Walker Admin props up GDP report that shows Wis falling short

Late last week, the US Bureau of Economic Analysis put out the GDP by state, not only for the 4th quarter of 2017, but also for the whole year. And the 4th quarter results were quite good from Wisconsin.

In 4th Quarter 2017, Wisconsin real GDP grew 3.1%, ranking 8th in the country! #WIWorking @WisconsinMC @CROWE_UW pic.twitter.com/n3YOQDrkMn

— Wis Dept of Revenue (@wi_revenue) May 4, 2018

That's pretty good, but I got a question. Why is the Wisconsin Department of Revenue copying in the right-wing hacks at WMC and at the Koch/Bradley-funded CROWE school at UW-Madison? It's almost like they're working together, and I don't think our tax dollars are supposed to go to spread right-wing propaganda as part of the Walker 2018 campaign.

It's also interesting that the Wisconsin DOR decided to post about the good 4th quarter numbers, but left out the year-long GDP figures for 2017. And they don't make Wisconsin look as great by comparison.



That 1.7% is below the US rate of growth of 2.3% for 2017, and was only 5th out of the 7 Midwestern states.

So why is there such a disparity between Wisconsin's strong Q4 results and our lagging full-year 2017 figures? Because WISCONSIN WAS IN RECESSION AT THE END OF 2016 AND START OF 2017. Wisconsin's GDP growth has never been that great since Walker and WisGOP came to power in 2011, but it slightly declined from Q3 2016 through Q2 2017, and it was only been in the last 6 months of last year that Wisconsin's economic growth resumed.



We'll see if those rosy GDP growth figures hold up as the "gold standard" jobs report gets registered for the end of 2017 and start of 2018 over the next few months (given previously lower revisions, be VERY skeptical). But it's noteworthy that the Walker Administration thought it was their job to promote that with tax-funded communications. And it's far from the first time these guys have done that.