Jake's Economic TA Funhouse

Pretty pictures about an ugly Wisconsin economy

2012-01-26T18:09:00.009-06:00

I'm gearing up for IU-UW hoops tonight, so no time to go into all the John Doe details at this time. Instead, I'll give you some pictures that illustrate that Scott Walker has cost this state more than just Wisconsin's previous reputation for realtively clean government.

The Philly Fed released it's 3-month coincident index today, reflecting each state's economy from the end of September to the end of December. You'll notice Wisconsin shining in bright red....and as usual, that's not a good thing. (click for bigger pictures)
We may have gone down further than last month, and we greatly lag a growing U.S. economy, but at least we aren't worst in the lower 48 anymore! We're all the way up to 46!

3-month coincident index, Philly Fed October- December 2011
-1.11% Alaska
-1.10% Rhode Island
-0.79% Minnesota
-0.66% Wisconsin
+0.77% U.S.

The next picture really puts the lie to Scott Walker's State of the State theme of "going in the right direction." In addition taking credit for the January job increases of 10,100 private sector jobs, (which is 2/3 of ALL job growth for 2011) and notm mentioning that the growth occurred before he "dropped the bomb," Walker tried to again compare Wisconsin favorably with our neighbors to the South, bragging about the lower unemployment rate and "lack of debt" that Wisconsin allegedly has over Illinois.

Uh Scotty, I wouldn't quite talk up how great our state is doing compared to our neighbors. Because in the Midwest, Illinois and 2 other states passed us since your budget took effect, as has the growth rate for the U.S. as a whole.

See how Wisconsin bends downward starting in June 2011? Minnesota was at least rising in Summer before it started dropping after September - not us. We're now the worst-recovering state in the Midwest since our recession ended in October 2009, and we were holding our own until this Summer. So Scott Walker's right, he's definitely changed the direction of this state economically. But it sure isn't in any kind of way that would help the average Wisconsinite.

I'm not sure who he thinks he can peddle these deceptions about a "growing, debtless" economy to, but it isn't to anyone that knows the facts, that's for sure.

State of the State- Wisconsin is still Number One!

2012-01-25T20:08:00.003-06:00

I was waiting for the state report from the BLS which finally came out this week before I commented on another month of Wisconsin job losses in December. But again, it confirms that Wisconsin is staying on top in the U.S.A....for job losses since Walker's budget became law 6 months ago.

Top job losses, July-December 2011
Wisconsin - 35,600
Missouri - 19,200
Georgia -9,400
Rhode Island -6,800
Montana -2,300

And the BLS followed up with a year-long report showing that Wisconsin fell down to 44th among the states in private sector job creation for the first full year of Fitzwalkerstan.

Yet Walker's State of the State address is titled "Wisconsin is Heading in the Right Direction." Between the horrible job performance and Fitz's warning about the next budget being worse than this one's, how can Walker believe that this is true. Of course, the answer is that he doesn't believe, but that he thinks he can get over on enough dead-end rubes that he can trick them into voting him back into office.

And despite what that absurd Marquette Law poll says today, he is wrong. All we have to do is stay steadfast and beam our message of truth over the right-wing lie machine. Spin may work for winning arguments, but lies eventually catch up to you, no matter who you are. And lying against simple math isn't a good way to get anyone's trust.

Marquette Law poll says Walker leads with Baggers, old suburbanites

2012-01-25T17:25:00.004-06:00

Sometimes you see a headline and your immediate reaction is "Bullshit!" And that's exactly what I did today when I saw the a Marquette Law School poll that Scott Walker led all listed Dem challengers in a recent poll, and that Walker had jumped to a 51% approval rating. I understand that sometimes living in Madison can be a bit of a bubble, but I've done plenty of traveling around the state the last 2 months and seen little to zero outward support of standing behind Walker in a large amount of communities, so I tend to be suspicious when I see numbers that show Walker to have better approval ratings than President Obama.

And it turns out with good reason, because the poll is garbage, with fixed numbers and bad samples. The Marquette people even admit they fiddling with the figures on their "methodology" page.

...In telephone surveys it is common for potential respondents who are younger and have fewer years of formal education to exhibit higher rates of non-response resulting in these groups being under-represented in the sample. To compensate for these non-response effects the sample is weighted to bring sample characteristsics into line with the population values.

In other words, the pollsters had to change their actual numbers of the responses to make up for the fact that they didn't ask a representative group of people.

And I'm sure this'll stun you, but if you look on Page 2 of the methodology, you'll find the people they asked were disproportionately conservative, from the Walker-supporting 262, old, and on landlines. For example, 76.4% of those who answered the phone were 45 or older, and over 40% were past 60, so Marquette had to change its numbers by changing the raw totals for both these groups, and the ones under 45. In addition, 77% of the respondees answered on their landlines, and the Marquette people only deflated that down to 73.2% weight. Now do you really believe that 3/4 of the people in Wisconsin answer their land line first, and talk to complete strangers? Well, maybe if they're shut-ins, elderly, or live way out in the sticks, but not most people with jobs, lives and interests in metro areas with size.

Geography is another major fail. It's no secret that suburban Milwaukee is the area most likely to support Walker, and the Madison area and City of Milwaukee is most likely to vote him out. But again, the suburbs/ Milwaukee DMA (which brings in Racine, Kenosha among other places) got more respondees than they warrant (31% vs. 24% of the Wisconsin votes in 2010), while Madison and outstate were a good 2-3% less than their vote share in 2010.

Even the people they could get in the City of Milwaukee were a shaky group, because the poll's crosstabs of Milwaukee's vote in a Barrett-Walker rematch have Barrett winning 62-31, which sounds OK until you realize that Barrett beat Walker 74-25 in Milwaukee in 2010. So are you telling me that Walker would GAIN 18 points on Barrett after Scotty has tried to dienfranchise Milwaukee minorities with voter ID, and his collective bargaining stances would probably cost him the endorsements and votes of police and firefighters that backed him in 2010? Think about it for 2 seconds and you know those numbers are seriously flawed, and you feel like an ESPN analyst and say "C'MON MAN!"

And the Milwaukee poll results go to the biggest failure of this poll - oversampling of Tea Baggers and other right-wingers. As a starting point, let's use CBS's 2010 exit poll of the Feingold-Johnson Senate race, and figure the voters would be the same for the Walker-Barrett race that was also voted on at that time. At the height of TeaBaggery in an election filled with motivated Republicans who saw a chance to win their first big statewide elections in the 21st Century, we had the following ideological breakdowns, and support for the Tea Party:

Ideology, 2010 election
Conservative 36%
Moderate 43%
Liberal 21%

Tea Party, 2010 election
Support 36%
Oppose 32%
Neutral 29%

Now compare those figures with this poll.

Ideology of poll responders (those who answered question)
Conservative/ Very Conservative 44%
Moderate 34%
Liberal/ Very Liberal 22%

Tea Party, poll responders
Favorable 33%
Unfavorable 41%
No Opinion/ Neutral 26%

So they've basically flip-flopped conservative and moderate numbers in Wisconsin's voting population. Well, no kidding that Walker leads if you overstate conservatives by 8% at the expense of moderates, especially when he loses moderates by 6-10% in this poll (that's probably light, I've seen other polls that have Walker disapproval around 60-70% with moderates). Get the same numbers but an accurate moderate vs. conservative number, and this thing is a toss-up if not Walker trailing.

And the Tea Party stat is especially BS, because most national polls have Bagger support around 26-30%, but non-support over 60%. But in this poll the favorable/unfavorable bi-normial is more like 45% aprove, 55% disapprove. But that's who picks up and answers the phone when strange people call, so instead of the pollsters using an ounce of common sense and realize that they've overloaded their poll with Baggers that will make Walker look better than he really is, they just shrugged and went with the numbers. This is either negligent, or it's intentionally trying to make news by producing a story line of "people still support Walker" that doesn't exist.

This is the reason I worry over polls like this, because when outlets like Madison.com just run with the numbers without doing any analysis of where the numbers came from, it favors Walker, and leads to flawed coverage and opinions. The 2010 polls in the Feingold-Johnson race consistently overstated Johnson's lead, and both that race and the Governor's race ended up being 4-5 points closer than most polls on Election Night. You think the casual citizen who likes to "be on the side of the winner" might have been more likely to vote for either Feingold or Barrett if they thought the race was a virtual toss-up instead of a 8-10 point GOP lead? You bet.

That's why you have to hammer these polls, because you know the media won't have the guts or time to, and good news from fake polls gives the Walker folks enough of an alibi that can allow them to try to steal a close election with more Kathy Nickolaus-style shenanigans. We need to be vigilant at all turns, and make sure fake stories and faulty polls don't get made into a media reality.

P.S.: And We Are Wisconsin illustrates how you respond, by going right to the JS and pointing out why it's garbage. In addition to my point on oversampling conservatives, they point out that union households are underrepresented vs. the 2010 exit poll (if anything, they'll vote more), and they call out the collective bargaining question (the poll says "limits" on collective bargaining- Walker ABOLISHED it. Big difference).

We need this type of rapid response to propaganda like this. Well done, We Are Wisconsin.

Did Fitz just give away a secret?

2012-01-24T17:22:00.002-06:00

Just got time for a quick note before we take advantage of Madison Restuarant Week and hit the El Dorado Grill. I couldn't help but notice this exchange from the state Senate, via wispolitics.com

Fitzgerald then challenged the Dem senators considering a run for guv to use the chamber floor to launch their campaigns and lay out what they plan to do

"I'll tell you what I think you're going to do. You’re going to raise taxes," Fitzgerald said. "If you think this budget was scary, wait until the next one." (emphasis mine)

Fitzgerald said he hopes Legislative Fiscal Bureau Director Bob Lang will tell lawmakers within the next few weeks that somehow income and sales tax collection have grown compared to a year ago.

"But I'm not optimistic because that's where the national economy is," Fitzgerald said. "I'm not sure what happened in December, but I hope retail sales will change that."

Hmmm, seems to me that Fitz just admitted that the Walker/ WisGOP budget really isn't balanced, and that we're looking at quite the deficit for the next 2 years.

Oh yeah, the Walker people admitted it themselves to the Obama Administration last month, when they said we had a GAAP deficit of $2.99 billion this year and $3.02 billion next year. At the same, Walker was running around the country and polluting airwaves with ads that said the budget was "balanced" without raising taxes (neither of which is clearly true). Of course, the GAAP deficit was brought up to the Feds because the Walker boys were trying to drop tens of thousands off of Badger Care, so in typical Walker Admin. fashion, but they couldn't do so unless they actually had a deficit necessitating the cuts. In other words, Walker and WisGOP are fudging numbers whenever it seemed to get whatever idological goal they wanted accomplished.

So Fitz's little outburst has let the cat out of the bag in full view- the Walker budget was filled with one-time gimmicks and rosy scenarios that were not going to come close to balancing the budget in 2013-2015 in real life. And given the huge job losses and funny money the current budget had, this one isn't going to be balanced when Lang and the LFB release their numbers this week.

And the last lie that Walker can cling to will go down in flames. Fitz's little outburst should be all over Dem ads for the next few months...including against Fitz himself.

Are your property taxes down? Better ask why!

2012-01-23T20:24:00.003-06:00

In the Blogging Blue rundown of the little "Stand with Walker (Without Walker)" rally in Tosa, there's a gallery of pictures of some of the clowns that attended. A common theme has something to do with bragging about their 2012 property taxes dropping some nominal amount, and the Wisconsin Taxpayers Alliance followed up earlier this month saying that the 0.3% average property tax increase is the lowest in 15 years. Well, that's all nice and kindly, but as usual, the raw numbers don't tell the reality.

And that reality came shining through in today's year-end report from the Wisconsin Realtors Association. It showed that the median home price had dropped by 6.4% statewide in 2011, and 11.1% from November to December. Worse, median home price sales fell by more than 10% in 3 of out every 10 counties throughout Wisconsin in 2011, including 29% in the Northern tip of the state in Iron County, and 17.2% in Racine County, and 18.2% in Milwaukee County. When you're having home value drops like this, I'd sure hope your property taxes go down some. I mean, when we make less money and pay fewer taxes as a result of that lower income (like lots of us that work for the state will this year), we won't celebrate that Walker gave us a tax cut, will we? Of course not, but these Walker wingnuts were doing just that with their stupid little signs and sheltered lives.

And if you're home value didn't drop or wasn't re-assessed, well then chances are that you faced a massive hit this year, even if you didn't get a raise yourself. Check out this story from Mount Pleasant, right in the middle of Robin Vos's district,where a retired truck driver saw his property taxes go up 20% on his relatively modest home. Hey suburban Racine, how's your penchant for that voting on cultural issues and "sticking it to them lib'ruls" thing working out for ya? Like how your taxes are going under an ALEC Cabin Boy like Wee Wobby Vos?

And that screw-job will be even worse next year, as one-time stunts like the Act 10 "tools" are already used up, while the Walker/ WisGOP cuts to local governments and schools remain. You're already seeing districts warn about more problems for next year, from the losses in the tiny Lake Holcombe district in Chippewa County, to layoffs in Lodi to big changes in Manitowoc, to major retirements in the Appleton area, and multi-million dollar deficits next year in Oshkosh, leading to an absurd proposal where teachers teach more classes for the same pay.

Guess what'll happen to your home values as the job losses and public sector retirements continue? Your home sure won't go up, so good luck getting anything out of that investment as long as we have Walker World. So who cares if your property taxes went down a miniscule amount in 2011? Given Wisconsin's property trends and destruction of a major home price stabilizer in our previously high-qualirty public schools, I would hope your taxes did, or else you're getting a massive double-whammy.

That $18 in property tax savings can't be worth it to you though, can it?

If I say I'll create 500 jobs, can I have some tax credits?

2012-01-22T11:25:00.004-06:00

One the reasons why Gov. Walker seemed so blearly-eyed when he was being destroyed at last week's MLK celebration is partly because he's been jetting off all over the country to get campaign contributions from oligarchs instead of staying in Wisconsin. But he did have time to do some in-state business, as Scotty used the state plane to run up to Superior that same day to announce that Kestrel Aircraft would use large amounts of state help to locate a plant in Superior. Kestrel is a glorified start-up looking to make small, luxury planes, and originally planned to be in Maine, but a look at Maine reports tells you why they backed out- they couldn't get enough taxpayer dollars out of Maine.

When the company first proposed setting up at Brunswick Landing, Kestrel was offering just the kind of jobs Maine wants. But Kestrel also needed up to 100 million dollars to start up production. And it turned out Maine wasn't able to help the company find that money quickly enough to land all the jobs. Wisconsin was able to provide the needed financing, so Kestrel went West.

Economic Development Commissioner George Gervais says Maine was very competitive with Wisconsin - except for one area. Kestrel was counting on a federal tax credit program called New Markets to provide the financing needed to start up production. A private, non-profit economic development agency called CEI manages the New Markets program in Maine, and Gervais says CEI had assured Kestrel it would provide the company all the tax credits it needed to raise money. But it only approved $20 million in credits, far less that the company required.

Wisconsin reportedly provided up to $90 million in New Markets credits. Gervais blames CEI for the loss of Kestrel. But CEI says that's not true. The agency says it never promised Kestrel more than the $20 million in tax credits the board approved last year. Charlie Spies of CEI says that was clear to Kestrel all along. He also says CEI has provided financing for at least one other company setting up at Brunswick Landing.

State senator Stan Gersofsky says he also thinks Kestrel would have stayed if it had gotten all the tax credits it expected

Basically, Kestrel and other investors will get major federal tax write-offs for going in on this project, and the state of Wisconsin is gambling a large amount of their projected allotment on this one project. If you look at the New Markets tax credit 2010 award announcement, you'll see that there is only so much money to go around, and that the $90 million is just an expected amount that Wisconsin will win. What if they don't get all of the $90 million they think they'll get in the coming years? Hmmm...

And it's worth mentioning that this Kestrel project was chosen by Walker and WEDC instead of many others in low-income areas that could use the help. It's a classic case of picking winners and losers, and you sure hope this wasn't done out of complete desperation by the Walker folks, given the recall election and the "50th in the nation" status on jobs.

You certainly hope there's not a backroom pay-for-play deal involved in it, like I highly suspect in another tax credit/ expansion announcement this week. Tim O'Brien homes is co-owned by current U.S. Senate candidate Mark Neumann, and announced plans to set up a second office in Madison, with a possible (key word) addition of 200 jobs over the next two years. Of course, the same announcement mentions the head of the Wisconsin Builders Association will run the Madison division of O'Brien Homes, and the Builders Association/ Building a Better Wisconsin PAC has thrown $7,000 to Walker in the last year, and the Realtors PAC has thrown another $15,000.

And gee, who was up there at yesterday's "Stand with Walker Rally" in Tosa? That's right, Mark Neumann, supporting someone he was (rightfully) calling out 2 years ago. Guess everyone's got a price, eh Mark?

Oh, and here's another one of our "job creators" putting our taxpayer dollars to good use- Spectrum Brands. Looks like Spectrum is using their state loan and tax credits to move its headquarters from Madison to Middleton late next year. (They also get a nice amount of TIF write-offs on their property taxes from Middleton. I'll try to contain your shock at that one.)

You may recall that earlier this month we found out that Spectrum gave its CEO a stock-option laden compensation package worth as much as $13.7 million as a reward for losing $75 million in fiscal 2011. Of course, it's a lot easier for a stock to go up when its getting free tax write-offs from the state and a local government. And who picks up the difference in taxes in the meantime, until this Trojan Horse actually nets something down the road? That's right, you and I.

Cool deal, huh? I think I'm going to announce that I'm opening an amusement park called "Jake's Funhouse" near Olin-Turville Park in Madison, which I'm certain, CERTAIN, will net a few hundred jobs in a few years. I just need the financing and tax credits to get it off the ground. Think WEDC and the Walker boys will float me a few million bones in credits or loans to get me rolling? Or do I need to ante up to Friends of Scott Walker first?

Wisconsin revenues holding for now- thanks Obama!

2012-01-21T13:46:00.002-06:00

I was struck by an interesting quote from Walker DWD Secretary Reggie Newson in the most recent excuse-filled monthly jobs release, where he mentions "higher state sales and withholding tax collections" as proof of some kind of growth in Wisconsin, regardless of what the 6 months of job losses are telling us.

Coincidentally, the Department of Revenue released their December tax collections late Friday afternoon, and it does seem like tax collections have held up for the first half of the 2011-2012 fiscal year. So far, individual income taxes are indeed up 5.5% for the year, and sales taxes are up 3.7%. This puts income taxes above the 2.5% increase figured in the 2011-2012 budget, and sales taxes are in the neighborhood of the 3.91% rise for this year. So at first glance, it seems that perhaps that $500 million budget deficit I predicted due to low revenues might not show up, as revenues have stayed strong.

But, as usual with this Administration, things aren't a good as they appear at first glance. To start, Newson crediting Walker policies for the strong income tax growth is very misleading, because as usual, we need to look at national figures to get the full story. Daniel Gross at Yahoo Finance tipped me off to the fact that U.S. tax revenues are on the upswing, and are on track to reduce the deficit, perhaps down below $1 trillion (it's still not enough, but it's a start). So I went to the U.S. Monthly Treasury Statement, and took a look at what federal taxes have done for the last 6 months, to get a nationwide perspective. Once I crunched the numbers for Federal Income and Corporate taxes, Wisconsin's increase didn't seem so impressive.

Change in Tax Revenues July-Dec. 2010 vs. July-Dec. 2011
Individual income tax U.S. +10.08%, Wis. +5.55%
Corporate tax U.S. +7.44%, Wis. +3.98%

As you can see, the U.S. tax collections for individuals and corporations are growing twice as fast as Wisconsin's, so if you're going to credit anyone for the good revenue figures, CREDIT OBAMA. This is especially true when you realize Wisconsin individual income tax rates were not really changed at all by Walker and the WisGOPs (corporates got the breaks, not people), so it's quite funny to see that an Administration that seems to want to take on the White House at every turn is relying on them for keeping their "balanced" budget somewhat solvent.

And by the way, Walker and the WisGOPs have a long way to go if they want to stay on track for 2012. While the numbers look good when you compare July-December 2010 and 2011, you need to remember that January-June 2011 were huge months for Wisconsin revenues under the Doyle/Dem budget (you may recall the surprise "surplus" that showed up in May, proving we were never "broke" and didn't have a massive budget deficit).

Wisconsin fiscal year 2011 1st 6 months vs. last 6
Individual income - $3.147 Billion 1st 6, $3.534 Billion last 6 (+12.3%)
Sales Taxes -$1.736 Billion 1st 6, $2.373 Billion last 6 (+36.7%)
Corporate Taxes - $363.97 Million 1st 6, $489.10 Million last 6 (+34.4%)
Excise Taxes - $319.02 Million 1st 6, $401.83 last 6(+26.0%).
(Quick sidelight, excise taxes are the one thing that is down vs. 2010 - almost 1% the last 6 months. Start drinking and smoking, fellow Cheeseheads!)

So we have a lot of catch-up that needs to hit in order to reach those year-long goals over the next 6 months, and we need income tax growth of a god 6-7% vs. the last 6 months of 2011 just to reach the budgeted amounts of $6.868 Billion. Given that 3.5%-inflation indexed brackets automatically reduce taxes collected on flat paychecks for 2012 (hey, there's your Walker tax cut!), this seems like a very tough number to reach. Sales taxes require even more of a push, at 37.28%. And given the amount of post-Holiday sales items that keep getting emailed to me (and the Packers collapse against the Giants), good luck with coming anywhere close to that.

Let's keep an eye on these revenue numbers, especially when the LFB releases its new budget figures in the next 10 days. These projections could play a major role in denying the last big claim the Walker folks are clinging to - that they "balanced the budget."

(Oh wait, the Walker folks admitted to the Feds they haven't balanced the budget either.)

Unemployment claims- the trend ain't Walker's friend (geeky)

2012-01-21T12:13:00.005-06:00

Given the recent unemployment claim figures and job figures in both the U.S. and the state of Wisconsin, I wanted to take a look and see how we were shaping up vs. the rest of the nation when it came to new filings for unemployment. My interest was especially peaked with Thursday's DOL release, which not only showed good news for Barack Obama and the U.S. overall, but possibly Scott Walker as well.

In the week ending January 14, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 352,000, a decrease of 50,000 from the previous week's revised figure of 402,000. The 4-week moving average was 379,000, a decrease of 3,500 from the previous week's revised average of 382,500...

The advance number of actual initial claims under state programs, unadjusted, totaled 521,613 in the week ending January 14, a decrease of 124,606 from the previous week. There were 549,688 initial claims in the comparable week in 2011..... the largest decreases were in Wisconsin (-7,657), Michigan (-5,208), Iowa (-4,675), New Jersey (-4,667), and Kentucky (-3,577).

Of course, this was a week after Wisconsin and Michigan were the top 2 for increased claims, so some of this is reversion to the norm, but it's still worthy of mention.

So given that seasonality and other factors make the weekly claims number a bit volatile, I wanted to take a look at how Wisconsin has fared vs. the U.S. on a year-long trend under the policies of Jim Doyle and the Dems, as well as Scott Walker and the GOP. So I took the yearly changes for this week in 2010 (reflecting Doyle/ Dem) and 2011 (reflecting Walker/ GOP), and then graphed it out. I used unadjusted claims for both the U.S. and Wisconsin, because that's what's used for state figures, and then took at look at how much Wisconsin changed vs. the U.S. in new unemployment claims.

In other words, a number below zero is good news for Wisconsin, because it means our claims dropped more than the U.S. did (on a % basis), and a number above zero means we're filling out more claims than the rest of the U.S. So here's what I got. The blue trendline reflects Doyle/ Dems, the red one reflects Walker/ GOP. (Editor's note: the huge jump at the start of 2009-2010 is mostly due to huge public sector job reductions in local 2010 budgets, and is a clear outlier that gets smoothed out within 2 weeks)

change in new unemployment claims, Wisconsin vs. U.S.

As you can see, the Doyle/Dem trend line dives below the U.S. rate in the first 2 months of 2010, and then consistently is 10-20% below the U.S. changes by the middle of the 2010, showing that Wisconsin was holding up better than the country, which at the time was just starting to show economic signs of recovery after the Great Recession. In fact, Wisconsin only did worse than the U.S. in 2 out of 44 weeks after mid-February 2010, and not surprisingly, Wisconsin averaged around 4,000 private sector jobs a month in Jim Doyle's last year in office.

So Walker and WisGOP found themselves in a winning situation at the start of 2011, which shows in red line being down around -20% vs. the U.S. when he and his boys took over in January, and it showed the nearly 16,000 jobs created in Wisconsin in the first 2 months of 2011. But then the Walker policies took over, and when Walker "dropped the bomb" in February was also the time when the red and blue lines cross on the chart, showing that his Administration wasn't faring as well as the Doyle/Dems. Right after the bomb dropped, Wisconsin was above 0 for 6 of the next 9 weeks, and were trending worse than the U.S. for the first time in over a year.

After gaining a bit of ground in the Spring (remember the fluke jobs report that Walker overpublicized despite them knowing it was a one-time deal?) , the red line had retreated back toward -10%. But notice it never reached as far down as the Doyle/Dem line , and once the Walker budget took effect on July 1, the red line started kicking back up again. Now, we've been back above 0 for 5 of the last 9 weeks, and the trendline had kicked back above 0 by the end of December.

Not that this is big news that Wisconsin has gone backward while the American economy has picked up steam in the last 6 months, but it's another chart to figure and go back to, because the action from the first 2 weeks of 2012 and Walker's shortsighted refunding of federal money is sure to keep his red lines trending up, which means our state will continue to trend down....at least until we find a way to turn that red line back into something like the blue one.

Stephen Colbert > Chuck Todd

2012-01-20T18:12:00.005-06:00

I'd like to thank Chuck Todd for showing exactly why the D.C. kiss-ass media continues to do the public a disservice, and Chuck outs himself as a classic Villager. Todd complained last night that Stephen Colbert's character and recent establishment of his own Colbert Super PAC was hurting Republicans because his act made the real ones look stupid. He also complained that it was inappropriate for Colbert to testify before Congress in character, and that comedians like him make people lose confidence in a political election system that's far too serious to not take seriously.

He [Todd] cautioned the media to be "careful" about amplifying Colbert's message, and said it should not be treated as "shtick" or satire.

"What is his real agenda here?" he said. "Is it to educate the public about the dangers of money and politics, and what's going on? Or is it simply to marginalize the Republican Party? I think if I were a Republican candidate I would be concerned about that."

Todd concluded by saying that he "idolized" American politics and didn't want to see people become more cynical about them.

Yes Chuck, because a presidential election system that decides to treat people like Batshit Bachmann and Herman "9-9-9" Cain as legitimate candidates and refuses to call out Mitt Romney for flip-flopping or deceiving on....well pretty much any issue is absolute high-class royalty that should be given the utmost respect. At least Cain gets the joke, he and Colbert held a rally in Charleston this afternoon, and I bet a lot more people turned out for that than most other events in that silly state this week.

Colbert continues on a roll, just killing it in an appearance on "Morning Joe" in South Carolina today. The answers from Colbert about how his Super PAC is actually separate from his candidacy despite having the same people working out the ads and money-funneling are tremendous, because our media will never ask those real questions of candidates being led by the Koch PACs and Karl Rove PACs of the world. And there's probably more legitimate answers given from "Candidate" Colbert in that interview than you get in the typical debate, because the "legitimate" candidates are given focus-group tested crap that avoids giving realistic answers to our tough problems.

Chuck Todd's whiny protestations illustrate exactly why Comedy Central has more legitimacy than the "legitimate" media. Chuck's big concern is that people like Colbert will delegitimize this game that he and the politicians he covers play, and that it makes folks like him on the "serious" media look bad. Well Chucky, you look bad because YOU ARE DOING YOUR JOB BADLY. You are more concerned with maintaining a two-party system that allows you a lot of media attention and (most importantly) ACCESS to people in power. And that's why you and the other D.C. media keep up this false equivalency game that gives two opinions equal time, regardless of which may be true and which may not, and never calls out the clearly corrupt and money-influenced system that we have, because your network (and indirectly, your salary) gets a lot of income from maintaining the corrupt system, and you don't dare bite the hands that feed you.

On the other hand, Colbert has no problems in hammering his subjects, as evidenced in what is still about his best performance - in front of George Bush at the White House Correspondents' Dinner in 2006, and exposing the media for not questioning Bush's BS much earlier.

In other words, comics like Stephen Colbert and Jon Stewart call out the BS existence that people like Chuck Todd and other D.C. media relies on, and comedians like them are able to use judgment to mock those who deserve to be mocked, instead of being a media member that kisses up in exchange for grabbing the next big interview that'll propel a Chuck Todd-type "Journalist" into further fame.

We see through your game Chuck, and this country is far too important to us to allow it to be debased and destroyed by gravy-training "serious" media members like you.

Picture this reality

2012-01-19T22:52:00.003-06:00

I'll go more in-depth on another month of job losses later this weekend, but in the meantime, I think this picture from Political Heat tells it all in the meantime.

And yes, I'm with the Marquette County voter at Blue Cheddar- Peter Barca, you're the guy to get Wisconsin back in the Blue, and back to trending up.

Walker self-absorption and hyprocisy is destroying our health

2012-01-19T17:33:00.007-06:00

I've long figured out that Scott Walker and DHS Secretary Dennis Smith were up to no good when it came to helping Wisconsinites get quality and affordable health insurance. From the deceptions on a state report on the positives of Obama's health care reform, to misjudging a federal disability rule and costing Wisconsin millions, to the Family Care fiasco, to the (intentional?) overstating of the Medicaid deficit as an excuse to cut it further than needed. But the last 7 days have taken this evil treatment of health care in Wisconsin to new levels.

It started with the hiring of an an oncology nurse to take over the state's emergency public health management, and then added a former insurance industry lobbyist and another state's liason to other lobbyists to be the DHS' top lawyer. Bad enough on its face, but here come the real kickers on these hires.

The oncology nurse ran a small group of hospitals and only came to prominence by writing an article for the Heritage Foundation, a bastion of right-wing hackery that previously employed...Dennis Smith. Scary enough for the affirmative action hire, but then you realize both come from TEXASS! "But Jake, shouldn't we try to get the best from around the country to come here and make policy?" I don't necessarily disagree, but the best in the country when it comes to health policy and outcomes do not come from TEXASS. As Table 6 of this page from the Census Bureau will show you, Wisconsin was Number 3 in the nation in fewest percentage of people with no health insurance in the most recent survey, while TEXASS WAS DEAD LAST. Why should we ever be copying the people who have failed in taking care of their own?

Because that's what this Administration wants - to turn us into a corporately-owned two-tier society like the Lone Star State, instead of keeping Wisconsin as the high-quality, high-service place that we know and love. And the ultimate slap in the face came last night, when Walker announced he was turning down $37 million in federal assistance toward allowing Wisconsin to form their own Obamacare insurance exchange, and might need to send back another $1 million to the feds as a result of the move. In addition to being stupid fiscally, and remarkably similar to Walker's short-sighted refusal of high-speed rail money (which is now costing Wisconsin millions more), it also leaves Wisconsin wildly vulnerable to having no plan in place once 2013 and 2014 roll around, and will probably leave us with a system that doesn't fit the unique needs of a state that already does a good job in covering its citizens. (Edit: Turns out that it's actually, $49 million they're blowing, because it includes BadgerCare Plus improvements that Walker had previously supported. It really is just like the train screw-up, where it costs us more to get less.)

And the worst part of this turning down of Obamacare exchange money? The blatant hypocrisy from the Administration on the subject of health care competition. A common talking point from the Walker folks is how their school reforms allow districts to shop from competing health plans and save money (no matter how bullshit and deceptive their spin may be). OK, great idea as long as the insurance companies continue to offer a better package to districts and enrollees after the first year or two. But then why do they have such an issue with Obamacare health exchanges which do the same damn thing by offering choices for individuals and small businesses?

Because the Walker boys don't give a damn about health care outcomes of individuals and small businesses. They're all about 1. scoring political points on talk radio, so they'll use school district health plan competition as a way to bash WEA and teachers' unions, with any cost-savings being a very secondary positive, and 2. They want to push more potential clients onto the rolls of huge insurance companies and allow those companies to rack up even higher profits, with no intent of improvement for care, costs or outcomes for the average inidividual or business owner. THAT'S what these moves are all about - politics and decimating the Wisconsin health care safety net in favor of big-time blood money for the corporate insurer campaign contributors.

Now does it make sense that Walker was hitting up disgraced former AIG exec Hank Greenberg for cash on Park Avenue this week? Because both guys are all about profit at all measures, without regard for any effects or injury to others. It's sickening, and yet another reason why these people must be removed as soon as possible.

This recall just isn't going to win itself!

2012-01-17T19:01:00.004-06:00

Obviously, this is an historic day up here. I figured there'd be a lot of signatures to get Scott Walker, Becky Kleefisch and 4 GOP Senators, and it would exceed the threshholds to force an election by a convincing amount. But ONE MILLION SIGNATURES??? That even went past my best expectations. Not that I didn't know this movement was real, but it shows how wide the support is- it's not just a bunch of hippies on Willy Street.

But you know, this is merely Step 1, and we still have to actually defeat Walker in the inevitable election later this year. And Walker continued on his defense of his seat in the Governor's Chair by.... retreating into Bubbleworld.

Walker was in New York on Tuesday, attending a fundraiser. Ciara Matthews, his campaign spokeswoman, said he was "completely booked for the day" and unavailable for comment. But the governor did make time to speak to conservative radio hosts Charlie Sykes and Rush Limbaugh.

Guess we know who Scotty's listening to, and they sure ain't anyone that works for a living in the state of Wisconsin. But hey, at least the NYC oligarch he's getting cash from is a legitimate job creator, right?...Oh wait, you're telling me it's Maurice "Hank" Greenberg, who did this in 2009?

The Securities and Exchange Commission said [September 6] that former American International Group Inc. CEO Maurice "Hank" Greenberg agreed to pay a $15 million fine to settle fraud charges.

The charges are tied to an accounting scandal earlier this decade at AIG that led to Greenberg's ouster in 2005. The following year, AIG paid more than $1.6 billion to settle charges of improper accounting.

The case is unrelated to the government bailout of AIG< which is in the process of trying to sell off assets to pay off the $182.5 billion in loans it has received since last September.

Hmmm, I'm sure THAT will help Walker seem like he's not an oligarhcial puppet that's out of touch with the average Wisconsinite. Maybe saying "I'm not with Scott Walker" IS going to be all a Dem needs.

MLK and speaking truth to power in 2012

2012-01-16T21:38:00.004-06:00

This is a must-watch, and needs to go viral. Law professor Sherrilyn Ifill tells the truth about Dr. Martin Luther King and his views, and destroys Scott Walker and Lt. Gov. Kleefisch in person, without needing to call them out. Check out the video, and notice how exhausted Walker looks. Having come back from Vegas, I know that look well, and it's the mark of someone doing too much jetting off to multiple places to continue to close on slimy corporate cash instead of staying home, being ethical, and DOING YOUR JOB.

I also like the parts where she mentions Dr. King's work against housing segregation and having to deal with vicious white racism in the North in the mid-to-late '60s. Politicians like Scott Walker and Rebecca Kleefisch and radio talk hosts like Charles Sykes and Mark Belling owe their careers to the resentments of the type of people who would have thrown rocks at Dr. King, and they approve of keeping America a two-tier society of "us versus them," instead of the inclusive and fair society Dr.King envisioned.

Thank you, Professor Ifill, for exposing the truth about what MLK believed in. MLK died supporting STRIKING PUBLIC SECTOR UNION WORKERS, and he would be leading rallies to remove slime like Walker. Notice that the biggest cheers came from Prof. Ifill's mention of Dr. King's support of union rights, and marches against voter suppression and other restrictions. That wasn't coincidental in the slightest.

New developments on old news in Fitzwalkerstan

2012-01-13T09:28:00.004-06:00

Been tied up with my girlfriend, work, travels, preparing for my trip to Vegas for serious sports gambling this weekend, and a half foot of snow, so I haven't been able to jump in the last few days. But I've seen a few things in the last few days that are nice reminders of what we've been hitting on for the last year.

1. The GOP's one-sided tinkering with redistricting and elections continue to cost Wisconsinites. One way is how the Fitzgeralds jammed through redistrcting in such a top-down, imposed manner of local governments that many voters are not matched to their polling place or actual district, and that Wisconsin addresses are shown to be as far away as Africa on the statewide database software. Hmmm, you think that destroying decades of Wisconsin tradition of having local districts go first in determining polling precincts might have something to do with this? Maybe that rushing through of redistricting in the Summer wasn't such a bright idea when it came to good policy and easy-running elections.

And related to that, former Walkershaw County GOP State Senator Mac Davis's absurd decision to force the GAB to be the entity to lookm over recall signatures, is now going to force the signature review process past 60 days, delaying the inevitable recall election. Not only that, but now the GAB has to shell out at least $100,000 of taxpayer dollars for database software to enter and examine the signatures, and have to hire more individuals to take care of signature work, instead of having Scott Walker's corporate contributors pay for it (as all other candidates up for recall have had to). Gee, you mean this partisan decision is going to cost us a lot more cash and lead to more confusion than doing it the right and legal way? 'Magine that. Then again, causing confusion and frustration at this legal recall process is the GOP's goal here, because they know they can't win any of these elections on the merits.

2. Scott Walker's mistreatment of public workers and local governments led to record retirements of government workers in 2011. The state's pension fund, who handles pretty much all public sector employees that aren't in Milwaukee, had an increase of almost 80 percent over the last 7 years, and many of those 18,000+ have not been replaced. In addition to proving how pathetic a lie Scott Walker is giving when he claims Act 10 and other cuts "saved union jobs", (which I and many others exposed when he first tried it last winter, as you can see in point 3 here. ) the lie is compounded by a throwaway line from spokes-hack Cullen Werwie at the end of the article.

Werwie said he had no information on how much payroll had been reduced because of retirements, and the administration wasn't tracking where most retirements were occurring.

Well if you're not tracking these retirements and replacements, how the hell do you know you've saved jobs and how can you brag that you've "cut public payrolls"? HMMMMM? And you wonder why I say these guys aren't fit to run a McDonald's let alone the state?

In addition, we've seen the effects of these public sector job losses into the overall job market over the last few months. Another report came out this week on Wisconsin having the largest job losses in state government the 2nd Quarter of 2011, as it went down by nearly 8,000 people in the few months before Walker and co. started massive reductions in take-home pay for most state employees (Blogging Blue had a great report on this). And gee, what's happpened to Wisconsin jobs since the second quarter of 2011?

Jobs lost since June 2011 in Wisconsin
24,900 lost private sector, 10,000 lost public sector

Hmm, so much for the theory that public sector job losses "free up" the private sector for growth, eh?

3. We saw that connection come up again in this week's new jobless claims number as once again, Wisconsin was prominently mentioned in the report, and not in the good way.

The largest increases in initial claims for the week ending December 31 were in Michigan (+10,364), Wisconsin (+10,203), Pennsylvania (+8,135), New Jersey (+7,989), and New York (+7,746) while the largest decreases were in California (-23,969), Illinois (-4,696), Texas (-2,385), Nevada (-1,590), and Kansas (-1,341).

Yep, that's right, it's more than 10,000 ADDITIONAL jobless claims for the last week of 2011, right when local governments lay off employees for the start of their new fiscal year. And oh yeah, Illinois had the 2nd largest DECREASE...so the last thing we'd ever want to do is to go in their direction, right?

But even worse is the total number of new jobless claims, which is now at 27,797, which meant only 5 other states had more jobless claims than Wisconsin that week - California, Pennsylvania, Michigan, New Jersey, and New York - all states with much higher populations than Wisconsin. In addition, that 27,797 is more than 1,000 more than the increase over the same week last year, which is at the same time that new jobless claims have consistently dropped year-over-year in the nation.

Once again, Wisconsin's economic performance goes down while the rest of the nation is recovering, and there's nowhere else to look except to the Governor's Office....if you can find Scott Walker there. (where's he today? Austin? D.C.? Cali? Aspen?)

I'll tell you where I'll be this weekend- VEGAS BABY! VEGAS! Much like the Pack, I hope to come back a winner and in good shape for next week, but it is far from a sure thing.

P.S. Here's one more before I go- the hack-filled group that is the Walker Administration gets a new addition- a correspondence-course-educated Texass oncology nurse who will now run Wisconsin's emergency medical proceedings. Somehow, I'm guessing the paper she wrote for DHS's Dennis Smith at the Heritage Foundation went a longer way toward getting her the job than actual, you know, work, ability and experience. But hey, it does mean we get our own version of Brownie!

A few other links

2012-01-09T19:58:00.002-06:00

Wanted to give some props to good work by others who have cited my work in the past.

1.Phil Scarr and Lisa Mux go undercover among the scariest of Wisconsinites, the losers who would attend an Americans for Prosperity Rally in Walkershaw. With a special appearance by Tim Russell's buddy, Mark (Banned from Wisconsin Politics) Block!

2. Here's a great catch by James Rowen showing how the Wisconsin Builders' Association has its fingerprints all over the foolish mining bill, and is working in tandem with GOP legislators to try to jam it through.

3. And here is Illy-T with an excellent smackdown of Marquette Law School prof and right-wing affirmative action hire Rick Esenberg, as well as the requisite call-out of Journal Communications for giving him a megaphone he does not deserve.

Today's example of a screw-up that's Walkered back

2012-01-09T18:17:00.006-06:00

Today's Governor's Office eye roll is best explained by the start of the State Journal story:

Gov. Scott Walker announced Monday he is creating a new council to help better prepare students for college and careers.

The move comes after Walker and the Legislature last year cut $71 million over two years from funding for Wisconsin's technical colleges, whose primary mission is to train students for available jobs.

Democrats and others criticized that cut and a $250 million reduction in funding for the University of Wisconsin System as harmful to worker training efforts. Walker and Republicans who control the Legislature made the cuts as part of their plan to address a predicted $3.6 billion gap in the state budget.

I can't make this type of idiocy up. Once again, we have an example of Scott Walker's "Act first, think and react to reality later" type of decision-making. Walker decided to cut the living daylights out of tech schools and K-12 education to get after dem ejukay-ted types and funnel tax cuts to his campaign contributors, Then once his approval ratings and Wisconsin's economy tanked, Scotty was left scrambling, and had to look like he was "doing something" to combat the lack of skills Wisconsin businesses say potential employees have.

Whenever I read about these type of "Walker correcting a screw-up" stories (and there have been many), this song always seems to play in my head.

Of course, a real leader would have dealt with the skills deficit in the first place, and asked both Wisconsin workers and businesses for advice on how to deal with this problem, instead of huddling with ALEC-type oligarchs and randomly slashing one of the key resources that could help solve the problem (the tech schools).

And the solution Walker and his advisors came up with to "solve" this problem he helped cause is so haphazard that it stands a good chance of not working, and will come at a higher taxpayer expense to boot.

Walker said in a statement that the council would work to improve student readiness for college and careers through a variety of measures, including designing shorter and less costly degree programs aimed at filling jobs that are in demand and expanding dual enrollment and dual credit opportunities for high school students....

Not a bad start, but a lot of those dual-credit courses for high school students have a slight hang-up - half of Wisconsin school districts reported cutting "career and tech" classes this year due to Walker's cuts to public schools. That's a Rick Perry Texas-sized "OOPS!"

I also want to see what these "shorter and less costly" degree programs are, because that screams University of Phoenix-style privatization that just might coincidentally move students into paying tuition at second-rate schools that just so happen to be run by Walker contributors. So let's wait for the details on this part of the plan.

Here's a few more parts of the Walker correction of an economic development plan.

Walker also threw his support behind a bill designed to make it easier for veterans and those in the military to receive professional credentials from the state and another measure that creates a pilot program to provide unpaid, part-time training with employers that may lead to full-time work.

Good idea trying to hire vets, as they're struggling with high unemployment and a disproportionate amount of work-related disability. But having them be glorified interns with unpaid training from employers? In addition to giving vets short shrift for their service, this seems to be a way to allow employers to pass the buck when it comes to training their employees, and instead moving that cost onto the taxpayer. Of course, socializing the costs and allowing businesses to keep the profits are a GOP staple, but it's still very sketchy and the apprenticeship goal could probably be accomplished in a way that looks a lot less like a giveaway to contributors.

The governor also directed the Department of Workforce Development and the Wisconsin Economic Development Corp. to bring together unemployment insurance claimants with businesses looking to hire.

Walker said the Department of Workforce Development will double the number of job fairs it holds across the state to 100 this year in hopes of getting the unemployed into current vacancies.

The department also will hire 14 additional staff members who will be able to serve roughly an additional 400 job-seekers a week, Walker's office said.

Ok, I'm glad to see there might be more connections for job-seekers. But tell me Scotty, WHO'S PAYING FOR THE 14 NEW HIRES AND ALL THESE NEW EVENTS? It's like the Family Care cap situation, where you shouldn't have been cutting in the first place, or at the very least discussing about what might happen if you did. But because of this Administration failure to think ahead, now they have to turn around and spend money that isn't in the budget to deal with a problem that you didn't need to have in the first place. So in addition to the infuriation that Walker's bad policies have landed us in such a bad spot that we have to do another huge correction at added cost, I'm not so sure this new plan will even do anything to solve the skills and jobs problems, and in fact, might be just another giveaway to GOP contributors over something that might yield positive results.

Call me old-fashioned, but I prefer to have governors and other chief executives that possess the foresight to see what will happen more than 1 week in the future, instead of throwing together foolish back-room policies and then have to compound the problems and extra costs once the failure to plan comes to the forefront. Oh well, I guess we'll have to find out how an effective, thoughtful, planning leader might act when we get a new governor in the next 6 months.

Jobs- Not bad in U.S., which makes Wisconsin REAL bad

2012-01-07T14:43:00.006-06:00

You may have seen yesterday the strong December jobs report that came out from the BLS yesterday, with 200,000 new jobs created and the unemployment rate dropping to 8.5% - lowest in nearly 3 years. It topped off a year where U.S. jobs slowly but surely came back, with 1.92 million jobs created in the private sector in 2011 and 1.64 million jobs overall, and we are now at rates of unemployment and total jobs that we haven't seen since around the time the stimuus was passed in 2009. (which further illustrates my theory that while it was too small for what was needed, the stimulus definitely stabilized an economy that was in free fall in early 2009). You have to go back to the start of 2007 (right before the housing bubble popped) to find a time when a higher percentage of jobs had been created in the last 12 months, and even manufacturing did well this year, with 225,000 more jobs than at the end of 2010, and 23,000 more in December alone.

This U.S. job improvement needs to be a constant reminder to people who constant denigrate Barack Obama's jobs record (while he certainly hasn't done all that he could have or should have, our economy is definitely in better shape than we were 3 years ago). It also needs to be a reminder of the failures of Scott Walker, because had Wisconsin kept up with the national trend of job growth, we would have seen the following record: (you'll need to add in December's Wisconsin numbers for the year-long comparison).

2011 Wisconsin = U.S. job change 34,450
2011 Wisconsin actual job change 3,900 (-30,550 vs. U.S.)

2011 Wisconsin = U.S. private job change 41,200
2011 Wisconsin actual private job change 2,400 (-38,800 vs. U.S.)

2011 Wisconsin = U.S. manufacturing job change +8,450
2011 Wisconsin actual manufacturing job change +5,900 (-2,550 vs. U.S.)

By both private and public job measures, it can be argued that the state is bleeding between 2,500 and 3,000 jobs a month due to policies enacted since Scott Walker became governor and the GOP took over the Legislature. This is in sharp contrast to 2010, when Wisconsin was creating jobs at nearly double the U.S. rate under Doyle/ Dem control. And even if the jobs report is reasonably strong in Wisconsin for December, it should be good. When the U.S. is gaining 212,000 private sector jobs, we should be getting 4,000 jobs in the private sector in Wisconsin. So if we have some kind of positive bounce-back number of a few thousand jobs for December, I don't want to see Scott Walker running around saying "It's working", because the real credit should be going to Barack Obama's tide lifting Walker's sinking boat.

Obviously, there's a long way to go, but I'm finding the recent U.S. jobs reports encouraging, and if it continues, we should be gradually pulling ourselves out of the mess laid at our hands by the execesses and foolishness of the 2000s. But here in Wisconsin, we've gone from climbing to falling, and we'll need a similar "Dubya to Obama" change at the top of our government to help us get out of our 2011 mess.

GOPs have only themselves to blame for Walker recall cost

2012-01-07T11:36:00.003-06:00

I see the media has fallen for the latest GOP talking point about how recalling this corrupt Administration and the senators who went along with their thuggery is somehow "too expensive". This arises from a politically-motivated request from ALEC cabin boy Robin Vos to ask the GAB how much a "statewide recall election" would cost, and the GAB estimated the cost to local governments at around $9 million statewide.

Of course, that $9 million needs a bit more explanation past the face-value whining you'll get from right-wing media. First, there's no explanation in the GAB's estimate to whether this shows 1 statewide recall election, or a recall primary AND a full-scale general election. Because if that's the cost of both of those elections, there's an easy way for Republicans to lower the cost of this to taxpayers - stop pulling every trick in the book to extend this inevitable election and stop challenging the 800-900 thousand signatures that will come in to make Gov. Walker face the voters for what he has done. If the GOP just would step aside, accept the will of the people using their rights as outlined in the Wisconsin Constitution, and allow for 30 days for the GAB to check and tally the signatures, this would be sped up at a much lower cost.

If that scenario would play out, then you'd have a Dem Governor recall primary on April 3- the same day as the statewide GOP primary for president and numerous local elections. Elections officials are already staffed up and set for that day, so any extra cost would be minimal. Then you'd only have the recall general elections on May 1 or so, and you'd be done, at a much smaller cost.

But of course, having the recall election as soon as possible at lowest cost is NOT what the GOP is looking for. Witness the cynical judgment in a Walkershaw County court this week from a former GOP legislator that demanded the GAB take steps on their own to flag and remove unacceptable signatures, despite the fact that there is no law demanding the GAB do so and no money allocated to have them do it with any kind of effectiveness. In fact, in the GAB's own response to Vos on the costs of the recalls they say that it'll cost at least $100,000 to put in the software and materials necessary to carry out this unfunded (and unfounded) mandate, and that it would also require the hiring of 50 full-time workers for 8 weeks. So instead of the GOP paying for what they were previously required to do, they have now gotten a hack judge to pass that cost off to the taxpayers...and then the GOP has the nerve to turn around and blame the recall petitioners for the "unnecessary cost!" ARE THEY FUCKING KIDDING?

And of all the people to be concerned over the extra costs to local governments, the last guy I want to hear from is Robin Vos. If Wee Wittle Wobbin was so concerned with the extra costs and burdens on localities, why did he funnel hundreds of millions to his and Walker's buddies in the road builder lobby, including $147 million (If Robin Vos is so concerned with the extra costs, why did he funnel hundreds of millions to his and Walker's buddies in the road builder lobby, including $147 million (or 16 of these recall elections, Robby) raided out of schools and local government aids? Why did he ban local governments from working together on road projects, forcing the work to be privatized, EVEN IF PRIVATIZING COSTS TAXPAYERS MORE MOENY? Because alleged fiscal conservatives like Robin Vos are not serious about saving taxpayer money, only steering it to who pays their bills.

And especially after 2011, when the GOP cost taxpayers $400,000 for running fake Democrats in last summer's Senate recalls, and were the first groups to file recall petitions against 8 Wisconsin Dem Senators (eventually ending up with only 3 elections that the Dems all won handily) I don't want to hear a damn word from them about this. They seem to have no issues with wasting taxpayer dollars on recalls when it suits their needs, but when the other side give them the same treatment, now they get all concerned over the costs? Spare me, you hypocritical bastards.

Lastly, the biggest reason GOPs have no business whining about recall costs is that it was their own actions that made us do this. Scott Walker lied his way into office, then called hundreds of thousands of Wisconsin workers "haves" and "dropped the bomb" without any discussions with those workers. Bad enough, but then Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald admitted the move was about hurting Dems in 2012 instead of any type of fiscal reason that would help Wisconsinites, and it became obvious that the move was a political one made by Koch and ALEC-affiliated groups from outside of our state, we had a duty to fight back against it in Wisconsin. When the GOP-run Legislature rubber-stamped billions in cuts to schools, local governments, and other services while funneling hundreds of millions in tax breaks to corporate contributors, then we deserve to have our say before the damage becomes permanent. When Wisconsin has the worst economy in the lower 48 and the largest job losses in America, we deserve a chance to end this disaster.

Especially when you have an Administration that is wracked with favortism and play-to-play corruption, From the latest Walkergate examples of money laundering and influence peddling, to the Michael Gableman, Michael Best, and WisGOP triangle, to the incompetent booobs hired as a result of campaign kickbacks and the GOP spoils' system, to the lying to the public about Medicaid data and the lifting of the Family Care cap, this state's tradition of clean governmnet has been damaged nearly beyond repair. Because WisGOP lacks the balls or integrity to call their own people into account, and instead thinking they can wave their little red pom-poms to score political points, the clean-up job has to be left to us.

At a cost of less than $3 a Wisconsin adult, that clean-up job will be an absolute BARGAIN.

Today's Walkergate questions and connections

2012-01-05T18:45:00.005-06:00

Hilarious to see tightie-righties try to say "Nothing to see here" with today's felony embezzlement charges against Tim Russell, a former top aide to Scott Walker in Milwaukee County, and later Scotty's Housing Administrator, as well as another 2 brought up on felony charges as part of the John Doe probe. Sure, Walker isn't guilty of any of the stealing from Veterans' Groups, and he certainly has no part in Russell's gay partner getting flagged for trying to get 17-year-old boys to go inside his van, but there are definitely interesting connections.

If you read the complaint against Russell, you'll notice that most of the thefts were taken from the Heritage Guard Preservation Society. What's that? Well, it helped handle a Milwaukee County veterans' event at the Milwaukee County Zoo called "Operation Freedom," and how Tim Russell landed a gig handling its finances goes straight to Walker.

Due to alleged financial mismanagement, in about 2009, Operation Freedom donations were entrusted to the Alonzo Cudworth American Legion Post. While by all reports thge Cudworth Post discharged their financial duties in exemplary fashion, in October 2009, then County Executive Scott Walker transferred the Operation Freedom funds - some $19,000 - to HGPS, the corporation controlled by [Walker's then- Deputy Chief of Staff] Tim Russell.

And interestingly, Russell had set up bank account in HGPS' name 2 months before Walker's proclamation, and named two Milwaukee County Walker employees as 2nd and 3rd in command- Darlene Wink and James Tetjen (hilariously, both of them say they have no idea what this organization was and never attended any of its meetings). Amazing this new "community" organization was being run by a bunch of Walker lackeys, huh?

Now this is where you need to stop and put on your memory caps and put things together. Who is Darlene Wink? She's Walker's former Constituent Services Coordinator (Tim Russell's old job) who quit in May 2010 when it was revealed she was posting pro-Walker comments on blogs as part of her job, and John Doe investigators took her work computer as evidence, as they did with Russell. And among the expenses listed in Russell's criminal complaint? A series of trascations to GoDaddy.com to register scottforgov.com in 2010, which Capper noted was an Astroturf Walker campaign site that magically stopped running after the election. And oh yeah, Capper also untangeled their connections to a certain rally at a Milwaukee County Park (under Walker's jurisdiction) in 2009.

To summarize this whole thing, we know that there was a Koch-funded Tea Party rally held at a Milwaukee County park, and that the park logo was on the banner proudly announcing the rally. It doesn't really matter which front group sponsored it. But the request for information from the official unofficial campaign blog for Scott Walker [scottforgov.com], which all information available points to Darlene Wink of being a contributor, was directed to Wink. Then when Walker's spokeswoman supplied her answer, it immediately appeared on the blogsite. And this once mystery group was able to get the requested information and pay the obscenely overcharges that Walker would charge an average citizen.

So to summarize the summary, Walker was already playing up to the Koch Brothers using County property. To keep this relationship and overreach of his powers from receiving too much attention, he and his politically appointed cronies would give incomplete and/or inaccurate information, often at overly inflated prices, to those who did not support him. But if it was an ally (or one of his own staff) the restrictions magically lifted and accurate information was presented promptly and at very low price, if not for free.

Are you starting to see the pattern yet?

The actual url of the site was interesting in itself: http://www.milwaukeecountyexecutivescottwalkerforgovernor.com/ It does make one think it was a campaign site, doesn't it?

Well, and given that milwaukeecountyexecutivescottwalkerforgovernor.com is also mentioned in the criminal complaint as another domain name improperly paid for by Russell's little non-profit, yes it does.

I also have seen the WTMJ crowd trying to spin Walker as some kind of honorable person because his Milwaukee County administration helped blow the whistle on Kavanaugh (a real POS who stole cash from organizations that helped the families of killed and wounded veterans, all to cover up massive debt he and his wife had accumulated). Darlene Wink was ordered by Walker to send cash to Kavanaugh's organization from Operation Freedom in 2006, and Kav was supposed to run the expenses appropriately. Then the money was first discovered missing back in 2008, when Walker Chief of Staff Tom Nardelli was informed the Zoo was never paid for the 2007 Operation Freedom event, and asked Kavanaugh about where the money went in "on numerous occasions" in 2008 and 2009. Shortly afterward, Nardelli spoke to the Milwaukee County DA, and indicated that Kavanaugh's organization owed Operation Freedom about $11,000 in cash.

Remarkably, Kavanaugh was still allowed on the scene at the 2010 Operation Freedom , and this article features great stuff from him, Tim Russell, and the recently-resigned Darlene Wink. In the article, Russell is shrugging and saying it could be "bookkeeping errors" explaining the missing money, when the criminal complaint says he had already stolen thousands from Operation Freedom earlier in the year! These people have no shame whatsoever- high-characters hires by Walker, to be sure. If Walker knew about the fact that Russell and Kavanaugh were stealing money from Operation Freedom, why in the world were they hanging around the event in June 2010 while Walker was campaigning for governor?

The Milwaukee County DA didn't file charges after talking with several others in 2011 to gather evidence...including Darlene Wink in November 2011. So it seems like they used some information and interviews from their Walker campaign corruption case to put details together on how the Operation Freedom money was allegedly stolen by Kavanaugh, and it was enough to nail him on it.

Also interesting is to see that the donators to "Operation Freedom" happen to be a whole lot of Milwaukee businesspeople, as well as future U.S. Senator Ron Johnson and the Republican Party of Milwaukee County, but I'll give that a pass, as it may just be coincidence...for now. Because what you can't ignore is that if Walker's Number 2 in the office was running this organization, how do we know that he spent money on more than just himself, and what other similar "third-party" organizations was he funneling money through?

Remember, the one guy who blew the whistle on missing money for Operation Freedom was Tom Nardelli, and what did Nardelli do when Walker got elected governor? He followed Walker to Madison in late July, but then quit his $90,000 a year state job a few days later, right as the John Doe investigation was heating up. I'm not saying I know why, but you think it might be possible Nardelli knew a bit too much about where the money from Operation Freedom and other 3rd Party Walker organizations was REALLY going to? (I could be hired on Fox with that type of question, couldn't I?)

It seems quite clear that in the process of discovering the usage of money-funneling schemes by the Walker campaign, Milwaukee County DA John Chisholm came upon these clear thefts by Russell and Kavanaugh, as well as the child enticement Russell's partner tried to pull, and got these charges on the record as early as he could. Much of the criminal complaint mentions that these revelations come "as part of the John Doe investigation", and Chisholm clearly signaled today that there was a lot more they were still looking into connected to the case. Notice that Cindy Archer never gets mentioned in this incident, despite the fact that she was higher up the chain than Russell, and had to be privy to what was happening with items like Operation Freedom. That tells you the fun is only starting here, as much as the Walker whiners don't want to believe it, and it's only going to get bigger and more direct as the next few months go on.

Hey WEDC, can you spare a millionaire a dime?

2012-01-04T20:38:00.004-06:00

Just noticed that Gov. Walker was running around trying to take credit for the 120 jobs that might develop from the Shopko-Pamida merger that was announced today. The good news is that Shopko wisely chose Wisconsin over Flori-duhhhh to keep its headquarters in Ashwaubenon, and it looks like Shopko will put in a lot of money to remodel Pamida stores into what will become Shopko Hometown stores. Of course, as with most mergers, you can bet some stores will eventually be found redundant and close, but it's probably an overall plus for Wisconsin when a large employer decides to expand its corporate headquarters in state.

Now, the Walker folks were quick to throw out a press release touting the fact that the newly-formed Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation gave Shopko up to $2 million in tax credits in connection to the move. But that's sketchy reasoning at best, as Shopko is a solid firm, and had already owned and operated 7 Pamida stores as Shopko Hometown. So was it really worth it to give them a tax write-off of $16,666 a job, especially if it might have happened anyway.

I sure hope Shopko doesn't follow the lead of Madison's Spectrum Brands, who got $4 million in tax breaks from the state around Thanksgiving in return for saying they would create 60 jobs...at some point. Apparently all they had to do was ask and the Walker boys threw them the $4 million in credits like it was candy. So what did Spectrum do with the cash? They promptly turned around and gaven their CEO $2.5 million in salary and benefits and $11.2 million in stock options.

Hmmm, $4 million in state tax write-offs, $2.5 mil in salary, and standing to make a whole lot more if you jack the stock price up (likely by using the tax credits as extra "profit", or eventually laying off employees and/or cutting salaries). Not a bad payday for "leading" the former Rayovac to a $75 million LOSS last year, and a $190 million LOSS the year before.

With that kind of record, do you blame the Bradley Center to come begging to the Administration for more state money? (so far they haven't been successful, which I view as a good thing) The Bradley Center probably thought the Walker Administration and WEDC was so desperate for good job-development publicity that Scotty wouldn't only just give them money, but he'd put in a free day in the Bango costume. Or he'd chip in for primo Marquette seats in return for a few more credits toward his degree. One of the two.

Edit": For more on this, read what the Chief has to say about how unneeded these tax credits really were.

More Walker Medicaid hijinks- truth or fantasy?

2012-01-04T18:28:00.006-06:00

Got tied up with watching Bucky basketball slug along against Michigan State and lose on yet another replay call last night. So I couldn't jump on this when I saw it break. Fortunately, Capper and James Rowen have a good rundown of the sketchiness surrounding the Walker Administration's newly-found $300 million reduction of its Medicaid deficit.

What I want to go into is why this deficit dropped from $554 million to $232 million, and combine it with some past history. The DHS itself admits that they and the Walker Administration have done nothing to "improve" the Medcaid deficit picture in the letter they sent the Joint Finance Committee. I'll throw in my own notes at the end of each of the 4 points in the letter.

Caseload: Under current eligibility standards, based on actual enrollment to date, we project that enrollment growth will be smaller in FY 12 compared to Act 32 [the state budget] assumptions. We project that enrollment will continue to grow, however, eventually reaching roughly the same average level in FY 13 as assumed in Act 32....[basically the DHS thought there would be more people on Medicaid than there actually were. Oops.]

Medicare Part B Premiums: The state is required to pay Medicare Part B premiums for Medicaid enrollees who also participate in Part B. In November, the federal government announced 2012 premiums that were lower than assumed in the September estimate. [in other words, the Feds demanded less money than the state thought they would. "Thanks Obama!"]

Drug rebates: The September projection assumed that the Department would need to return $25 million of drug rebates received in FY 11 to the federal government based on provisions in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) [THIS IS OBAMACARE!] Based on a more detailed analysis, the repayment amount is now estimated to be approximately $7 million. [or $18 million saved. Once again, "Thanks Obama!"]

Cost per enrollee trends: Actual expenditure data in FY 12 indicate costs per enrollee for various services will be lower than assumed in the September projection. The projection still assumes that costs for the average enrolee will increase during the biennium, based on historical trends. [DHS overestimated the costs. Oops again].

So out of 4 reasons for the reduced deficit, 2 are due to the state overstating the amount of the Medicaid crisis, and 2 are due to Obama Administration policies that help states. Nice, huh?

Of course, despite the improved budget picture, DHS Secretary and Heritage Foundation hack Dennis Smith is still saying that they won't reduce any of the $554 million in projected Medicaid cuts, because Smith said "We have to make sure we grow the profits of our insurance company donators and throwing people off of Medicaid and Badger Care and into the private market is a great way to do that." (Oh wait, he didn't say that, but was only thinking it. Sorry bout that)

And why am I skeptical of how this played out? Because Smith, DHS and the Walker Administration have a history of lying and deceiving on these topics. The worst example was in August, when Smith and DHS cherry-picked and gave false impressions when they relayed the state's own report on the effects of Obamacare, then tried to silence the author of the report, lest he tell media that Obamacare would cover over 340,000 more Wisconsinites in the next 5 years. More recently, you have the Family Care fiasco, where not only did the Walker Administration put an illegal limit on enrollment in the popular program, but then Walker held a press conference and tried to take credit for the move when DHS and Walker had been ordered by the Feds to lift the cap. So with that sort of background, why wouldn't Smith and DHS give a "rosy scenario" of increased Medicaid enrollment and costs to cause a "budget crisis" to appear, and then use this crisis as an excuse to put in big cuts to social services and other areas of the budget?

It's not like Walker hasn't pulled similar garbage before, such as when he sent off layoff notices of Milwaukee County employees in 2009 and then admitted it was a trick to grab more budget concessions (messing with employees' jobs- HILARIOUS!), and then 5 months later ended up with a $9 million budget surplus.

And in the unforgettable David Koch phone call, Walker bragged about planning to send "5 to 6,000" layoff notices to state workers to "crank up a little more pressure" on the Wisconsin 14 after they left the state. Walker's administration knew thousands of state workers had already retired or left service and that there was no need for layoffs if they wanted to lay off current staff to bring down expenses to the level they wanted (for that reason, I knew the threat was bullshit at the time, and I was hardly a higher-up).

So "broken" budgets and huge cuts have been consistently pulled by Walker and his boys as a deceptive hardball tactic to try to get his way, and so I reserve the right to be suspicious of past and current Medicaid numbers. Don't be shocked if some other new "surprise" pops up as this runs through Joint Finance and the Legislature in the next few weeks, and maybe we'll see some other fun revelations at the State of the State on Jan. 25. Keep your eyes open on these things and don't let up, because Scotty thinks he can grift and deceive his way into selling off Wisconsin one more time to his contributors, but he won't be able to do it if we do a little "cranking up" of the pressure ourselves.

These Roses really smell

2012-01-02T20:16:00.003-06:00

Well, I just got back from watching the Rose Bowl downtown, and needless to say, I AM INCENSED. Bad missed tackles on big plays, idiotic, childish TOs n plays that won't be replayed, and inexcusable mistakes in key moments tend not to win you big games when they matter. I'm tempted to just accept that my alma mater at UW-Madison may have national title talent, but will never have the intangibles or abilities to take it all the way.

I'm just glad the 20 people reading this know me as the 37-year-old Jake, which means after this initial rage wears off in a couple of hours, this will be more like my attitude.

Which is probably better than my early-20s something attitude, even though it does sum up my feelings toward Bret Bielema and discussing this giveaway of a game right now. (yeah, the languagre is NSFW, as is what's going through my head)

The media "Village" - no judgment required

2012-01-01T18:34:00.011-06:00

Great find by Phil Scarr at Blogging Blue, which leads you to an outstanding article at the Huffington Post from Jonathan Bines eviscerating worthless New York Times columnist and usual Sunday talk show guest David Brooks. Particularly, Bines nails Brooks for his mastery of the D.C. cocktail party usage of false equivalency. For example:

[Brooks writes] "Republicans decry the technocratic rationing model as "death panels." Democrats have gone into demagogic overdrive calling premium support ideas "privatization" or "the end of Medicare." (The Missing Fifth 5/2)

Already many consultants are telling Republicans to drop austerity and go back on offense: Spend 2012 accusing the Democrats of sponsoring death panels. The Democrats will spend 2012 accusing Republicans of ending Medicare. Whichever party demagogues best wins. (Medicare Survival Guide, 5/26)"

Since the accusations made by Democrats and Republicans against each other must balance, Brooks is able to dispense with consideration of their relative merits. Republicans are engaged in demagoguery, falsely accusing Democrats of supporting "death panels." Consequently the corresponding Democratic accusations must also represent demagoguery -- whatever they may be. As it happens, Republicans are, in fact, calling for the replacement of Medicare with a program that would offer "premium support" for private insurance. To quote David Brooks: "True Medicare reform replaces the fee-for-service system with premium support." (David Brooks, The Serious One 11/7). But because the Republicans are engaging in demagoguery, to describe this Medicare-ending privatization plan as a call for "privatization" or the "end of Medicare" must also represent demagoguery. Q.E.D.

In other words, in Brooks' world if a Republican says something that's strong and false, and Democrats respond with something strong and based in truth, both parties are doing the same thing, and are equally to blame for the problem not being solved.

Uhh, NO THEY ARE NOT. One statement is correct (Medicare would end as we know and be turned to a voucher system under Paul Ryan's plan), one is wrong (Obamacare does not institute "death panels", insurance companies are a different matter). This is not a debatable matter.

And David Brooks is a symbol of a much bigger problem in today's media. Brooks is a major member of the D.C. "Village", where hanging out in the right social circles and getting the right people to talk to you is more important than actually, you know, REPORTING WHAT'S HAPPENING. And the real goal with the average Village "journalist" is access, not analysis, so if you can give both sides equal creedence (whether they deserve it or not), then you'll get all the interviews and invitations to big events you want. Doing real journalism, like what someone like Matt Taibbi does in exposing Wall Street malfeasance and their allies on Capitol Hill, means you have to describe it as you are seeing it, which means you call out bullshit and corruption when it appears, and tweak a lot of powerful noses in the process.

And you wonder why D.C. was stuck on talking about deficits and debt when the vast majority of America was more concerned about inequality and unemployment in 2011? Because to the Villagers, what's going on in their little elitist bubble should be considered much more important to America than what's actually happening in...most of America. We saw the same thing during the protests here in Wisconsin last February, when the Sunday talk shows were refusing to have organized labor officials on their shows when discussing labor issues. Because after all, why would labor unions be considered a reliable source when discussing collective bargaining and the state of labor? Why shouldn't we rely on the David Brookses and George Wills and other Villagers and paid political spinmeisters to be the ones talking about issues which they have zero personal experience about?

The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel pulls the same no-judgment garbage in their editorial today, trying to credit Gov. Walker for "thinking big."

Voters have very strong opinions about Gov. Scott Walker, and for many it's because of his signature idea of 2011: He pushed to roll back more than 40 years of accepted practice by sharply curtailing bargaining rights for most of Wisconsin's thousands of public employees.

The results of this experiment in governance may not be known for years. Property tax bills certainly were moderated as a result of the governor's initiative, and the state's chronic structural deficit was tamed. But schools and municipalities complain that the accompanying budget cuts will hurt the state over the long term, and they may be right.

It's possible Walker may not be in office to see how all this turns out: It's likely that an effort to force him to defend his seat in a recall this summer will succeed. Whatever happens, this was one of the bigger ideas of the year - and one of the bigger political bets ever in Wisconsin.

Look at the weasel words in those 3 paragraphs: "the accompanying budget cuts will hurt the state over the long term, and they may be right. "This was one of the bigger ideas of the year - and one of the bigger political bets in Wisconsin." "signature idea of 2011." Yeah, well if I said sticking bratty children in an oven as a way to get them in line might work, would the J-S laud that as a "big thought" and "signature idea" as well.

CMON J-S! Be honest and ask if this worked to improve our economy (being Number 1 in job losses for the last 5 months indicates no), and don't take the Administration's assertion that they cut "the state's chronic structural deficit" at face value, especially when your own Politi-crap publication said 6 weeks ago that the GAAP deficit has gotten bigger under Walker. Taking away thousands of dollars of take-home pay and banishing 50 years of bargaining rights in order to funnel money to corporate contributors IS NOT A FUCKING GAME outside of the Village. But Journal Communications has to show how "fair and balanced" they are toward this administration, and wants Walker to keep calling in on WTMJ, so they can't tell the truth that this attack on hundreds of thousands of Wisconsinites has caused major pain and is a massive failure, and have to leave it up to "debate." And Republicans get away with throwing these whoppers out there all the damn time, without the media calling them out on it and having the judgment to stop giving these people a perceived "equal opinion" that they are not worthy of.

That's the kind of insider bubble mentality that we have to puncture, and that's why it's up to us to hold the media's feet to the fire every bit as much as should try to we hold our politicans accountable. Because D.C. Villagers and Journal Communications corporates won't make the effort to address the public that pays their salaries until they face shame and a loss of income from that public. Both politicans and media have chosen to remove themselves from our reality in favor of staying confortable inside their little world, and it's time for us to expose and invade that world, and show that many of these emperors have no clothes, and not worthy of any air time. A major 2012 resolution should be to call out bullshit every time it's being thrown out, and not to let the Villagers and the politicians get away with their half-truths and half-assedness.

Final thoughts for 2011- Every Breath We Take

2011-12-31T17:27:00.005-06:00

Just wanted to leave a last note as we wash away this extraordinary year. When I started 2011, I wasn't in a good place politically, as the election of Scott Walker and other deceptive, foolish Tea Baggers had led me to wonder if there was any point in doing things the way I thought was proper. It didn't seem like having good values and working hard was paying off, not in the corporate world, not at the ballot box, and not in everyday life. It seemed like indifference and lies were trumping decency, fact, and doing the right thing.

Then Scott Walker "dropped the bomb" in February, and the despair turned to anger. And when I saw tens of thousands of my fellow Wisconsinites take to the streets with the same emotion, I realized that all was not lost- that decency and respect and doing the right thing still mattered deeply to more people than just a handful that I was fortunate to know personally. I have full confidence that 2011 will be shown to be the year that millions of people finally GOT IT, where they realized that most of our elected officials do not have our best interests at heart, and that it's going to take direct action to drive these moneychangers from the temple. And that direct action means more protests, recalls if necessary, and puncturing the bubble that far too many of the media and middle America want to rest in.

You saw this reflected in this blog. I'd only written occasional items in the first 3 years this had been in existence, mostly casual economics-related stuff or sports items or general silliness that I'd come across. But I found an outlet for all the anger and bullshit and undiscussed realities that needed to be let out into the open. I noticed how the media was failing to report was obvious to anyone who was in Madison in February and March of 2011- that there was an out-of-state corporate takeover of Wisconsin and Wisconsin's values being attempted, and despite the media's "false equvialency" game of lies and spin, that reality was on one side, and Scott Walker/ Koch/ ALEC was on the other. And that something had to be said and done to break through the noise.

I also knew how to read and figure state and local budgets, and figured this space could be used to allow people to separate the fact from the bullshit as to whether Wisconsin was truly "broke", and if these rash meaures were actually needed. I figured out very quickly that the state was far from broke, and having the archives for these posts have frequently led to future posts as the WisGOPs continue to think that the average citizen will have the convenient amnesia that our media seems to have (or wants to have in exchange for access). I realized I could use this space to alert others to what was really happening in our state and nationwide, let them find the same information I knew, and have them become educated in the budgetary and rhetorical games these guys were trying to play (like when I knew in March that Walker was lying about laying off state employees because the numbers didn't add up) My goal at the time was to not only let people know I thought something was bullshit, but to have them DISCOVER AND SEE WHY it was bullshit, and then encourage them to use that knowledge to act, and pass those facts onto others.

But this blog changed when I woke up on the 4th of July, used my knowledge of K-12 policies and the state budget, and exposed the lies the Walker boys were making about Kaukauna schools. 2 days later, I checked back into this space, and saw that instead of the usual 15 or 20 hits, there were more like 400. And it turned out that Greg Sargent of the Washington Post had discovered my story and shot it nationwide. It's still by far my most-hit post, at nearly 2,000 pageviews as I write this.

And maybe the Kaukauna incident has now allowed this blog to take on a life of its own. I almost feel a need to say something every day or two, or whenever the latest lie or instance of corruption or policy failure comes out of Wallker's administration (which seems to be about every day or two these days). And the 2 or 3 people that have stumbled upon this place have now become 10 or 20 or 30, they're passing along the words that I have, and are adding their own knowledge, allowing us to write abook of reality in Wisconsin to counter the fallacies in Walker World. And they're teaching me a lot more with their great work. Since the media won't do the job, it becomes our job in the Cheddarsphere to drive these bastards out, and because we know the facts and have the outlets such as Twitter, Facebook and these blogs, WE WILL DRIVE THE BASTARDS OUT. Sure, it won't be easy, but it's a whole lot more doable when the facts tend to fall on your side. In 2012, I may be busy with other parts of my life, but I'll still be on this site quite a bit, doing what I can to bring what I see and know to the rest of you, and thanking you for helping me know more too.

And for Governor Walker, and the WisGOPs and your corporate puppetmasters, I have one final message, courtesy of Sting, Andy Summers, and Stewart Copeland. As an extra bonus, maybe this'll bring the tune back to you in the way Sting originally intended it to mean.
That's right, we'll be watching you. Happy New Year to all who read this, and let's make some history.

Walker boys keep lying on lowering school taxes

2011-12-31T09:46:00.003-06:00

Great stuff from Heather Bourenane Monologues of Dissent today. She not only revisits my post from last month, reminding you that FUBAR'ing Wisconsin schools came at a net savings of a whopping $18 per Wisconsin household, she also destroys Gov. Dropout for lying in his email to constituents.

First of all, you claim in your letter that you have lowered the school portion of the property tax levy by one percent across the state, putting $228 million "back in the pockets" of Wisconsin taxpayers, which you claim "amounts to $69 for every man, woman and child in the state" just for the school portion of the tax bill. What kind of fuzzy math is this? Every man, woman and child? The 2010 census puts the population of Wisconsin at 5,686,986. Multiply this by $69 and you get $392,402,034 (not the $228 million you claim you put back in our pockets). As my Dad asked, where's the other $164,402,034? In your pocket?

This question is rhetorical, of course, because these figures - like my question - are a joke. It just doesn't add up. According to data from the Wisconsin Taxpayers' Alliance, Wisconsin taxpayers actually saw an increase in the tax rate ($9.84 this year, compared to $9.76) despite an overall decrease in the tax levy. In 2010-11, the school district levies statewide totaled $4,692,935,468. In 2011-12, the total is $4,645,873,099. That's a .98 percent decrease, true: a difference of $47,062,369

So let's do the real math. If we divide that $47,062,369 by the 5,686,986 Wisconsin men, women and children whose pockets you care so much about, each of them saves $8.28 compared to last year. Not the $69 you claim. (Not that even $69 a year would do anything to compensate for how much less I now take home in my paycheck, incidentally).

And it gets even better from there, because Heather wasn't even lucky enough to see those menial savings in Sun Prairie:

And for what it's worth, my own property taxes did not go down. They went up, and significantly so, due in no small part to the handiwork of our conservative City Council and Mayor John Murray (you know, the guy with no justice experience that you just appointed to be head of the Office of Justice Assistance for close to $100,000 a year?). [Ed. Note: Murray's also a main guy behind the September firing of an state employee who dared to remind co-workers that people could get free IDs to vote. ] And our school tax levy only changed by a few cents, even though citizens had turned out in force at the annual School Board Budget Meeting and voted to raise it more to safeguard against your cuts that would force us to drop some much-needed programming.

No, it's not working, and it will never work. And the more we tell the truth, the more we'll kick Walker and WisGOP's reality-ignoring asses in 2012.

Van Hollen's DOJ, WisGOP, and Michael Best - pure naked corruption Pt. 2

2011-12-30T16:21:00.005-06:00

This is why a good memory is something I'm glad to have. Just in time for New Year's we have a new revelation in the Walker Admin's John Doe investigation, and it inovolves a lack of cooperation (cover-up?) at the Wisconsin Department of Justice. The Patrick Marley and Dan Bice story includes emails that clearly shows DOJ officials getting a supbpeona for emails from Scott Walker's guv campaign, and clearly were worried about it.

"This is one to try and stay away from. I can't see any good coming from it," Ed Wall, head of the department's Division of Criminal Investigation, wrote in a Nov. 15, 2010, email.

"Absolutely," responded David Spakowicz, director of field operations for the division's eastern region.

Wall's email was sent just hours before he met with Milwaukee County District Attorney John Chisholm about the John Doe investigation. Also at the meeting were then-Deputy Attorney General Ray Taffora and Deputy District Attorney Kent Lovern.
The meeting happened just two weeks after Walker was elected governor and a month and a half before he was sworn in....

...the records also show Department of Justice officials discussed the investigation on Nov. 1 - the day before the election and the day prosecutors executed a subpoena for emails from Walker's campaign, according to a source with knowledge of the situation.

"Are you available for a call - ASAP - in order to brief you on this sensitive matter?" Spakowicz wrote Wall at 1:40 p.m. that day.

Wall said he was available and six minutes later wrote to Taffora, then the No. 2 official in the department, to ask when he could take a call.

David Matthews, director of field operations for the Division of Criminal Investigation, later wrote Wall to say: "Spak has briefed me on today's SW activities."

Notice a familiar name in there? I did - the name of Ray Taffora.

Who is Ray Taffora? He's the former Number 2 guy in the Attorney General's office and a GOP campaign contributor who left DOJ right after the election to go to Michael, Best and Friedrich to help the Walker boys during the Act 10/ budget repair bill controversy, and signed a blank check, taxpayer-funded contract right before Walker "dropped the bomb." Hmmm, wonder why he wouldn't want something like Scott Walker's campaign to get investigated too deeply when he stood to make major bank off of Walker's election? And neither would GOP Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen, who heads up the DOJ.

We also saw Taffora's name earlier this week as part of the group of Michael Best and GOP officials that were meeting in secret to hammer out redistricting this summer. You know who else we saw in that redistricting story that was in the news in the las 48 hours? Eric McLeod who just quit Walker's commission that helps Scotty pick judges. (fun sidelight- in typical Walker lying fashion, Scotty tried to claim to the media that he had asked for McLeod's resignation to make it look like Walker believed in "transparency"....except Walker made the statement after McLeod had already told Walker he was quitting.)

There's so much smoke here, I'm starting to choke from just looking at the connections between the DOJ, Michael, Best and Friedrich, and the GOP. It's all out there, just connect the dots, folks.

Family Care fiasco = everything we can't stand about Walker

2011-12-30T14:52:00.004-06:00

I couldn't help but roar in laughter as Scott Walker's pathetic act this week at a press conference announcing the removal of Family Care enrollment limits. It's something that has all of the elements of what has made this administration such a failure.

1. Stupid ideological pose causes equally silly reversal- Capping the amount of elderly and disabled people who can enroll in a system that allows them to stay in their own homes is sick on its face, and the mark of a sociopath who views people as nothing but commodities. But then to turn around, reverse that policy, and then promise $80 million to go toward Family Care with no explanation of where the money will come from is beyond stupid. It's much like how $500 million in Medicaid cuts were slipped into the state budget, and then the details worked out later on how to throw 64,000 people off of Badger Care. Just saying something will happen isn't the same as actually making it happen.

2. Shooting first, dealing with the fallout later - This is a recurring theme with this administration. Instead of figuring out if they actually could continue to receive federal Medicaid funding if they cut people off of Family Care, the Walker boys just went ahead and did this. That's the most interesting part of the letter from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid to the Wisconsin DHS to me.

Please note that these types of waiver amendments, even if potentially approvable, may receive only a prospective approval date. Until specific approval of an amendment is received, the State is required to continute to operate the waiver as described in the currently-approved 1915(c) waiver application...

Because the currently approved waiver includes an entitlement to waiver services, we are instructing the State t operate the waiver as it was approved by CMS.

In other words, you don't get to change the caps until we tell you you can change the caps. So now all these individuals are rightfully put onto Family Care with no way to pay for it.

It is strongly reminiscent of the fuck-up involving high-speed rail, when the Walker folks tried to insist rail money could be used for highways, and the Federal Railroad Administration had to remind them that no, rail money is for...rail, and Wisconsin taxpayers ended up paying millions more than they otherwise would have and got less for it. The Walker Administration is either so arrogant or stupid that they are incapable of realizing the strings attached to federal money- while constantly attaching strings like tax levy limits and Act 10 requirements to local governments.

3. The lies and the lying spin - This is the most egregious part. It was bad enough when the press conference was first held, and it seemed like a cynical move designed to soften up Walker's image among a voting populace that already views him as a scumbag. But then when it came out that Walker was lying about why the caps were lifted (because the Feds told him to, not because he wanted to), DHS Administration Secretary (and deceitful Heritage Foundation hack) Dennis Smith followed up with this pathetic press release trying to weasel out of this embarrassment and claim no wrongdoing.

"The sole person responsibile for yesterday's announcement on lifting the Family Care caps is Governor Walker. The Governor stated publicly severeal times that he was committed to Wisconsin's seniors and disabilities with his intention to lift the cap by the end of the year...

Critics who are not involved in our discussions with our federal partners at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) are choosing to ignore the months of work we have done to get us to the point of yesterday's announcement. The Governor also announced we would be expanding the program to counties previously not served by Family Care, a decision that goes beyond any procedural matters raised by CMS."

WHAT A WHINY, LYING BITCH! Untrue that this was all Walker's decision, and then whining over "critics" who dare to tell people how things really went down. If you don't like the job, Denny, GET THE HELL OUT and go back to D.C. where you bubble-thinkers belong.

4. The aftereffects after the move - The "expansion to other counties" may also be a disaster in the making, because Dane County Exec Joe Parisi did a good job trying to cut off Walker at the pass with his own letter to Dane County state legislators asking that Dane County not be part of any Family Care expansion. The reason why? Dane County already handles long-term home care services at a level above and beyond Family Care, and Parisi's predicting that Walker might use this Family Care expansion as a mandate to make Dane County cut its level of services.

It wouldn't be out of the question for the low-lifes in the Walker Administration to try to pull a stunt like that, under the guise of "efficiencies" and "improvements" for Family Care. It's why we have to keep an eye on what the proposal that comes out of covering the new enrollees in Family Care really is once it goes into the Joint Finance Committee, and see if anything else is cut or "lapsed" as a result. It's been this Adminsitration SOP to assume the average Wisconsinites is as stupid as the average talk-radio listener, and won't look too deeply as to what will really happen in the bill, and that's the time we need to be most vigilant and remind people of why we're in this mess in the first place.

So if someone has been out of the state for a year and is asking "Well, why do people hate Scott Walker?", just show them the 4 different types of wrongdoing that this one Family Care incident illustrates. And it's why we have to end it now, before the damage gets deeper and tougher to get out of.

Walker and WisGOP- follow the money here and in Cali

2011-12-28T18:44:00.005-06:00

Couple of sick stories involving the money chasing and funneling that defines the Wisconsin GOP and Scott Walker's reign of terror over this state.

The first involves Governor Dropout and his gravy-training of the Badgers' trip to the Rose Bowl. Why you give a governor who intentionally gave huge cuts to the UW System is being allowed to travel as part of the UW's 32-person party is beyond me, when instead that spot should go to a UW worker who got their take-home pay dropped by $300 - $500 a month so that Scumbag Scotty could shovel tax breaks at his campaign contributors.

But rooting on a university he couldn't even get in to apparently isn't all Scott Walker is doing out in California, as apparently he's headlining a fundraiser in the OC tomorrow night. If the UW is paying anything toward Walker's attendance or travel to LA, they need to rescind it NOW, and make Scotty pay for his own damn tickets. Heck, Walker was more than willing to take a trip out West on someone else's dime.

Fake David Koch: [Laughs] Well, I tell you what, Scott: once you crush these bastards I’ll fly you out to Cali and really show you a good time.

Walker: All right, that would be outstanding. Thanks, thanks for all the support and helping us move the cause forward, and we appreciate it. We’re, uh, we’re doing the just and right thing for the right reasons, and it’s all about getting our freedoms back. [Editor's note: "freedoms"? Being down 34,000 jobs with lower take-home pay for hundreds of thousands more tends to get in the way of "freedom"]

Fake Koch: Absolutely. And, you know, we have a little bit of a vested interest as well. [Laughs]

Walker: Well, that’s just it. The bottom line is we’re gonna get the world moving here because it’s the right thing to do.

Fake Koch: All right then.

Walker: Thanks a million!

And it's not like going out of state to shake down right-wing greedheads is a new thing for Scotty. Seems like he's been doing it plenty in recent months, without letting the public know when he's leaving his post. "Thanks a million?" More like "thanks a $2.5 million," which is what he's taken from people who can't vote for him in this Summer's recall election. And you wonder why people think this guy is tone-deaf and out of touch with the Wisconsin public.

But it's the way WisGOP operates - take money in from selfish interests, pass bills to reward said special interests (remember the famous "this is OUR moment" line to the fake Koch?), and then funnel taxpayer dollars to contracts that go to said special interests.

The latest example includes the testimony that came out today from GOP staffers during a hearing in front of federal judge looking to overturn the GOP-led redistricting for the 2012 November elections. I'll leave the clear lies in the testimony about the redistricting not being political in basis (check out the story yourself if you want) . Here's another passage that caught my eye which shows how this REALLY worked.

An office was provided to Foltz, Ottman and Handrick at the Madison branch of Michael Best, where they worked on the maps, according to the testimony. Also involved in developing the maps were the Fitzgeralds, Assembly Majority Leader Scott Suder (R-Abbotsford), Rep. Robin Vos (R-Rochester) and Sen. Rich Zipperer (R-City of Pewaukee). They were assisted by attorneys Eric McLeod, Jim Troupis, Sarah Troupis, Ray Taffora and Michael Screnock, according to the testimony.

Not only did these guys get an office at taxpayer-funded partisans Michael, Best, and Friedrich (who took home a cool $400,000+ for helping the GOPs in these shenanigans), but check out who they're hanging with.

1. Eric McLeod- He's the guy who represented Supreme Court Justice Michael Gableman for "free" when Gableman was accused of ethics complaints by state investigators. Now you see what that "free" service helped to buy.

2. Jim and Sarah Troupis- who pulled down $75,000 from David Prosser during the Supreme Court recount, and has pulled down $700,000 in work for the GOP for the Act 10 and redistricting suits.

3. Ray Taffora- A former DOJ lawyer who gave $4,000 to JB Van Hollen's campaign, quit his DOJ job when Walker took over to head to Michael, Best and Friedrich, and then got Van Hollen to sign MBF up with a $500,000 no-bid contract to take cases relating to Act 10 and other issues, instead of having Van Hollen keep it in-house with lower-cost DOJ lawyers. And done with Walker's complete approval.

Hmmm, you think it might be easier to have redistricting or Act 10 stand up in the Wisconsin Supreme Court if you've bailed out 2 of the 4 judges that you need to see the case your way? And you get the impression this redistrciting testimony is only the tip of the iceburg in how these backroom connections between politicians, law firms, and judges all tie together when it comes to making law in Fitzwalkerstan?

It's a nice little country club they have, isn't it? You know the only people left out in this club? The millions of Wisconsin taxpayers that allowed them to get into power (out-of-staters are fine if they pony up a few bucks). You'd be a fool to think any of these corrupt bastards would give up the good deal they seem to be pulling down at our expense, so instead it's gotta be us Wisconsin taxpayers that take em out, and shut down their backroom mob rule.

The real WisGOP-Walker goal- rigging the system against independent public service

2011-12-26T15:15:00.004-06:00

A couple of very good stories popped up in the recent Milwaukee Magazine blogs.

The first comes from Bruce Murphy, who goes over the disgusting sleaze that envelops Supreme Court Justice Michal Gableman. We already know about his unethical "free advice" from Michael, Best and Friedrich, which clearly was done in exchange for helping MBF out in Act 10, redistricting, and other cases funneled to them by the Walker Administration and WisGOP. But Murphy goes back further to show how Gableman rose from partisan hack to local yokel judge, and how he cut corners of decency to get that far.

...Gableman was originally an Ashland County D.A. who began a concerted campaign to win the favor of Republican Gov. Scott McCallum, who would later give Gableman a judgeship. Gableman organized a campaign fundraiser for McCallum, made two contributions of $1,250 each to McCallum, and used his government office to make some 60 phone calls to political headquarters or donors to McCallum.

Gableman also took a day off from his job to attend the McCallum fundraiser. A Gableman spokesperson would later explain that he had his supervisor’s permission to do so but offered no explanation for why Gableman was paid for that day’s work, essentially charging the taxpayers to campaign for McCallum.

Around this same time, Gableman inexplicably stepped down from his position as D.A. to take the bureaucratic-sounding job of administrative law judge in Appleton, even though the switch dropped his pay from $80,000 to $54,000. Gableman’s official campaign biography barely mentions the job, and he has never explained why he made the switch.

This was the position Gableman held (for just three months) when McCallum elevated him to the position of Burnett County Circuit Court Judge. Normally a governor picks the candidate from a list of finalists determined by a judicial review panel. But McCallum overruled the panel and chose Gableman.

The Office of Lawyer Regulation, though typically not very aggressive, later launched an investigation of Gableman’s use of government resources to campaign for McCallum. It found “Gableman may have been imprudent or may have used poor judgment,” but under the law “an intentional violation of the statute” must be proven and that “appears an insurmountable burden.”

The man is an unqualified GOP hack, and does not judge, but instead legislates as such as hack. If we believe in any system of judicial fairness where the merits of something are determined by facts and the laws in place, this man has no business deciding the things that he does.

But that's the way they like it in Walker World. Check out a second Milwaukee Magazine article from Michael Horne. Buried near the bottom of an already-good read is this nugget.

...The [Wisconsin Labor and Industry] review commission hears appeals of decisions by Administrative Law Judges. One of them, Carolina Stark, has announced her candidacy for Milwaukee County Circuit Court Branch 17. Stark, who is also a member of the City of Milwaukee Fire and Police Commission, plans to take on incumbent Nelson W. Phillips III, who was appointed by Governor Walker to fill the unexpired term of the retired Judge Francis Wasielewski.

Asked if the Walker administration is meddling in the affairs of administrative law judges, Stark replied in the affirmative.

“Every year we have a conference of judges to discuss recent issues, and the secretary of the Department of Workforce Development traditionally says a few words to the group,” she said.

“This year Secretary Reggie Newson – the third secretary since the Walker administration took office – told us ‘I have been hearing from employers that your decisions do not favor them. I’d like you to keep that in mind when you make your decisions,’” she said.

“All of the judges were stunned. I could feel the hair rising on the back of my neck. This was an utterly inappropriate comment. We may not be elected judges, but we make our decisions based on the facts and the law, not on preconceptions.”

But Ms. Stark, judging based on facts and the law is not what the Walker folks want you to do. They think judges' jobs are to help the people who pay their bills, most notably sleazy employers, out of state industries trying to pollute without punishment, and union-busters who want to squeeze every cent of profit out of the state even if it sends the rest of the state's citizens into poverty. And if a previously-passed law is in the way, then a good GOP judge should become an activist and make something up to lead to the desired result (like the Gableman-led Open Meetings ruling this year). Decency and fairness have nothing to do with it, but big money and consolidating power sure do.

This really shouldn't be a surprise- it's SOP for Walker and the WisGOPs. Turning dozens of civil service positions into appointed spots to be handed out at the whim of politicos is another way WisGOP is trying to end the idea of independent public service. Cindy Archer is the tip of the iceburg of this abuse, (speaking of, has Cindy gotten to her new job yet?) but from Brian Deschane to Valerie Cass, putting ass-kissing yes-men and women in high positions of power is the clear priority of the Walker folks. And their service isn't to the people of Wisconsin, but to the politicians and the special interests they represent.

And now you know why these people despise public sector unions, because unions can protect individuals from having to lie, cheat and steal in order to keep their jobs, and require independent analysis that reveals facts the administration doesn't want to admit. Unions keep teachers from having to acquiese to PTA moms and administrative pressure, keeps the principal's or school board member's unqualified sibling from takeing over for an established and more deserving teacher. It also gives teachers the freedom to give students the grades they deserve, and relay knowledge on subjects in the way that they know from experience works best.

From Gableman and Walker on down, Wisconsin Republicans clearly want to be allowed to ignore reality and law and impose their own way of life without regard to the effects of quality of services that results. And only by rising up and blowing them out of power will they be stopped. So therefore, we do.

Wisconsin economy worst in lower 48- and worse than we thought

2011-12-26T12:22:00.007-06:00

Happy post-Holidays everybody. I hope Santa and the others treated you well this weekend.

Several items have broken around the holidays, and like most people, our media was tied up with holiday items to give you the full update. So here's one such item.

You may recall a post I had in the previous month quoting the Philly Fed survey's finding that Wisconsin had the worst economic performance in America from August to October. Well, the Philly Fed came back at the end of last week with its November update, and here's the picture to follow.

While Wisconsin isn't in the bright red anymore but has dropped down to the less severe pink, that change in color really doesn't show any improvement. Instead it reflects lower revisions for five straight months from May to September.

Wisconsin 3-month coincident index, previous vs. revised
May 2011- 138.00 original, 137.91 revised (-0.09)
June 2011- 138.18 original, 138.06 revised (-0.12)
July 2011- 138.19 original, 138.06 revised (-0.13)
Aug. 2011- 138.03 original, 137.91 revised (-0.12)
Sept 2011- 137.74 original, 137.66 revised (-0.08)
Oct. 2011- 137.40 original, 137.41 revised (+0.01)
Nov. 2011- 137.23

So with the revisions, the July-October drop is now 0.47%, and the August- November drop is 0.49%. It means the previous month would not have had that bright red that stood out so clearly, but also means that the decline is worse now than last month, not better, despite what the maps show.

And Wisconsin is still bottom feeding compared to the rest of the nation, and remains the worst-performing state in the lower 48.

July-October 2011
Alaska -0.58%
Wisc. -0.47%
Ind. -0.30%
Wyo. -0.22%

August- November 2011
Alaska -0.60%
Wisc. -0.493%
Minn. -0.490%
Wyo. -0.26%

So no, Governor, we are not better off than we were a year ago, or than we were before your budget was signed in June. You'd better hope Santa made a lot of debt-ridden deliveries this week, or else it isn't going to look good anytime soon, either.

Milwaukee sports arena news

2011-12-23T08:29:00.003-06:00

Maybe there was a Brewer stimulus after all. The Miller Park Stadium District announced a huge increase in October sales taxes in the stadium district, reflected in this month's distributions being up nearly 16 percent vs. the same month last year. In fact, the last 3 months of sales tax collections (reflecting August- October) now show a clear increase from the same months in 2010, as the collections were up 11.5% this year.

Good to hear, as Milwaukee County could especially use the extra revenues. But it also illustrates the rest of the state didn't join in, as the DOR revenue figures from October show that sales taxes were only up 3.6% statewide at the same time. So once the Brewer and Holiday seasons wear off, watch out below on that figure.

Also, there was a rare Scott Walker move this week that I agree with. Walker said the Bradley Center can raise its own damn money for repairs and maintenance, and I agree. In tight budget times, this is something that can afford to be cut, and something that the Bucks and Marquette and the Bradley Center board should be ready to take care of. Yes, the Bradley Center has its financial difficulties, but that's what you get with a 22-year old arena that was out of date 5 years after it was built. Given that Milwaukee County and the City of Milwaukee are constantly cutting services, they shouldn't be expected to chip in more for any type of major renovation or new arena.

And frankly, there's not really the demand there, as the Bucks were 23rd in NBA attendance in 2010-2011, with an average of more than 3,000 empty seats each night. Honestly, if the Bucks left, there'd be a minor effect at some nearby bars, but other than that, would they really be missed? I think it's a risk worth accepting at this point, especially given that the NBA did nothing to change the two-tier society that exists in that league, where the league's stars demand to go to a handful of teams. I can't see the Bucks as a long-term viable option, and it's OK to me if they evetually leave to be more competitive. Maybe after Herb Kohl kicks the bucket.

Sorry to be rough there, but the Bradley Center will still have a use after the Bucks leave. Marquette basketball, the Admirals and concerts can still be there, and it'll turn the Bradley Center back towards one of its original intents- to be a target for any NHL team that wants to relocate. I think hockey would work every bit as well as the Bucks would, for both attendance, interest, and revenue development. So why not make the trade?

More money, more jobs in Wisconsin? Ehhh....

2011-12-22T18:48:00.006-06:00

A couple of interesting reports got released in the last few days that I wanted to mention.

The first is the personal income by states report released by the Bureau of Economic Analysis, and a couple of items stand out in this report.

1. Income growth dipped to 0.145% in the 3rd Quarter of 2011, reflecting the slow economy of the time, and Wisconsin right in line at 0.149%. The odd part about this is the small variance among all the states- everyone was between + 0.6% (Washington) and -0.4% (West Virginia), a 1.0% difference (the previous 4 quarters had a difference of at least 2.0% from high to low, if not 3-4%). The year-over-year numbers for both Wisconsin, our Midwestern neighbors and the U.S. reflect the slowdown in income. None of these numbers are adjusted for inflation, and I tried to bold up Wisconsin (in blue) and the U.S. (in purple). (click to make bigger)

Year-over-year income growth 2010-2011

Note that Wisconsin and most Midwestern states have generally stayed ahead of the U.S. in income growth, but that Wisconsin has reverted back to the U.S. average in the last 3 months, and Michigan Ohio and Indiana have dropped below the U.S. (all run by GOP Governors that are buddies of Scott Walker). Wisconsin was 2nd in our Midwestern group for income growth in 2010, but has fallen to middle of the pack in 2011, trailing Minnesota (Number 1 throughout for growth), and passed by Iowa and...Illinois. Yep, the same "high-tax" Illinois that Walker promised to steal jobs from when he took office. How's that working out for us?

The other interesting recent report is the add-on that goes with the monthly statewide jobs numbers from DWD, which is the metro area job report, with the individual metro areas broken down on Page 3. In addition to more DWD whining about October's revisions, the report has a few other items to offer.

The report shows that the Milwaukee metro area lost 4,700 jobs in November, accounting for nearly a third of the 14,600-job bomb that hit the state last month. The 4,700 jobs isn't that disproportionate, as the Milwaukee area's about 30% of the state's jobs in general, and the Milwaukee area is still up a decent 5,300 jobs over the last 12 months, which is more than the 4,500 jobs that have been added in the state in the same time.

Yes, you got that right, the rest of the state outside of the Milwaukee area has LOST jobs over the last 12 months. The biggest losers? Green Bay (2,200 jobs) and Racine (1,500 jobs). Green Bay was one of the biggest areas that swung to Walker in 2010, and Racine elected the soon-to-be-recalled Van Wangaard to the Senate, and lays claim to being the home of ALEC tool and Joint Finance Chair Robin Vos. You can hear the "Ruh-roh's" coming hard from the WisGOP offices on those realities, can't you?

Sorry Reg, Walker still makes Wisconsin Number 1

2011-12-20T19:39:00.004-06:00

As suspected, Wisconsin got named again in this month's BLS "Jobs Report by State" report. And yes, Wisconsin is indeed Number 1.

In November, nonfarm payroll employment increased in 29 states and the District of Columbia, decreased in 19 states, and was unchanged in 2 states. The largest over-the-month increases in employment occurred in New York (+29,500) and Texas (+20,800). The largest over-the-month decrease in employment occurred in Wisconsin (-14,600), followed by Minnesota (-13,700) and Colorado (-4,500).

Yep, we lead again. But that's not the fun part of this story (if disastrous job loss can be considered fun).

The best comes from the reaction from various sides of the political aisle. First, we got Assembly Dem leader Peter Barca: (Run Peter, RUN!)

"For the second month in a row, Wisconsin led the nation in job losses. And the latest response from the governor and his administration has been to complain about the methodology.

"Other states continue to benefit from ongoing national job gains. Unfortunately, instead of regaining ground that's been lost every month since passage of this Governor's economic plan, Wisconsin lost another 14,600 jobs in November.

"The monthly figures were used by the governor to boast at a press conference in June when they showed gains, primarily in tourism, before his budget passed. Since that plan took effect in July, the numbers have fallen every month."

And then we have the counter spin, from Walker flack/ DWD Secretary Reggie Newson.

"The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics dramatically overestimated Wisconsin’s job loss for the month of October, and revised figures show Wisconsin did not lead the nation in job loss during that month. Representative Barca is not only wrong, but his false statements only reaffirm the need for a job reporting system that more accurately reflects the status of Wisconsin’s workforce.

The truth is that Wisconsin's unemployment rate has dropped this year, the number of unemployment claims has dropped this year, and state sales and withholding tax collections have grown this year.

And on its face, Newson's comments have some validity. With the revisions, Wisconsin was only Number 6 for job loss in October and not number 1 (Yay! Golf clap!) And DOR revenue estimates show that Wisconsin revenues have somehow continued to grow for these 5 straight months of job losses vs. the same months last year. However, that revenue growth isn't by much (3.7% sales, 4.9% income, 4.6% overall), has leveled off over the last 2 months, and that "improvement" will stop once the much-better-than expected months of December 2010 - May 2011 are used in these year-over-year calculations. We'll still fall $500 million or so short on revenues for this fiscal year, you watch.

Wisconsin's unemployment rate has now dropped to 7.3% vs. the 7.4% it was when Walker took over, after being as high as 7.9% three months ago. But the U.S. unemployment rate has still fallen twice as fast as Wisconsin's since Walker's budget was signed into law (0.6% vs. 0.3%), and even in that survey, Wisconsin has lost jobs since June, with the lower unemployment only due to 11,200 people dropping out of the work force. So if Newson was really being honest, he'd credit Obama a lot more than Walker with this cosmetic drop in the unemployment rate. But he doesn't get paid to tell the truth, now does he?

And despite Barca's misspeak about being the leader for the second straight individual month (we're back at 1 month of "leadership"), he's right on another point. WISCONSIN KEPT ITS POSITION AS NUMBER 1 FOR JOB LOSS SINCE WALKER'S BUDGET WAS SIGNED IN JUNE. And no other state is close to how bad we've been.

U.S. job change June 2011- November 2011
Wisconsin -34,900 (-1.26%)
Georgia -8,600 (-0.23%)
Missouri -8,200 (-0.31%)
Minnesota -7,200 (-0.27%)
Montana -2.400 (-0.55%)

Sorry Reg, but there's no way to spin job losses that are 4 TIMES THE NEAREST STATE. And given that this report was made before the mill closings in Wausau and Brokaw, as well as the strike in Manitowoc and the closing in Two Rivers, do you really see this turning around any time in the next few months? Of course not, and it is insulting to try to pass the blame off to the BLS and D.C. when the rest of the nation is kicking our ass. Hell, "high-tax" Illinois has beaten us by over 43,000 jobs since Walker's budget was signed. Maybe business owners see demand and respect for work in Illinois that doesn't exist here in Fitzwalkerstan, and that's why they're choosing to set up there instead of here.

So as much as Reggie Newson may try to give his little half-truths and lies by omissions, he can't cover up the disaster that Wisconsin has been under Walker and the GOP's budget. And the only way this disaster changes course is to end Fitzwalkerstan, and return us to the Wisconsin we know and love.

Why Madtown's taxes are up- it's the state, not the schools

2011-12-19T19:27:00.004-06:00

Was hanging around with my girlfriend on Sunday morning, and we were discussing home values and Madison neighborhoods, and property taxes came up (in connection to a "this is how much you'll really pay in a mortgage" discussion).

First of all, she lives in a middle-class Madison neighborhood, and her home was assessed at a shade under $200,000, with no major change in home value (from what I could tell) vs. last year. Her property taxes were up 1.4% for 2012, not exactly the property tax freeze Scott Walker promised us, but also not as much as the 2.7% tax increase the average Madison home got. But going inside where those numbers come from is more interesting.

As part of the bill, the City of Madison shows state aid to the City/ taxing entity as a matter of comparison. I noted that her school taxes were down somewhere between 1-2%, particularly noteworthy because Madison teachers accepted a contract extension through 2013 that included added employee contributions to medical coverage and pensions, but at levels well below the requirements of Scott Walker's "tools".

Let's repeat that, Madison teachers and the Madison Metropolitan School District collectively bargained an agreement that lowered property taxes for homeowners in the district. Collective bargaining WORKS in tough times, as proven by the most anti-Walker teachers' union in the state accepting concessions to continue the high level of education in their community, because those teachers work, live, and pay taxes in those communities. Don't ever forget it.

And those taxes sure weren't helped by Scott Walker's budget, because the state dropped aid to Madison schools by over 11% for the City of Madison. When my girlfriend asked "Where did the other $11 million go?", I shrugged and said "Tax breaks for corporations, giving them room to allow the GOP to funnel money to the road builders from regular taxes, that kind of thing." This got her even more incensed with Governor Dropout than she usually is (and yes, she's also signed the recall petiton and been at the Capitol).

It was a nice reminder of what I discussed a couple of years back when I went over how upper levels of government often pass the buck down to the lower ones with no money to back it up. And Gov. Dropout has made this even worse by not allowing local communities the flexibility to make up for the state's cuts even if the community so wants (Walker folks would claim the "tools" can make up the difference, but time after time, the state cuts are larger than any savings to be had from funneling off public employee take-home pay). When this happens, there is no choice available but massive cuts, ineffectiveness of the service, and possibly selling off the services to a private entity who just might happen to be a Walker comntributor in the same business (the ultimate goal).

Also on her tax bill was a major increase for Madison Area Technical College, in no small part due to the major Walker cuts to tech schools (about 28% on the tax bill I saw), and the huge building projects and expansions necessary to meet the expanding enrollment and employer needs. You know, to meet the needs of manufacturers to say they're constantly in search of skilled workers and that they can't find them in the current workforce? But Walker's not so keen on allowing tech. schools the "tools" to meet the needs the job creators say they want - so much for being "Open for Business."

The other taxing entities were relatively straightforward on tax rundown, with mild increases resulting from cuts at the state level, cuts that also reflect the inequities of a Shared Revenue system that Paul Soglin has rightfully called out for giving Milwaukee 45 times the "County and Municipal aid" money Madison gets, > In fact, a statewide list of this aid shows that Madtown falls several times below cities with significantly lower populations such as Racine, Beloit, Appleton, Green Bay, Kenosha, Oshkosh, Sheboygan, La Crosse, and Manitowoc.

So like a lot of places in Wisconsin, Scott Walker's promises of lower property taxes didn't happen for my girlfriend in Madison, and very likely didn't pan out for you as well. The problem is that next year's budget doesn't allow your municipality to raise property taxes while still cutting these aid payments from the state- so anticipate more layoffs, more fees (which you don't get to write off like property taxes) and fewer services in 2013.

Well, that is, unless you change how the money falls from the state, or allow your town to raise taxes in some other way. Both probably require recall elections to be in effect for 2013. Guess we have another reason to get on it, eh?

Milwaukee, Madison papers cop out, and other media BS

2011-12-18T19:43:00.007-06:00

Looks like Graeme Zielinski's callout of WTMJ being a front for WisGOP has clearly hit the mark. First, they try to bury their response in a multi-topic editorial with a headline discussing Jeff Fitzgerald's absurd plans to change an "Anti-Republican" GAB that has 5 of its 6 members be Republican. The innocence act TMJ tries to pull is eye-rolling.

Graeme Zielinski, the spokesman for the Democratic Party of Wisconsin, has a bulldog style that either endears or appalls. It was the latter on display Friday morning on "Wisconsin's Morning News" on WTMJ-AM (620), which is operated by a sister company of the Journal Sentinel.

In a tongue-lashing that went on for several minutes, Zielinski went after the radio station and its morning talk-show host Charlie Sykes for supporting Gov. Scott Walker.

A sample:

"People in Wisconsin are taking their state back from jokers like Charlie Sykes and you guys. People are standing up for themselves."

Sykes is a Walker supporter and certainly is fair game for criticism. But Zielinski is off base by lumping the rest of the station in with its conservative talk-show hosts.

A. A lot of us don't find Zielinski's response "appalling". We find ourselves applauding and cheering and saying "ABOUT FUCKING TIME!" But I bet you at Journal Communications sure are appalled to hear someone directly challenge you on your BS- elitist snobs do hate it when someone punctures their bubble.

B. When "Reward Walker" gear has your station's name on them, you bet we're going to lump your station in with those hosts. Illy-T mentions that Sykes' TV-4 show had none other than the head of Media Trakkkers on today. (and why does Sykes get a show on TMJ-4? I'm sure that's not corporate synergy by a "sister company" or anything) Do you think Sykes asked Sick-ma why he ran with unfounded BS allegations? Or do you think Char-LIE gave Sick-ma the legitimate question of "Why should anyone believe you when you've been proven false several times and you're funded by right-wing organizations?" Suuuuure.

Saying Charles Sykes and Jeff Wagner and other bilge-spewing hosts do not represent "the rest of the [AM 620]station" is like saying Jerry Sandusky doesn't represent Penn State University. Give me a fucking break, J-S. Right-wing propaganda defines your station when you don't have sports on. OWN IT.

2. The Wisconsin State Journal tried the pathetic "both sides do it" story when discussing out of state donations for and against the Recall Walker effort. The comparison tries to show that both the Dems and Walker get big money from out of state, but check out the difference in numbers.

Documents made available by the state on Friday showed that nearly 60 percent of the donations and almost 30 percent of the $1.18 million raised by the Democratic Party of Wisconsin since July came from outside the state.

That news comes a day after Gov. Scott Walker submitted documents revealing nearly half of the $5.1 million he raised — the most by one candidate in one filing period in state history — came from beyond state borders.

30% of $1.18 million is about $350,000. Now explain to me how the Dems' $350,000 is anything close to or equal to Scott Walker's haul of $2.5 million from out of state? And how is 30% of Dem total money close to the 50% of Walker's money? For crying out loud 2 Walker donators (a Texass Swift-Boater and the head of pay-for-play company U-Line) gave Walker more cash than the Dems got from the other 49 states combined. HOW IS THIS REMOTELY THE SAME? But the State Journal's story is clearly intended to give a "both parties rely on big amounts of out of state money" storyline that diminishes how bought-off Walker is by out-of-state interests.

Bill Lueders is more honest about this difference in his article on Saturday, mentioning the Dems' numbers, but also concentrating his article on Walker's fund-raising, naming names, and including the stat that Walker got 45% of his money in donations of $1,000 or more. Not surprisingly, Lueders works outside of Lee Enterprises, and doesn't work for a paper that went against the wishes of 68% of Dane County by endorsing Walker for Governor last November.

This "both sides are guilty" technique is used by media in D.C. all the time, where they try to take one or two people doing what the majority of the other party does to make the actions seem even, or defensible, as the (usually corrupt) other party can say "Well see, the other guy took money from ____" or "See, those guys also believe in ____." Well actually, most of them don't and the amount of money and level of influence it buys isn't close, but our media constantly fails to give this truth in the name of being "nonbiased." It's pathetic, and it consistently gives cover and advantages to certain corrupt organizations and self-centered interests, while also playing into a "both sides suck so you shouldn't demand more" cynicism that turns the average citizen off to politics, and keeps those selfish interests entrenched.

We need to see past these games played by corporate media, and demand more honesty, detail, and perspective in reporting, instead of lazy journalism that seems to worry more about grabbing headlines and being "balanced" over reporting reality. They're going to try it to play these games a lot in these next 6 months, and the only way they won't get away with it is if we stay vigilant and make them pay.

P.S- Capper has more good numbers on how much more Walker relies on out-of-state money than the Recall groups do. The State Journal would never lay out the numbers this way, despite it being true.

The long-overdue callout of WTMJ and Journal Communications

2011-12-17T10:04:00.013-06:00

Read this article on Dem Party spokesman Graeme Zielinski going on WTMJ's Morning show and taking the opportunity to lay the smack down on the station and its right-wing talk hosts. Of course, TMJ responded with rightful indignation, because it realized it made the mistake of having someone who would dare to yank the curtain back on how that place operates. Journal Communications' newspaper has an unintentionally hilarious rundown of the incident.

"People in Wisconsin are taking their state back from jokers like Charlie Sykes and you guys," Zielinski said. "People are standing up for themselves."

As Zielinski attacked Sykes and Walker's record as governor, Mueller pointed out that, "What happens after 8:30 on this station is none of my concern. Let's keep it to the issues here."

Reached for comment, Steve Wexler, executive vice president of the Journal Broadcast Group, sent this email: "I heard the segment this morning and thought it was odd that Mr. Zielinski would use so much of his valuable on-air time to critique our programming instead of making his case regarding the recall, but that was his prerogative. Our listeners are smart enough to understand that our news programs consistently present opposing viewpoints but that our talk programs have a different mission."

There's lots to rip in these 2 statements by Journal Broadcasting employees.

1. To Gene Mueller- C'MON MAN! I grew up listening to you and Reitman 30 years ago. You know as well as anyone that ratings, cross-promotion and corporate bosses drive the radio industry, and what Char-LIE Sykes and Jeff Wagner say after your show affects what gets covered, talked about, and framed for your station. Lots of those topic choices come from the top, or could be shot down from the top.

And Mr. Mueller, if what happens after 8:30 doesn't affect "Wisconsin's Morning News", then why is your station advertised on "Reward Walker" gear? How can you say it's separate when your former morning show partner John Jagler left TMJ to become Scott Fitzgerald's media lackey? Why did your radio, TV, and newspaper entities run with the race-baiting Media Trakkkers story when you knew it was sketchy at best and later proven to be a lie? Why is Sykes given a "public affairs" show on Sunday mornings on your company's TV station when it's documented that he's a right-wing hack, and there's no similar left-wing hosted show?

Seriously, Gene- Don't you admit it would sound pretty stupid if you called your co-worker a one-sided liar when Sykes and Wagner drop one of their numerous unsubstantiated arguments, and then handed the mike over to those same people and "cross-talk" with them? How can you say you're objective and independent of your company when the station you work for is a daily advertisement of union-bashing and promting the interests of WisGOP? That's like saying the bartenders at the Madison bar with "Sign Recall petitions here" posters in the window could be expected to have no opinion or support Walker. Riiiiight. Gene, you may be trying to be quite the organization man, but your comment is a crock of shit.

2. Wexler's cop-out is even worse- He views Zielinski's comments as a "waste of valuable air time"? First off, don't flatter yourself, Steve-o. About 5% of the state at most listens to your station at a given time, and most of those are either too lazy to flip the channel after the Packer game, or they're incapable of getting up from their chairs in the nursing home, or they're wedded to their mother's basements.

Second to Mr. Wexler, maybe Graeme was trying to spark the discussion of whether your station is a slanted pile of garbage in collusion with the Walker camp, and that what Sykes and Wagner and your other hosts have to say is spin and lies. Lots of bystanders in this state think that talk shows and radio stations are somehow "objective" and just "giving the news directly to you", with no ulterior motives. They don't get that it's no coincidence that Scott Walker and other right-wing politicians are given hours of free air time on TMJ to spout their lies and not be challenged by them. Why do you think Zielinski was on the morning show? He'd never be allowed to be on with Sykes, Wagner or Belling- it's why he had to take his shot when he did. Same thing for any Wisconsin Dem politician...if the "largest stick in the state" will ever have them on for 5 minutes.

The average bystander also doesn't understand that opposing callers are usually screened out of shows like Sykes and Belling in favor of those who won't challenge or stray for the hosts' agenda, (or worse, like how Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and Gleck Beck's radio syndicator pays actors to call in to the show) , giving a false impression that "average Wisconsinites" are on board with this WisGOP propaganda without dissent. These people just go on living their everyday lives, because they don't have the time to investigate the truth or falsity of Media Trakkkers-based rumors that are portrayed as fact, but the lie is now implanted in their heads, and affects what they know (or think they know) about the way things operate. Comments like Graeme's are going to awaken those same people to the BS that exists in right-wing radio operations and their media manipulation. Once they're alerted to this possibility, it isn't hard to find and expose, and will cause them to question everything a WTMJ or "TV partner" TMJ4 might choose to report, alert them that the Journal-Sentinel's support of Walker last November may have a lot to do with Journal Communications' broadcasting wing, and then the GOP's game will be up.

This callout has been a long time coming. Former TMJ news director Dan Shelley exposed the way Sykes and co. operate in a great expose 3 years ago, (the original article has been moved, somehow) and Sykes' lame responses were subsequently taken apart by Milwaukee Mag's Bruce Murphy. Heck, I called for UW Athletics to disassociate itself with TMJ 20 months ago in no small part because of TMJ's right-wing anti-UW stances and bashing of the residents of the City of Madison. Given that the Walker folks cut the UW System massively in the state budget, then turned around and demanded the UW System take on nearly 40% of the state's lapses while leaving Transportation and other agencies relatively unscathed. Think UW might need to reconsider giving TMJ lots of added listeners if getting screwed over by TMJ's favored politicians is all they get for being on that station?

So I'd like to thank Graeme Zielinski for saying in the most public of forums what most of us have waited to hear from our "mainstream" Wisconsin media. The most prominent radio station in the largest city in the state is one filled with GOP propaganda, and that anything they or the Journal-Sentinel print should be heavily questioned, if not completely disregarded, until they allow something resembling political balance and fairness to be broadcast on 620 TMJ and TMJ-4.

I'd say we're pretty close to Occupying 720 E. Capitol and taking the message right to these corporate puppets...maybe we can do it right around Packer playoff time.

Another month, another loss of jobs. But this time with awesome spin!

2011-12-15T18:23:00.008-06:00

Guess my prediction of minor job increases in November was way off for Wisconsin. Try the biggest monthly loss yet, 11,700 private sector jobs, and 14,600 overall. But maybe even more sickly hilarious than the God-awful jobs report is DWD Secretary Reggie Newson's remarkable spin on it.

Department of Workforce Development (DWD) today released the Bureau of Labor Statistics(BLS) monthly report showing Wisconsin’s unemployment rate dropped to 7.3 percent from 7.7 percent. (Ed. Note: This is a separate survey, and largely reflects a smaller workforce, much like the U.S. drop from 9.0% to 8.6% in the same month) October’s job loss number was significantly reduced to 2,400 from the initial estimate of 9,700, a 75 percent correction.

Secretary Reggie Newson today issued a statement on the newest set of monthly Wisconsin employment numbers. “October was the fifth straight month and the eighth month this year in which the federal government overestimated the preliminary job loss numbers or underestimated job gains for Wisconsin,” Secretary Newson said. “I am particularly concerned by the disparity in the October preliminary numbers, which were off by 7,300 for total jobs and 7,900 for private-sector jobs. These unreliable employment statistics out of Washington misinform the public and create unnecessary anxiety for job seekers and job creators about the shape of our state’s economy."

WOW, and not just for the horribly written part about "overestimating th preliminary job losses" (you mean understating total jobs?)And Newson and DWD double down on it from there, with a huge chart showing upward revisions in previous months...but also showing that there were still serious job losses from the time Walker budget was signed in June. Only about 1 1/2 pages in are November's numbers mentioned.

...Preliminary November data indicates employment declines for the month in most categories. The data show that, compared to November 2010, the private sector gained 16,600 jobs, including 5,600 in manufacturing and 11,400 in educational and health services. The public sector lost 12,100 jobs over the year. Without seasonal adjustment, the estimates had similar results, a monthly private sector job loss, but a 15,600 gain over the year.

Yeah, of course, the DWD release doesn't mention that as part of the 15,600 private sector gain, 22,600 private sector jobs were gained between November and March (you know, before Act 10 was passed busting unions?). Which means we've LOST 7,000 PRIVATE SECTOR JOBS SINCE ACT 10. Guess it was just an oversight, eh Reg?

And even with those revisions cutting October's job losses from 9,700 to 2,400, it still means there was a loss in a month where there were 100,000 new jobs in the U.S., and it still means Wisconsin lost the most jobs in the U.S. in those 4 months. Lipstick on a pig indeed!

Looks like it's time to update the charts.

Wisconsin vs. U.S. jobs 2011

And manufacturing has fallen apart in Wisconsin, down 9,000 jobs since the budget was signed, and 9,800 since August, while the U.S. has maintained steady growth in this sector.

Manufacturing jobs, Wisconsin vs. U.S. 2011

Add in this disaster, the Walker budget record now reads:
Wisconsin -34,900 total (-1.26%), -25,000 private (-1.06%).
U.S. +0.50% total (+1.76% vs. Wisc.), +0.66% private (+1.72% vs. Wisconsin)

That's right, we're coming up at being down 2% vs. the rest of the country. But that's what you get when you have the 1 and only Scott Walker! Doing the math, this now means you can directly point to Walker's policies as costing Wisconsin 40,500 private sector jobs, and nearly 49,000 total jobs.

Hmm, no wonder half a million have signed the recall papers, and no wonder this Administration is floundering about with baseless lawsuits trying to stop the inevitable end of Fitzwalkerstan. Because the reality and their record show them to be historic CLUELESS FAILURES.

Walker tactics- Shoot first, correct and clean up later

2011-12-14T20:00:00.003-06:00

In a J-S story on the disgraceful mining bill giveaway to Walker contributors Gogebic Taconite, looks like there might be a little hangup.

New mining legislation may conflict with the Great Lakes Compact, according to an official with the Department of Natural Resources.

A water resources administrator with the agency said that language on the use of high capacity wells in a mining bill unveiled last week might run up against restrictions on water use in the compact.

“There is a potential conflict,” said Russ Rasmussen, deputy water division administrator said on Wednesday before a hearing on the legislation....

It would also require the DNR to approve mining applications in 360 days. The current regulatory process takes at least 2½ years, according to the Legislative Council, the research arm of the Legislature.

A representative of Army Corps of Engineers also raised questions about the timeline.

“Our concern … is that 360 days may not be enough time to partner with the state,” said Rebecca Graser, program manager of regulatory affairs for the corps in Wisconsin.

Oops! Looks like we might have a few unintended consequences from rushing through this giveaway, now don't we? The hundreds that packed the State Fair Park conference room have a few concerns as well, so maybe it's not such a good idea to jam something through if you don't know what'll happen next, is it, WisGOP?

But sadly, this is the way they operate. Look at these Walker Admin- promoted laws over the past few months, and see how they have to come back later to fix them up, usually at a much higher taxpayer expense.

The best example is the Walker Admin's pose on the train from Milwaukee to Madison to the Twin Cities. Walker and his (road builder and WSOR-supported) supporters cried over the potential of a few million dollars in state costs needed to support the line once it was built with Federal stimulus money, and sent such clear signals against the project that the Obama Administration rightfully told them to fuck off and sent the money elsewhere.

The payoff from this short-sighted move came in this year's state budget, and was felt again last week when the Joint Finance Committee set aside $2.5 million more in state funds to study a new site for the train manintenance facility- a facility that would have been 100% funded by the Feds (i.e. only 1.8% by Wisconsinites) if only Walker and the 262 trailer trash that whined about it had shut up and allowed the project to go through. And they might not even get the facility (and its jobs) in Wisconsin any more, as it could now get built in Chicago!

The final price tag for Walker's symbolic BS? Between $65 and $84 million dollars, according to the LFB. Wisconsin's 1.8% share of building the $810 million rail line? About $1.5 million. So we threw away a building project that would have added a few thousand jobs for the next 3 years and what did we get in return? Somewhere between $60 and $80 million in extra expenses and a reduced amount of jobs and tax revenue. And our federal spending and taxes didn't even go down, because the money went elsewhere (mostly to California and Illinois- you know, the states with the highest job growth last month).

Another example is the absurd voter ID bill, which in addition to being disenfranchising and discriminatory, also has a major price tag to it. When it was passed, the LFB figured around
$5.7 in extra costs to the GAB, DMV, and universities to "solve" this problem that only existed in race-baiting right-wing radio.

But extra cost is not the only concerns that have cropped up with this unneccesary law. First, the disproportionately low-income and minority technical colleges were left off of the list of schools where IDs were acceptable documents to vote, an "oversight" that was only reversed after a serious lobbying effort by the state's tech college officials. It also has thrown up so many barriers that 84-year old Central Wisconsin grandmothers that have served on village boards face the possibility of not being able to vote. This woman's disenfranchisement is a centerpiece of this week's ACLU lawsuit that asks to throw Voter ID out entirely, but before it gets tossed, Wisconsin needs to waster another $436,000 in a TV ad campaign informing people about voter ID.

Much like turning down the train, voter ID was a pose and a bone thrown to the Walker boys' hateful base, and a false solution for a mundane or non-existent "problem." (Yeah, I'm using the air quotes a lot in this post, but the thinking is so absurd and bullshit, I really have no choice) Apparently having the 2nd highest turnout rate in America in 2008 was such an issue for the Koch-publicans that they just had to waste millions of our taxpayer dollars to make sure we don't approach that figure again. (Wisconsin being Number 1 for job? Not so urgent.)

And I could go on and on how the Walker boys are such slipshod fools. This includes possibly throwing tens of thousands of Wisconsinites off of Badgercare because of an arbitrary December 31 demand of the Feds to break their own Obamacare rules - a move so stupid the Walker-endorsing Journal-Sentinel is calling it a bad idea. It also includes the "now-you-need-concealed carry training, now-you-don't" ridiclousness pulled by Walker and the autocratic Rules Committee, which only caused a massive amount of confusion over which rules applied, and still could be changed again in the next few months.

And let's not even start with the Wacky-hut silliness in Milwaukee County, or the soon-to-be-ignored and tossed protesting rules at the Capitol. It's all part of the pattern of how the Walker folks are a lot more about poses and looking like they're taking action....and not so much about results, effects and reality. And I may be old-fashioned, but I demand my legislators to have the ability to see more than 5 minutes and one poll into the future when they put laws into place, and get it right the first time.

They clearly don't beieve that, and we've all paid a major price in both taxpayers dollars and in effective government. And that WisGOP inability to see past their own noses, think on anything above a spoiled-child level ("I want it! I want it!") and deafness to anything except talk radio is why there'll be a new group in power in the next few months.

Midwest in recession and recovery

2011-12-12T20:36:00.009-06:00

When I saw the treasure trove of data that came from that Federal Reserve "GDP By States" report that I referenced in the post that showed Wisconsin having the worst economy in the nation over the last 3 months, I had to look into it further. (Why? Probably because I am a pathetic geek on these things). I've mentioned before that Wisconsin handled the recession better than most of its neighbors, and this data will back most of it up, as well as show the Scott Walker effect that has taken away these advantages.

I wanted to show Wisconsin in comparison to its upper Midwestern neighbors, so we have a total of 7 states including Wisconsin in this study, as well as the U.S. numbers as a whole. The first chart shows GDP drops and recovery from 2008 (the U.S. started seeing the numbers drop in Jan. 2008) through today. You'll see that Wisconsin muddled through a lot better than any of its neighbors to the south and east (Michigan was so bad it literally went off the charts in 2009), and we were slightly better than the U.S. each year from 2008-2010. But in 2011, Wisconsin dropped below the U.S. for growth, and now trails by almost 1%. (click for bigger image)

Interestingly, Iowa and Minnesota are the clear leaders in this chart, and the two states that beat Wisconsin in our region. Minnesota in particular is almost back to where they were when the recession started. It's not the only way they've been beating Wisconsin in economic stats in the last couple of years - think this might have something to do with the Twin Cities being a lot more open to new ideas and new people than Milwaukee and the 262? If you don't, you should.

Now check the next chart, which shows how the economy has rebounded in the 2 years since Wisconsin hit bottom in October 2009 (we actually came out of recession 2 months before the country as a whole). You'll see Wisconsin continues to match U.S. growth as a whole and was solidly in the middle of the pack when compared to our neighbors...until Walker's budget was signed in June. Now, we're next to last in our group for growth in the last 2 years, and have gotten passed by Illinois and Minnesota, as well as the country as a whole. (again, click for the larger image)

You'll notice a few things here:

1. Michigan and Ohio had the highest increases, which isn't all that surprising since they were so far down to start. Likewise, Iowa is the only state to increase slower than Wisconsin in this time, but Cornholio didn't fall very far to begin with.

2. The U.S. economy has continued to steadily grow in the last 4 months, while Wisconsin has dove down.

3. The other state in clear recession in the Upper Midwest Region? Mitch Daniels' Indiana, continuing its underperforming trend under one of Scott Walker's political idols.

So there's more evidence of how Wisconsin is starting to trail and see the damage from Scott Walker's policies. And given the higher jobless claims over the last few weeks and the disastrous mill closings in Central Wisconsin announced last week, you can't expect it to improve much in the next few months. Now I'm going to go out on a limb and say we may have gained jobs in November, but it won't be much, and it won't get us back to where the rest of our region has been the last few months.

By the way, those new jobs numbers come out on Thursday and the state numbers will probably be on Friday. Between that and the inevitably larger property tax bills that are hitting people's mailboxes (and yes, they'll be up...or the home values will be down), you don't think there's a bit of flop sweat coming from DWD and the Walker Admin right now?

Braunie now knows the power of a union

2011-12-11T09:30:00.002-06:00

I'm still recovering from the stomach punch I got around 6:45 last night when I was watching ESPN with my Dad and the "special report" came on with Ryan Braun allegedly testing positive for PEDs and facing a 50-game suspension. I know I shouldn't be shocked about baseball players being accused of PEDs, but....it's Braunie! Between this and Prince's likely departure, it really gives a huge cloud over this franchise going into 2012.

Now that being said, Braun is insisting he will be cleared, and maybe he's got a tight case (I could see Braunie having top-notch legal and PR people around), but the East Coasters on the Sports Reporters don't seem to be buying it this morning.

And for all you union-bashers that love the Crew- Aren't you glad Ryan Braun has a union that allows him a chance to appeal a questionable drug test and get due process? See how this type of thing works when you have someone backing you up (and part of a group smart enough to reach an agreement with management on drug testing through COLLECTIVE BARGAINING). Sure beats being someone like Allison Rozek at the DWD, and getting fired for no apparent reason other than whistelblowing about sexual harrassment and not kissing the right person's ass.

Nope, Walker's moves don't work- Pt. 23521

2011-12-10T11:40:00.007-06:00

The failures just keep rolling in on this clown. James Rowen has an excellent find showing the monthly Federal Reserve report that lists Wisconsin DEAD LAST among the states in economic activity, and in clear recession over the last 3 months.
And it looks even worse when you see what it looked like when Walker was elected in November under "growth-killer" Jim Doyle.
In fact, the Fed says Wisconsin's economy grew in every month from October 2009 through the start of 2011. And while things were starting to slow down, we will still holding up when Walker's budget passed in June.
Now, we're back down to where we were in March, before Act 10 was passed in that illegal vote. And don't believe for a second that the past isn't prologue. So unless you like being Number 50 in the nation, I think it's well past time to pull the plug.

And speaking of the past being prologue, a hidden story in the J-S this week includes the Milwaukee County Auditor admitting that Walker's handling of employee relations in his previous job was a miserable failure.

Milwaukee County’s use of unpaid employee furloughs last year to help balance the budget saved the county about $5.2 million, but resulted in thousands of hours of lost employee work time, forced overtime and demoralized employees, County Auditor Jerome Heer said Thursday.

The savings also could be nearly wiped out if the county loses a court case over furloughs, Heer said.

"These furloughs were not all they were cracked up to be," he told supervisors. "It’s a very inefficient way to achieve savings."

Doesn't this sound like the Wacky-hut screw-up all over again? You know, where Milwaukee County taxpayers got socked with paying more than they would have had they just kept the same unionized staff on the job? I've touched on this before, but furloughs only work if the reductions are intended to be short-term items that get a budget back in balance due to unexpectedly low revenues. It is NOT to be used as a consistent tactic, and if benefit costs and structural deficits are the issue (as they allegedly were in Milwaukee County), and the jobs are still needed (which they apparently were, because Walker would have demanded layoffs instead of furloughs if they weren't), then the best answer is to be an adult and NEGOTIATE A BETTER DEAL.

And just like he did as Governor in Madison, Walker failed to do this, possibly because he doesn't have the mental capabilities to think past what'll play in the next 5 minutes on the Charles Sykes show. And just like in Madison, this dictatorial approach backfired badly, but not before serious damage was done to the area he was in charge of.

Lies, lies and WisGOP-damning reality

2011-12-10T08:08:00.010-06:00

First of all, two great pieces of reporting work from the Left Cheddarsphere this week.

First, a great job of connecting the dots by James Rowen on the closing of the Wausau paper plant in Brokaw and that company's connections the Bradley Foundation, Wall Street, and $4.5 million payouts to its CEO. Required reading to show how these all tie together to slam a Central Wisconsin town into oblivion.

Next, here's Jeff SImpson at Blogging Blue exposing the lies in that pro-Walker ad wiith the Cottage Grove teacher. Monona Grove schools already have numerous classes above their desired standard due to Walker's budget, filled this year's budget holes with Obama stimulus money and NOT the tools, and their own superintendent says the district is in a $1.5 million hole under Walker's budget for NEXT year, with no tool adjustments to be made.

When you have to lie and omit these things to the public, you're damn near done. And why are they lying? Because of this reality.

News came out this week showing Wisconsin to be a national leader. Unfortunately, it was as the state with the biggest increase in unemployment claims for the Thanksgiving week. And the bottom of the page adds that it wasn't by a little.

The largest increases in initial claims for the week ending November 26 were in Wisconsin (+8,172), Michigan (+2,643), Iowa (+2,228), Indiana (+1,645), and Ohio (+1,500) while the largest decreases were in California (-27,440), Texas (-8,543), Florida (-5,306), South Carolina (-4,670), and New York (-4,614).

Wisconsin's new unemployment claims have been consistently creeping up the last 6 weeks, so don't expect Wisconsin's worst in the nation job performance under the Walker budget to improve any time soon. By the way, any report of that in the Journal Communications, Inc. newspaper? No, of course there wasn't. Hmmmm...

Maybe if we get back to valuing good, old-fashioned skill advancement and hard work, we can get our Wisconsin way back. I had business in NE Wisconsin this week, and caught this headline from the Shawano Leader. KI is expanding their operations in Bonduel, adding an estimated 27 new jobs in that small town. And why did they decide to do this? Because Wisconsinites are better workers than Confederates.

KI plans to phase out production at its plant in Pontotoc, Miss., beginning in January. The plant, which has about 40 employees, will close by June 1. Manufacturing of seating and table products done in Pontotoc will move to Bonduel.

KI started production at the Bonduel facility in 1998. It employs 176 people and is the fourth largest KI manufacturing facility in the nation.

With the closing of the Pontotoc facility, KI also will convert its manufacturing facility in Tupelo, Miss., to a warehouse and distribution center; two of Tupelo's product lines will move to Bonduel. Because of the changes, KI will drop its staffing in Tupelo from 55 to about 30 people.

Yes, it's a net loser for the country (those 27 jobs added come at the expense of 65 in Mississippi), and it's a big reason why the whole "play one state off vs. another with tax incentives" idea is stupid, but it sure tells you something when KI feels it's better off with half the employees in Wisconsin rather than keep their operations in Mississippi. So much for the theory about the low-tax, low-wage South being a more desirable place for manufacturing jobs, huh? Doesn't matter much when you have smarter, better workers in the North. Kinda makes you think a winning strategy is to invest in tech schools that teach needed manufacturing skills and improve K-12 education so companies want to locate in an area that values high-skill, adapatable workers.

Oh wait, Walker cut the fuck out of technical schools and K-12. Sounds like we need a new governor to get more KI-type expansions on track for Wisconsin's future, don't we?

Walker deceived on June jobs release? NOOOOO!!!!

2011-12-04T19:42:00.004-06:00

Well, just color me surprised. Walker and his boys were told by DWD officials that the short-term June jobs spike was all due to tourism jobs outside of metro areas and other short-term, seasonal factors that would go away in the next few months. They ran with it anyway with a big public display, probably because it was 3 weeks until the Senate recall elections.

Hell, I don't even work for DWD and I told you that 4 months ago.

The real story is that it means you need to keep your eyes peeled for similar lies from the Walker folks about Wisconsin jobs "turning a corner" if they get any sort of positive job news in the next few months. Given the U.S.'s steadily improving economy in the last few months, Wisconsin SHOULD see an increase in jobs coming up, if all things stay equal. But you can bet Walker and the paid liars on talk radio will try to ignore the positive U.S. news, and try to take all the credit for any added employment in Wisconsin - even if it's temporary Holiday jobs that will go away in January. Don't fall for it.

U.S. job revisions = Walker cost Wisconsin 39,000 jobs in 4 months

2011-12-03T09:51:00.007-06:00

The number getting all the attention in yesterday's U.S. jobs report was the drop in the unemployment rate to 8.6%. And while that's significant, it's also skewed by 315,000 people dropping out of the work force, and a very low 64.0% participation rate, so there's lots of work still to do.

Less mentioned was the total job increase itself. 120,000 were total jobs added in November and 140,000 in the private sector, as well as decent upward revisions in the previous months. This continues a trend of steady if unspectacular job growth throughout most of the last 2 years, with nearly 2.9 million private sector jobs created since the end of 2009, and almost 2.4 million jobs overall.

U.S. job growth 2011
2011- 1.58% private, 1.06% all jobs

U.S. job growth 2010-2011 combined
2010-2011 - 2.70% private, 1.85% all jobs

It also magnifies the failures of Scott Walker in the same department, as the revisions increase how far behind Wisconsin is with the gains in the rest of the country, especially since Walker's budget became law on July 1.

Wisconsin vs. U.S. jobs Jan.-Oct. 2011
U.S. +0.97%, Wis. +0.13% (-0.84%)
Wisconsin GAP -23,100 jobs

Wisconsin vs. U.S. jobs June-October 2011
U.S. +0.41% Wis. -0.99% (-1.40%)
Wisconsin GAP -39,000 jobs

You read that right. If Wisconsin grew at the same rate as the rest of the country over the last 4 months, we would have had 39,000 more jobs than we do now. If Wisconsin had kept up with the country since January (the month before Walker "dropped the bomb"), we'd be up 23,100 jobs.

And it looks even worse when you compare that to the numbers in the previous 12 months to "dropping the bomb."

Wisconsin vs. U.S. jobs Jan. 2010-Jan. 2011
U.S. +0.81% Wis. +1.44% (+0.63%)
Wisconsin GAP +17,000 jobs

You read that right too. 6 months after Jim Doyle the Dems' "tax-hiking, job-killing" budget, Wisconsin was GAINING 17,000 JOBS OVER WHAT THEY SHOULD HAVE. Wish you had them back now?

Now, I know math and numbers are items that scare the daylights out of the average tightie righty, but 17,000 JOBS OVER is a helluva lot better than 39,000 JOBS UNDER. These numbers also show that we're back below the 2-year trend of growth for the rest of the nation.

Why would we accept Wisconsin staying behind the country's job growth? Oh, wait, over 300,000 of us has decided that we won't accept that, and another 600,000 of us (or so) will probably follow. And no unenforceable DOA protest policy's gonna stop that us from reminding you of that reality.

Was there a "Brewer stimulus"? Small, but possible

2011-11-28T18:47:00.004-06:00

Now that the state has reported the sales taxes for counties that have sales taxes through the middle of November, I figured now would be a good time to see if the Milwaukee area truly benefitted from the Brewers' run to the NLCS. If there was a serious "Brewer stimulus", you'd see it in sales taxes, as the extra ticket sales, team gear, and food and drinks spent out at bars would be reflected in that type of revenue.

The short answer is- minorly. Milwaukee County had a definite increase in sales tax revenues for the October and November distributions vs. last year (which reflect sales in September and October), but it was already getting increased revenues before then, and it's a bit hard to tell if the increase comes only from the Crew's success.

Milwaukee Co. sales tax revenues
Jan.-Sept. 2011 - $47,783,484
Jan.-Sept. 2010 - $45,026,681(2011 increase 6.12%)

Oct.-Nov. 2011 - $11,305,025
Oct.-Nov. 2010 - $10,191,673 (2011 increase 10.92%)

I think Chris Abele and County staff will take the modest bump. So will the Stadium district (the 5-county 0.1% sales tax that helps pay for Miller Park), as they were up 9.41% vs. October and November of 2010.

But possibly the biggest winners from the Brewers run may be the Wisconsin Center District, who own and operate downtown Milwaukee facilities like the MECCA, Milwaukee Theatre, and the convention center. From the WCD's own website, it explains how it gets its money to operate.

WCD receives no property tax money or Federal, State or local subsidy. Its operations are funded by operating revenues. Special sales taxes on hotel rooms, on prepared food and drinks sold in restaurants and taverns, and on car rentals repay a $185 million bond issue that funded the Midwest Express Center project, and provide funding to Visit Milwaukee. None of these tax revenues are used to fund WCD operations.

Within the boundaries of Milwaukee County, WCD collects 2% on rooms, 3% on car rentals, and 0.5% on food and beverage sales. It also receives a 7% hotel room tax formerly collected by the City of Milwaukee. Effective January, 2011, the county-wide hotel room tax increases to 2.5%, as requested by affected hoteliers to provide additional funding for Visit Milwaukee.

And the WCD saw those revenues go up 18.50% in the three-month period of September, October and November. That increased hotel tax hit at just the right time with the Brewers getting hot and grabbing so much of out town media that needed to stay in the Milwaukee area. Now can they get that center paid off and give the hotel tax back to the City of Milwaukee so city residents can get some breaks on their property taxes? Worth keeping an eye on.

So it looks like the Brewers' success gave a minor lift to the County and Stadium district finances, and a big boost to the Milwaukee Center District and Milwaukee "lesiure industry" work. Too bad for Scott Walker that this Brewers-related business still couldn't save us from being dead last in job growth during that same period, and that the Brewers' bump in sales taxes was over with October.

Ironically, it's these "leisure industry" workers that have had a dearth of downtown sporting events in the last month due to the Bucks lockout, and you can bet they're as glad as anyone in the state is to see the NBA lockout end. Let's see if that pops in for the last month of the year and January 2012.

Will Wisconsin ever get back to full employment?

2011-11-27T14:31:00.006-06:00

This sort of an add-on to the last post, but here is a good article in this week's Isthmus regarding Wisconsin and the jobs gap that opened up as a result of the 2007-2009 recession. The whole article is good and I recommend reading it, but here's a couple of key takeaways from it.

The first is how the experts show how our economy has changed, and how Wisconsin will have to adjust to meet it. This quote is from Tim Smeeding, who heads the UW's Institute for Research on Poverty.

"These are jobs that were decreasing in the pre-recession period, and the recession made them go down even faster," [Smeeding] says. "Our employment in manufacturing in this country has been dropping since 1970. We don't live in the Mercury outboard motor world, the Chevy SUV world or the Harley-Davidson world anymore. We live in an Epic world."

"Epic" is, of course, Verona's successful medical software company, which has continued to add to its workforce despite the parched economy. The way forward may be technology and specialized manufacturing, Smeeding says. "If you don't have a post-secondary degree, you're in big trouble."

2 thoughts on this:

1. If you need a bachelor's and post-secondary degree to make it in the 2010s and beyond, as Smeeding suggests, why did Gov. Walker impose $250 million in cuts to the UW System is the 2011-2013 budget. And then he doubled down on those cuts by putting in a disproportionate $66 million in additional cuts to the UW system in the DOA's notorious lapses. This will clearly limit the variety of classes UW schools can offer, reduces the ability for these schools to compete for high-level faculty and staff, and raises tuition to the UW schools by a total of $107 million (5.5% in each year for an 11.3% total increase over 2 years). In a time when high-level higher education should be a huge Wisconsin priority, Walker chose to go in the complete opposite direction.

2. Epic Systems, in addition to being the largest private employer in the county that added the most people in Wisconsin last decade, also defines a different way of business in Wisconsin (and I don't just mean the crazy hours and singular culture that Epic is known for in the Madison area). Epic has refused to work with vendors who joined with the right-wing shills at Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce. Why? Because Epic understands that the failed, "profit by any means necessary without regard to other effects" mentality that defines oligarch orgs like WMC is no way to succeed in the 21st Century. Compare that thinking to Scott Walker and Co. feeling they need to cling to WMC/ Bradley old-money, old-boys club style of thinking. Who do you think will develop the strategies to make it in the modern world? I'll go with Judy Faulkner and the folks at Epic.

Here's one other big part of the article, including a former professor of mine at the UW.

Jack Huddleston, a professor of urban and regional planning at the UW, says the last state budget "cut local aids by about a billion dollars. That translates immediately" to employment losses in local government. He's skeptical of projections that these jobs will take another hit in 2012. "I don't see the bleeding continuing," he says.

But Andrew Reschovsky, an economist and professor of public affairs at UW-Madison, predicts that the bleeding will accelerate. "The pressure on local government is going to grow," he says. Stuck in the vise, alongside the state's municipalities, are the state's schools, where teachers have gotten the ax. "You don't make these kinds of cuts without having employment effects," he says.

No you don't Prof. Reschovsky. We've seen that as part of the big job losses that have hit since Walker's budget took effect on July 1 (most notably the loss of 9,000 local government jobs since August, reflecting lower-than-usual staffing at K-12 schools). And you will continue too see that happen in 2012, because many of the cuts reflected in municipal governments do not take effect until the new local fiscal year on January 1. We are not done shedding jobs in the public sector by a long shot, and given that public sector employees buy things and own houses just like private sector folks do, it will put serious pressure on other parts of our state's economy.

So as the Isthmus article shows, a large gap in jobs continues in Wisconsin, much like it has in the rest of America, and it shows that we are a long way from the peak employment times of 1999-2000. But the path that Scott Walker and his backers chose have put us even further behind in the hole, and until his slash-and-funnel-to-the-rich-and-corporate mentality is driven out on Madison, we aren't going to come close to getting back to where we need to be.

Walker spin on jobs- more lies and failures

2011-11-27T13:50:00.008-06:00

Thanks to James Rowen, I got this heads-up on more Twitter spin from Gov. Walker's office.

@GovWalker- From 2007-10, WI lost more than 150,000 private sector jobs. From Jan - Oct 2011, WI added more than 20,000 private sector jobs.

I suppose the point that Walker and co. are trying to make is that somehow Jim Doyle and the Dems were responsible for the large job losses from 2007-2010, and that Walker and the WisGOPs were the ones who turned around Wisconsin's job losses in the last 9 months. Seems laughable enough on its face, given Wisconsin's last-in-the-nation "honors" for job growth in the last 4 months, and the charts showing Wisconsin falling behind the rest of the country under Walker, but let's take a closer look and see what we have.

Well, the numbers seem close enough to reality (I'll even allow Scotty his 20,000 "private sector job growth" claim, although half of that was in the month of January, before he "dropped the bomb" on public employees). But as is typical in Walker World, key context is not mentioned. And the big context here is how the U.S. economy dropped its own bomb on American jobs, and we should look at how Wisconsin compared to the rest of the country. We'll use the 12-month change from December of each of these years.

Job growth Wisconsin and U.S., 2007-2010
2007 - Wis. +0.43%, U.S. +0.80% (Wis. -0.37% vs. U.S.)
2008 - Wis. -1.71%, U.S. -2.61% (Wis. +0.90%)

In 2008, Wisconsin elected the Dems to control of both houses of the Legislature, and they passed a budget in the face of a massive budget deficit and job losses in June 2009, let's see how they did.

2009 - Wis. -4.74%, U.S. -3.77% (Wis. -0.97%)
2010 - Wis. +1.40%, U.S. +0.73% (Wis. +0.67%)

So the collapsing Wisconsin economy had stabilized under the Doyle/ Dem budget, and were adding jobs at almost twice the national rate in 2010. Walker took office in the midst of these recovering times in January 2011, and has thrown it into reverse, even as the rest of the country keeps adding jobs.

2011 All jobs Wis. +0.13%, U.S. +0.91% (Wis. -0.78%)
Private sector Wis. 0.38%, U.S. +1.33% (Wis. -0.95%)

So when Scotty and his minions throw Tweets out like Friday's spin, remind them that we are lagging the U.S. badly, and losing as badly as we were 2 years ago. Unfortunately, we don't have a Dem-controlled Legislature or Governor that will make the moves necessary to turn that around and get us back on track.

Hmmm, sounds like we might need to put in Dem legislators and a Dem governor in 2012 to get moving again, doesn't it?

Dear J-S- We know whose side you're on. It's not ours

2011-11-26T09:45:00.004-06:00

I just sent this to the Journal-Sentinel letters to the editor file. It's a short version of what I wanted to send, because they limit the size of your submission. I wanted to go more into the prominence they give to right-wing columnists like Christian Schneider and Mike Nichols from the Bradley-funded WPRI (aka We Promote Republican Idiocy). I also wanted to mention the huge megaphone right-wing liars get to have on WTMJ, WISN, and other hate radio without any balance given for the majority of Wisconsinites who want Scott Walker gone.

But that requires a lot more explanation than they allow for plebes like me, since I don't belong to the right social clubs for the J-S. So instead I settled for this.

"Those of us that pay attention to things like consistency in media can't help but notice how the Journal-Sentinel has chosen to cover certain events.

For example, the sketchy, race-baiting, (and totally false) accusations regarding young African-American recall petition signers were generated by a Bradley Foundation-funded right-wing group called Media Trackers. The Journal-Sentinel refused to consider the biased source of these lies, allowed Journal Communications employee Charles Sykes to run with those false accusations. Your paper then gave prominent space to dutifully follow up on the "story," allowing these lies to be displayed on the front page when you knew they were false and inflammatory.

You know what didn't get on the front page? Liberal One Wisconsin Now's $10,000 reward offered for information relating to the arrest of people who wish to deface and destroy recall petitions. Makes you wonder why it's different, doesn't it?

When I was going through the airport to fly out for Thanksgiving with my family, I checked your paper to see if there was coverage of the Bureau of Labor Statistics report that showed Wisconsin to be dead last in America in job performance for the month of October. Was this big news on your front page? No. It wasn't even on the front page of the business section. That's a choice made by your management.

When I came back from my Thanksgiving trip with family, what do I find in huge type on the J-S front page? Some sensationalistic story about City of Milwaukee employees "triple-dipping", also chosen by your management. No doubt this report would also be used by WTMJ talking heads for fodder on the GOP propaganda and filth that passes for daytime broadcasting on Journal Communications' radio station.

These are but two examples as to why many of us have chosen to cancel our paper subscriptions to the Journal-Sentinel, as you have not only refused to admit your mistake of endorsing the failed Scott Walker for governor, but you and your broadcast stations continue to allow right-wing spin meisters to give unchallenged deceptions and lies without any sense of judgment or allowance for balance from the other side.

You at the Journal-Sentinel have a choice. Either start to balance to the right-wing noise brigade that dominates your publications and broadcast stations, and make these people accountable for their lies and deceptions. Or expect many more disruptions and direct actions by us who have been diminished and silenced for far too long, and your corporation and advertisers will pay a big price- both in the pocketbook, and in your integrity.

Well, that's if you have any integrity left, because right now, a lot of us see nothing more than a tabloid rag that favors a small oligarchy who could not care less about the overall well-being of our state."

Edit, here's another example of the J-S's leanings. They allow a scared Sykes-sucker from Elm Grove a full column to spew proofless garbage like this.

H/t Illusory tenant.

Because the J-S won't tell you- Walker's Wisconsin DEAD LAST for jobs

2011-11-22T16:08:00.007-06:00

The monthly state-by-state employment report confirmed what I suspected. Wisconsin had the nation's worst job record in October, and our fair state garners a number of "honors" in this month's report.

In October, nonfarm payroll employment increased in 39 states and the District of Columbia, and decreased in 11 states. The largest over-the-month increases in employment occurred in Illinois (+30,000) and California (+25,700). The largest over-the-month decrease in employment occurred in
Wisconsin (-9,700), followed by New York (-8,300) and Minnesota (-6,100).....

Wisconsin experienced the largest over-the-month percentage decline in employment (-0.4 percent), followed by Maine, Rhode Island, and Wyoming
(-0.3 percent each).

In October, 14 states recorded statistically significant changes in employment, 13 of which were increases....The only state with an over-the-month statistically significant decline in employment was Wisconsin (-9,700)....

And as I've noted, this is hardly a one-month blip, because October's decrease means that Wisconsin also moved into the Number One position for job loss over the last 4 months- or the time period that Scott Walker's budget has been in effect. And it's not by a little, either.

Most Job losses June-October 2011
Wisconsin -27,600
Georgia -19,100
Rhode Island -6,200
Missouri -3,800
Arkansas -3,700

You know what's even more remarkable than Wisconsin's job failures? The biggest growers. Illinois and California have major budget and pension shortfalls, and are 2 of the biggest canards right-wing propaganda tries to use as an example of why Walker had to make the massive cuts and damages to public services. Yet, what else do these states have in common? I'll replay part of the BLS report from above.

In October, nonfarm payroll employment increased in 39 states and the District of Columbia, and decreased in 11 states. The largest over-the-month increases in employment occurred in Illinois (+30,000) and California (+25,700).

And you know what else California leads in? Job growth over the last 4 months, with over 80,000 jobs added. That's right, California is Number 1, Wisconsin is Number 50. And I guess Scotty's plans to poach businesses from "higher tax" Illinois aren't really paying off either.

Hmm, maybe cosmetic budget numbers don't tell the whole story about a state's ability to grow jobs, now does it? You know who else knows it? Walker's buddy Mitch Daniels in Indiana, who allegedly has a billion dollar surplus, but also presides over the only state in the Midwest with job losses over the last 12 months (see it on page 19).

So yes, today's figures verify even more that the Walker policies are complete failures? And the Journal-Sentinel's take on this story? No idea, they're busy propping Walker for claiming an Indian company will add 50 jobs a year based on tax credits of $15,000 a job. Oh, and racist dog-whistle stories about daring to help homeless people to vote (while choosing to stay silent on One Wisconsin Now's $10,000 reward for recall petition tampering. Hmmmm...)

You know, I wouldn't have to constantly hammer these points if we ever had a "fair and balanced" state media reporting them.

Wisconsin jobs vs. U.S., by the pictures

2011-11-21T19:38:00.004-06:00

I've been working over the last couple of days at making charts comparing how Wisconsin has fared against the rest of the country in creating jobs since the start of the Obama era, and then overlaying it with the performance under Jim Doyle and Scott Walker. Some of this may be a repeat, but for those of you that are visually inclined, I think you'll like it.

First, you can see the bomb that was dropped on the economy in 2009, with major job losses in the private sector and overall, and how the economy was stabilized and began to recover in 2010.

Wisconsin jobs vs. U.S. Jan 2009-Jan 2011

As you can see, Wisconsin was hurting even more than the country in 2009, but rebounded well in 2010, outperforming the rest of America, and we were nearly all the way back to the national average by the end of this 2-year period.

In fact, Wisconsin was especially picking up under Doyle and the Dems in the manufacturing sector, as their job performance was better than the national average after a good 2010.

Manufacturing 2009-2011, Wisconsin vs. U.S.

a key fact to remember given that Wisconsin was the state with the highest percentage of jobs in manufacturing in 2009, and that we were the only state in America with more manufacturing jobs than government jobs. Before Walker and the "tools" ever existed!

Now here is Wisconsin's jobs performance under Scott Walker. Remember that Wisconsin had been catching up to the U.S. in 2010, under Jim Doyle and the Dems' budget. Check out how things have fared since Walker and the WisGOPs took power, especially after Walker's budget passed and took effect starting in July 2011.

U.S. vs. Wisconsin jobs 2011

Check out that collapse after June! And look at the gap open up between Wisconsin and the rest of the country, with the U.S. staying on steady growth, while Wisconsin has fallen back to where we were at the start of the year. Using that chart and plugging in the numbers, you can safely say that Scott Walker's policies have cost Wisconsin over 22,000 private sector jobs and 21,500 jobs overall.

And one more chart for you. Apparently there's a Koch-fueled ad claiming that Walker has "led a manufacturing-led recovery" with an alleged 30,000 new jobs and 15,000 in manufacturing. Politi-crap said the numbers were half-true 2 weeks ago, but as usual, Politi-crap is falling for Republican spin. In addition to the numbers being woefully out of date (it's now 3,500 jobs added under Walker, not 30,000), Wisconsin is now TRAILING THE U.S. at creating manufacturing jobs under Scotty since the jobs have collapsed under Walker's budget.

2011 Manufacturing growth, Wisconsin vs. U.S.

So now you know the pictures that are making Scott Walker tremble so badly he was sprinting up to Wausau to take credit for a new corporate headquarters that used Doyle-era Democratic-led incentives to decide to come to Wisconsin. Sorry Scotty, you're still losing...BADLY, and we won't continue to allow you to continue to screw up what was working in our state.

The Walker jobs disaster continues

2011-11-17T17:44:00.002-06:00

I know it's a broken record, but I have to keep pounding it. Today's October Wisconsin jobs report, and it was another debacle. 9,300 more jobs lost in the private sector, and 9,700 overall. Put together with last month's disaster, and this state has lost 20,700 jobs in the last 2 months, and 27,600 since Walker's budget took effect on July 1. All of these job losses are while the U.S. has added jobs at a relatively steady pace at the same time, showing that new DWD Secretary Reggie Newsom hasn't had the time in office to develop into a good liar, as he's trying to put these losses off on the "national economy". The national economy ain't the one losing jobs, Reg.

With these losses, it now puts Wisconsin below the number of total jobs it was at in February and has fewer private sector jobs than the state had back before Act 10 was passed in March. So much for the tools and its lower taxes leading to private sector growth. And given that Wisconsin has had increased new jobless claims for each of the last 4 weeks, don't count on the jobs numbers turning around any time soon. In fact, when the BLS state-by-state report comes out, I bet Wisconsin comes out Number 1 under Walker's budget...for job losses by any state in America.

The lack of jobs under the Fitzwalkerstani policies are also finding its way into damaging our budget, as the Dept. of Revenue also had a big release today, putting out its monthly revenue numbers. October 2011 collections were FLAT compared to October 2012- not a good sign when inflation has been 3.5% and the state budget counted on rev increases of just over 3%. Income taxes were up all of 0.2% compared to last October, and corporate taxes were DOWN 45.9% (gotta love those tax cuts to the "job creators"). The only thing that held up in October was sales taxes, but of course sales taxes did- every post-season Brewer ticket, "Division Champs" gear bought, beer consumed, and night spent at the bars in that amazing Wisconsin sports month had sales tax counted against it, so I'd hope sales taxes did well. Now that baseball season's over, don't count on that coming through again.

So the 5.4% year-over-year revenue advantage for the 3 months has slipped to 3.7%, and the revenue figures picked up for the last 8 months of the last fiscal year (remember the "upside revenue surprise" that made me scream BROKE MY ASS last May?). So expect the revenue gap to grow, to go along with the extra Medicaid cuts, and hateful targeted lapses to the UW System.

If you were stupid enough to fall for Scott Walker's moon-shot promises, you've have to have creashed to earth by now and seen that the "bomb" that Scotty dropped was on this state's economic performance. We need to RECALL all of these failures, and I'll gladly be adding my name to the hundreds of thousands that are more than ready to end this Reign of Error.

Would you devastate Wisconsin schools to save $18?

2011-11-15T20:28:00.006-06:00

According to the numbers released today, that's the question you have to ask yourself. Because while the headline number of Wisconsin property tax levies going down $47 million statewide might sound big for the Sykes-suckers, but it's a drop in the bucket for the average Wisconsinite. And not just because the drop is all of 1.01% of total school levies.

If you look at 2010 Census figures, you'll see that we have just under 5.7 million people lucky enough to live in Wisconsin. So that $47 million in property taxes is all of $8.28 person. WOO-HOO!! But, to be fair, a lot of those people are kids who don't exactly pay property taxes or rent, so let's also use the 2.625 million state housing units and see what the average place got for a tax break.

$17.93. That's the reduction for each household. Not even $18. Keep that thought

But wait, there's more! Check out your individual school district here, then go to the end of the report and note the statewide numbers, which not only show the total levy, but the tax rate. Then compare the mill rate with 2011, and a hidden point comes up.

School mill rates 2011 vs. 2012
2010-2011- 9.76 overall, 9.80 K-12
2011-2012- 9.84 overall, 9.88 K-12

That's right, school property tax rates went up this year. So if your property's value stayed the same in Wisconsin, it's likely your school property taxes will go up, regardless of how the Sykes/Belling/Walker team try to spin it. And if they don't go up, it's probably because your home's value went DOWN, and not by a little. But hey, who cares if you're underwater on your house when you can save $1.50 a month in (deductible) property taxes, right?

And now let's talk about the damage your community is taking on for the sake of that $1.50 a month. This handy-dandy interactive map will give a good idea what your district had to do because of Walker's moves. You've taken thousands of dollars away from the take-home pay of many of your community members, denigrated the education profession, raised class sizes in the classrooms of our youngest students, and caused numerous experienced teachers to leave the profession. and in the process have taken away one of Wisconsin great advantages over other states - it's top-quality education.

And what happens in the long-term if this continues and Wisconsin gains a reputation as a place of Idiocracy with a low value for education? Why don't you ask the Confederacy, where home of 7 of the 12 states with the highest unemployment rates (page 18), including 5over 10%. And these places also rank highest in poverty and per capita income (what a coincidence!). Low-wage and anti-union policies haven't come close to saving that area from staying behind, and it's because of the anti-education mentality and low-skill workforce. This is where we're heading if we continue to denigrate education to save a few bucks, and it's not the state that I care for and have chosen to live in.

So ask yourself, what kind of person would destroy this state's high quality of life and respect for education for....getting an extra bite from the Dollar Menu each month? Apparently someone that could use some of that $18 saved to go and buy a mirror, because the type of pathetic low-life that finds the huge costs to be an acceptable outcome needs to take a long, hard look at themselves. Kinda like this guy who's been arrested. (He even looks a bit like Scott Walker).

They need to remember the wisdom of Marge Gunderson. There are indeed more things to life than a little money.

THIS...IS OURS!

2011-11-13T13:50:00.004-06:00

And it ain't going out of this state any time soon. Minnesota may eat our lunch when it comes to jobs and having the Twin Cities be the progressive location that 20-somethings choose far too often over Milwaukee, but they sure as hell aren't beating us in football.

More fun later in the week...

Yep, Kaukauna and other "tools" were Walker lies

2011-11-10T17:11:00.005-06:00

Very interesting and telling survey from the Wisconsin Association of School District Administrators that got released yesterday. Here's the major summary so you can check it out yourself, but a few key takeaways.

1. As Mike Tate and the DPW folks told us today, Walker and his honks' tired Kaukauna example has been shown to be a fraud, with increased class sizes and reduced teacher staffing. Yup, indeed it is , and looks Baraboo was also hurt on both counts by Walker's moves.

2. 82% of the districts responding reported that they lost personnel vs. last year, and nearly 2/3 of them lost teachers. Check out this map of places where teachers lost jobs, and you'll notice an interesting placement.
Note that a lot of those blue districts without teacher cutbacks seem to be clustered around the suburbs of Milwaukee and Madison, as well as a solid group in the Eau Claire/ La Crosse area. But the red, teacher-losing districts are a large amount of the rural districts outside of the Milwaukee area, as well as the big losses at MPS. Just the way Scott Walker designed it- help rich suburbs, hurt high-risk districts.

3. More than 2/5ths of the districts increased class sizes for Elementary School- the very times that they need smaller classes to allow for increased attention from teachers. At the higher grades, it's worth noting that over HALF of the districts responding cut class offerings in "career and tech" areas, and nearly half in art, music and phy.ed., choosing those cuts over "Core" areas (38%), foreign language (27%) and AP (22%).

While we need to offer classes for the college-bound in order to make our schools competitive academically, we also need to remember that employers say 600,000 manufacturing jobs are unfilled because of a lack of skills< and that "most manufacturers expect the problem to worsen in coming years." So in light of this need and Wisconsin's strongly manufacturing-based economy...Scott Walker cut school aids which cut tech school classes at the K-12 level, and also cut tech college funding by 30 percent. And sorry Scotty, tech college students are likely to be just out of high school trying to expand on their voc-ed education, and you're trying to take both of these skill-gathering chances away from young people. Completely stupid and regressive on a lot of levels.

3. Lastly, THE "TOOLS" DID NOTHING TO CHANGE WHAT SCHOOLS DID THIS YEAR. Folkbum nails this point. The last pages of the study look into districts that stayed under their old bargaining agreements, and compared them to the schools that had no contract, no bargaining rights, and could use the "tools." There was a minor increase in teacher losses for the unionized schools, and an extra increase in class size for the "tool" schools. But there was really no difference at all, and now the "tool" schools have shot their bullets before next year's cuts come in.

In other words, the tools were a gimmick that accomplished nothing except to demonize teachers, push more of them into early retirement, and discourage others from entering the profession. The only reasons you'd want that result are 1. To send Wisconsin into Idiocracy and 2. To make schools "fail" so they can be sold off to Scooter Jensen and the voucher lobby.

And that is the Walker Admin's goal on public education, make no mistake about it. Remember, and RECALL.

Jobs revisions show Wisconsin even further behind under Walker

2011-11-05T09:17:00.002-05:00

Yesterday's October jobs report was notable not necessarily for the relatively tepid 80,000 job increase, but instead for the huge revisions in August and September, indicating 102,000 more jobs than previously reported. You can imagine the difference in the headlines if there were no revisions but 182,000 jobs were added. It would have been a "major upside surprise" instead of "jobs growth stays slow, around expectations." Guess it's all in how you look at the data, eh?

But what those revisions also do is make Scott Walker's failure to create jobs in Wisconsin even more blatant than before. I mentioned this when Wisconsin's brutal September job report came out, but let's run those numbers again with the positive revisions for the U.S.

Change in total jobs June-Sept. 2011
U.S. +0.30%
Wis. -0.69%

Change in private-sector jobs June-Sept. 2011
U.S. +0.40%
Wis. -0.50%

Let's put the numbers another way to show how far below the national trend Wisconsin is performing under Walker's budget:

June-Sept. 2011 Wisconsin jobs

Total jobs created in Wis. if at U.S. rate- 8,300
Actual total jobs created in Wisconsin - -19,300
Wisconsin underpeformance under Walker - 27,600 jobs

Private jobs created in Wis. if at U.S. rate - 9,400
Actual private jobs performance in Wisconsin - -11,900
Wisconsin underperformance under Walker- 21,300 jobs

These figures show that Scott Walker's approved policies could be held responsible for the loss of more than 27,000 total jobs and 21,000 private sector jobs, because if Wisconsin was just some normal state following the national trend, we would have had job growth these last 3 months.

And while the Brewer stimulus may reflect in the October numbers, this will still be well below the national trends for the last few months. And no matter what scummy dirty tricks Waukesha-County Republicans try to pull these massive failures and resulting budget deficit that'll result are the final nails in this corrupt administration's recall coffin.

See you downtown for football Saturday and Chase Bank protesting fun!

The CEO's lies come full-circle

2011-11-02T18:42:00.006-05:00

Well, I'd like to thank Rep. Peggy Krusick for outing herself as the Jeff "Pay to" Plale of this legislative session. Peggy from Stallis (OK, SW Milwaukee, same thing) decided late last night that she would sponsor a race-baiting amendment removing race as a factor from consideration for the Talent Incentive Program. This program gives small college scholarships to people who come from several types of disadvantaged groups, with racial minority groups being among those (but not the only ones, as the J-S story points out that one-time imprisonment, first in family to college, and disabled are also groups that can get Talent Incentive scholarships).

After the Robin Voses of the world and the Wauzaukington County Republicans threw their wholehearted support behind the bill, every other Assembly Dem took the measure apart for the next several hours, so much so that the session was still live when I checked Wispolitics.com this morning.

This is culmination of that absurd study by the Koch-funded group trying to tear down affirmative action at the UW-Madison, which only succeeding in galvanizing massive protests on campus and confrontations against these Koch puppets, and it made me even more glad to be a Badger than I usually am (which is saying something). But you can see Koch's strategy- come up with a Big Lie (UW-Madison lets underserving minorities get into school at the expense of white students), try to let the narrative take hold in angry-man media and sucker in "both sides of the story" media to make your side seem legitimate, then use it as an excuse to have one of your legislative lackeys come up with a law that tries to take care of this "problem". This then allows the current power structure to stay in place, and if it REALLY works, dispirits minority students so much that they decline even more in achievement, which means the rich white folks don't have to work as hard to stay on top. That last part (not having to work as hard if you're rich) is the real intelligent part of the design, and the ultimate Koch goal of feudal oligarchy.

Let me reiterate one shocking stat I pointed out 7 weeks ago in a story on Wisconsin racial disparities in schooling.

The percentage of 2011 graduates prepared for college-level core subject areas also varied greatly by race, with 36% of white students in Wisconsin considered ready for college classes compared with only 4% of black students.

But the typical black student has the same chances as a white one in his or her K-12 schooling. Suuuuuure.

I hope Peggy's got a lot of cash coming to her as the "token Dem" for the Charles Sykes show after that pathetic performance, and we'd better see a nice primary challenge to her in the 7th Assembly District next year, just like how Dems ran Plale out of the 7th Senate District last year and got Chris Larson in return- a key move, as Plale would never have had the moral compass to be one of the Wisconsin 14.

These numbers also illustrate how absurd it is for the GOP to try to pass a bill allowing students' low test scores to be a main factor in getting teachers fired. When poverty/race, social environment, and a student's family's educational achievement are the largest factors in determining success in school, why are teachers supposed to be the only ones responsible for how a student does in school. I've got no problem with looking at test scores as a way to identify a school's deficiencies and room for improvement-finding ways to improve student performance and skill sets should always be the top goal in educational policy, and I think test scores might have a part in that. But the words of Milwaukee teachers' union president Bob Peterson are on the money when it comes to how attaching incentives to those scores changes teaching for the worse:

"There's no research that demonstrates that linking student test scores to teacher dismissal and discipline improves teaching and learning. In fact, it has been shown in Atlanta and Washington, D.C. - where these kinds of actions are taken - it narrows and dumbs down the curriculum, and encourages deceit and cheating," Peterson said.

Teachers can do a lot for a student, but those teachers' 7 hours a day in the classroom can't completely offset the other 17 hours a day and 3 months in summer that those same students are at a disadvantage. Anyone who believes that teachers are the sole determining factor in a student's test scores are clueless people that have no business making educational policy. Test-based compensation and retainment also leads to the classic adverse selection problem where some teachers may choose not to take jobs at challenging schools with at-risk kids because that teacher fears the students' low scores may lead to the teacher's reprimand. So guess who's left teaching the students who need the most dynamic teachers? Far too often, it's the low end of the barrell.

It's unwise at best to install test-based firings into law, but it's more likely that it's part of the scheme that CEO and Scooter Jensen and much of WisGOP want. These people want the end result of the privatization of education, both at the K-12 levels, and in universities. This allows for taxpayer funds to be funneled away from public, independent, fact-based education, and moved over to the voucher school lobby and the organizations that support them. And those lobbies, headed up by organizations like the Koch Brothers and the Bradley Foundation, are more than willing to sacrifice American competitiveness for a few dollars and legislators in their pockets.

That's a sacrifice Wisconsin and America can't afford to make. We gotta expose these sleazy groups, and take them down.

One year ago tonight...

2011-11-02T18:34:00.006-05:00

""But to all those others who may not have voted for me, let me be clear, I intend to be governor of the entire state of Wisconsin. No matter where you live, no matter what your background, no matter who you voted for, we all live in Wisconsin together, and we're going to move this state forward together."

- Scott K. Walker, November 2, 2010, upon being elected governor of Wisconsin

Of all the lies that scumbag has told, this might be the biggest one. He's never followed through on these words for a second.

Happy birthday, Scotty. Hope you enjoy it, because it's the last one you'll ever have in the Governor' Office.

H/t Sly in the Morning

More budget screw-ups, and more on Wis. health care

2011-10-31T19:11:00.007-05:00

While I am enjoying the absurdity that is Mary Lazich's destined-to-fail redistricting and recall-repression moves, there have been some other important developments the last few days.

1. Hey, it's another Walker Administration budgeting foul-up! This time it was the Administration putting $45 million of Federal health funds into the budget that won't come to Wisconsin. Basically, the Walker boys thought there would be funds coming in from Washington that would have been as the result of a correction of disputed payments on disability programs. Turns out, that isn't going to happen, and the elderly will be screwed.

Wisconsin's Medicaid programs, which are paid for by the state and federal government, serve more than 1 million people.

The Republican Walker administration already is facing criticism from Democrats over other parts of their Medicaid savings proposal, which would shift hundreds of thousands of residents to lower-cost state plans or private plans. This latest blow will make it even more difficult to accomplish the goal of finding the needed savings to balance the state's budget.

Stephanie Smiley, a spokeswoman for the state Department of Health Services, said the agency had been unaware of the letter until contacted by a reporter. Smiley said the state didn't currently have a backup plan to cover that money.

"If what you sent us is in fact a denial of these waiver initiatives, DHS will need to find the additional $45 million in (state money). We do not yet have a proposal to find this savings," Smiley said.

Another Health Services spokeswoman, Beth Kaplan, later confirmed that the Walker administration no longer expected to receive the money in light of the Sebelius letter.

In other words, the Walker Administration relied on "phantom revenue" and rosy scenarios. Gee, we haven't seen that before, have we?

In fact, before all the recall fun and games, the Transportation and Elections Commission had an interesting hearing regarding a bill that would establish an elected Milwaukee County Comptroller. One of those testifying in favor was none other than Milwaukee County Executive Chris Abele, who admitted that one of the reasons Milwaukee County was is such a budget bind was because over the previous several years overly optimistic assumptions on land sales, Transit TV ads, and other revenue projections didn't come through.

And who was the Exec whose Administration signed off on these phony numbers for budget years 2003-2011? You got, SCOTT WALKER. You can bet the Journal-Sentinel will skip the obvious reference Abele was making to Walker's budget lies in his time in Milwaukee, but those in the County sure know the truth (as evidenced by Barrett 62, Walker 38 last November).

2. Maybe it wasn't such good timing for Humana to whine about getting a waiver from having to actually cover people under Obamacare. Humana's 3rd Quarter earnings were announced today, and it was a blowout.

For the third quarter, Humana earned $444.7 million, or $2.67 per share. That compares with earnings of $393.2 million, or $2.32 per share, in the same quarter last year. Revenue climbed 11 percent to $9.3 billion.

Adjusted income was $2.54 per share, which easily beat Wall Street expectations. Analysts surveyed by FactSet expected, on average, earnings of $2.03 per share on $9.26 billion in revenue.

So given profits of nearly $150 million a month, I think Humana can afford a way to pay for coverage for a few more people and still be able to have up to 20% of premiums not go to actual care of the sick. Just a thought.

3. There'll be a lot more people out on the Wisconsin market too, because the DHS is out with their plan to cut $554 million out of Medicaid, mostly through increased out-of-pocket costs and throwing the working poor off of assistance and into the private market. Looks like Joint Finance will at least get a chance to review and discuss this in mid-November, and I'll guess there are a few things in this 126-page behemoth of details that should draw some interest.

The patterns of greed, incompetence, deception, and destruction continue from this administration and their friends in the health insurance industry. Fortunately, I think we'll be breaking the chain soon enough.

Memo to J-S Politi-crap.....WALKER IS GETTING A RAISE

2011-10-29T11:54:00.002-05:00

Saw the Journal-Sentinel's Politi-"fact" try to spin Scott Walker's pay raise as something out of his control. RIIIIGHT. So Walker has the power to go ahead and decide to keep state worker base pay flat and centralize who gets raises and who doesn't, but when it comes to giving back his own pay raise? Well, then I guess his hands are just tied and there's nothing he can do.

Hey Politi-crap, WALKER CHOSE TO TAKE THE MONEY. He could have chosen not to take the money, and at least be consistent with his policies against state workers, (because, you know, we're "broke"). But HE DID NOT DO THAT.

That being said, I'll thank you for keeping this issue and its double-standard on the front burner, and thanks for reminding us in the thinking world of how paid off by the Bradley Foundation your publication has chosen to be. For my handful readers, let this pathetic spin-as-analysis by the J-S be a reminder to cancel the paper version of that oligarchial rag, if you haven't already, will ya? It's the only way they'll learn to write the truth.

Spooky health care corruption- and spookier job realities in Wisconsin

2011-10-29T11:09:00.005-05:00

1. Here's more pay-to-play in this corrupt administration, as health insurers have convinced Walker donator and Insurance Commissioner Ted Nickel to ask for an Obamamcare waiver that would allow it to spend less than 80% of premiums on actual medical care. The complaint is that 6 of Wisconsin's insurers can't make it on less than 20% overhead.

They are: Humana Insurance Co., a unit of Humana Inc.; Golden Rule Insurance Co., a unit of UnitedHealth Group Inc.; Time Insurance Co., a unit of Assurant Health; Mega Life & Health Insurance Co., a unit of HealthMarkets Inc.; and American Republic Insurance Co. and its affiliate, World Insurance Co.

The companies spent from 65 cents to 72.9 cents of each dollar in premiums on medical care, according to the Office of the Commissioner of Insurance. Combined, they have about 35% of the market for individual insurance.

"When you are looking at 35% of the market, you want to avoid as much turbulence as possible," said J.P. Wieske, a spokesman for the insurance commissioner.

Wisconsin has the most competitive market in the country for health plans bought by individuals and families, according to an analysis released this month by the Kaiser Family Foundation. Consumers would not lack for other options if a health insurer left the Wisconsin market.

I thought Republicans were all about improvements through efficiency and competition? Guess that mentality ends when providing more service and competition threatens corporate profits, because after all, the goal of government is to protect profit over people's well-being (Wait, it's not supposed to work that way in a civilized society? Softie). So instead of demanding that they run their needed service in a more efficient and customer-friendly manner, these health insurance corporations should be allowed to shovel more blood money from citizens toward the salaries of bureaucrats that deny coverage. What a load of crap. As mentioned earlier, the complaints Dennis Smith and the Walker hacks have against Obamacare show that maybe it's a better plan than we thought.

And one of the Scummy 6 doubled-down on their hypocrisy, as Humana announced they had enough money around to potentially hire 130 more people in Wisconsin. In a stunner, Humana employees also gave generously to Scott Walker and Scott Fitzgerald in 2010, as well as Alberta Darling once she was up for recall, so you don't think these donations have anything to do with asking of a waiver for the 80% rule for Humana, do you? And now they can use these projected additional jobs as blackmail, saying "if you don't give us our waiver, we won't add these jobs." So much for public health "service." Sickening.

And of course, most of these projected jobs are in a GB service center (people who decide claims...and deny them), or in sales (trying to convince companies to take on their insurance). You think that's going to give Humana policy holders any kind of insurance break, allowing them to have more disposable income to grow our economy? Yeah, riiight. You know it's going right back into CEO pay and in the form of more donations to the Fitzwalkerstanis.

2. Then again, I think Scotty and co. will take any job creation they can. In addition to being 49th in the nation in job performance since the GOP budget was passed, Wisconsin reached another dubious jobs-related honor this week. The state with the biggest increase in unemployment claims last week (see the end of the report). HUZZAH! Guess that Brewer stimulus is ending, and given the NBA lockout, we know a few hundred seasonal Bucks jobs are going down the tubes for the rest of this year as well.

Somehow, I'm guessing these facts aren't making it to Walker's taxpayer-funded "results" website. But we'll make sure they're RECALLED.

Quick thoughts on the new state worker pay plan

2011-10-25T17:59:00.003-05:00

Not that I'm surprised that a bureaucrat like me is looking at no pay raises for the next 2 years. I knew they'd treat us as second-class citizens and show no decency after cutting our take-home pay by 10% over last year, and the disrespect is almost humrous at this point.

I just wish Scott Walker and J.B Van Hollen and other public officials weren't getting $7,000 pay raises at the same time (see page 67), and other statewide officials were the others slated to be the only ones to get their salaries raised.

And I wish that when I was evaluated for any type of raise, it would be my boss in my department doing it, given that my boss might have some clue about what I do or don't do, and not leave it up to some Walker-appointed hack at OSER. But of course, this is a pattern of this administration as well- take away any idea of independent civil service, and replace them with flunkies who get rewarded for kissing the right ass.

If I wasn't confident that we only have a few more months of this transparent garbage, I'd be angry. But I'm not, as I know it'll make the revenge will be all the better.

More on Walker jobs failure- from his own DOR

2011-10-24T19:35:00.006-05:00

Friday afternoon featured the release of the Wisconsin Department of Revenue's semi-annual state Economic Outlook. And as you may have heard, it featured awful news for the Walker boys, as the report indicate that as things stand after 9 months of the Fitzwalkerstan era, Wisconsin will add barely over half of Walker's vaunted 250,000 jobs in 4 years. But even those dismal projections are worth a second look, both to see how much damage has been done by the Walker Administration, and to see if even this Fall's figures are overly optimistic.

Because when you check what the same DOR predicted 5 1/2 months ago, the outlook was a lot rosier. In that report, the DOR expected 183,400 jobs in the next 4 years (check page 8 for the charts) , but in the Fall report, that job growth number dropped by more than 25%. Apparently even the DOR couldn't predict the severe damage that Tea Baggers and Fitzwalkerstanis could inflict on the economy in a matter of months. The Spring 2011 average projection of 2.77 million total jobs and 2.353 million private sector jobs has only been surpassed once, in the fluky big-gain month of June. Since then, the Waller budget has taken effect, and Wisconsin has been 49th for states in job growth in the 3 months since. We won't even be at that 2.77 million level by the end of 2011, let alone an average.

Now, the Fall report tries to account for that, dropping the numbers to 2.765 million total and 2.346 million private. And the 2012 job gains are lowered to 1.0% total and 1.3% private vs. 1.7% total and 2.1% private. In fact, the DOR now says average unemployment will go UP to 7.8% in 2012, which means we won't be any better off than we stand today, which is worse off than the 7.4% we had when Walker took office.

Those brutal figures might be too generous, if anything, given that most of 2011 has been below even those lowered figures, and little growth can be seen coming one. Eespecially as many local governments will institute drastic cuts over the next 4 months to combat the Walker Admin's stupid cuts to shared revenues and limits on levy increases. The DOR's own report indicates that state personal income increased by a huge 9.3% from January through March (while the state was still working under Jim Doyle's last budget), then Act 10 was passed, and it dropped to a 5.3% increase for April-June, then Walker's budget was passed and personal income dropped by 1.1% from July to September. This report indicates personal income growth will rebound and be up between 3.6 to 4.1% for the next 9 months, but given that we've swung from a Spring prediction of Q3 income growth of 3.1% to an actual decline, what makes you think that somehow this is going to come back so easily?

And then this will hit the budget, because the Legislative Fiscal Bureau used those nicer Spring assumptions when they published their revenue numbers for the Walker Budget, and they figured that revenues would increase around 3% for the upcoming year. LFB gets to revise those numbers for both revenues and expenses in 3 months, and you can bet that revenue increase is going to go down, and the unemployment and other social safety net expenses will go up, and our budget won't be close to "balanaced" any more.

You can tell the Walker folks know their empty job boasts have caught up to them, which might explain the surprising departure of his second DWD Secretary today. Sorry Scotty, but it's the reality that you created with your bad policies that have led to these brutal jobs numbers, not the messengers and cheerleaders hired to prop up things at the DWD. Unless you are truly that naive to think that what's holding the economy back in Wisconsin isn't a lack of take-home pay by the consumers who make up the vast majority of our business transactions, and that it's really all some kind of vague confidence game.

Then again, Scotty's never held a real job in the working world, so maybe that's why he still clings to these fairy tales of "job creators" and "low taxes" being the magic beans that sprout an economy (or he just thinks the Koch money's nice enough to keep saying that bullshit, one of the two). Those of us who actually have worked know better, and that's why Walker's tenure as governor is already more than half over.

Wisconsin's Number 2!...in job loss

2011-10-23T10:23:00.002-05:00

This week's horrific Wisconsin jobs report showed 12,400 jobs lost in the state last month. 2/3 of these losses were in local government, reflecting the large amounts of teacher retirements and cutbacks resulting from Scott Walker's budget. (gee, who predicted that?)

But the jobs disaster goes much deeper than that. Since Walker's budget went into effect July 1, Wisconsin has lost 19,300 jobs, including 11,900 in the private sector. Especially bad in the face of the nation's increases of 287,000 total jobs and 352,000 private sector jobs. So the state is clearly going the wrong direction job-wise, but look at the numbers from all 50 states for a true Halloween fright.

Among all the states, Wisconsin has the not-so-coveted position of having the 2nd-most job losses by numbers and percentage in the country over the last 3 months.

Job losses - total June-September 2011
Georgia -20,800
Wisconsin -19,300
Illinois -16,100
Pennsylvania -15,600
New Jersey -11,000

Job losses by percentage June-September 2011
Rhode Island -1.22%
Wisconsin -0.69%
New Hampshire -0.57%
Georgia -0.54%
Delaware -0.41%
U.S. +0.22%

That brutal performance is recallable enough for Scotty, but there's even more to bring to the table on how bad a failure this Administration has been on the jobs front. I've frequently mentioned how Wisconsin weathered our economic disaster better than most places under Jim Doyle and the Dems. And even in Doyle and the Dems' final year, Wisconsin was close to the national trends.

Jan 2010 to Jan 2011 job growth
Wis. +0.93% private, +0.75% total
U.S. +1.22% private, +0.81% total

So yes, these job losses are all on Scott Walker and the WisGOP moves in the last 8 months. And while the 1st Quarter revenues held up surprisingly well, and are still within the budget's predictions, there is NO WAY that will continue with Wisconsin staying 49th in the country for jobs. Once the Brewer/Badger/Packer October stimulus effect goes away, watch for the budget deficits to open, and it will be the final straw to break the Walker Administration's back in Spring of 2012.

Two more on Walker's future "crisis" moves

2011-10-19T19:12:00.002-05:00

First of all, here's Capper with his reminder of how Walker used real and fake budget deficits as an excuse to put in drastic, unneeded measures in Milwaukee County, often resulting in higher expenses and bigger problems.

Then here's James Rowen (via a former Milw. Co. supervisor) reminding people of Walker's "rosy scenarios" and inevitable deficits from his days in Milwaukee County.

Keep an eye on it, especially when you see the absurd targeting of the UW System in the biennial lapses. Extra kudos to the several state Dem legislators who want a hearing to figure out just why the UW was slashed while the Governor's Office has to lapse all of $1,700.

One Brewer stimulus- but it won't save Walker's budget

2011-10-18T19:05:00.005-05:00

Well, my last post asked Shawn Marcum not to fuck up, but he didn't listen, and now the Brewers' season is over. What a depressing game to go to, where it felt like you were constantly getting kicked in the gut.

But I did find at least one area that's getting an economic bump from Brewtober, concession stands and the groups who help run them. Neat story in the J-S about the 1,100 or so people who work the stands for SportService, and how a decent number of them are folks working for non-profits, who get about 10% of the sales proceeds (same situation works at UW Athletics events, and a lot of other events). And those who are working for pay got an extra 6 games of work in that they wouldn't have otherwise gotten, so I suppose there's going to be a small, unexpected bump in employment that you wouldn't otherwise see for October.

I still don't see it keeping us out of fiscal trouble. Not when the state's asking the UW System to come up with another $65.7 million in cuts in order to match lapses in the state budget. And that number's on top of the $250 million Scotty and the WisGOPs already cut away from the System for 2011-2013. Now lapses happen in almost all government departments in some way, be in it some kind of allowance for vacancies, or as a "figure it out as you go along" blank number, but it's significant that the UW System gets dragged into 3/8ths of the entire state lapse amount- 2 1/2 times the next largest lapse, and a whole lot more than the $278,000 the DOT has over in the same time period. (here's the full list- check it out yourself). Makes you wonder if the fake outrage stories over "double-dipping" of rehiring retirees is some kind of right-wing setup to jack the daylights out of the UW System, because hiring back people who have left service is a common practice across private and public sector jobs that often saves money because of not having to pay benefit costs for new employees. (except we usually call them "consultants")

Buried down in the story is the real headline:

Department of Administration Secretary Mike Huebsch sent out a memo to agency heads that they need to return $174.3 million in state funds to balance the budget. It could be as much as $300 million if state revenues are weaker than predicted, Huebsch wrote.

BALANCED BUDGET MY ASS! Relying on such huge lapses shows your budget was never at $0 to begin with, and we already know over the last month about the $110 million in additional Medicaid cuts, awful job numbers, and lower base of revenues. There's no way we won't have a significant budget deficit that appears over the next few months with those things happening. So then what can Scotty pull out of his little bag of tricks? I'm not going to give those goofballs any ideas here, 'cause they'll be so desperate due to the recalls they're liable to try anything.

As bad as the state budget is, wait till the local budgets get finalized, and places like "No.1 in unemployment" Racine slashes bus service, or Manitowoc lays off 31 city workers and reduces hours for most others, or the City of Stevens Point not providing bags to pick up after dogs and passing off park maintenance to other groups. The snow hasn't even started flying and the potholes bursting yet. Hoo boy.

It'll all start coming out in the next 4 months- right as the recall signatures are gathered. I think it won't take much convincing to get people to sign, and it won't just be because of the power-grabs and arrogance- it'll be because things have truly gotten much worse in Wisconsin.

Can the Brewers and Badgers save their communities' budgets?

2011-10-16T10:52:00.006-05:00

Given the remarkable last 2 weeks in Wisconsin sports, with 2 of the last 3 weekends featuring Brewer home playoff games, and Badger and Packer home games all taking place in a 36-hour period, it led me to wonder if we'd see a bump in those communities' economic situations.

An immediate place that I think you'd see an effect is in sales tax revenues, because every ticket, beer, food, and piece of team gear bought generates sales taxes (check your ticket stub if you don't believe me). Particularly given that we're now on unexpected Brewer home game #6 (and hopefully #7 on Monday), you'd see many of these numbers show up in October's sales tax figures for Milwaukee County, which have yet to be reported. But there also should be an effect for September, as attendance went up with numerous sellouts and purchases of "Division Champs" gear after the Crew clinched on Sept. 23. So let's check July-September 2010 vs. July-Sept. 2011 for Milwaukee County's sales tax revenue, and also the Miller Park 0.1% sales tax district in the 5 counties in and around Milwaukee. If there's a "Brewer effect", we would expect to see it show up there.

Sales tax, Milwaukee County July-Sept.
2010 $15,969,731
2011 $15,712,637 (-1.6%)

0.1% Sales tax, 5-County Miller Park district Aug.-Sept.
2010 $6,422,974
2011 $6,349,177 (-1.1%)

No Brewer effect yet, however, we also know that the Wisconsin economy has declined since Scott Walker's budget began in July, so maybe it just follows the trend for the rest of the state. Let's look at the sales tax revenues in Wisconsin counties that have a local sales tax.

Wisconsin local sales taxes, July-Sept.
2010 $74,973,234
2011 $76,343,091 (+1.8%)

So actually the "Brewer Counties" are trailing the rest of the state. So if there is a budgetary effect on the budgets of the Brewers' great run, we haven't seen it yet. And given that the County needs another $17 million in revenues to reach Scott Walker's "amibitious" sales tax figures for 2011, they'd better hope there's some Brewer in effect coming for October- an effect they haven't seen much of yet.

How about Dane County, where the Badgers continue to kick ass in front of sellout crowds?
Dane Co. sales taxes July-Sept.
2010 $10,741,249
2011 $11,496,969 (+7.0%)

Ok, so maybe there's something there, particularly given that there were 3 Badger home games in both Sept. 2010 and Sept. 2011. Let's also look at Dane County's February and March sales taxes, given that it was the height of protest season.

2010 $6,182,728
2011 $6,954,078 (+12.5%)

Given that Dane County estimated a 0.01% increase from last year's $40.500 million in sales taxes these two bumps may mean up to $3 million in relief for this year's budget, which is also money they can carry over to stabilize next year's.

The last item to point out is that the County sales tax collections indicate that another budget deficit may be ready to appear if there isn't a Bucky or Bernie effect in the next few months. The 2011-2012 budget figures an increase in state sales taxes of 3.91%. As I've pointed out above, local sales taxes in a majority of Wisconsin communities are only up 1.83% for the first 3 months under Walker's first budget. If that 1.83% growth trend continues for the next 9 months, it means sales taxes would be down $85.5 million for fiscal year 2012. There are already budget deficits due to low end-year FY 2011 revenues and higher-than-expected Medicaid expenses, so another $85 million would put the deficit well over $200 million.

So you can see why Scott Walker, Chris Abele, and Joe Parisi are hoping hard that there's a big bump in October from this historical sports month- because if they don't, they'll lose even more cushion in a time when they need all the help they can get.

And for Shawn Marcum- please don't fuck up tonight. Just please don't fuck up.

Quick addendum on Elmbrook Schools

2011-10-15T08:14:00.004-05:00

I mentioned last month about how Elmbrook Schools (which I attended from grades K-8) shouldn't be held up by Sykesists as an example of "Walker's plan [is] working," but I didn't realize how right I was until I read yesterday's release of school aid figures.

As you may have seen yesterday, the vast majority of state schools had significant drops in aid from the state under Walker's budget. Some of this may have been made up on a one-time basis by Walker's anti-teacher "tools", but certainly not made up to the level of previous investment, and little is said about the extra damage that is coming next year when those reduced numbers don't change.

But reading the actual aid tables to each district gives an even more interesting detail. Check out Elmbrook on page 3. While most schools are getting cut 9-10%, Elmbrook's aid WENT UP 4.88%! Well no wonder they could cut their school levy! If you cut teacher's take-home pay and get more money from the state, I would hope you would be able to cut property taxes. OK, so the rest of the state gets screwed because of this largesse and good luck trying to get someone to teach in your bedroom community, but hey, ya saved a few bucks on your property taxes, and that's all life is about, right Brookfield/Elm Grove?

Except that even Elmbrook isn't unscathed. It just voted this week to close Hillside Elementary School due to budget issues and declining enrollment, and might close a second. Guess those "tax-saving tools" don't matter much when people are fleeing your culturally dead area for places with more life....or places that are hotter suburbs.

And folks, this is only the beginning. RECALL how Wisconsin's top-flight education system has been battered by this adminsitration in the name of funneling a few bucks to their school privatization contributors, and get even over these next 7 months.

H/t Capper at Cognitive Dissidence.

Tolls? No tolls? Wheel taxes?

2011-10-11T20:52:00.005-05:00

I've been catching up from being out of town for 4 days, so I'll go with the links here, and maybe come back to it later.

First, here is WPRI's study on tolling Wisconsin highways as a way of paying for new lanes. Lots of the numbers are intriguing, especially at the end, as they look into putting the tolls in either the long-distance interstates, or just around the Milwaukee area. While I'm skeptical of anything from We Promote Republican Idiocy, and their bias is clearly towards sprawl, there are some good points about how traffic has increased on these roads and are projected to continue to go up, so how do you handle these strains?

The other report comes from the 1000 Friends of Wisconsin, and it shows that roads certainly do not "pay for themselves" in Wisconsin. The report wisely points out the state sales tax revenue and local property taxes are both significant sources of road funding, especially in fixing local streets. This backlog in street repairs and property taxes are a big reason why Milwaukee aldermen passed a $20 vehicle registration fee in 2008 over Tom Barrett's veto, and communities such as Janesville are looking to put it in for 2012 as a way to combat cuts to shared revenues and local road aids.

The 1000 Friends report is also a good resource to compare Wisconsin's systems with other states. If you check Page 34, a state like Indiana had $427 million in local 2008 highway funds come from vehicle registrations and various local fuel taxes, while Wisconsin had $303 thousand. Obviously the $6- $6.5 million a year generated from Milwaukee's wheel tax has changed this situation some, but it still shows how local Wisconsin communities have to often rely on the property tax as a source of revenue to fix their streets, unlike many communities in other states.

In a time of slashed aid from the state and capped property taxes, allowing and creating additional local sources of revenue through sales taxes or registration fees seem to be one of the few ways left to help local communities keep potholes out of their roads. But that requires help from the Legislature, and remember that this goofy crew already voted to remove RTAs as a way for local communities to handle transportation funding.

Of course, we'll see if Robin Vos finds RTAs to be an "abomination" when the Road Builders ask for it as a way to fix local highways. See, RTAs are horrible for the suburb boys when they're TRANSIT AUTHORITIES, but when they become TRANSPORTATION AGENCIES, they might not be so bad. Plus, the Road Builders pay you better as well.:P

EDIT: Good follow-up by James Rowen showing that all states get more back from D.C. on highways than they raise in federal gas tax. This includes Wisconsin at $1.27 in spending per dollar of tax.

New U.S. job data shows Wisconsin further behind under Walker

2011-10-07T08:24:00.004-05:00

While it's nowhere near enough to get our economy back on strong footing, today's jobs report is a good sign that we're not yet over the cliff. The big assist to me isn't the 103,000 in jobs created in September, but the 99,000 additional jobs mentooned in the last 2 months of revisions. So we're up 202,000 jobs compared to where we thought last month, an even 1.5 million jobs created for the last 12 months, and 1.78 million in the private sector. So despite the Tea Baggers' best efforts to derail things this summer, we continue to be in a slow growth scenario, even if much of that growth isn't going to the vast majority of Americans.

But these new numbers also makes Wisconsin's sliding job numbers look even worse. Look at the July and August's numbers, and it's horrifying. Let's plug the new numbers using a similar comparison I made last month, and you'll see the U.S. is adding jobs while Wisconsin has collapsed.

Change in Jobs July-August 2011
U.S. +0.14% overall, +0.20% private
Wis. -0.31% overall, -0.49% private

But wait! What about the "half of the nation" (really 20% of the nation's total) job increase in June for Wisconsin? OK, let's put it in there.

Change in Jobs June, July + August 2011
U.S. +0.16% overall, +0.27% private
Wis. +0.08% overall, +0.14% private

U.S. jobs are still growing at twice the rate of Wisconsin. And that's not taking into account the huge amounts of retirements and cutbacks in the teaching profession in Wisconsin that will show in September's job numbers. Ruh roh, Scotty.

And Wisconsin's going to have to do a lot of work to catch up to the nation's trend for September. They'd have to add 14,700 jobs overall and 19,100 in the private sector to match the 3-month trend for the U.S. Guess what, that ain't happening, and I'd be stunned if it was 1/4 of that.

Don't know how much more you need as proof (well, you'll get more when the budget deficit shows up in the next month, but I digress). This state has lost the edge it had last year, and has fallen behind the growth in the rest of the country since Scott Walker and the WisGOPs took over. To paraphrase the president, it's not just an opinion, it's MATH. So drop these losers and get the state back on the right track.

Money honeys and Tundra Tarts? Naw, give me real women

2011-10-06T19:49:00.007-05:00

I'm glad to see the deserved slamming that Glenn Greenwald and others are giving recently-debuted and soon-to-be canned CNN talking head Erin Burnett. Burnett went to East Coast boarding schools and a $40K tuition Eastern college, and then got her start in the industry at Goldman Sachs and Citicgroup, then went to Wall Street kiss-ass CNBC and currently is literally blowing and fucking a Citigroup executive. So why is she considered some type of objective authority on discussing "Occupy Wall Street." Greenwald destroyed the "Street Sweetie" and illustrated some of her greatest misses, along with a great takedown of CNN's coverage in general.

But Burnett learned her skills as an oligarch-sucking tool well from protege Maria Bartiromo, the "Money Honey" who lives in a $6.5 million townhouse with her husband, the son of an investment bank CEO, and was flying in private jets and getting info off of a Citigroup exec, leading to the guy getting fired in 2007. The 44-year old Bartiromo is also a Burnett-like Wall Street shill, leading to her getting memorably owned by fellow NY cuckolder Anthony Wiener 2 years ago, as Bartiromo clearly didn't understand the concept of Medicare not applying to people in their 40s, and didn't comprehend the cheap and lush health-care benefits that TV and Congressional power brokers like them have vs. the vast majority of us. And the next month, Bartiromo shrugged off Wall Street's gains in a time of massive unemployment as some kind of social good and got used again by Michael Moore in a "Morning Joe" interview that seems like it was done today instead of 2009. Somehow, she's still on CNBC, certainly not because of her collapsing ratings, but apparently because access and kissing the right oligarch's ass matters over credibility there.

Speaking of admitting credibility doesn't matter, Fox News head scumbag Roger Ailes publicly admitted that Sarah Palin is not to be taken seriously.

From the start, Ailes has steadfastly denied any such political bias or agenda on the part of his network. Politics, schmolitics: "I hired Sarah Palin because she was hot and got ratings," he declares.

Sounds like the same reason fellow horny old man John McCain hired her in 2008, come to think of it. Put a ridiculous woman up front to give something for the permanently flaccid dead-enders in their 60s and 70s whose time has long past by giving them a pageant-walking Cupie doll who will say the right things and play the role their first 2 wives wouldn't let them get away with. And those same limp dicks got their withering tickers going on CNBC in the morning with the Bartiromos and Burnetts. And you wonder why I called the vapid, brain-dead Rebecca Kleefisch "Palin" at last year's UW Homecoming Parade? She's a Wisconsin version of the same role for the same type of loser.

Then compare that treatment of women who have the "right" looks and say the "right things" to the putdown current U.S. Senator Scott Brown gave to the brilliant Harvard Professor and future Senator Elizabeth Warren today.

Brown made his comments when asked about Warren's response in a debate Tuesday to a question about how she paid for college. The question referenced the fact that Brown posed nude for Cosmopolitan in 1982 to make money.

"I kept my clothes on," Warren said, adding that she borrowed money to go to a public university and worked a part-time job.

"Have you officially responded to Elizabeth Warren’s comment about how she didn’t take her clothes off?" the host asked Brown Wednesday.

"Thank God!" Brown said, laughing.

The host got a kick out it, too. "That’s what I said! I said, 'Look, can you blame a good-looking guy for wanting to, you know…”

Yeah, who cares what the smart girl who could think circles around both of them has to say, because she's bookish, speaks truth to power and in her 60s? If you can't look at her and have nasty thoughts, what she has to say doesn't matter, eh Scotty?

Sadly, having had the experience of a corporate stepdad in his 60s, this attitude is fairly common among that crowd. They really don't care to have women know more than them, be more successful than them, and certainly can't stand to have the ladies make them look foolish in mixed company. Decent, competent women that want to break the paradigms were and still are a threat to the position they schmoozed up to mediocrity with, and they sure hate to be reminded of it. I'm no Hillary Clinton fan, but there's no question part of the issues the Rush Limbaugh crowd had with her is that she was a clear reminder of the smart girl who wouldn't give those losers the time of day in college, and made them have to earn a position in the 80s and 90s instead of just sliding their way into it. (this resentment explains the whole "Feminazi!" thing of the '90s- "how dare those unattractive bitches tell me they should be listened to!") To these corporate good ol' boys, those were the days when you could harrass that cute stewardess and not have them throw a drink in your face, so the last 40 years have been quite the awakening for them.

And when you see those guys wanting to listen to Sarah Palin over Elizabeth Warren because Palin fits their image of "hot" (which I never got, but "maybe 1890s farmer chick/ 1980s church lady" is some kind of fetish to them), I get a good idea how my Mom passed a lot of those assclowns on the corporate ladder to retire as a VP. Because my mother never had things handed to her, and because she actually cared enough about herself and her work to improve, she went right by a number of these guys who never worked hard at their actual job, and always saw women as second-class citizens.

The jealousy, self-delusions, and outdated attitudes of these pathetic men are the type of people who still support the image-first, content-second women we see polluting far too much of political and business media. It's time to move past the "Money Honeys", "Street Sweeties" and "Tundra Tarts", and give the power to the vast majority of decent women that actually do something other than suck up to rich white men for a living. Many of them are leading the Occupy Movements today, many of them led the protests here in Wisconsin this winter, and they are going to be the ones running the show for all of us. With that in mind, it's time to make like NBC did this week, and take the modern day equivalent of Playboy Club bunnies off of our TV (but you can keep it in the Palms, where we know it's a fantasy and escape- that's a fun vibe).

Walker budget numbers don't add up, but the lies do

2011-10-03T20:24:00.005-05:00

The Walker Administration gave a list of their proposed list of Medicaid cuts, which was conveniently dumped on a Friday afternoon. Bad enough that these moves can be put into law by crooked Heritage Foundation hack Dennis Smith with nothing more than a thumbs-up from the Joint Finance Committee standing in the way (thanks, "small government Republicans"). But there's this cute little tidbit thrown in as well.

GPR expenditures are projected to be higher than assumed in the budget due to revised projections for drug rebate revenues and higher costs per enrollee in certain areas of the program. These higher costs are partially offset by other favorable expenditure trends in other areas, for a net increase of $38 million GPR. Act 32 directed DHS to identify $444.6 million All Funds ($181.8 million GPR) in additional savings in Medicaid. Based on these updated projections, the Department will need to identify $554.4 million All Funds ($219.5 million GPR) to balance the program in the 2011-13 biennium.

In other words, the budget's estimates on Medicaid spending is already short by $110 million. Between this and the lower-than-expected revenues in June already have this state in a $125 million hole, and this is before the job losses in July and August are figured in. So much for that "balanced" budget.

But Walker making moves based on fake and wrong budget numbers is not new. Take a look at the damage done to Milwaukee County Transit due to faulty revenue projections in the 2011 budget. As Page 6 of the 2012 MCTS budget shows a large part of the multi-million dollar deficit is due to over $5 million in reduced revenue from 2011's budgeted levels. $1.86 million of that is fares, as 2011's fare increase and route reductions didn't increase revenue, but actually lowered it. There's also nearly $5 million less in "other direct revenue". What's this? The demise of Transit TV, among other ad figures that haven't shaped up like the Walker budget said it would. When you build that hope into a budget and it doesn't happen, you have a double-hit the next year, because you filled the expense hole with that trick the year before, and now you "lose" the money you never had in the first place in the next budget.

Another example is Walker's consistent overshooting of income from selling county lands, when the county has struggled to sell and develop even one parcel to the public. So when this rosy scenario falls through, Presto! , you have another budget deficit. Watch how the same "disappointments" happen in the next few months as raids, extra borrowing, and other gimmicks don't get the numbers that the budget says it'll get. Not surprisingly, many of the Milwaukee County hits came after Scotty hightailed it into Madison, and the same will happen in Wisconsin after he's blown out of the Governor's Office. Don't forget who put it there.

And never forget the fake budget crises Walker has claimed, and not just the lie he perpetrated in the winter about the state being "broke". Walker and County Board Chair Lee Holloway magically found $8 million in health care savings at the end of 2009, allowing for furlough days to be canceled for the suddenly not-so-broke County. I'm not even going into the made-up "budget emergency" that led to a multi-million dollar contract with campaign contributor Wachkenhut, which not only lowered service, but cost taxpayers even more money than before when an arbitrator ruled Walker lied about the budget crisis and reinstated the Courthouse workers.

So this week's "larger than expected" Medcaid cuts aren't just a result of businesses shoving off a higher number of lower-paid employees onto the dole so they can pocket more profits (thought it certainly is some of that), but it's also part of a more disturbing trend where Scott Walker's administrations give faulty numbers and drastic "solutions" for political reasons. Which tells us that we must have our BS dectectors on high regarding any budget moves in the next few months (especially with the recalls coming) and be ready to call out this bullshit when it happens. Because as the Wackenhut fiasco reminds us, if we allow them to lie and implement again, the damage that gets done from Walker and co. becomes that much harder to undo.

Not just another day in Dairyland

2011-10-02T12:31:00.005-05:00

Not a day for politics or economics. There's plenty of time for that later. Instead, it's time for Wisconsin's time on the national sports stage.

YEAH

HELL YEAH

And 2 more big-uns today. My bank account hates me for 6 hours of pregame drinking and postgame reflection. But I really don't care at this time. I'll retract my spending when/if these great rides ever end.

G'town, Elmbrook slit throats to cut school taxes

2011-09-28T19:02:00.003-05:00

I imagine right-wing propaganda, eager to deflect attentions from Walker's continual power-grabs and ongoing corruption probes was trying to prop up the recent school board budget hearings in the Germantown and the Elmbrook districts. Of course, just like Kaukauna, these are false "taxpayer victories" that are based on one-time tricks and unnecessary damage to the school systems. And they're moves that are signing these suburbs' death warrants in the name of low taxes.

In the Germantown situation, their school tax levy will drop by just over 2.5% next year despite a drop of nearly $1.2 million in state aid for next year. How? Well, they "used the tools", cutting insurance costs by $1 million and imposing increased health care contributions on their teachers. However, it isn't as increasing the pre-tax contributions on health insurance that saves G'town money, but instead, it's the payments teachers and their families have to make after they get sick.

...out of pocket costs for employees will go up significantly, something the board actually saw as a plus since it could act as a deterrent to people who may be excessively using their insurance given the relatively low costs.

Deductibles will jump five fold for singles and yearly caps, previously as that $100 level for singles, would jump to $1,700 a year. For family plans, the new cap is $3,500.

HOW DARE my cancer-stricken friend Tricia go to the doctor so that she could get the checkups that got her cancer diagnosed early. And apparently the Germantown School Board finds it optional that she pay another $3,000 for the radiation treatments that are taking care of her disease. On a smaller level, what's the problem with having teachers in a classroom of 30 kids sniffling and sneezing their way through class because they can't afford to pay to get it checked out?

But hey, that $40 a G'towner with a $250K home will save this year is worth it! Even that isn't impressive, because that same homeowner has had their school tax rates go up 16.4% since 2007, which includes the cut this year. And because Germantown schools refinanced $9.5 million in debt last year and now owe $11 million on their borrowing. That's money that'll have to be paid off with higher amounts in future years, bringing the school district back to needing large tax increases, without the tools to offset the cuts from the state. So with a little context, it's obvious that 2011 is a one-time retraction that won't do anything except mark Germantown as unfriendly to the teachers they rely on.

The other district with lower property taxes is Elmbrook Schools, somewhat close to me as I attended school from grades 1-8 in that system. Their numbers seem more impressive than Germantown's with a cut of $5.9 million in property taxes and $7.565 million in total expenses. And much of this is due to Act 10 moves, which allowed the Elmbrook District to play out the end of their teachers' contract, and put the full 5.8% pension/ 12.6% health insurance payments onto the teachers. Nice way to treat your employees, eh? Not surprisingly, there was a run on retirements in the district, which allows for salaries to drop by 2%, as new teachers generally make much less than experienced teachers, but it also means another $1 million in "Employee Benefit Trust Fund Payment Contributions." Basically payments to teachers in retirement, usually for items such as health care. However, there is also more than meets the eye with this one.

Decisions were made on Enrollment Management topics of Chapter 220 (not open additional seats), Open Enrollment (open seats where available), half day four year old kindergarten (defer decision on whether to reinstate), class size (increase within existing guidelines), and school closing (defer decision on whether to close until fall 2011).
• Decisions were made on consolidating middle school electives and implementing a four block high school schedule with teacher assignments of three blocks per school day.

So in other words, offer fewer classes, take fewer of those bussed-in minority Milwaukee kids, and allow more kids with the resources to get transportation to go into Brookfield schools.

And while 4-block schools aren't necessarily bad ideas, as they give you more time to go in-depth on a topic, it also means 90-minute periods for high schoolers, who tend not to be interested in anything that long. So it presents challenges, and may not help performance. And Elmbrook documents indicate it is being done for cost reasons, not to make for better outcomes.

Ultimately, this is the truly damaging part of these "savings." The only reason to live in a place like Germantown or Brookfield or Elm Grove is THE SCHOOLS. It sure ain't the swinging strip mall jobs or drops in home values by 2-3% over the last year. All 3 communities involved in these districts have median home values above $230,000 (Elm Grove's is a whopping $359,700), and that's going to be very hard to maintain that if these communities reduce the take-home pay of many of those who work in the town (teachers) and then discourage others from wanting to take a job in that district.

Not only won't teachers not want to locate there, young families won't choose Brookfield like my parents did 30 years ago. As suburban Boomers become empty nesters and want to downsize their home or retire elsewhere, they're going to have to get rid of their big-lot houses. So that $40 or $60 they save in school taxes this year will probably cost them thousands in home value when they need to cash in their equity 10-20 years down the road.

Then watch those places fall into disrepair and insignificance as they get passed up for somewhere that's better to live in. It's already happening in Elmbrook, where they're talking about closing at least 1 elementary school due to declining enrollment. So this divide and conquer, race-to-the-bottom mentality of low taxes that exists in the 262-area code suburbs who rely on high levels of services may indeed be the source of their own demise.

If they only knew the words of the great Marge Gunderson:

"And for what? All for a little money. There's more things than a little money. Don'tja know that?"

They believed there were more things that a little money when I was growing up. I'm not so sure about that anymore. And they will lose as a result.

More math- Wisconsin public employee benefits version

2011-09-25T09:35:00.005-05:00

Hidden in all the corruption and immunity stories out of Fitzwalkerstan was a report released by the Legislative Fiscal Bureau illustrating the drops in take-home pay of state employees under WisGOP's union-busting bill. Not surprisingly, the lower-paid workers are hit harder. The study takes family health insurance coverage as its baseline for the employees making $25K, $50K, and $100K, and because that payment is a flat rate (was $89 a month, now $208 a month), that $1,428 a year increase will hit a lower-paid person harder than a higher-paid one.

And that lower-paid person didn't have their mortgage/rent payment go away, nor did their food or gas bills change in any significant way, so how are they going to make up for this? Cutting back on discretionary spending and delaying larger one-time purchases like cars and big appliances. Good luck growing the state's economy when hundreds of thousands of families are doing this at the same time.

And if you try to argue, "Well, taxes will be lowered so it'll make up for it," you would be wrong on 2 counts. 1. The LFB projects property taxes to be up between 1-2% on the average homeowner in each of the next 2 years, and that's if your home drops in value by 2%. If you're one of the fortunate few not to see your home value go down, your taxes will go up even more due to the rising mill rates. Nice deal, huh? 2. The only drop in income taxes state employees and their families will feel are results from the reduced take-home pay (because the health and pension contributions are pre-tax), and that's a tax break that helps higher-income earners more because of the higher tax rates they pay. In fact, the $25K income earner may get a double-whammy, as the Walker budget also cut the state's EITC and Homestead tax credits. So lower-income workers are facing lower take-home pay, higher taxes, and on top of it are scapegoated for a budget problem they didn't cause, while Cindy Archer pulls in 6 figures to sit at home and have other hacks interview for her already-filled job. Don't think we don't notice the different set of circumstances.

And lastly, there's a talking point making the rounds that "public employee pensions are bankrupting governments." And maybe that's true elsewhere, but it is absolutely not true in Wisconsin. The updated financial report of the Wisconsin Retirement System (which covers pretty much all state and local gov't employee benefits for people that don't work in Milwaukee) shows the system is 99.8% funded, meaning practically everyone would get their full, current benefit. (if you want real fun, here's all 161 pages of it) And the only danger to that staying fully funded was Wall Street and D.C. oligarchs screwing around to drop the value of securities that are in the WRS. (oh crap).

So the bottom line is that there is no pension crisis regarding Wisconsin public employees, and this hasn't become more or less stable with Act 10 going in, because the WRS is getting the same amout of money into the system, it's only changed who's paying it (page 2 has the totals, it's the worker and not the government paying the bill). And we know the Walker-claimed fiscal crisis was a complete fraud that did not have the state in such severe danger that people's take-home pay had to be cut by thousands in order to keep the state afloat.

The real state budget crisis may be coming in the next few months, when higher unemployment, Teabagger cuts from the Feds, and reduced state tax revenues are going to translate into a serious in-year budget deficit (watch when the rev numbers come out next month). But the pension and revised budget figures prove that there was nothing close to a serious problem when Scotty, Cindy Archer, and other inner-circle cronies decided to "drop the bomb" this winter. Anyone with a modicom of budget and actuarial knowledge knows this, but as usual, the right-wing noise machine is trying to use other situations natiowide to muddy the Wisconsin situation.

But that's not surprising, because the Walker boys have never been about what happens to Wisconsin and Wisconsinites, but are lapdgos for a Koch-fueled national agenda of corportocracy. And it's one of the biggest reasons why they must go.

H/T Free Wisconsin

And there is much rejoicing in Brew Town!

2011-09-24T13:47:00.004-05:00

I could give a big diatribe about cronyism and corruption, but I won't. Today is a day to step back and acknowledge THESE GUYS.

Yes, I was there. Yes, it was awesome. Yes, I am emotionally hung over and sitting out today's Badger scrimmage.

It's never a bad day to be a Wisconsinite, but some days it's even better. Today is one of those days.

Hey Mr. Treasurer: "This isn't class warfare, it's math"

2011-09-19T19:47:00.005-05:00

With apologies to the President's needed speech today, there are other examples of right-wingers not doing the math when it comes to making their talking points.

A good example is this absurdity from Wisconsin State Treasurer Kurt Schuller. In today's press release, Schuller reiterates the tired BS about rich people being "job creators" and that it would be harmful to the economy if they got their taxes raised. It's bad enough when someone whose basic job is balancing books and counting the state's money is throwing up this partisan garbage instead of doing his job, but then Schuller tries to give a concrete example, and shows how absurd his comment truly is.

“I am concerned that a plan that is being promoted as a tax on millionaires and billionaires actually affects people who make much less.”
For example, an individual in the 35% bracket with $25,000 annually in tax deductible mortgage interest payments and state and local property taxes could have a maximum tax benefit of $7,000, not $8,750.

My immediate reaction was "What kind of house has $25,000 in mortgage interest?" And using bankrate.com's Wisconsin rates of 4.0% to 4.5%, I found out the answer was "a pretty awesome one." So it's time for a little story problem.

Q: With rates currently at 4.5% on a 30-year mortgage, how much of a new house do you have to buy with a 4.5% mortgage to get to Schuller's $25,000 in expenses?

A: $555,555! Or 4 times the Wisconsin average of $142,700. You're basically talking homes like this 4-bedroom, 4,400 sq-footer in Fitchburg, this 4-bedroom on Lake Drive in Milwaukee, or this lake view cottage in Pewaukee. Not exactly the homes we're paying off.

In addition, Schuller quotes the put-upon married couple making $250K, and the single guy/gal making $200,000. Those people are not the average Wisconsin family, as the $250K couple make 4 times the median household in the richest counties in Wisconsin, and 5 times the median household income of Wisconsin.

So in other words, when Treasurer Schuller is shedding tears for the folks in the top tax brackets, my response is BOO FUCKING HOO! I'd love to have the problems that someone in that financial situation would have, and I'd certainly be shutting the fuck up about how tough it's going to be if I have to pay another nickel in taxes on my last few dollars.

And oh yeah, if you're so concerned about the economy being slowed due to higher taxes, why do you choose to ignore the direct link between lower taxes and lower income growth for the typical American worker? Your vaunted "job creators" have had their chances to create jobs with their lower taxes for the last decade and have failed miserably. So it's time for them to pay into cutting the deficit that their lack of job-creation has caused. Don't want to pay the higher taxes? Then take fewer profits and HIRE FOLKS. Simple choice, eh?

Maybe Kurt Schuller's WisGOP constituency and campaign donor list may be typically in the $200K income/ $555K home category, but his comment are a clear illustration of just how far out of touch the average Republican is with the typical person's situation. And why they deserve to be ignored on any discussion of taxes.

Another month of Walker, another month of Wisconsin losing

2011-09-17T11:08:00.009-05:00

Lost in the FBI raids and dousing of ALEC puppets was the release of another report of lost jobs in Wisconsin. 2,300 more jobs went bye-bye in America's Dairyland in August, and a total of 11,600 private sector jobs and 8,700 overall jobs have gone away since the fishy and temporary boost in jobs in June that was revealed just in time for the recall elections against GOP state senators.

So when you take those months together, you see that the last 3 months have been dismal for Wisconsin job creation, 3,200 private sector jobs added and only 2,300 overall. I'm going out on a limb here, but 0.1% job creation over 3 months isn't going to give you 250,000 jobs in 4 years (more like 37,000). And what's even more alarming is it continues the trend of a major slowdown from the last year of Jim Doyle. Let's throw out the first 2 months of Walker's regime and charge that to Doyle and the Dems, give both of them March 2011 as some of Scotty's corporate giveaways were put in place, but Act 10 had been held and the protests we ongoing (so Doyle is Sept. 2010-March 2011, and Walker is February-August 2011). This will allow us 6 months of data since Scotty "dropped the bomb" in February.

Doyle and Dems +31,000 all jobs, +34,600 private
Fitzwalkerstan +14,200 all jobs, +15,300 private

That's right, we were adding jobs twice as fast for the 6 months after Sept. 2010 than we have been the last 6 months. Look at the last 12 months of Doyle and the Dems and compare it to the year-over-year numbers now, and we're still slowing down.

12-month job changes
Doyle and Dems +31,500 all jobs, +29,800 private
Fitzwalkerstan +24,700 all jobs, +26,200 private

Let's also remember that Walker's boys benefit from having some of Jim Doyle's best months at the end of 2010 and January 2011 thrown in. This 6,800 total job gap in jobs (and 14% private sector growth gap) will become larger in the next few months.

But wait, maybe this slowdown is all Obama and D.C.'s fault? Scotty has sure tried that deflection technique, so let's see the BLS reports and see if it holds up.

Last 6 months of regime
Doyle and Dems +1.15% all jobs, +1.14% private
All U.S. jobs +0.70% all jobs, +0.93% private

Fitzwalkerstan +0.52% all jobs, +0.66% private
All U.S. jobs +0.44% all jobs, +0.74% private

So Wisconsin has gone from being well ahead of the U.S. average for creating jobs under Doyle, to below the national average in the private sector in Fitzwalkerstan. In fact, we could be just as likely to say that governors like Walker and the Teabaggers taking over the House is the reason for the U.S. slowdown.

You can also see the Walker boys' effect in how Wisconsin's low unemployment rate is creeping up to the U.S. average as well.

Jan.-Sep 2010 Wis. 9.2%-7.8%, U.S. 9.7%-9.6% (-1.4% vs. -0.1%)
Sep.-Mar 2011 Wis. 7.8%-7.4%, U.S. 9.6%-8.8% (-0.4% vs. -0.8%)
Feb.-Aug 2011 Wis. 7.4%-7.9%, U.S. 8.8%-9.1% (+0.5% vs. +0.3%)

So under Walker, Wisconsin has given away all of the advantage it gained through much of 2010, and then some. Which is one of the biggest untold stories of the declining jobs situation in our state- Wisconsin was kicking the nation's ass in 2010, and we've slid back down since Walker and the WisGOPs took power.

Or in other words, "Scotty, it ain't Obama and D.C. that's bringing us down, IT'S YOU." Makes you worry about what we'll look like in 6 months, don't it? With that in mind, I'm off to Bob Fest and Willy Street to vent and exchange the facts.

Archer raid illustrates how Walker is scum on LGBT rights

2011-09-15T17:56:00.007-05:00

Obviously, I find yesterday's raid of one of Scott Walker's biggest crony advisors quite juicy, and the fact that it was 5 blocks away is an extra-special pump for me. But there's a secondary part of the story that might be even more intriguing and enlightening, because it illustrates the pattern of Scott Walker's duplicity and weasel nature, as well as how badly the average Republican hack is willing to sell themselves out for a few bucks.

If you read Blue Cheddar's report on the raid, you'll notice a couple of paragraphs down that there are references to Cindy Archer and her girlfriend. That's right, Archer is gay, which may strike you as odd when you realize Walker and his family lended their portrait for the anti-gay National Organization for Marriage earlier this year, and vetoed a measure from the Milwaukee County Board in 2009 that would have legalized domestic partner benefits for county workers. And he's kept up the gay bashing as governor, removing Lester Pines as the state attorney fighting the state's anti-gay marriage amendment, and denying gay couples hospital visitation rights. But then you turn around and notice that Walker hired not only Archer as his second-in-command in Milwaukee County, but also hired openly gay Sue Black to head the Parks Department.

So what gives? The answer is sick and obvious: Walker will take any position to kiss up to the right GOP power players and snooker rubes into helping him, even if he doesn't live those values. It probably makes hi worse than the hateful fundies that buy into gay bashing, and it's the worst type of politics, where people take positions they know are wrong because getting elected and getting paid is more important than serving the public. It's the same reasoning behind the WisGOPs putting the anti-gay marriage on the ballot here in 2006, and the same cynical reasoning Minnesota Republicans are thinking of trying now. It's also the reason he decided to take away union bargaining rights and extend those moves to the local governments- because just getting concessions and balancing the budget wouldn't get the headlines and talk-show piublicity an Koch money that busting the unions would. So what if the economy goes into a nosedive and it divides the state in a way that it hasn't in my lifetime? As usual in GOP world, it's all narrow-minded short-term politics without a care for the results of such damaging legislation.

And what do we make of someone like Cindy Archer, who decides to work for someone that would deny her basic human rights for a few extra dollars and votes? (Black gets a pass here, the Parks Department is providing a service and is not a political advisor-type position) It tells you she'll sell herself out for any position that's there, much like her boss, Scotty. I don't care if she's conservative or even Republican (why you'd be a gay Republican is beyond me, but whatever), but I do care that someone would have such low morals to work with someone so willing to allow your group to be treated as second-class citizens. And she's still covering for Scotty after the FBI has carried her computers and papers away, claiming she's "done nothing wrong." Because hey, the FBI just casually drops by and raids east-side Madison homes on a regular basis (I'll get my eyes unrolled now).

Seriously, what makes Republicans turn into Stevie in "Eastbound and Down", blindly clinging to someone else no matter how far that guy drops them down? Is it because the paycheck and power is just that important to them? Is it because they don't have the ability and strength to do the right thing on their own? Is it because they think politics is a goddamn sporting event and not real life? Whatever it is, it's pathetic, and the fact that Cindy Archer would sell out her lifestyle and Scott Walker would sell out his closest advisors for a little money shows how petty and destructive these people are. And why they have to go very far away, sooner than later.

H/T Blue Cheddar

More on why affirmative action is still needed in Madtown

2011-09-14T18:07:00.003-05:00

From UW's own Sara Goldrick-Rab and her fabulous Education Optimists blog, proving how absurd that Koch Brothers' study was regarding "reverse discrimination." It explains the non-quantitative reasons for academic success in a way I couldn't come close to.

Heck, just read all of the posts, including the call for class-based along with race-based affirmative action. It's really good stuff.

CEO's belief that white privilege just isn't high enough

2011-09-13T17:33:00.006-05:00

As you may have heard, there was a bit of disturbance today around campus when an "educational reform" group that has received $240,000 in Koch money over the years tried to race-bait those UW-Madison liberals with statistics relating to the admission of students from different racial backgrounds. Maybe the counter-protest by the multicultural student group was a bit over the top (bum-rushing the hotel always makes the news) but as you'll see, these people were peddling a false narrative that has to be confronted and countered at every turn, and I don't have a big problem with what they did.

Well, I combed through the report, and it's research that wouldn't get you passed out of an upper-level college course. Sure, it emphasizes that the average and median white and Asian student admitted to UW scores higher on standardized test scores compared to their black and Hispanic counterparts. But why is this a noteworthy stat, especially when put into the context of black vs. white student test scores in Wisconsin, especially in the Milwaukee area?

Racial disparities also remained a problem in the state for the Class of 2011. The average composite score for black students was nearly seven points below that of white students - 16.2 compared with 23.1. Nationwide, the difference between the two groups was 5.4 points.

The percentage of 2011 graduates prepared for college-level core subject areas also varied greatly by race, with 36% of white students in Wisconsin considered ready for college classes compared with only 4% of black students......

In Milwaukee Public Schools, where all students now take the test during their junior year of high school, the predominantly minority school system's average composite score was 16....Meanwhile, students in the wealthier, suburban Whitefish Bay School District averaged 26.6 on the ACT, with about 90% of the class of 2011 taking the test.

With that in mind, the 5-6 point gap the study cites between black and white UW admittees in 2007 and 2008 is a whole lot smaller than the MPS vs. suburban difference. The statewide ACT numbers also show that Hispanics rate 4 points lower than whites in Wisconsin, and Asians interestingly are 3 points lower than whites (the report doesn't seem to show an International Asian vs. Asian-American breaksdown, so this can explain the higher UW admittee scores). So when you see the inflammatory stat in the CEO report showing that half of in-state white students would be turned down with median black admittee scores, keep the fact that the white student is actually well below the normal white advantage in scores.

And let's zoom back out a bit, because we need to realize that today's release on U.S. poverty numbers shows that blacks and Latinos have poverty rates twice that of whites, and the disparity is much wider in the Milwaukee area, as over 80% of MPS students qualify for free and reduced lunch. That's a rate as much as 4-11 times that of the high ACT-scoring districts in the suburbs. Think the low-income backgground and lack of positive reinforcement and opportunities that comes from that life has something to do with the score disparities in majority-minority MPS and the rest of the area?

Educational achievement in America is still a two-tier system between races as well, as whites are nearly 60% more likely to have a college degree than blacks, and twice as likely as Latinos. (Asians are even more likely to have a degree than whites) So when you realize that whites and Asians are more likely to come from homes with higher incomes, lower rates of poverty, and higher educational acheivement, is it any surprise that they score much higher on college tests and academic achievement in general? They have a much smaller hill to climb than the average back or Latino student, and so for a minority student to even get close to the white/Asian level indicates that ceteris paribus they performed a much higher level than their peers compared to the average white prospective UW student. If you were evaluating two candidates where they were largely similar on paper, but one clearly had overcome more to reach their destination, wouldn't you give the nod to the one that worked to get where they were at?

Being taken away from the peer group you grew up in is a serious culture shock for many minority American students when they go to a school that has 6 out of 7 students be either white or International, and while the NCAA may tout studies that show disproportionately minority athletes outperform non-athletes of all races, that makes sense as well when you think about it, because athletes are around a cohort of people with similar backgrounds and frames of reference (other athletes), and often have Athletic Department support in academic fields.

While I appreciate the time constraints and efforts that athletes put in academically (and what they do is quite an accomplishment, and a testament to a work ethic that probably went a long way toward landing them in NCAA athletics), I don't think showing up at Fall practice in August is as strange an adjustment for a minority student as a non-athlete minority may feel when he or she checks into Witte and English 207 after coming from a majority-minority school in a low-income neighborhood. Sure, the CEO types may whine about the lower retention rates, but throw those D.C. oligarchs into an inner-city company that actually requires work and proof for a living, and see if they make it, or if they pack it in and try something else. It goes much further than the whole "minorities fail because they didn't deserve to be there" argument, and the older I have gotten, the more I appreciate the breaks I got in being born to a white family that appreciated education and always laid out a pathway to success. It allowed me the chance to struggle, screw up and find my way through that many low-income and minority students never can recover from. But unlike the average 262 suburban, I am grateful for the break, and am determined to take advantage of the strong hand I've been dealt, instead of being fearful that I'll lose it or that someone else will get a good hand as well.

So these Koch whores at their Virginia think tank got rightfully reamed out of the Doubletree. These fake scholars know the real answers to solving these disparities in education don't come from whipping up resentment by whites and Asians who have enjoyed many advantages their black and Latino counterparts had. Nor is it through school vouchers that allow a select few to run away from a local school district (vouchers don't really improve outcomes anyway). Instead, it's acknowledging the two-tier society that still exists, but doing so would require the Koch whores to demand real solutions that deal with poverty and this country's obscene inequality of wealth, and that's the LAST thing those guys want angry white slugs to think about. Better to play the "affirmative action" and "crucified white guys" card, and keep 'em distracted than do anything that might cost their corporate benefactors another dime in a potential income stream.

Walker Admin. hacks- the real story of the voter ID blowup

2011-09-11T10:13:00.005-05:00

While the voter ID fiasco in Wisconsin is reason enough to want to blow this corrupt, voter-suppressing administration out the door, there's a bigger story related to this. And that story involves the hackery and political favortism of Walker appointees at the highest levels of Wisconsin government.

Take the two DOT officials at the head of the voter ID story. The writer of the memo asking DMV employees not to mention free IDs to customers is Steve Krieser, a "recently-promoted" executive assistant. Krieser is a former GOP operative and Capitol staffer that clearly used those connections to land his current gig. Then, when a grunt worker sent an email saying that people could get free IDs and that the word should go out to others, did the DMV reward him for providing quality customer service and saving taxpayers some money? Hell no, they fired him, and the person who concocted a cover story about "documented rule violations" is another high-ranking DOT guy named John Murray.

And who is John Murray? Another former Capitol staffer who got a second job when he was elected this year as the Mayor of Sun Prairie. A Wisconsin State Journal article noted last month that Murray has worked with right-wing City Council allies to have both his City Administrator and No.2 person leave in the last 2 weeks in one of Wisconsin's fastest-growing cities. Also in the article is a point about how an unnamend source says "The people running the city now absolutely hate government and want it completely open for business." And by open for business, we know that means "unregulated growth and tax giveaways to companies."

So here are two former GOP staffers getting appointed by a GOP governor and are in charge of the implementation of a major change in state policy. Now, do you believe they will work for the taxpayers that pay their salary, or the elected officials they owe their careers to? EXACTLY. And this is what was one of the most dangerous parts of the "budget repair" bill was- turning numerous civil service positions into appointed positions. Allowing a key spot in state government to be left up to the whims of elected officials and the intersts who pay for their elections means any disloyal or overly honest employee can be replaced by a yes man/woman who will be working for the Fitzwalkerstanis, and not the people that they're supposed to serve (and get paid by).

But hiring unqualified/ corrupt hacks is the WisGOP way. Walker couldn't have pulled a lot of his union-busting ploys if the Legislature had gone along with $100 million in concessions from state workers in December. One of the guys who held that up, outgoing Sen. Jeff Plale, who was rewarded for his "no" vote by first getting a high-level DOA job and then being promoted to Railroad Commissioner last month.

And Plale's hardly the only one. Remember Randy Hopper mistress Valerie Cass using Hopper's pull to land her prime gig? How about Spalding Smails...ERRR.....Brian Deschane? Remember him, the 2-time DUI college dropout who just so happened to be the son of the head of the Road Builders and parlayed that connection into an $80K job? There's also Rich in Retail, the slimy POS who secretly recorded a union official outside of a Milwaukee bar and now has a good gig for the state? Apparently his deeds were duly noted by the Walker boys.

And we're not even going into the recently-departed Cindy Archer and Tom Nardelli, who went along with Walker from Milwaukee to Madison, only to take leave of their 6-figure jobs within a few months due to the always- sketchy "personal reasons".

The point is that the voter ID absurdity isn't just a voter suppression story, it's a "GOP hackery" story. Which really isn't surprising, because if you don't believe that government does things right, isn't it in your interest to put people in charge that will cheat and screw it up to "prove" your point? This is what happens when you elect Republicans to high levels of office in the 2010s- kissing the right ass and helping people politically matters much more to people than providing results and quality serivce to the taxpayers.

And now you know what I meant 6 months ago when I said that public sector unions are needed now more than ever. There needs to be that independent line of defense from elected and appointed hacks that serve Wisconsinites first, and politics second. In Walker World, that isn't happening, and that's as big a reason as any to recall these bums.

Health reform and Steve and Tracy, 1 year later

2011-09-10T07:45:00.004-05:00

You may recall a couple of items on this blog discussing my friends Steve and Tracy and the hell insurance companies put them through as they battled serious ailments. Well, Steve got a chance to tell some of his story this week, as Rep. Jon Richards and Sen. Jon Erpenbach introduced a Wisconsin "Patients Bill of Rights", and they even give Steve a bit of face time in the process. (He's got some funny stories about how he had to shorten up his speech and how the other 2 guests weren't exactly as hard-pressed, which I might bring up later on the subject of Capitol hackery).

They concentrate more on their constant battles with the insurance companies to keep Tracy insured as she deals with Stage 4 cancer (which she's greatly improved against over the last 12 months, I'm happy to say), but Steve's story in having to get spinal fusion surgery overseas because they couldn't get the surgery here is no less disgusting to me.

And that's nowhere near as disgusting as DHS head and Heritage Foundation hack Dennis Smith's lies and deceptions in an attempt to funnel more blood money to insurance companies. As a former Milwaukee East Sider, I'm very happy to see Richards be the one co-sponsoring the bill, and seeing Erpenbach's name attached to it is also interesting, especially given how he stepped to the forefront this week in the smoking gun on how voter ID is nothing more than a voter-suppressing poll tax. With these two big moves and with Reps Roys and Pocan annuncing they will run for Congress, anyone else sense "Erpenbach for Governor" momentum building?

In the meantime, it's up to Dem politicians to keep the struggles of people like Steve and Tracy in the spotlight and highlight just how little the average Republican values profit over decency If they do so, I think a lot of GOPs will be losing their government-sponsored health care over the next 16 months.

Labor Day- needed in Wisconsin more than ever

2011-09-05T10:29:00.002-05:00

Want even more evidence of how low taxes on the rich and union busting = an increasing unequal system? I checked out the corporate profits from 3Q 1996- 2Q 1997 (good times with big growth), 3Q 2000- 2Q 2001 (leading into recession and shrinking profits), and 3Q 2010- 2Q 2011 for today. As you'll see, despite the fact that we're in a similar GDP situation to early 2001 with a stalling expansion, the amount of profits compared to the overall economy has boomed since the Bush tax cuts.

corporate profits as % of U.S. GDP
1997 10.41%
2001 7.77%
2011 12.64%

So the share of corporate profits is 20% higher now than in 1997. And that hasn't gone over into total compensation to workers with the same stat, and has dropped in the same time period.

employee compensation as % of U.S. GDP
1997 56.06%
2001 57.64%
2011 54.85%

Now check out to how that translates in Wisconsin for the same time period, and how much these entities are taxed here. For this case, we'll look at how income taxes compare to corporate taxes as a share of Wisconsin revenues for the following fiscal years, which fall in the same time periods (3Q-2Q). (Good historical stuff from the LFB here on the subject)

1997 51.69% income, 7.30% corporate
2001 51.24% income, 5.34% corporate
2011 51.90% income, 6.61% corporate

And lastly, let's combine these two stats from above, and create an index to see if we're proportionally taxing corporations and individuals at the same amounts that they make. (% of Wisc. revenues/ % of overall income vs. GDP * 100) If there is equal taxation, this index should remain constant, as corporations will pay more taxes as they make higher profits, and it'll even out.

1997- 92.22 income, 70.12 corporate
2001- 88.90 income, 68.73 corporate
2011- 94.62 income, 52.29 corporate

Yeah, not so equal. The share real workers pay has gone up, while corporations' index is DOWN BY MORE THAN A QUARTER. And we're not even talking about the many property tax exemptions and TIF districts corporations pull compared to everyday homeowners.

Now do you see why I think we need to get up, and take the fight back to those who have STOLEN so much from us? Let's make the unproductive fat cats feel the fist over the next 14 months, frequently and fiercely. And make anyone pay who supports the oligarchs who have robbed this country of the middle class that made this country the greatest on earth.

Labor Day- needed more than ever in America

2011-09-05T09:17:00.007-05:00

The attempts to downplay Labor Day and the need and importance of unions (as illustrated by this J-S article today) ignore the simple truth in this country. As we have deindustrialized, deunionized, and cut taxes for the rich, the average American worker has had their money taken from them, and sent upward.

First of all, workers produce more than ever over the last 20+ years, and have gotten nothing for it. Check out this picture.

In other words, productivity has gone up 3 times the amount of wages. So much for that Econ 101 theory that people are paid increased real wages at the same amount that they increase productivity.

This is one of the many findings in an excellent article from the Economic Policy Institute earlier this year. Here are the two real kicker parts.

This two decades worth of low pay growth is part of an even longer trend of wage stagnation for the typical worker: median hourly wages only grew 10.1% in real terms from 1979 to 2009, even though productivity grew 80% in those 30 years. Since virtually all of this real wage growth occurred in the six years from 1996 to 2002, reflecting the wage momentum of the strong economic recovery in the late-1990s, it is fair to say that there has been no real wage growth for the typical worker for most of the last 30 years. Analyses of total compensation that factor in the value of employee benefits yield the same result because nonwage benefits as a share of total compensation also have failed to grow since 1979, meaning benefits did not grow faster than wages....

The Bureau of Labor Statistics also has recently noted the failure of compensation to keep pace with productivity (they grew in tandem from 1947-73). That productivity-pay gap is the bigger story here than any public-private pay gap: The ability of the economy to produce more goods and services has not translated into greater compensation for workers.

Hmmm, why did things change in the last 30+ years vs. the post-World War II period? You know, the period where a huge amount of Americans joined the middle class, had millions of "first generation in college" members, and America became the Western world's clear economic and military superpower.

Think it might have something to do with the fact that the top income tax rates from 1947-1973 were between 70 and 91 percent while they were dropped from 70% to 50% in 1981, and have been between 28% and 39.6% since 1988 (the time shown on the graph)? And as the EPI article brings up, the only time we've had real wage growth is in 1996 to 2002- a time that had the highest tax rates on the rich over the last 25 years.

Know what else we had back then? High levels of unionization. In post-World War II America, unionization was between 25 and 30 percent until the early 1970s, and stayed over 20% until Reagan. (See figure 1) Not coincidentally, as real wages have slacked productivity in the last 3 decades union membership has fallen from 20.1 % to 11.9% since 1983. Amazing how not having a voice in the workplace allows you to have the worth of your work stolen from you and given to the owners, isn't it?

And in this case, I will say correlation = causation. 65 years of correlation isn't an anomaly, because it isn't very worthwhile to hoard profits and pay CEO's and executives absurd salaries at the detriment of your workers if you're going to be taxed at high rates for doing so. This is what happened in America in the 1940s to the 1970s, when we had mobility that 95% of us can only dream of nowadays. And unless we have a real labor movement and a government willing to counteract the power of corporations and big-money greed, we will never get it back.