Trump and Fitz desperately try to change the blame for their GOP idiocy on health care

Republicans continue to flail in the wake of huge jumps in out-of-pocket costs for Obamacare insurance, and their stupefying refusal to restore the subisidies that would cut the amount that everyday Americans would pay for that insurance.

So now their latest strategy is to....blame insurance companies?

An unserious man

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— Daniel A Collier, PhD (@dcollier74.bsky.social) November 8, 2025 at 9:55 AM

So instead of making insurance companies compete at scale and have consumers choose what is best for them, Trump wants to give Americans a VOUCHER to go to insurance companies, and not have any baseline services required or any controls on the costs of those insurance policies?

We already tried this idea, with Paul Ryan in the 2010s.

This VOUCHERcare idea from Trump sounds familiar. Oh yeah! Here it is! www.americanprogress.org/article/ryan... @pamherd.bsky.social @bbkogan.bsky.social

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— jakemadtown.bsky.social (@jakemadtown.bsky.social) November 8, 2025 at 10:39 AM

Ryan's plan was so flawed and ridiculous that it was laughed out of the room and never brought up for a vote because the idea was so toxic.

We got a similar kind of deflection from the Koched-up insurrectionist piece of human garbage known as Wisconsin Congressman Scott Fitzgerald, who shrugs and says ending the tax credits really didn't raise premiums that much anyway.

According to the Paragon Health Institute, the end of those temporary subsidies accounts for only 3-4% of projected premium increases for a typical Obamacare plan in 2026, with most of the increases being driven by other factors like the lingering effects of inflation and new innovative but expensive drugs and technology. Even without the enhanced COVID-era subsidies, the federal government will still cover more than 80% of premiums for most enrollees through the regular subsidies.

It's cute to see Fitzgerald use a study from the Paragon Institute as evidence that dumping the tax credits aren't a reason for the premium hikes, because the Paragon Institute is a Koched-up RW front group whose only goal is to wreck Obamacare any way they can.

After those alternate facts from Troll Scotty, we continue with Rep. Fitzgerald's flop-sweaty justifications.

It's true that some enrollees with incomes just above four times the federal poverty level will see higher costs because they lose eligibility for premium subsidies. But that group is small, only about 7% of all Exchange enrollees according to KFF. The Urban Institute estimates the uninsured rate for these families would rise by only 5%, because many can access employer coverage or are willing to pay the full premium.

Most enrollees, those with incomes under 250% of the federal poverty level who receive the largest subsidies and make up about three-quarters of all Exchange enrollees would see premiums rise by only around $62.50 per month, according to the Urban Institute. This is far from the “doubling” scare the Democrats are pushing.

In addition to the fact that there have been numerous reports around the state and country about people paying more than double for their insurance vs what they're paying now, the Kaiser Family Foundation estimates that 38% of Wisconsinites that receive insurance through the exchanges have incomes about 250% of the poverty line, or more than 121,000 of those insured. That's not 25% Fitz, and it is not an insignificant number of people.

Let's also go back to the Congressional Budget Office's estimates and see what they had to say about what the lack of tax credits are doing to people's costs.

CBO also estimates that gross premiums for benchmark plans in the marketplaces would be 7.6 percent lower, on average, in each year from 2026 to 2035, relative to baseline projections. (The premium estimates reflect the amount before the tax credit is applied.) The estimated decline in benchmark premiums is the result of the expectation that people enrolling in the marketplaces would be healthier on average if the expanded premium tax credit were extended.

That's basically double the increase what Fitzgerald's stink tank claims, and Fitzgerald also neglects to mention that the higher premiums also mean higher taxpayer costs for those who still are eligible for the tax credits.

In addition, employer-based insurance will likely become more expensive (and likely has, if you checked your open enrollment info), as some people decide to choose that over Obamacare, or go uninsured and have more expensive services when they use emergency rooms instead of regular check-ups. In both cases, those (often sicker or older) individuals can drive up overall costs for the insurance company, who then raise everyone else's premiums.

Fitzgerald also gives a zombie lie about Democrats wanting to give ACA coverage to illegal immigrants (this is both not true and disallowed under the ACA). And then he claims that the expansion of the tax credits that lowered costs for everyday Americans was a distortion, and that allowing them to expire is just the way things should work out. OK Scotty, you tell Wisconsinites whose out-of-pocket premium costs have doubled that it's just something they should suck up.

Somehow, the GOP thinks they can use the higher premiums caused by their negligence and arrogance as a reason to get of the Obamacare exchanges. And while I'm all about hating insurance companies, using that earned hatred to mess up the ACA seems like an idiotic strategy. As tens of millions of Americans have gotten insurance through the Obamacare exchanges, the ACA's favorability has continued to climb, to the point that it is liked by a nearly 2-1 margin.

Bobby Kogan of the Center for American Progress points out that there is a consistency with what Trump/GOP is doing here.

The new GOP talking point again premium tax credits is an argument against *all* demand-side assistance. Don’t help people buy health insurance because money flows to insurers? That’s also an argument against SNAP and WIC — dollars flow to grocery stores. Just an excuse to not help people.

— Bobby Kogan (@bbkogan.bsky.social) November 8, 2025 at 3:20 PM

This is what the Republicans want for the vast majority of Americans. To have us beholden to businesses who are able to limit the options consumers have, allowing a chosen few to dictate the costs and choices to the rest of us. In reality, if we are really concerned about unchecked power of insurance companies to raise premiums and get profits from government subsidies, there are two things yhay can be done.

1. Have a baseline government-run insurance policy that also appears on the Obamacare exchanges, which limits the rate of profit and overhead. Call it a public competition, or extra option, or something like that.

2. There's an even easier way to take soulless, corportate insurance companies out of the equation.

#MedicareForAll

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— Lara7CA (@laravp7.bsky.social) November 9, 2025 at 12:57 PM

Let's ask all Republicans on the Hill if they really want to deal with the remaining flaw of the Affordable Care Act - the fact that it still relies on private insurance companies to offer the health coverage and options that Americans need.

ADP says US gained private sector jobs in October. But overall picture is bad, and set to get worse

Without regular data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics and other government agencies, we have to look at other data for information on how the US jobs market looks. And we got a bit of news on Thursday that indicated things had taken a downward turn.

Last month was the worst October for layoff announcements since 2003 as companies slashed roles to save money, pared back pandemic-era hires, and planned ahead for artificial intelligence, according to the global outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas.

Employers announced 153,074 cuts last month, compared to 55,597 cuts in October 2024. Last month’s figure was “the highest total for October in over 20 years, and the highest total for a single month in the fourth quarter since 2008,” Andy Challenger, chief revenue officer for Challenger, Gray & Christmas, said in a report Thursday.

Altogether, US firms announced the end of 1,099,500 positions through the first 10 months of this year, up 44% from the 761,358 cuts seen for the entirety of 2024. Technology businesses led private-sector layoffs.

“October’s pace of job cutting was much higher than average for the month,” Challenger said in a statement.

“Some industries are correcting after the hiring boom of the pandemic, but this comes as AI adoption, softening consumer and corporate spending, and rising costs drive belt-tightening and hiring freezes,” he continued. “Those laid off now are finding it harder to quickly secure new roles, which could further loosen the labor market.”

That's not good at all, although I'll note that those are jobs ANNOUNCEMENTS, which means the actual job losses will come later, so we wouldn't be seeing that show up in unemployment claims or the unemployment rate for a few months.

The report on added layoffs came one day after some positive jobs news from one of the only other sources of jobs market news during the Federal government shutdown.

Private-sector job creation bounced back in October, according to a snapshot of the labor market that has become more closely watched in the absence of official federal jobs data.

Payroll processing company ADP on Wednesday estimated that private-sector businesses added an estimated 42,000 jobs last month, a swing into positive territory after back-to-back months of job losses.

While October marked a return to job growth, ADP’s chief economist cautioned that the pace of hiring is running far slower than earlier this year and far more concentrated in a few sectors….

The largest job gains were spread across industries such as trade, transportation and utilities (+47,000 jobs); education and health services (+26,000); and financial activities (+11,000), ADP reported.

Those posting the biggest job losses were information (17,000 jobs lost), professional and business services (15,000 jobs lost), and leisure and hospitality (6,000 jobs lost).

Yes, the 42,000 gain makes up for the losses in the previuous 2 months, but as you can see, 2025 has seen private job growth slow to near zero after increases in the previous 2 years.

What's worth mentioning along with ADP's small gain in private sector jobs in October is that if we had a regular jobs report tomorrow, we'd see the full effect of DOGE's deferred resignation program for federal employees. Between 100,000 and 150,000 workers chose to leave federal service, but were still receiving pay through the end of the Federal Fiscal Year on September 30, which means they would not show up as "unemployed" in the official numbers from the Bureau of Labor Statistics until October's report.

Put those public sector losses together with other reported job info, and UW-Madison's Menzie Chinn projects that October's jobs report would have shown a notable decline in payroll numbers, if we would have had a report coming out.

Maybe that's another reason Trump/GOP seems to be OK with doing nothing to end the shutdown. It doesn't just keep the Epstein files under wraps, it also has allowed for the last two months of subpar jobs reports to be hidden from the public as well.

Polls and politicians should adjust after last night, and know WisDems are in a good spot

Yesterday’s results in elections were a clear win for Democrats pretty much across the board. Yes, smaller sample size than a Congressional midterm or Presidential election, but it’s also not nothing, especially in the large margin of the Democratic wins in the places they won in.

It also brought me back to last month’s Marquette Law School Poll, which had an electorate set up this way.

That may seem lopsided, but it is not much different than what the adjusted exit polls indicated that Party ID was in Wisconsin for 2024’s election.

But an R+3 or R+4 electorate isn’t what we saw in Virginia and New Jersey yesterday, which showed a strong shift to Democrats. That matches up with a finding that Gallup had in July which showed a nationwide change in Party ID from R+4 to D+3 by this Summer.

And those surveys took place before the shutdown and hike in Obamacare premiums and ICE getting further out of control. All of which have seen Republicans sit on their hands and avoid doing anything about any of these unpopular things that they are 100% in ownership of. So I can’t think those Party ID numbers are any better now.

But let’s be charitable to the GOP and only turn Wisconsin’s electorate from R+4 to one evenly split between the 2 parties (call it 33.5% to 33.5%), with the same 25% of Independents and 8% of “Other/No preference” (which is lumped together as “Independents”. Then take the answers among those groups from the recent Marquette Poll. Start with Trump approval, which has the following crosstabs.

That pushes Trump’s approval-disapproval down around 44-54 from 46-53. It’s only a 3-point difference, but you also can’t say things haven’t changed from where Trump's approval was last year.

And if you’re a Republican in the Wisconsin Legislature, an even split between Dems and Republicans next November puts you in big trouble, because the voters of the state don't like what the GOPs have been doing while in control of both houses.

Now, you may remember that I had the same criticism about the GOP +5 tilt of Chuckly Franklin’s final pre-election poll in 2024, and it turned out that he correctly modeled the young bros and other casuals that would come out and ID as Republican or Independent.

But the polls in Virginia and New Jersey badly missed the shift to Dems in both Party ID and results last night (by 4 points in VA and 7 in NJ). It's also worth noting that Dems gained 9 and 7 points in yesterday’s Governor races in VA and NJ compared to Kamala Harris’ 6-point wins in each of those states last year.

Again, I’ll be conservative and give half that shift to Wisconsin (we may be different, but we’re not that different here), and that would translate to a 4-point move and a relatively comfortable win of more than 3% in 2026 for Dems at the top of the ticket here. So what did the map look like for Tony Evers’ 3.5% win from 2022 with the new districts in place? Let’s go to Dave’s Redistricting and find out.

Here’s the Congressional map.

See that Evers won District 3 (by 49.6-49.1)? Then add in the fact that GOP incumbent Derrick Van Orden beat Rebecca Cooke by 4.5% less than Trump beat Harris in District 3, and you gotta think Cooke is favored in a rematch. And Evers only lost District 1 by 0.2%, which means GOP Bryan Steil is in big trouble for re-election if he's strongly contested in a similar type of year.

And if the shift is a VA-NJ-level of 7-9%? Coffee Boy Steil is likely gone unless he is somehow thought of as different as Trump and the other GOPs in DC - which would be quite a trick when he chairs the powerful House Administration Committee and is standing next to Mike Johnson and other House GOP Leaders when they are saying garbage like this about peaceful No Kings participants.

Emmer: "This is about one thing and one thing alone -- to score political points with the terrorist wing of their party, which is set to hold a hate America rally in DC next week."

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— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) October 10, 2025 at 9:25 AM

Yeah, Steil ain't going to be able to separate himself from them.

And just like how Virginia Democrats got a near-supermajority in their lower house during last night's elections, you'd have to think Dems would be set to win further down the ticket if they're winning at the top. So let's look at how Evers did in his 3.5% victory in the State Senate districts, and keep in mind that only odd-numbered districts are up in 2026.

That means Dems should be favored in districts 5, 17, and 21, which are currently held by Republicans. If Dems flip those 3, they run the Senate 18-15.

And here’s the State Assembly.

. That one blue dot on the other side of the vertical line means that Evers won 50 of the state's 99 districts as he was winning the state by 3.5%

Considering the Democratic overperformance basically everywhere last night, you have to think the potential of a Democratic trifecta in Wisconsin in 2026 has become just a bit more likely.

— Dan Shafer (@danshafer.bsky.social) November 5, 2025 at 10:01 AM

It's definitely in play.

Obviously a lot can and will happen in the next year, so don’t assume the Dems have an easy glide into power for 2026. But winning the whole enchilada sure seems possible, along with a pickup of at least 1-2 seats in the US House. And if I was an elected Republican in Madison or DC, I’d definitely look for ways not to be a feckless Trumper in the coming months.

Trump/GOPs screwing up, screwing around on SNAP, and benefits won't be out for a while

Just wanted to give a little accumulation of information on the SNAP situation.

First of all, it's indisputable that the law says the Trump Administration has to release these funds for SNAP, and that the money has been set aside. Bobby Kogan from the Center for American Progress, who knows a helluva lot more about budget stuff than I do, shows us the actual words on the paper.

Again, here's the *entire* text for the SNAP contingency fund. It says it's for when you need it for carry out program operations. It doesn't say "it's for when there's some money but not enough." Give me a fucking break. It can obviously be used on benefits during a shutdown.

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— Bobby Kogan (@bbkogan.bsky.social) October 31, 2025 at 11:46 AM

See that? There are extra funds set aside in case there aren't funds allocated to SNAP short-term, and they are good through September 30 of next year. The money is there.

Kogan also does a good rundown of the timeline and the confusing and often contradictory messages that the Trump Admin were sending out in relation to SNAP.

-Sep 30: USDA releases guidance saying they can use contingency fund -Oct 10: USDA tells states to prepare for lapse -Oct 23: USDA deletes guidance saying they can use contingency fund -Oct 24: USDA says it can’t use contingency fund -Oct 31: Courts tell USDA to release funds -Nov 1: no funds go out

— Bobby Kogan (@bbkogan.bsky.social) November 3, 2025 at 8:31 AM

Courts required the Trump Admin to send some of the contingency funds for SNAP. Well, at least some of it.

For the past two days, the administration has said in public statements and court filings that it will at least partially fund the program this month after US District Judge John McConnell’s ruling that the agencies should tap emergency funds to pay for food stamps…

One day earlier, the Justice Department said in a court filing the administration was working “diligently” to comply with a ruling last week from McConnell, a Rhode Island-based judge, requiring officials to at least partially fund SNAP.

The Agriculture Department, which administers the program, planned to “deplete” $4.65 billion in contingency money and provide recipients with 50% of the amount eligible households normally receive in November, the filing said. It also warned that recalculating benefits would be time-consuming.

But that means states and other administrators of SNAP benefits need to adjust how much each recipient gets, and that will mean that even the partial benefits for November will not be able to be used this month. This includes the SNAP recipients in Wisconsin.

Department of Health Services officials said because food stamp recipients' benefits will be reduced due to the partial funding, the state must wait for guidance from the Trump administration on how to move forward and then recalculate more than 367,000 households' benefits because the amount is lower than normal. That will take "weeks instead of days," the officials said….

If the Trump administration had fully funded the program, state government officials across the country would not have needed to overhaul their systems and benefits would have been delivered more quickly, according to Patrick Penn, a U.S. Department of Agriculture official who oversees the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.

"Providing the full month of benefits would not have created the same unique challenges and delays," the Wisconsin officials wrote in an email to reporters.

Even worse, the Journal-Sentinel article says that the Trump Administration thought about moving money from school meal subsidies to pay for the full month of SNAP benefits. Then, they realized that would be even worse to shove the burdens onto school districts and school kids, and they backed off.

"USDA has determined that creating a shortfall in Child Nutrition Program funds to fund one month of SNAP benefits is an unacceptable risk, even considering the procedural difficulties with delivering a partial November SNAP payment, because shifting $4 billion dollars to America’s SNAP population merely shifts the problem to millions of America’s low income children that receive their meals at school," Penn wrote.

It’s yet another self-inflicted wound from the dimwits in the White House, as a conscious choice to not use these funds that were set aside by law.

I can't think Trump/GOP is winning on this, but they figured Dems would cave as the Trumpers pointed the gun at Americans that need SNAP. But Trump/GOP have been wrong on their calculus and their tactics throughout this shutdown, and it's why basically anyone that's not a MAGAt living in BubbleWorld is putting the blame on Republicans. We will see if some of that blame bears out in the elections that we have tonight.

Manufacturing slump continues in October

We don’t get much economic data these days with the government still shut down, so when any bit of information comes out from other places, it’s grabbed onto more. And the information from an index of US manufacturing activity shows that things were going mostly the same way that they were before the shutdown.

The report was issued today by Susan Spence, MBA, Chair of the Institute for Supply Management® (ISM®) Manufacturing Business Survey Committee.

“The Manufacturing PMI® registered 48.7 percent in October, a 0.4-percentage point decrease compared to the reading of 49.1 percent recorded in September. The overall economy continued in expansion for the 66th month after one month of contraction in April 2020. (A Manufacturing PMI® above 42.3 percent, over a period of time, generally indicates an expansion of the overall economy.) The New Orders Index contracted for the second month in October following one month of growth; the figure of 49.4 percent is 0.5 percentage point higher than the 48.9 percent recorded in September. The October reading of the Production Index (48.2 percent) is 2.8 percentage points lower than September’s figure of 51 percent. The Prices Index remained in expansion (or ‘increasing’ territory), registering 58 percent, down 3.9 percentage points compared to the reading of 61.9 percent reported in September. The Backlog of Orders Index registered 47.9 percent, up 1.7 percentage points compared to the 46.2 percent recorded in September. The Employment Index registered 46 percent, up 0.7 percentage point from September’s figure of 45.3 percent….

“The New Export Orders Index reading of 44.5 percent is 1.5 percentage points higher than the reading of 43 percent registered in September. The Imports Index registered 45.4 percent, 0.7 percentage point higher than September’s reading of 44.7 percent.”

Now, if you didn’t know better, you’d say this indicates improvements from September. But that’s not true. It meant manufacturing activity kept declining in October and prices kept going up, just not as badly as they were in September.

The ISM report goes on to say that some sectors had significant declines last month.

“Looking at the manufacturing economy, 58 percent of the sector’s gross domestic product (GDP) contracted in October, down from 67 percent in September, however; the percent of GDP in strong contraction (registering a composite PMI® of 45 percent or lower), is at 41 percent, up 13 percent from September. The share of sector GDP with a PMI® at or below 45 percent is a good metric to gauge overall manufacturing weakness. Of the six largest manufacturing industries, only two (Food, Beverage & Tobacco Products; and Transportation Equipment) expanded in October,” says Spence.

And “strong contraction” is when you are more likely to see sizable job losses, vs muddling through some doldrums.

While it's nice to put the numbers to things, I think this rundown at the top of the ISM report sums it well.

So should I assume manufacturing was one of the sectors the Treasury Secretary was talking about this weekend?

TAPPER: Do you agree that the US is at risk of a recession? BESSENT: I believe we are in a transition period here. I think we're in good shape, but there are sectors of the economy that are in recession

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— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) November 2, 2025 at 8:19 AM

WisGOPs choosing vouchers over public schools + less lottery playing = higher property taxes in Wis

2 weeks ago, the Department of Public Instruction released their General Aid payments for 2025-26, and it showed that nearly 3/4 of Wisconsin districts will be dealing with less General Aid from the state for this school year.

When combined with Governor Evers’ creative veto from 2023 that permitted increased resources for K-12 Wisconsin districts, that means those extra funds would have to come in the form of higher property taxes for those 3/4 of school districts in this year.

This is where I remind you that Evers wanted to pay for those extra K-12 resources with added state aids and related measures in his 2025-27 state budget, which the Legislative Fiscal Bureau said at the time would have kept property taxes back near last year’s levels.

But the WisGOPs in the Legislature didn’t go along with those ideas, and added $0 in General Aids for each of the upcoming 2 years. So the Legislative Fiscal Bureau updated those estimates after the budget was signed, and said the WisGOP (in)action on the budget raised gross school property taxes by $354.0 million for this year, and overall property taxes would rise by an additional $164 on the median-priced Wisconsin home for this year, and another $116 in December 2026.

Bad enough, but guess what state payments did get increased in our state budget! The money going to private (and often religious) voucher schools. As the LFB notes in its summary of K-12 education funding:

Under the [budget], the per pupil payment for K-8 pupils is estimated to increase from $10,237 in 2024-25 to $10,877 in 2025-26 and $11,305 in 2026-27, and the per pupil payment for 9-12 pupils is estimated to increase from $12,731 in 2024-25 to $13,371 in 2025-26 and $13,799 in 2026-27.

Milwaukee students receiving vouchers are entirely state funded, but vouchers for kids in all other parts of Wisconsin are paid for in a different way – by cutting the funding for the public school district where the kid lives in. Even if the kid never attended a day of public schools.

If you check out DPI’s rundown, you’ll see that $394.5 million is being taken away from Wisconsin’s public schools to pay for these vouchers this year.

And outside of Milwaukee, this ends up raising the property taxes of Wisconsinites because the public schools are allowed to do that in order to make up for the state funds being taken away from the district the voucher kid lives in. And given that the amount of students given vouchers and the amount of voucher payments continue to rise, this keeps adding to the property tax burden.

Another reason Wisconsinites are likely to face rising property tax bills is that the state’s lottery tax credit is going to be less for this year, as the Legislative Fiscal Bureau recently confirmed.

In 2025(26), with available proceeds of $293,929,700, an estimated average tax credit of $190 would be extended to eligible properties with values in excess of the credit base value, to be established by DOR prior to November 20 of each year. In 2024(25), the corresponding average tax credit was $207, based on the amount certified by the Committee in October, 2024. The decline in the estimated average credit is attributable to a projected decrease in ticket sales in 2025-26 of $21.6 million, compared to 2024-25. Actual lottery sales can vary from estimates, especially in the case of jackpot games like Powerball and Mega Millions, which are strongly driven by the size and number of high jackpots.

This now means that Wisconsin's lottery credit has declined in 3 of the last 4 years.

The LFB went on to explain that part of the reason for the lower reductions in property taxes is that people haven’t been spending on lottery tickets like they were 5 years ago. Even with blips such as September’s $1.8 billion Powerball jackpot that led to a rush of sales, the Fiscal Bureau thinks that declining trend will continue.

Lottery ticket sales were generally higher, both in Wisconsin and nationwide, through the COVID-19 pandemic and in the years since. Higher advertised jackpots for games such as Mega Millions and Powerball also contributed to increased revenues during this period. However, despite remaining high compared to pre-pandemic years, ticket sales have generally decreased since 2022- 23. Sales of scratch tickets in particular are expected to decrease by 5% in 2025-26, compared to 2024-25 sales. Moreover, high jackpots, and the associated increases in sales, did not occur at the same rate in 2024-25 as in previous years. The revised estimate of lottery sales projects that sales of lotto (jackpot) tickets will increase in 2025-26 by approximately 3.4%, compared to sales of these tickets 2024-25. However, much of this growth is driven by actual sales of Powerball tickets resulting from a large jackpot in early 2025-26. Sales of other lotto games are expected to decrease slightly in 2025-26. In particular, the price of a single play Mega Millions ticket increased from $2 to $5 in April, 2025, which has initially softened demand for those tickets. Finally, slower growth in real personal income, as well as increased competition from online sports gambling and illegal and gray market gaming, are expected to affect demand for lottery tickets.

That trend sure makes me wonder if tying lottery proceeds to property tax reductions is the best use of these funds. Especially when you look at how lottery proceeds are used in other states, where it often goes to K-12 education (including in Wisconsin neighbors Illinois and Michigan), veterans assistance (including Illinois and Iowa), and to add resources and/or cut taxes that go to the state’s general fund (including Iowa, Michigan and Minnesota).

And perhaps using lottery proceeds for K-12 education and/or the state general fund would be a way to take pressure off of both property taxes and state aids for funding Wisconsin schools. Because what’s happening today under the funneling of state funds to vouchers and the lessening amount of lottery credits isn’t working when it comes to keeping property taxes down. And that’ll become especially apparent when many of us get our bills in the mail in just over a month.

After this week's rate cut, the Fed seems to be confused on what's next

Given that there has been a blackout of large amounts of economic data during the federal government's shutdown (other than a report last week showing US inflation was up to 3% over the previous 12 months), the Federal Reserve's Open Markets Committee had its meeting this week under unusual circumstances. So what info did they go on, and what did they decide to do?

Available indicators suggest that economic activity has been expanding at a moderate pace. Job gains have slowed this year, and the unemployment rate has edged up but remained low through August; more recent indicators are consistent with these developments. Inflation has moved up since earlier in the year and remains somewhat elevated.

The Committee seeks to achieve maximum employment and inflation at the rate of 2 percent over the longer run. Uncertainty about the economic outlook remains elevated. The Committee is attentive to the risks to both sides of its dual mandate and judges that downside risks to employment rose in recent months.

In support of its goals and in light of the shift in the balance of risks, the Committee decided to lower the target range for the federal funds rate by 1/4 percentage point to 3-3/4 to 4 percent. In considering additional adjustments to the target range for the federal funds rate, the Committee will carefully assess incoming data, the evolving outlook, and the balance of risks. The Committee decided to conclude the reduction of its aggregate securities holdings on December 1. The Committee is strongly committed to supporting maximum employment and returning inflation to its 2 percent objective.

So the Fed sees higher inflation and a slower job market. That seems like a pretty bad situation.

Fed Chair Jerome Powell met the press after the rate decision was made, and many took notice that Powell mentioned a third rate cut in December "was not a foregone conclusion." When asked about that, the Fed Chair said that an increasing number of FOMC members were saying it may again be time to lay back and see how things play out.

The data and reports that we have been able to see in recent weeks indicates the US economy is still growing, even as the government has shut down and prices keep rising. One day after the Fed meeting, Chairman Powell gave an interesting response on why he thinks that may be.

Fed Chair Jerome Powell acknowledged Wednesday that the soaring stock market is helping support consumer spending — and the overall economy — right now.

If the market goes down, Powell said, it could hurt consumer spending. But spending wouldn't take a large hit unless the market plunged.

"I think it's certainly a factor supporting consumption right now," Powell said in response to a question asked by Yahoo Finance about how much of consumer spending and the economy hinges on the stock market remaining strong…..

Powell and others have noted the US is in a "bifurcated economy": Lower-income individuals are pulling back on spending, while wealthy individuals benefiting from market run-ups continue to drive spending — perhaps keeping the economy afloat.

According to a September analysis by Moody's Analytics chief economist Mark Zandi, Americans in the bottom 80% of the income distribution — those making less than $175,000 a year — are barely keeping their spending on pace with inflation. Meanwhile, the top 20% of consumers are growing their spending.

So what's keeping our economy afloat is an AI bubble that has a lot of belief in future activity, but so far hasn't resulted in much of anything that has improved everyday people’s lives. That's not a healthy situation.

It also helps to explain why US consumer confidence continues to fall even as records are being set on Wall Street. Regular Americans aren’t seeing the boost to their wages or job prospects that they had a couple of years ago, but inflation continues to rise at a higher rate than we had this time last year – when we were told inflation was so awful that enough swing/low-info voters got Donald Trump back to the White House on the issue.

And if stocks keep rising, that would be all the more reason to stop the rate cuts, to avoid further borrowing and speculation in an already overvalued market. Which means that the only way we should be seeing rate cuts in December is because we've seen a pickup in layoffsm the real economy has gone toward recession, and/or the stock market has lost a sizable amount of their 2025 gains. Yet the coked-up traders on Wall Street don't seem to understand this, and think that the party's just going to continue.