Wisconsin was better off under Jim Doyle

And three economic items released in the last few days prove it.

First, let's go over today's release of the Bureau of Economic Analysis, who just released a county-by-county look at income growth in the U.S. for 2010, which was the final year of Doyle's tenure as Wisconsin governor. You'll notice than Wisconsin is covered in quite a bit of blue, which shows counties with income growth above the national average of 3.7% for 2010. (click on the picture if you want it bigger)

This is also borne out when you compare Wisconsin with our Midwestern counterparts and the U.S. as a whole. As you'll see, Wisconsin outpaced the U.S., and all but 1 of our Midwestern neighbors.

Income growth, 2010
Minn. 4.45%
Wis 3.80%
U.S. 3.67%
Mich 3.25%
Iowa 3.10%
Ohio 2.96%
Ill. 2.79%
Ind. 2.47%

Then you compare those good numbers in 2010 with the fact that Wisconsin was DEAD LAST IN THE U.S. in income growth between October and December 2011. That's quite a step backward, and strike 1 for Walker's policies.

Also today, the Journal-Sentinel had a story on a report released by the UW-Madison Institute for Research on Poverty
showing that Wisconsin's strong safety nets actually reduced poverty during the Great Recession year of 2009.

Given the substantial loss of market income in Wisconsin, the latest findings of the 2010 Wisconsin Poverty Project are quite surprising. When we estimate poverty using our alternative poverty measure, the Wisconsin Poverty Measure (WPM), we find that state poverty actually dropped between 2009 and 2010, from 11.1 percent to 10.3 percent.

Behind this surprising story is the impact of tax-related provisions and near-cash benefits from programs that government officials augmented to offset increased economic hardship due to the recession. The official poverty measure considers only pre-tax cash income as a resource, failing to fully capture the effects of national and local government efforts to stimulate the economy and ease economic adversity caused by the recession.

To provide poverty estimates that more accurately account for the needs and resources of Wisconsin families while taking into account the antipoverty impact of policies, researchers at the Institute for Research on Poverty (IRP) at the University of Wisconsin–Madison have developed the WPM, now in its third year. The WPM considers not only cash resources, but also tax credits and noncash benefits, as well as work-related costs that reduce available resources, like child care and health care costs, in determining poverty status.

...In last year’s annual Wisconsin Poverty Report, we found essentially no change in poverty between 2008 and 2009 under the WPM, primarily because the drop in families’ earnings and cash income was offset by tax credits and food assistance benefits, which saw substantial increases in funding through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) of 2009. In this fourth annual Wisconsin Poverty Report, we reveal that not only did tax credits continue to play a large role in fighting poverty in 2010, but also, nutrition assistance benefits became more effective during that year; this resulted in an unexpected drop in the number of individuals and families living in poverty in 2010.

That's right, the big increases in food stamp-type assistance and tax credits caused by Obama's stimulus, as well as improved child care and medical subsidies by Doyle-backed programs like Badger Care helped to keep many Wisconsinites from hitting the IRP's defined poverty line from 2008-2010. Compare that to Walker cutting stabilizers like Badger Care while reducing tax credits on poverty-reducing programs like the Earned Income Tax Credit and the Homestead Credit. When combined with the state's status as Number 1 in the nation in job loss, it is clear that Wisconsin's poverty rate under the IRP's measure is going to go up under Walker, and not by a little. So strike 2.

The last stat I want to hit on is this week's release of the Philly Fed's coincident index, which measures the last 3 months of economic growth for all states. And if you cast your eyes to the Midwest, guess which state stands out for lower growth the 1st quarter of 2012. U RAH RAH WIS-CON-SIN!

But let's back up and show you how we got here over the last 4 years.

As this first graph will show, Wisconsin's economy didn't collapse nearly as badly as places like Illinois, Indiana, Ohio and (especially) Michigan from the onset of the recession at the start of 2008, and I think Doyle and Wisconsin deserve some credit for having enough economic stability to keep the state from imploding like other places. Then notice what happened in the last 14 months of Doyle's administration- Wisconsin (marked in red in these graphs) grew at a rate faster than the U.S., and faster than half of our neighbors (Also note the ones who grew faster were the ones who fell further in 2008 and 2009, so I'll take that trade).

And using the last 14 months of Doyle is intentional because we also have 14 months of data since Scott Walker took over. Now compare where Wisconsin sits under Scotty...right in the cellar, and not by a little.

We've barely grown at all while the rest of the Midwest and the country has taken off. Wisconsin's growth has slammed to a halt, from 3.24% in 14 months under Doyle to 0.60% under Walker, while U.S. growth has gotten faster (2.48% vs. 3.39%).

The clear impact of Scott Walker policies on stopping Wisconsin's growth in a time of an expanding economy everywhere else is a big-time strike 3. And that means HE HAS TO BE OUT.

Pro-Walker Realtors spin warm weather into hot housing

The Wisconsin Association of Realtors released their March numbers today, which showed what improving numbers for Wisconsin's sick housing market. Among them included the first year-over-year increase in median home sales prices since Scott Walker was elected governor in November 2010, and a 25.6% increase in new sales compared to February. And March certainly showed good numbers, especially when it completed the highest number of sales for the Jan-March quarter since 2007.

The Realtors are a pro-sprawl group that has given heavily to Walker, and Walker personally thanked the Realtors last month at a signing for wetlands de-regulation. The Realtors continue this trend of backing the Governor by trying to give Walker some kind of credit for the better home numbers in March, claming "an improving state jobs market is helping home sales," and using Walker's talking points about job growth in January and February. (I notice they ignored mentioning the 4,500 job losses in March) March's increase isn't part of a long-term trend, unfortunately, as median home sales prices are still down 2.0% for the year compared to 2011, and down 11.1% from this time 2 years ago (as home buying credits ran out). In fact, Wisconsin home prices have been declining for the better part of the last 5 years, and they've steadily dropped since Walker took office in 2011.
Wisconsin median home sales price, 2007-2012

The price increase in March isn't even that impressive compared to other parts of the nation, as the national figures show that Midwest median home sales prices went up 5.2% vs. 2011 compared to Wisconsin's 0.4%, and the U.S. as a whole had prices up 2.5% compared to last March. And when you look at the chart in Wisconsin, you can see a reason why. Prices traditionally rise throughout the Spring and peak in Summer, as families and others are more likely to look for homes in those years, as the weather is better and school gets out of session in the Summer. Well given that Wisconsin was among numerous states with a record-warm March. With that in mind, it wouldn't be surprising that March home values would go up accordingly, as that March weather felt a lot more like May.

By the same note, the sales numbers for March are nice, but those also rise with the temperature, and the 4,816 sales are still below what Wisconsin gets for a typical May. And they're still nowhere near where we were before the Great Recession started to sink in around the start of 2008. (the chart may be a bit messy, and it's skewed by the tax credits from mid-2009 to early 2010, but I think you can get the idea)
Wisconsin # of home sales by month, 2007-2012

Wisconsin's sales are up an impressive 25.0% year-over-year, but the rest of the Midwest has also benefitted from the strong weather, with total sales up 13.9% year-over-year. And given that this April has seen temperatures fall back toward normal (tell me about it, it's cutting into my Terrace Time), let's see if the improved March numbers are merely sales from later in Spring that got pulled forward due to the historic heat. Let's check back to see if April's sales numbers stay at the level that we saw in March, or even fall to the 4,300+ from April 2011. If it stays above that, and if home prices rebound toward 2010 levels, then we might be able to say Wisconsin housing is on the rebound. But it's ridiculous to say so based on this one month. So if I was the Realtors, I wouldn't exactly break out the party hats quite yet, and I wouldn't take the March sales report as any kind of major positive for their boy Scotty.

And when the typical Wisconsinite trying to sell a house has seen that home lose between $12,000 to $15,000 in value over the last 2 years, I'm thinking that Walker's bragging about saving people a handful of dollars in property taxes falls a little flat, don't you? In fact, given the drop in home values, most Wisconsinites are paying a higher tax rate (which is a tax increase in everywhere but property taxes, apparently), and they're seeing their wealth go down. That's not exactly the combination you want if you're trying to claim that cutting worker salaries and aid to schools and communities is "working."

Rewarding who kiss ass and hurting who does legit work- Fitzwalkerstan 2012!

The following letter to the editor appeared in the Oshkosh Northwestern last Thursday. It is relayed here for you to enjoy.

An Open Letter to Governor Walker,

I have received your letter requesting funds for your recall election effort. Sadly, I am an employee of the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh. About a year or so ago my wages were cut due to increases in my health insurance premium. Since becoming an employee of the UW System in 1999, five percent of my pay has been withheld and automatically applied to the WRS fund for my retirement. However, around the same time as my insurance premiums nearly tripled, an additional five percent of my pay was taken from me and applied to the WRS fund. Mind you, my pay was not increased to replace what had previously been negotiated out of state employee paychecks and I now find myself taking home less in 2012 than I did in 2007.

With the prices of gas, milk, cereal and other things continually increasing, but my take-home pay continually decreasing, I simply do not have any money to contribute to your campaign coffers. However, I did notice that according to the 2011-2013 Compensation Plan, the Office of Governor received a pay increase. Please consider the portion of my state income tax that was applied to your pay increase as my contribution to your re-election effort.

Daniel M. Hoyt
Oshkosh

But the Guv's Office isn't the only highly-connected, taxpayer-funded gig getting a raise. Looks like over 200 others will get "merit raises" of over $765,000. And one certain group seems to have gotten the bulk of the raises.

The state Department of Justice, which couldn't find enough money to fully fund services for sexual assault victims last year, was the biggest spender, giving out nearly $300,000 to 94 workers.

Assistant Attorney General Maria Lazar, who defended Walker's collective bargaining law in an open meetings challenge and has handled the state's defense of Republican redistricting legislation, got a $1,000 bonus and a $1.50-an-hour raise in March, bumping her salary by more than $3,000 to $104,730.

Deputy Attorney General Kevin St. John, who defended the collective bargaining law in front of the state Supreme Court, got a $2.51-an-hour raise in March that adds up to more than $5,000 per year and brings his pay to $134,307.

Thirty-seven DNA analysts, meanwhile, got raises worth $158,000.

The Justice Department handed out raises even after it warned budget cuts had forced it to reduce grants from its Sexual Assault Victim Services program by 42.5 percent. Walker later reduced those cuts amid an outcry from service providers.

DOJ Executive Assistant Steve Means defended the awards, saying the money came from not filling positions and the agency can't shift money from salaries to cover other expenses. Raises and bonuses are crucial to retaining star performers like Lazar and St. John, he added.

"If people understood why we're doing what we're doing, I don't think they'd be concerned about it. It's a good use of limited resources," Means said. "If Kevin St. John were to announce today he wanted to go work in private practice, he'd have at least a half-dozen law firms on the phone in 10 minutes offering him twice as much as he makes here."

And by "leaving for the private sector", Means is describing events like Ray Taffora leaving DOJ after Walker's election to take part in a high 6-figure no-bid contract from Michael, Best and Friedrich in exchange for helping the Walker boys to draft Act 10. It seems like the biggest reason Michael Best alum St. John grabbed a bonus was for deciding to represent the Republican party and Guv's office in the Act 10 suit brought before the Supreme Court. Oh, and I'm sure he and fellow DOJ appointees turning down requests for help on the Walker-related John Doe case didn't hurt his cause either.

At least we now know what gets you paid as a state employee in Walker World - kissing the right ass and saying the right lines. Guys like Daniel Hoyt showing up for work every day? That's such a quaint and old-fashioned way, and it sure isn't going to help you move up the salary ladder.

As I said over a year ago, this is the predictable outcome of turning 37 positions from the Wisconsin civil service into appointed jobs. It leads to rampant cronyism, and rewards for doing what's in the best interests of the Governor and his lackeys. Whether that's the same as being best for the state of Wisconsin is irrelevant (and with this guy, it usually isn't). Despite being paid by the people, it's clear that in Walker World your accountability isn't to the people, but it's to the elected and appointed hacks above you, and the agenda they want to drive.

These conflicts are why civil service and public sector unions were created in the first place- to guarantee independence and ethics in government work and maintain accountability to the real bosses that pay your salary- the taxpayers. And accountability to the people and independence in decision-making is the LAST thing the Walker folks want. Just like Walker's "cousin" George Walker Bush had it in D.C. ("doing a heckuva job, Brownie!") So Daniel Hoyt loses his bargaining rights and loses his take-home pay, while suckups like Kevin St. John and Maria Lazar get bonuses for backing questionable laws that have driven down the standard of living and respect of government for a large amount of Wisconsinites. All in the name of acting more like a profit-driven corporation.

Oh wait, kissing the right ass and doing things with questionable ethics IS what gets you rewarded in the corporate sector. Maybe the Walker folks aren't that far off in their thinking after all. Of course, our corporate sector is an inequality-growing failure that funnels money toward an idle few at the top with screwed-up priorities and makes our economy woefully inefficient. But since that seems to be the goal of this administration to screw up government and the people's trust in an institution that is supposed to stand up for the people that fund it, maybe this is another step closer to "Mission Accomplished"!

Walker can run from Education Cuts, but he Can't Hide

The Walker folks keep flailing and trying to tell people things are proceeding just fine in Wisconsin schools, despite the $1.6 billion in cuts in state aid over the next 2 years and a lack of property tax flexibility to soften the blow. Well, the Department of Public Instruction put a nice piece of reality to cut up that lie, showing that 1,446 teaching positions and over 2,300 FTE staff were eliminated for this school year. And while Walkergate immunity flack Cullen Werwie tried to blow off the losses by saying they were concentrated in 3 large districts that have not had Act 10 take place (Milwaukee, Janesville and Kenosha), Chris Walker at Political Heat blew that bullshit out of the water by showing that the districts that used Act 10's "tools" also had their teacher losses double for this year.



Among those school districts that lost jobs is a place the Walker folks constantly try to tout as the best example of how the "tools" were working in reducing staff layoffs - the Kaukauna Area School District. Kaukauna's own self-reported data shows that they cut 16 FTE teachers and 8 FTE of support staff for this year, even with the tools. Hate to say I told you so 9 months ago, but I did tell you so.

In fact, the number of districts reducing teaching jobs went up by 20% for this year, with 311 of the state's 424 districts cutting teachers (73%). Also, it's not like 2011-2012 was the first year that Wisconsin was cutting teaching jobs. Take a look at the last 9 years and the reductions that have taken place, and it makes you realize how foolhardy Walker's argument of "teachers haven't suffered losses like the private sector" really is, as teaching jobs were cut by more than 1,800 in the 8 years under Jim Doyle.


Under this context, you see how hazardous it is to make these cuts on top of what had already happened in the past. And outside of a blip in 2004-05 (which may be a data error, according to DPI), public school enrollment hasn't declined all that much in the same time period, only falling 0.4% in the last 6 years that had been recorded (the Blue Book has good info on public and private school enrollment through 2011 if you want it).


This isn't bringing up the obvious adverse selection problem that Walker's cuts in take-home pay and available jobs is causing for the teaching profession. If you're educated and tough enough to want to be a teacher, you also have the ability to take a lot of other jobs, depending on the opportunity. This is the real long-term damage that keeping this disastrous Administration on for one more day past June 5 would be- fewer and fewer highly-qualified people will choose to enter the teaching field, and fewer and fewer people are likely to stay in the field.

I know how this works, because I was one of those teachers from 2003-2005, and I decided to further my education and move back to Madison (my pay was raised by 50% for doing so after getting my Master's 3 years later, by the way). How many others will choose the same path if Walker's cuts are allowed to stand and be built upon? As you can see above, the cumulative effect is even more damaging than any one-year loss, which is why we have to END THE AGE OF FITZWALKERSTAN now. If we don't Walker's huge damage to public education will become a FUBAR situation that turns this state into a Confederate place with low wages, low education levels, and zero hope of attracting people with talent that enjoy a high quality of life.

Oh wait, that IS the Walker/Koch/ALEC goal. Maybe that's why they keep saying "It's working". Because what they want to see work when it comes to Wisconsin's public education isn't what most of us in the real Wisconsin want.

How Walker kept Wisconsin jobs behind, in pictures

I'm following up from yesterday's post on how the Walker jobs deficit continues to grow by corresponding it with the BLS's statewide unemployment/ jobs figures. Those figures show that not only did Wisconsin lead the nation in job losses the last 12 months, but they did so by more than 20,000 losses over the next state. Heckuva job there, Scotty.

But let's get some historical reference to how badly this state has gone backward in this 15-month Reign of Error. First of all, let's think about where we were leading up to 2011. The Great Recession hammered everybody, including Wisconsin's Midwestern counterparts, and Wisconsin had severe job losses at the start of 2009. But after the Dems and Jim Doyle signed a "tax-hiking, job-killing" budget in June 2009, you see those job losses level off and end within a few months, and Wisconsin largely matched the nation's job growth after that budget was signed. By the time Scott Walker took over, Wisconsin had gained back about 1% of the 3.5% of jobs it had lost since the start of 2009.

Jobs, Wisconsin vs. Midwest, U.S., Jan 2009-Jan 2011
(Jan 2009=100)

Much like the rest of the U.S., job growth slowly but surely improved in Wisconsin in 2010, and Scotty figured he had to fix that. And fix it he did. Watch what happens once Act 10 gets passed in March 2011, and especially after Walker's budget becomes law in July 2011, and then compare that with the steady job growth in the U.S. (noted in blue)

Jobs, Wisconsin vs. Midwest, U.S., Jan 2011-March 2012
(Jan 2011=100)

That's right, not only has Wisconsin lost jobs since Scott Walker took the oath of office in January 2011, Wisconsin massively trails all of its Midwestern partners and has missed out in the Obama Recovery. Also take a gander at Ohio's results, as they were losing jobs under John Kasich most of 2011, until you get to Fall. Well what happened around that time? Ohioans rejected Kasich's union-bashing SB5 at the polls, and restored collective bargaining rights to hundreds of thousands of workers. Hmm, so much for the theory that reinstalling bargaining rights will destroy jobs- it seems to have brought it back, along with business confidence in Ohio. Think the same could happen here? Wouldn't you like to find out?

It's one thing for the state to lose jobs when everyone else is losing them, like it did under Jim Doyle, it's wholly another to lose them when the rest of the nation and your Midwestern partners are recovering, which is what we have under Scott Walker. Here's a percentage list to give you a better idea of the level of underperformance in Wisconsin since the Age of Fitzwalkerstan started.

Change in jobs, Jan 2011- March 2012
U.S. +1.81%
Mich +1.65%
Minn +1.57%
Ohio +1.43%
Ind. +1.37%
Iowa +1.04%
Ill. +0.84%
Wis. -0.52%

Wisconsin trails our closest neighbor (Illinois) in job growth by 1.36%, or the equivalent of more than 37,000 jobs over the last 15 months. So why the hell was Scott Walker addressing the oligarchs at the Illinois Chamber of Commerce and giving pointers on how Illinois "could benefit from taking actions like Wisconsin?" All evidence indicates that Walker's Way is exactly what you DON'T want to do in order to grow jobs, and businessmen are always yabbering about how they're all about performance, so you'd think the bottom line would matter most to these guys (yeah, right, it's all about the pose and the power with those fuckheads).

Oh wait, they were actually applauding Walker for destroying Wisconsin home values so much that they can buy vacation land for a lot cheaper up North. And our shitty performance under Walker makes Illinois a lot more attractive by comparison. Now I get it.

Anyway, isnt getting advice from Scott Walker on how to balance budgets and create jobs is like getting a speech from Don Morton on how to grow a winning football program? After all, isn't Scott Walker's policies the equivalent of the veer offense, and about as successful in the big-time? So it's time to make the same call Pat Richter made 23 years ago, realize we are better than this crap, kick this second-class loser to the curb and get some real leadership and performance into Madison.

March may have been hot, but Wisc jobs sure were not

Just a quick start on this before I have to get my weekend off to a start, but in light of yesterday's bad March employment report in Wisconsin, where 4,300 private sector jobs were lost and 4,500 overall, looks like I need to update my charts.

First off, here's the private sector chart, which started falling off once Walker's budget was passed in June, and is more than 55,500 jobs behind where we'd be if we were creating jobs at the same steady pace as the rest of the U.S.

Private sector jobs, Wis vs. U.S., 2011-2012


And now here's the overall number, which is down nearly 24,000 jobs since the passing of Act 10 in March 2011, and putting the Walker jobs gap at nearly 64,000 vs. the rest of the nation.

All jobs, Wisconsin vs, U.S., 2011-2012


Anyone who says it's working has to be a making a very sick joke. Unless the goal is disaster capitalism and 3rd World status. Given this crew, I wouldn't doubt if that IS the goal.

Unless we stop it in 46 days, that is. And we have to.

Wisconsin's economic turnaround only exists in Walker propaganda

Not sure why I missed this in recent weeks, but we have more examples that Governor Walker's attempted theme of "Wisconsin's economy is turning around" is yet another Walker lie.

It's not like we haven't pointed this out in the past few weeks, but I missed another fresh piece of evidence that came out 2 weeks ago- the Philly Fed survey for February. Walker tried to take credit for growth in the January survey, while conveniently leaving out that Wisconsin's was growing at a slower rate than the rest of the Midwest and the U.S. as a whole. And at first glance, it looks like Wisconsin has solid growth in line with the rest of the U.S.



Except that isn't true. Wisconsin barely qualifies for that light green, as they are now exepcted to grow only 1.51 percent in the next 6 months, mmuch lower than the 2.40 percent the Philly Fed projected in January. It also means that Wisconsin is looking at growth that is less than half the rate in the U.S., and the worst growth rate in the Midwest.

Philly Fed forecast growth, Feb. - Aug. 2012
Ind. 3.89%
U.S. 3.25%
Ill. 3.16%
Ohio 2.72%
Mich 2.03%
Minn 1.89%
Iowa 1.87%
Wis. 1.51%

And it's not like we're coming down from robust activity in recent months. The coincident index reflecting Walker's claims of better growth months of December, January, February makes Wisconsin seem pretty sickly and pale compared to the rest of the nation.



Philly Fed coincident index, U.S. and bottom 5 states Dec.2011-Feb.2012
U.S. +1.55%
Haw. +0.51%
Wis. +0.49%
Mass +0.45%
N.Mex +0.27%
Nev. +0.17%

Woo-hoo! We're number 47! Hey, given that we were worst in the lower 48 for the 3 months before that, I suppose you could call that improvement. As long as you still call it unacceptable, of course.

And hey, look! There's another jobs report for Wisconsin out tomorrow. We'll see if the record heat meant a one-time bump in jobs, although the mediocre nationwide report might keep things under wraps a bit. Just to remind you, the Walker jobs gap sat at 58,700 in Feburary, and we need to create another 2,500 just to keep from falling behind further in March. Stay tuned...