Lose $6,500, get $9 back. What a deal!

Wisconsin's Legislative Fiscal Bureau sent out their estimations of property taxes under the Governor's budget today. The toplines are bad, but the story buried inside is worse.

First, the LFB estimates that property taxes will increase in Wisconsin for the two years of Governor Walker's budget, as a result of shared revenues and school aids staying low. And this increase will be slightly above what it was last year.

Based on nearly complete reports filed with DOR, gross property tax levies are estimated to total $10,471.3 million on a statewide basis for 2012(13). This represents a 0.8% increase relative to the 2011(12) statewide total of $10,384.8 million. After applying state tax credits, net property tax levies are estimated at $9,436.5 million, an increase of 0.8% over the 2012(13) total of $9,357.7 million. Under provisions in AB 40, as proposed by the Governor, gross property tax levies would increase on a statewide basis by an estimated 1.5% in 2013(14) and 1.4% in 2014(15). Increases in net levies of 1.5% in 2013(14) and 1.6% in 2014(15) are estimated.

On the face of it, it's a pretty tame increase, but it is one, contrary to a lot of the Walker supporters who claim Act 10 and Scotty's tools dropped property taxes statewide.

But that doesn't mean Walker policies didn't drop property taxes. In fact, the LFB report says the average homeowner saved $9 on their property taxes in Wisconsn this year (don't spend it all in one place, folks). However, it's not for the reason you'd want to see your taxes go down.

Median home value, Wisconsin
2011 (12) $157,692
2012 (13) $151,148 ($6,544 DROP)
2013 (14) $152,400 (+1,252)
2014 (15) $154,800 (+2,400)

Gee, you think taking millions of dollars out of the pockets of Wisconsin workers and denigrating public education is going to hurt home values in our communities? Well I am just Jake's lack of surprise right there.

And the tepid price increases for the future are happening while the rest of the country is having prices go up by more than 10%, the fastest jump in values in 7 years. It's a stark reflection of Wisconsin's subpar economy and bottom-10 standings in job and wage growth, and is another example of how policies in the Age of Fitzwalkerstan keep costing Wisconsinites major money.

Oh, but you Baggers did save $9 this year on your (deductible) property-tax bill, while you were losing $6,500 in wealth. Hope THAT was worth it.

MacIver not really getting that seasonal job thing

The fittingly-named MacIver news service (because they can maneuver any stat or piece of information into right-wing propaganda) clearly got the word that Wisconsin's bad jobs numbers are hurting Scott Walker's election prospects. So they decided to send out a pile of crap to the dupes who take them seriously titled "Gov. Scott Walker more than halfway to 250,000 job goal."

Well that's quite a change from what we've been covering here for the last 2 years. And the reason it's different is BECAUSE IT'S A LIE BY OMISSION.

MacIver is using the numbers from the most recent Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages, which says that total jobs in Wisconsin were 2,205,584 in January 2011 (when Walker took office) and was 2,342,956 in September 2012, a difference of 137,372. Of course, there's always more jobs in September than there are in January in Wisconsin, because of weather-related jobs such as construction, landscaping and tourist-related industries. Using the raw numbers without keeping seasonality in complex is the mark of a stupid analyst, or a pathetic liar. It's the same BS that Gov. Walker tried to pull a few months back, and the Journal-Sentinel's Politifact called him a pants-on-fire liar for doing so.

And when you compare those figures with previous years, they don't show success for Scott Walker's policies. They show we often did as well if not better under Jim Doyle when the economy was growing nationwide (as it was from 2003-2007 under Doyle), and the job growth for the 21-month period MacIver is trying to prop Walker up on is a 13.4% DROP FROM THE YEAR BEFORE.

21 month job changes, Wisconsin (QCEW)
Jan 2011-Sept. 2012 +137,372 (+6.23%)
Jan 2010- Sept. 2011 +155,820 (+7.19%)
Jan 2005- Sept. 2006 +139,747 (+6.12%)
Jan 2004- Sept. 2005 +154,895 (+6.88%)
Jan. 2003- Sept. 2004 +128,287 (+5.71%)

So these numbers aren't really anything special, and in fact show a slowing from the previous year. But that doesn't come close with illustrating the amount of fail that's already happened in FitzWalkerstan, with more bad months in the QCEW to come.

If you take a look at Wisconsin's last 10 years or so, you'll see where this cycle of adding and subtracting seasonal jobs happens. Even including the recession year of 2009, when we were losing 150,000 jobs on a year-over-year basis, we added jobs in the Summer.



What's so dishonest about the MacIver story is they take the number that bottoms out at the start of 2011, but doesn't take into account that the number will drop again in the last 3 months of 2012, and is on track to fall again in the first 3 months of 2013. They're not going to be coming back in 6 months saying "Oh my God! We've lost 80,000 jobs in the last 6 months, and we're 200,000 jobs away from Walker meeting his goal!" But saying after the March report "80,000 jobs lost in last 6 months" would be just as true as their "It's Working" propaganda piece that they sent out today...and just as dishonest. Which is why the BLS uses year-over-year numbers when it's measuring the states against each other, and in looking for trends.

And that trend is not in Scott Walker's favor over the last year when it comes to private sector job growth-with barely half the jobs being added in the last report compared to what the state was doing when he took over.



In fact, I'd anticipate the upcoming year-over-year QCEW reports to show a performance as bad as the meager increase of less than 21,000 private sector jobs from Sept. 2011-Sept. 2012 - if not worse. The recently-benchmarked 2012 numbers released done by the BLS and released by the DWD used QCEW data to match up the data with the other surveys used. It showed that October-December 2012 jobs numbers barely nudged up on a seasonally-adjusted basis, while the U.S. as a whole was adding over 200,000 jobs a month in that time period.

Then look at the March 2012 increase in the QCEW, and see that 19,000 more people were working in that month than they were in February, which is the largest March increase in any of the 12 years the QCEW has measured. And it's no surprise why, because March 2012 featured numerous days in the 70s and 80s, accelerating the seasonal hiring that would usually happen in April, as Wisconsinites had green grass and bloomed trees this time last year. By comparison, the last 2 months of 2013 have had temperatures below normal (it hasn't broken 65 once, and we're supposed to get MORE SNOW on Thursday of this week after 2 days of downpours), and there's no outside lawn or landscaping work to be had. So replace the above-normal hiring in March 2012 with what will probably be low hiring in March 2013, and that means another bad 12 months on the list in the QCEW report that'll be out this September.

So don't be tricked by Walker supporters trying to MacIver their way into convincing you that Scotty's going to fulfill his prediction of 250,000 private sector jobs. He's nowhere close to it today, and won't be hitting it anytime in 2014, even with the huge seasonal increases in jobs that we get every Summer in Wisconsin.

March job slowdown- signal or noise?

Friday's job report showed a slowing of the strong growth we'd seen in the last few months, with only 88,000 more jobs created, (95,000 in the private sector). Granted, strong revisions to the previous 2 months left us up nearly 150,000 from where we thought we were last month, so it's really not that bad, but after averaging over 187,000 jobs a month since June, 88,000 jobs isn't even half that.

So why did it happen? Is it related to the budget sequester that took place on March 1 and was kept in place with the late-March budget deal? The numbers would certainly add up, because the CBO paper on the sequester's effects estimated it would lower job creation by about 750,000 in the last 10 months of the year, or 75,000 jobs a month. Add 75,000 to 88,000, and you get to 163,000, which is in line with the job growth since last Summer.

But it's also worthy to remember that many of the furloughs and other sequester-related events have yet to take full effect, so let's take a look inside the March job stats to see if we find anything else. First, let's look at the sectors that gained the most in March.

Biggest job gains, March
Health care- 23,400
Temporary help services- 20,300
Construction- 18,000
Food service/ drinking places- 13,000
Accounting services- 10,700

Nothing out of the ordinary with the first 2- they've been steadily growing at this rate for the last year. Same for bars and restuarants. Construction is worth noting, especially since the big gains were in "specialty trade contractors." This matches up with data that shows the U.S. housing market keeps coming back, with rising home values in most U.S. cities, and a 27.7% year-over-year increase in housing starts reported for February 2013. So that tells me at least that element of the economy didn't slow in March.

Let's go to the other side - which areas lost jobs in March.

Biggest job losers, March
Clothing and clothing stores -15,300
Postal service -11,700
Building + garden supply stores -10,100
Heavy and civil engineer construction -8,800
Truck transportation -6,900

The clothing and garden supply store reductions could certainly be related to the crappy weather much of the country was stuck in for March. Kinda hard to shop for summer clothes and lawn care items when it's 25 and snowing. But it also could portend for slower consumer spending in March, and with the sequester reducing incomes for a large amount of workers, this may be the start of a trend. The Postal Service reductions are probably workers heading to the exits before looming cutbacks hit that area, which is largely the result of GOP-led measures in 2006 that led to pre-funding of all of the Post Office's retirement obligations, helping cause a multi-billion dollar deficit today. Heavy construction is an odd one, but it reflects lower-than-normal March increases instead of layoffs, which also seems to point to bad weather as the reason, reducing the need to hire for road construction.

So maybe the slow March job numbers are a blip reflecting a short-term slowdown in consumer spending which reduced the need to hire for industries who usually have to add staff once the Spring flowers start blooming. We'll see if this turns around in April when it warms up and people start wanting to be outside spending money and being recreational (well, IF it warms up in April. Those of you up North that are dealing with another 3-5 inches of snow may be waiting a while).

I'll deal with the unemployment rate drop to 7.6% another time (it's mostly related to a lower amount of people in the work force, could be an aging Boomer thing). But until I see more evidence that consumer spending is really slowing down or once unemployment claims start picking up consistently (they were up on a seasonally-adjusted basis last week, but had the same numbers as the previous week on a raw number basis), I'll just chalk up these low March figures to bad weather, which puts it in the "noise" category, instead of as a signal of a slower economy.

The bigger concern for me is buried at the bottom of the report, where average weekly wages were up only 2.1% for the last 12 months, barely above inflation. In an economy that's still got 70% of it based on consumer spending, it's going to be hard to have any kind of major expansion as long as people aren't taking home any extra money. That's where you'll need to stay tuned, because that's exactly where these austerity measures are going to be reflected if they really do start slamming the brakes on what was a solidly-growing economy for most of the 1st Quarter of 2013.

Not a surprise- "Competition" leads to cheating in schools

This week is the opening of the MLB season, and I saw my first Brewer game of the season last night (a depressing 3-1 loss where Aramis Ramirez got hurt and the team found a way to lose). It also was "back to school" time in many Wisconsin School Districts after Spring Break. These two events don't seem connected, but as you will see, having high-stakes and big-money associated with performance can lead to corruption of these two things.

The way schools get corrupted through competition came through loud and clear as 35 Atlanta-area educators and school administrators were charged with fraud related to cheating on standardized tests. The ringleader is former Superintendent Bev Hall, who will now have her picture up for reasons other than "school excellence".



Hall was named the U.S.'s Superintendent of the Year for overseeing a "remarkable improvement" in test scores for Atlanta-area public schools, and adhered to the Michelle Rhee-influenced method of paying bonuses to teachers who had students show improvement in test scores and got rid of "underperforming" teachers and principals who didn't have their students do better. Well, it turns out that offering those kinds of incentives and punishments led to other sorts of behaviors that weren't exactly related to excellent teaching or student knowledge.

According to the indictment, Hall placed unreasonable goals on educators and "protected and rewarded those who achieved targets by cheating." It also alleges she fired principals who failed to achieve goals and "ignored suspicious" test score gains throughout the school system....

Investigations into the remarkable improvements on standardized tests were first reported by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution newspaper. A state review determined that some cheating had occurred in more than half the district's elementary and middle schools. About 180 teachers were implicated initially. Cheating is believed to date back to early 2001, when standardized testing scores began to turn around in the 50,000-student school district, according to the indictment.

For at least four years, between 2005 and 2009, test answers were altered, fabricated and falsely certified, the indictment said.

"We've had cheating all up and down the line. It was absolutely amazing," said Michael Bowers, a former Georgia attorney general who investigated the cheating scandal.

Bowers said there were cheating parties, erasures in and out of classrooms, and teachers were told to make changes to tests. "Anything that you can imagine that could involve cheating, it was done."

If this type of behavior sounds familiar, it should, because it reminds you of the "unbelievable" results in Rhee's schools when she was the D.C. Superintendent.



As someone who's taught high school, you don't get answers changed to the right one a whole lot more than they get changed to the wrong one. It's random and largely 50-50 (as you'd expect). It doesn't take a rocket scientist to think that a self-promoter like Rhee would at the very least be OK with teachers going rogue to improve test scores, if not outright ordering it herself.

But Jake, a federal investigation said they couldn't find direct evidence that there was widespread cheating in D.C. under Rhee. True, and Roger Clemens was never officially suspended for steroids either- he just pitched at a higher level in his late- 30s and 40s than he did as a sore-armed guy of 30 in his last years in Boston. And Sammy Sosa never was suspended for roids either, despite having his body and stats completely change in the mid-90s, and then completely "slim down" and fall off the map when steroid testing began after 2002.

Chris Hayes did an excellent job linking the incentives to "enhance performance" and cheat in high-stakes school testing and MLB in his book Twilight of the Elites. Hayes points out that MLB players who roided up often were rewarded with huge contracts, and the MLB attendance grew during the height of the steroid era in the 1990s and 2000s, which encouraged owners to look the other way when it came to PEDs, and pressured other players who weren't juicing, and seeing their performance (and salaries) suffer as a result.

In twenty-first century America we fetishsize the athletic model of ceaseless competition and meriotcratic ascent. Every two-minute biographical package during the Olympics tells the story of some hardworking athlete from the middle of nowhere who woke up early, trained late, and bested her peers to rise to be the best in the world. But what the baseball steroids scandal shows is that it's rather difficult to design a competitive system that heavily rewards performance and doesn't also reward cheating.

In one of the papers that made his reputation for ingenious economic analysis, Freakonomics' Steven Levitt used test score fluctuations in Chicago public schools to conclude that teachers were cheating in at least 4 percent of the classrooms. What prompted the outbreak of deception was an incentive structure put in place by Chicago Public Schools to push the system in a more meriotcratic direction and demand performance from its teachers.

By the way, the Chicago Public Schools' Superintendent that time that Levitt describes? None other than current Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, who has worked with President Obama to set aside billions in "Race to the Top" funding that is based partially on test scores and other performance measures.

Hayes' book also mentions Rhee's sketchy reign in D.C., and has an early rundown of the Atlanta testing scandal that led to all the charges that recently came out. When you see that a "pay-for-performance" system in public schools inevitably leads to corruption and cheating, it seems like if you valued integrity in public schools, you'd run away from this type of system as quickly as possible. But instead, more places want to put this in place as a method to judge, reward, and punish public school teachers and districts. This includes Wisconsin, where Gov. Walker's voucher-expansion plan is directly listed to test scores in certain districts. Is it a shocker that the Rhees and Duncans and the Walkers of the world also discourage strong teachers' unions, so teachers are less likely to call out this abuse? It shouldn't be. (Walker's plan is even worse because it wants public schools to be accountable to test scores, while exempting voucher and charter schools from the same rules. It's a blatant attempt to make public schools look bad and appear to "fail")

This is not to say that using test scores as a method of evaluating how a school is doing is all bad. We deserve to know how our schools measure up, and should use as much information as we can to see where we may be falling short (such as low scores in a particular subject), and possibly use that to change curriculum and emphasis in class. But to base teacher pay and school funding in a Darwinist "Survival of the Fittest" method will inevitably end up with some schools cheating and "teaching to the test", as they did in Atlanta. And while that may make these districts' numbers look good, they don't do much when it comes to long-term growth or necessarily preparing students for their future careers, and may in fact set those students back. Worse, it could encourage a desperate or greedy district to funnel some low-performing students out of the district and leave them permanently behind, like private schools do all the time.

But much like MLB players that juiced in the steroid era, does that matter to people who are looking for short-term adulation and payoffs, even if it leaves a major black mark on their profession? And I'm a lot more forgiving of MLB players that juiced when it was legal (and believe the best players of the steroid era should be in the Hall of Fame, regardless of whether or not they used PEDs). Teachers who knowingly lie on tests are portraying something that is not true, and even though the system encourages this type of deception and cheating, it is still criminally and professionally ILLEGAL, unlike using roids before they were banned in MLB.

The trend of tying school compensation to school performance is a recipe for deception and failure, and will not make us better off in the long term. Even worse, it can penalize teachers and districts who may try to "do the right thing", teaching honestly and trying to meet a student's and class's individual needs, because they will be pushed out over teachers who encourage mindless regurgitation and worse, cheating on tests.

LAB - Walker Admin cut libraries and hoarded USF funds

File this one under "reports out media chose to pass over because it requires 10 seconds of analysis." It's a very crowded file in this state, but this is worth adding to it.

The Legislative Audit Bureau handed out a report this week on the state's Universal Service Fund. The USF is a state-administered fee that goes on most communications, including cell phones, land lines, and cable TV systems (you'll see it on your bills if you look closely enough), and the idea is that the money will be used to help expand availability of communications technology and help offset some of the costs that businesses would have to take on to build these communications lines. As the summary of the LFB report brings up, the USF helps fund a large amount of the state's public Internet and Library services.

The USF has been the sole funding source for Aid to Public Library Systems since FY 2008-09. The Educational Telecommunications Access Program is managed by the Department of Administration (DOA) and subsidizes access for approximately 1,000 pre-K-12 public, private, and charter schools; technical colleges; public libraries; and other educational institutions to a state-supported broadband network known as the BadgerNet Converged Network.

Not surprisingly, this fee has been used in recent years to fill budget holes and/or allow tax revenues to be used for other purposes, a trend that started 10 years ago when the Doyle Administration tried to clean up the fiscal mess from the Thompson/ McCallum years but wanted to keep funding local public libraries.

The State used general purpose revenue (GPR) as the sole funding source for the Aid to Public Library Systems program, which is managed by DPI, until 2003 Wisconsin Act 33 first required the USF to fund a portion of that aid in FY 2003-04. As part of the State’s efforts to address budget shortfalls, additional USF resources were used for public library aids.

The state also used $1.2 million of excess USF funds in 2010-2011 to help close the massive GPR budget hole that opened up as a result of the Great Recession.

The Walker Administration continued the USF in the 2011-2013 budget, albeit with a slight cut in the rate according to the PSC, but at the same time put in a $1.7 million cut to library aids to local communities.

USF revenues decreased again from FY 2010-11 to FY 2011-12 due to a $1.7 million, or 10 percent, decrease in the assessments for Aid to Public Libraries, and lesser reductions to assessments for Library Service Contracts and the Educational Telecommunications Access Program for school districts. There was no change in assessments for UW System BadgerNet Access in FY 2009-10, FY 2010-11, or FY 2011-12.

Appropriations for the DPI programs under 2009 Wisconsin Act 28 continued the trend of using the USF for funding the Aid to Public Library Systems in place of GPR. USF appropriations for Aid to Public Library Systems began in FY 2003-04 at $2.1 million and have increased in the intervening years to $16.7 million in FY 2010-11. That trend changed under 2011 Wisconsin Act 32, the 2011-13 Biennial Budget Act, when Aid to Public Library Systems was reduced to $15.0 million for FY 2011-12.

This cut meant that local communities and school districts had to find another $1.7 million to make up for these cuts in a time when shared revenues were also being cut, and the ability to make up the difference in property taxes or sales taxes was also limited. Interestingly, the fund took in about $1.7 million more than it spent out for that budget year, which means the cut to library aids could have been restored, giving some huge relief to local communities and schools.

That's bad enough on its own, but it also came after years of similar hoarding of the USF fee. A quick look at the 2011-2012 finances of the USF in the first year of the Walker budget makes this look a whole lot worse. As the LAB summary brings up

Our report includes a recommendation for DOA to ensure that an administrative fee it charges the USF for services related to use of the BadgerNet Converged Network reflects only the actual costs of providing those services. We estimate that at least $4.3 million of the $5.4 million that has accumulated in a DOA appropriation represents excess administrative services fees paid by the USF.

Basically, they're saying the DOA is skimming extra funds above what it actually costs to take care of its administrative duties in taking care of the USF books and distributing the money. This is extra "revenue" when looked at on the GPR budget side, and can be used to fill budget holes and fund other duties that the USF isn't supposed to be paying for (kind of like how the Walker Administration banked $25 million in federal foreclosure funds, and used it to help create our current budget "surplus").

And this leads to the Walker Administration's current policy on broadband and other communications, which is a helluva kicker. The LAB notes that the DOA may lower some of these fees to make up the difference, and that the upcoming budget plans to spend more of these dollars to expand availibility of new technology in Wisconsin.

The PSC has indicated that it will evaluate the overall fund balance at the end of FY 2012-13 to determine if an additional offset of provider assessments is appropriate when setting the rates for FY 2013-14. We note that 2013 Assembly Bill 40, the Governor’s 2013-15 biennial budget proposal, creates a broadband grant program funded by $4.7 million in USF funds. This program would be administered by DOA, in consultation with PSC, to expand broadband access in underserved areas.

These are good moves on their face- bringing our underserved areas up to speed on communications is a great way to improve economic competitiveness in a lot of areas. However, there's yet another Walker failure lurking behind this move, and it results from a clssic "pose over policy" move that these dingbats made in 2011.

State officials are returning $23 million to the federal government, saying there were too many strings attached to stimulus money that was supposed to be for expanding high-speed Internet service in schools, libraries and government agencies.

The money was to have boosted broadband connections in 380 Wisconsin communities, including 385 libraries and 82 schools. It also could have been used to improve police, fire department and hospital communications in rural areas....

Wisconsin received the grant a year ago from the National Telecommunications and Information Administration. It was part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, which included about $7 billion in grants, loans and loan guarantees to extend broadband to underserved rural areas and was compatible with President Barack Obama's goal of making high-speed Internet available to 98% of Americans by 2016.

The money would have been used for the BadgerNet Converged Network, which brings the Internet to schools, libraries, and state and local government agencies. It would have paid for 200 miles of fiber-optic cable, improving the Internet connections at hundreds of public facilities.

So instead of taking federal money with little to no cost to state taxpayers, the Walker boys decided to spite turned down these millions of dollars, only to spend nearly $5 million in state dollars 2 years later. If this sounds a lot like the train fiasco and the current "work makes you free" Medicaid plan, it's only because it is, and turning down the broadband money was every bit as stupid.

So not only has the Walker Administration hoarded funds from the USF that could have been used to relieve the pressure of budget cuts on communications access, they also turned down federal money that also could have lessened these burdens, lowered the costs to the state, and had a more wide-ranging effect than the upcoming budget initiative ever will. It's a great illustration of the combination of fiscal mismanagement, idiotic posing, and failed policy that has been the hallmark of the 27 months of the Age of Fitzwalkerstan, and just because the media didn't cover this failure on the USF and communications technology doesn't mean it isn't happening.

Supreme Court recap

   Pretty straightforward analysis here for Tuesday's Supreme Court election, because it only takes a couple of stats to tll the big story. First, when a candidate only wins 8 counties statewide, that candidate isn't going to win no matter which places turn out. That's a serious shift from the 2012 election, when both Obama and Baldwin won approximately half of the state's counties in their victories.

   It was even 50-50 in Dem strongholds like La Crosse, Milwaukee, and Rock Counties, and it's clear that Roggensack are her backers spending 5 to 10 times the Fallone supporters did her a major advantage in exposure to the casual bystanders that cast ballots. If you're going to run against a WMC-bought candidate, you have to spend money yourself, and many of the pro-Fallone and Dem forces didn't do that, or do it nearly as much as the Roggensack group did.

    But turnout does come into play when you realize Roggensack's winning margin in pro-Dem counties is related to the under-20 percent turnout that the election had.  Unfortunately, I think a lot of people are burned out after the last 2 years, and this allows the corporate slime to seep in even more, because they and the scared old folks that listen to angry-man radio never have an off-switch when it comes to imposing things onto this state (it's not really admirable, because it shows they don't really care about doing right and it shows they don't have a life). Because the turnout was so low, especially in places without a lot of huge local elections (especially in Milwaukee), it allowed other places to take a bigger share of pie than they're used to.

   Top 10 counties, 2013 Supreme Court election (unofficial)
    Dane County 10.84%
    Waukesha Co. 9.45%
     City of Milwaukee 6.02%
     Rest of Milw Co. 6.01%
     Brown County  3.67%
     Racine County 3.52%
     Washington Co. 2.92%
     Outagamie Co. 2.87%
     Sheboygan Co. 2.51%
     Ozaukee County 2.38%

   Compare this with the November 2012 elections, which had a 70% turnout.
  
Top 10 turnout counties, 2012 president
Dane County 9.88%
City of Milwaukee 9.54%
Waukesha County 7.91%
Rest of Milwaukee Co. 6.55%
Brown County 4.21%
Racine County 3.37%
Outagamie Co. 3.07%
Winnebago Co. 2.89%
Rock County 2.64%
Kenosha County 2.64%
(Washington Co. 2.58%)

  
First, see that the amount of votes for the City of Milwaukee and the rest of Milwaukee County are basically the same? Very different than what we saw in November, wasn't it? Also notice that Waukesha County massively outvoted both of those constituencies this week, and that all 3 dead-red WOW counties appear in the top 10 (and all 3 gave between 74 and 79% of their votes for Roggensack), - only Waukesha County did that in November 2012. Rock, Kenosha, and Winnebago counties don't even show up in the top 10 in the Supreme Court elections, and all 3 counties went for Obama in 2012.  

  This illustrates a challenge and the opportunity that the Democratic Party of Wisconsin should take note of- if turnout is higher in Wisconsin, Dems usually win, and if not, righties win. And it takes active exposure of Democratic candidates and advancing popular progressive values to get these voters out to the polls.

  This didn't happen enough on Tuesday, and the work needs to start today to change that dynamic over the next 19 months. Standing against vouchers and in favor of public education (like School Superintendent Tony Evers did) is a winning position. So's the demanding of clean government, standing in favor of same-day registration and opening up the vote, and standing up to the corrupting influence of money in politics. Instead, I hear an obsession about the huge corporate donations to Walker and WisGOP and fear of GOP mouthpieces on AM radio, but not enough done to stand up to them. Mealy-mouthed nice-guy stuff may be noble, but it's not enough to move the needle in the places Dems need it to move, so why stick with that method of campaigning?

  2014 starts now. Get on  it.

New lows for Wisconsin jobs disaster pt. 2- Unemployment

This is a follow up to the post I made over the weekend discussing the latest bad jobs numbers in Wisconsin. This time, I wanted to take a look at a stat the Badger state has generally looked good in compared to the rest of the nation- the unemployment rate. Unfortunately, this is another stat where we are faring poorly compared to other states during the Age of Fitzwalkerstan.

The  February jobs report included an increase in the state's unemployment rate to 7.2% from 7.0% in January. It went against the U.S. trend, which had unemployment fall from 7.9% to 7.7%, and we'll see where it stands when the March numbers come out on Friday.

It also goes against the positive trend this state had before Scott Walker and WisGOP came to power in 2011. Wisconsin was able to hold its own compared to its neighbors during the Great Recession, as it never reached 10% unemployment like Illinois, Indiana, Michigan and Ohio did. But it did have a bad go of it from June 2008 to June 2009, as our unemployment rate went from 4.5% to 9.2%. During that time, Barack Obama was elected president and Democrats took control of both houses of the Wisconsin Legislature, which meant that they had to deal with the huge budget deficit that resulted from the financial crisis and Great Recession.

The Democrats' budget was signed by Governor Doyle in June 2009, and Wisconsinhad higher unemployment than 30 other states, at 9.2%. The 4.7% increase over the previous 12 months was also  the 7th-highest rise in the U.S. That trend needed to stop, and quickly. And for the rest of the time that Doyle and the Dems were in power, it did.

    Wisconsin unemployment under Doyle/Dem control
     January 2009 7.1%
     June 2009 9.2% (31st lowest in U.S., +4.7% last 12 months)
     Jan 2010 9.2% (29th lowest, +2.1% last 12 mos.)
     June 2010 8.4% (25th lowest, -0.8% last 12 mos., 7th-biggest drop)
     Jan 2011 7.7% (18th lowest, -1.5% last 12 mos., 5th-biggest drop)

So Scott Walker and WisGOP entered office with Wisconsin's unemployment falling, and relatively low. And after holding steady compared to the rest of the country for the first year-and-a-half, the state's unemployment stats have turned bad since June's recall election.

  Wisconsin unemployment rate under Walker/ WisGOP control
    Jan 2011 7.7% (18th lowest, -1.5% last 12 mos.)
    June 2011 7.7% (21st lowest, -0.7% last 12 mos.)- Walker signs budget
    Jan 2012 7.0% (17th lowest, -0.7% last 12 mos.)
    June 2012 7.0% (17th lowest, -0.7% last 12 mos.) Walker wins recall election
    Feb 2013 7.2% (23rd lowest, +0.3 last 12 mos., 6th-biggest RISE in U.S)

A chart showing Wisconsin's rank in lowest unemployment rates among states also bears this out.

  

All these numbers come from the BLS's handy interactive search tool on state unemployment rates, which you can use at your leisure to put numbers together. I highly recommend it when you want to compare state-vs. state.

It's also worth mentioning that any lowering of unemployment in the first 18 months of Walker's term probably has little to do with what's happening in Wisconsin, and instead reflects the improving national economy. This is in stark contrast to what happened under the Doyle-Dem budget, as Wisconsin's increase in unemployment stopped in mid-2009, months ahead of the U.S., and also fell faster than the U.S. rate throughout 2010. That trend has reversed in the last 12 months.

 

Look at how the gap between the U.S. and Wisconsin's unemployment rates have shrunk in the last 2 years. When Walker and WisGOP took control in January 2011, Wisconsin had an unemployment rate 1.4% lower than the U.S. That gap is barely more than 1/3 that amount today, at 0.5%.

So if you hear right-wing loudmouths still trying to give Scott Walker credit for "holding Wisconsin's unemployment under the national average," the simple response is "He didn't build that." In fact, the Fitzwalkerstan era is erasing Wisconsin's longtime advantage of lower unemployment, and may soon cause the state to reside in the bottom half of U.S states in that statistic. It is yet another failure that you can hang on these guys, and much like with the total jobs figures, there is little reason to believe this bad unemployment trend will start beating the national average anytime soon.