news is bad news" when it comes to economic reports in the Age of Fitzwalkerstan.