After a weak retail sales report earlier in the month, Thursday had the Commerce Department’s income and spending report for July , which would give an indication how the consumer side of the economy looked like for the start of the 3rd quarter of 2026.
Consumer spending rose in July at the slowest pace in seven months, suggesting the U.S. economy lost a little steam after the end of the 2026 World Cup and start of the third quarter.
Personal spending increased a mild 0.2% last month, the government said. Americans spent less on goods for the second month in a row after splurging in the spring.
Lower gasoline prices last month made spending look weaker than it really was, but households also had to rebuild savings after using rainy-day funds to cope with a surge in inflation this year.
Consumer spending is the main engine of the U.S. economy. Spending in the second quarter grew at a surprisingly robust 3.5% annual pace, adjusted for inflation, after a meager 0.5% increase in the spring.
That 3.5% increase in consumer spending for Q2 is post-inflation, which translated into an annualized increase of nearly 9% before inflation, or around 0.75% a month. So a 0.2% increase is quite a deceleration from that standpoint.
On the positive side, the same report said American incomes were up by 0.4% for July, which meant the US savings rate rose to 3.0%. That’s the first time the savings rate went up in 6 months, and is the highest level since March (although it’s still among the lowest levels in 20 years).
But if you dig into the actual report itself, you find out that most of that income increase was outside of wages and other compensation people get from work.
Total wages and salaries only rose by 0.3% for July, and are only up 3.5% overall in the country in the last 12 months. And with gas prices heading back up in August, does real consumer spending and inflation-adjusted wages take a step back at the same time, and put a limit on Q3 growth?
In the wake of that income and spending report, questions in the financial media turned to what effect these numbers will have on Federal Reserve policymakers when they meet in 3 weeks.
The Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE) index rose 3.3% in July [over 12 months] on a "core" basis, which excludes volatile food and energy prices. That was in line with expectations and the same level as June. Month over month, prices rose 0.2%, also in line with expectations and up from 0.1% in June.
The monthly increase suggests inflation is rising at a mild rate (from Jake: It WAS rising at a mild rate through July. Maybe not so much now). New York Fed president John Williams has said that if inflation on a monthly basis, as measured by PCE, comes in at 0.2% or lower, that would indicate inflation is coming back down to the Fed's 2% target on its own, implying the Fed would not need to raise rates.
Boston Fed president Susan Collins said Tuesday that she was content to hold rates steady at the last meeting, but she would need to see evidence that inflation is dropping to continue holding rates.
Absent that, Collins said it would be appropriate to raise rates "soon" to ensure the Fed gets inflation back down in a reasonable time frame.
It’s noteworthy that we won’t see the August income and spending report with the Fed’s preferred PCE measure until after that September Fed meeting. And the Fed meeting after that one is not scheduled until late October, after many Americans will have voted in the 2026 midterms.
One month does not make a trend, but between the loss of jobs, mediocre spending figures and low wage growth, it sure seems like the 3rd Quarter of 2026 got off to a slow start for the US economy. I know the Atlanta Fed is still claiming the data indicates GDP growth is closer to a boom than a recession, but I think those projections will decline quickly if August’s data is as lame as what we’ve seen in July.
Recently, the Wisconsin Policy Forum released a report on our state's “brain drain” problem.
Based on our analysis of data from the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2024 American Community Survey five-year estimates, we estimate that 59.8% of Wisconsin-born adults aged 31 to 40 who now live in another state have a bachelor’s degree or higher. In contrast, an estimated 45.2% of adults in that age group who were born in another state but now live in Wisconsin hold a bachelor’s degree or higher, a gap of 14.6 percentage points…. We refer to this gap as “net brain drain.”
Wisconsin’s net brain drain ranks second nationally, behind only North Dakota (see Figure 1 on page 1). This is a slight improvement from 2009, when Wisconsin’s net brain drain (-15.3 percentage points) was the highest in the nation. Most other Midwestern states have experienced similarly high rates of net brain drain, with the exception of Illinois, which stands out as the region’s only net “brain‑gain” state (+10.4 points). Nationally, a few other states with strong metropolitan hubs — such as Virginia (+5.8 points) in the Southeast and Colorado (+8.2) and Utah (+1.0) in the West — defy regional brain‑drain trends….
In some ways, Wisconsin is a victim of its own success, as the Policy Forum paper notes that Wisconsin raises a larger number of college graduates than most states, but then we get a sizable amount of them who leave.
A state’s educational baseline affects the impact of net brain drain. Among U.S.-born adults aged 31 to 40, Wisconsin starts from a relatively strong position; 43.4% of Wisconsin‑born adults in this group hold a bachelor’s degree or higher, which is above the national average of 40.6% and ranks 16th nationally (see Figure 3). In contrast, several other high brain‑drain states begin from a much lower baseline; for example, only 38.0% of 31- to 40-year-old Indiana natives hold bachelor’s degrees.
So even with a relatively high number of college-educated natives leaving the state, Wisconsin still keeps enough of our graduates to not have a low education level of the workforce overall.
Although Indiana’s net brain drain rate (–11.5 percentage points) is slightly better than Wisconsin’s (– 14.6 points), our state also fares better when looking at the educational attainment of current residents within this same age range. Both states see similar gaps in educational attainment between their birth cohorts and current residents (–4.4 points versus –3.7), but Wisconsin’s stronger starting point results in a more educated resident population. Wisconsin ranks 26th nationally at 39.0%, while Indiana ranks 39th at 34.2%
With high marks for safety and affordability, Wisconsin was listed among the country's best places to live in 2026 in a new report from WalletHub.
The personal finance website ranked states on a 100-point scale that looked at a range of categories: affordability, economy, education, health, quality of life and safety. Overall, Wisconsin ranked third in the nation, with a total score of 59.32.
Wisconsin is the third-best state to live in, thanks to its affordable housing market, where the ninth-highest housing affordability helps make homeownership more attainable for residents.
Wisconsin has the 15th-lowest premature death rate in the country and the 16th-lowest share of live birth with low weight. It also has the ninth-highest share of residents with health insurance coverage, at 94.8%.
The Badger State also ranks sixth for the quality of its school systems. It has the best high school graduation rate in the country, too, over 96%. Good-quality education has helped the state’s residents find employment, contributing to the seventh-lowest unemployment rate in the country.
Finally, Wisconsin offers a safe environment for residents, with the sixth-lowest property crime rate in the country and has the 18th-lowest traffic fatality rate in the country.
So we’re consistently above average in a lot of things people want out of a state. And that top-ten ranking for school systems (best in the Midwest) sure goes against Tom Tiffany’s complaints about how education is allegedly failing in this state.
So what’s the disconnect here? One part seems obvious.
If college-educated Wisconsinites are most likely to leave to Minnesota and Illinois and other states that have larger metro areas, that means they are likely getting paid more in those places. And if you look at the Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages (QCEW), you’ll find that Illinois and Minnesota consistently pay higher average wages than we do.
UW system data on alumni residency shows the majority of in-state students will live in Wisconsin after earning their degree. Three years postgraduation, 87% of in-state students will still live in Wisconsin, while 10 years after graduation 63% will.
When you look at out-of-state alumni living in Wisconsin, that percentage drops to about 11% living in Wisconsin three years after graduation.
Alumni from other UW campuses are more likely to stay in Wisconsin. About 93% of in-state students and 16% of out-of-state students are Wisconsin residents three years postgraduation.
That gap between where in-state students at the flagship school in Madison and the other UWs end up is illuminating to me, because it shows that many Badgers have to go elsewhere to boost their career/life opportunities once they hit their mid-to-late 20s. It is less likely to be the case for graduates of the other UW schools as they advance in their careers, although it also does happen more over time for them as well.
That chart also shows that Wisconsin-based companies aren’t offering enough to out-of-state students to keep them around after graduation, even if they might have better access to recruit those students due to on-campus collaborations and work experiences.
So it seems we need to find a way to encourage more pay and advancement with growing companies here in Wisconsin. Some of this may be through advanced research jobs and opportunities through our colleges and universities (a big reason why the Madison area outpaces the rest of the state), but the private sector needs to be stepping up in this state and competing with larger metro areas for talent.
If they can even offer a salary that is close to what the big towns pay, that may be enough to encourage Wisconsin’s college graduates to stay and raise families in a state that has strong K-12 schools, good affordability (comparatively, anyway), and a high quality of life.
We hit a new fiscal milestone in this country last week - $40 trillion in debt! But Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent says Americans shouldn't worry, because we can just power through it.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent says "we're going to have to grow our way out of this" in reference to the U.S. debt crossing the $40 trillion threshold.
But it won't just be growth that gets our fiscal situation back on track, In an interview with CNBC's Sara Eisen, Bessent claimed tariff revenue will be part of the plan.
“One of things that’s temporary here that’s influencing the deficit has been these tariff refunds, and we won’t have to do that again,” Bessent said, adding that the administration was reinstituting tariffs. “I would expect that our 2026 tariff income is going to be roughly what it was in 2025.”
Oh? You mean we will be back to having $30 billion a month in tariffs that Congress didn't approve of? That's what businesses and consumers were paying to the government before the previous tariffs were ruled illegal by the Supreme Court, and those funds had to be sent back to those businesses (those refunds were not necessarily passed on to consumers).
Update:
The U.S. has now imposed 50% tariffs on $20 billion worth of Canadian products. Prime Minister Mark Carney says Canada will match those tariffs "dollar for dollar" next month.
Trade negotiations between the United States and Canada fell apart Friday night, shortly before a midnight deadline for the 50% tariffs to take effect on $20 billion worth of Canadian products, including some dairy products, alcoholic beverages, cement and hockey equipment.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection issued a bulletin to businesses Friday warning that its officers would be ensuring importers complied with the new rates starting immediately after the deadline passed.
Carney said Friday night that "Canada will match those tariffs dollar for dollar to protect our workers and businesses." He later said the retaliatory tariffs set to kick in next month will focus on American sectors such as "steel, dairy, appliances, agricultural equipment, pulp and paper, and electronics."
Tariffs on dairy, pulp and paper? That seems pretty relevant to Wisconsin farmers and businesses, as UW-Madison's Menzie Chinn reminds us that Wisconsin has nearly 1/4 of the value of its exports go to Canada.
If you adjust for inflation, it looks like we export nearly $6 billion to Canada. Do you think any of the 6 WisGOP Congressmen are going to tell the Trump Admin that these new tariffs are likely help their constituents? Including Tom Tiffany, who wants to be governor of this entire state, and would deal with the job losses that might result from the lack of sales?
What, me worry?
Likewise, are these Congressmen going to be asked if they agree with this claim from Trump's Treasury Secretary?
Bessent on the latest bad jobs report: "After the deportations that we've seen and the closing of the border, we don't need to produce as many jobs"
So how do we grow so fast our debt doesn't matter, while not creating as many jobs as in the past?
It's not possible unless you are talking about massive inflation that $40 trillion total have a lot less meaning than it has today. There's no way we'd be having massive growth as Bessent describes without a large amount of supply shortages (due to fewer workers making stuff) and big increases in income to workers and consumer spending - when real wage growth is down in 2026 and consumer saving is already declining and at multi-year lows. So how much more can/will the American consumer spend?
Trump/GOPs are nothing but BSers when it comes to the budget and the real economy. But what do you expect from the dumb son of a real estate mogul whose advisors are mostly mega-millionaires and billionaires? Aka "people who will ever deal with the consequences of a bad decision that hurts the economy for people with real jobs?"
One of the mysteries we have had in the last year-plus is why businesses continue to report increased costs due to tariffs, but consumer prices haven’t risen by nearly as much over the same time. I’d theorized that there was something going on in the middle of those stages of production, and I got more evidence of that this week.
Robust U.S. productivity levels appear to have blunted the full inflationary impact of President Donald Trump's large-scale trade tariffs, new research from the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston said.
"Industries in which tariffs induced higher costs in 2025 also experienced greater labor productivity growth, which helped them mitigate those higher costs," bank researchers wrote in a paper released on Wednesday.
That means that while firms may have confronted higher input costs due to the president's tax increases, by getting more output out of their workforces they were able to hold off on passing on those costs. That in turn helped inflation, which has been above the Fed's 2% target for half a decade, come in lower than it otherwise would have due to the taxes.
Altogether, the tariffs, which rose from an average level of 2.5% before Trump's return to 10%, joined with healthy productivity rates, added 0.5 percentage point to the core level of the personal consumption expenditures price index, the authors found.
The analysts said firms facing strong tariff-related cost increases managed to keep output steady while cutting labor inputs, and "the reduction in hours contributed to greater labor productivity growth."
In other words, workers are the ones paying the price of the tariffs, even more than consumers are. Businesses are squeezing out more from their employees (and/or using fewer employees), which allows for both higher profits and limits on inflation.
It goes along with this chart that I brought up last week.
it helps explain why wage and job growth have been so lousy for American workers under Trump 2.0. And helps explain why so many people don’t trust data centers and AI initiatives these days, because we can see where workers and their pay raises keep getting squeezed out in favor of automation and money-trading schemes under the guise of “increased productivity”.
Next week, we get the first look at corporate profits for the 2nd quarter of 2026. Let's see if my theory holds up, especially in the wake of big increases in oil and gas prices between April and June. I suspect it will.
The US Treasury unexpectedly said Wednesday that it will step up purchases of long-term government bonds, giving a stressed corner of the market more support.
The bond market responded immediately — then partially reversed course. The 30-year Treasury yield (^TYX) fell to 5.19% Wednesday, its biggest one-day drop in 10 months, before rebounding sharply early Thursday.
The dollar index (DX-Y.NYB) fell 0.75% Wednesday, its biggest drop since April 30, and was little changed Thursday….
Only two weeks ago, Treasury laid out its normal quarterly financing plan and left its long-term buyback cap at $2 billion. Wednesday, it said that cap would rise to at least $4 billion beginning Sept. 9 — well before the next scheduled update in November.
If the Treasury buys up more of its own bonds, it throws more money outward, in an attempt to reduce the longer-term interest rates that have been on the rise for much of 2026.
However, having an excess of dollars can drop the dollar’s value, and if the longer-term bonds are traded out for shorter maturities of bonds, more bonds come due in the short term, causing higher expenses when that happens.
And as you can see in the chart, the markets seemed to disregard Bessent's bond-buying plans, as yields of both the 10-year and 30-year bond durations went back up by 4 basis points on Thursday, while the DOW dropped by more than 700 points.
So what did Bessent do on Thursday afternoon in response? He doubled down and said the Treasury might throw out even more money!
Bessent told CNBC that the Treasury's buyback program of government debt could surpass the $4 billion announced on Wednesday.
"We are going to make a market in these. We routinely do buybacks, and we're going to increase the size of the buyback … it could be more than $4 billion per issue," Bessent said.
He noted that the Treasury is trying to signal support during a typically thin August trading session — particularly for the 30-year Treasury — at a time when massive corporate bond issuance is distorting the market, along with other factors.
"We have a big toolkit," Bessent added. "Part of it is signaling here to show that we believe yields don't reflect the underlying fundamentals of this Iran conflict. We will get on the other side of this."
I dunno, Scott. Higher deficits due to cutting taxes during a war do tend to raise interest rates, since more bonds need to be sold to pay for the increased deficits. And oil is now up nearly 27% since the 4th of July, as conflict in Iran drags on and the US’s Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) continues to dwindle. That also seems to be a logical supply-and-demand reaction and not the distortion Bessent is claiming.
I sense panic from these guys, especially given that a sizable amount of AI companies and rich guys are so strung out on debt these days. If all of their circular financing becomes too expensive to pay off, then the music stops, and things might get freaky.
And I think Wall Street sensed the panic from the White House today, which is why the market had a big drop on a day where there wasn't a lot of negative earning or economic news. Or maybe they just got further confirmation that he's a complete dumbass who will try to BS his way through this one vs having a plan to adjust to reality.
I saw some ad the other day from the Tiffany campaign trying to call David Crowley a tax hiker because of his record as Milwaukee County Executive. So I decided to dig into last year's Milwaukee County budget document and see where things stand in the most-populous county in the state.
The 2026 budget for Milwaukee County levies $309,014,834 in taxes on property during the year, which is an increase from the 2025 Adopted budget of approximately $10.4 million. However, the 2026 Budget still levies less in property taxes than the 2023 Adopted Budget as a result of Wisconsin 2023 Act 12. The 2026 Budget is a reduction of $3.9 million from the 2023 budget property taxes levied.
Act 12 was the shared revenue deal at the state level that gave a large increase in shared revenues to villages and towns in Wisconsin, to make up for 12 years of negligence under the WisGOP Legislature. The bill also allowed Milwaukee County to add a 0.4% sales tax and the City of Milwaukee to put in a 2.0% sales tax, in exchange for smaller % increases in shared revenues.
That deal allowing a sales tax came after years of stagnant and/or declining aids from the state being sent to Milwaukee County.
In 2010, Milwaukee County received $66.5 million of mass transit operating assistance; in 2026 the County anticipates receiving an amount of $66.7 million in state aid for transit (85.20). State shared revenue has declined from $37 million in 2010 to $35.5 million in 2026. Basic community aids have declined from $48.6 million in 2010 to $35.0 million in 2026. General transportation aids have increased from $4.3 million in 2010 to $5.8 million in 2026.
Combined, these four revenue sources have been reduced from $156.5 million in 2010 to an estimated $143.1 million in 2026. This is a reduction in real dollars not even adjusting for inflation. If Milwaukee County had received inflationary adjustments across these revenue sources since 2000, for example, the 2026 revenue budget for these state aids would be $115 million more than it is. This issue has contributed significantly to Milwaukee County’s historical structural deficit.
The County budget office adds that another big reason their budget is under stress is that they have to pay for an increasing amount of services under state law, without getting much more in resources to pay for them.
From 2021 through 2025, local tax levy required to provide Milwaukee County’s mandated services increased from 59.7% of county tax levy in 2021 to 78.2% of county tax levy in 2025. In 2026, Milwaukee County will spend $230.4 million dollars of County property tax levy on state mandated services. This is a slight decrease to 74.6% of total property taxes levied. This reduction is a direct result of support provided by the state of Wisconsin in the form of Expressway Policing Aids. The 2025-2027 state budget recognized the unique mandate to Milwaukee County to patrol Milwaukee County’s expressways and provided the Milwaukee County Sheriff’s Office with $19 million in Expressway Policing Aids for 2026.
Based on information from the Milwaukee City Assessor’s office, let’s look at what has happened to the County’s property tax rate, starting with the 2020 budget that Crowley inherited.
That’s a cut in property tax rates by nearly 35% since Crowley has taken ovcer. Sure, the overall amount of property taxes have gone up, because Milwaukee has become one of the hottest housing markets in America, and the median sale price of a home in the County has gone up by 58%, from $190,500 in July 2020 to $301,750 in July 2026.
But the other part of that "tax hiker" argyument by Tiffany and WisGOP is that Milwaukee County got a new sales tax of 0.4%. So let’s look at what that has come in or been estimated for the sales tax totals.
Milwaukee County Sales Tax Collections
2020 $82.0 million
2021 $92.1 million
2022 $90.0 million
2023 $103.5 million
(sales tax increase of 0.4% is passed)
2024 $181.5 million
2025 $188.1 million
2026 $195.6 million
So that's quite a difference in taxes being brought in with the new sales tax in Milwaukee County.
Know what other community just boosted their sales tax? Tom Tiffany’s hometown!
The Wisconsin Department of Revenue reminds retailers about the adoption of a 0.5% premier resort area tax in the Town of Minocqua starting July 1, 2026.
Residents voted to adopt this premier resort area tax as a local retail sales tax in 2018 with authorization by the Wisconsin Legislature for 2026. Generally, proceeds from a premier resort area tax may only be used by the local government to pay for infrastructure expenses within the jurisdiction of that premier resort area.
Effective July 1, 2026, certain sellers must collect the 0.5% premier resort area tax on taxable sales made to customers in the Town of Minocqua.
I’ll add that Tom Tiffany voted to allow a similar 0.5% sales tax for the City of Rhinelander when he was in the Legislature, as part of the 2015-17 state budget. That tax has been in effect since July 2017. The cities of Eagle River and Bayfield also have local sales taxes of 0.5%, which also are communities currently represented by Tom Tiffany.
So it seems like Tom Tiffany can be OK with local sales taxes for his Northwoods constituents to take pressure off of their property taxes, but somehow David Crowley is a tax hiker for a smaller tax increase in the county that is the Number 1 attractor of tourism dollars in the state?
Of course, Tom Tiffany and WisGOP don’t think that voters will understand how Milwaukee County takes up a small portion of the overall property tax bill for its residents. The “rising taxes” argument is generally due to the City of Milwaukee and Milwaukee Public Schools – budgets that David Crowley has little to no control over.
According to the Wisconsin Department of Revenue, citizens and businesses pay a total of approximately $2.1 billion in property taxes to the various taxing entities in Milwaukee County. These entities include:
Milwaukee County government.
Municipal governments (cities and villages).
School districts.
Technical college.
Special districts (such as the Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District or the Southeast Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission).
Tax Incremental Finance districts.
Of this $2.1 billion total, Milwaukee County government makes up about 14%.
This is coupled with Tiffany's votes in the last 14 months for massive increases in spending in the last 12 months for ICE, and being fine with a bloated military and a stupid war in Iran – neither of which have improved Wisconsin’s economy one whit, and have increased the cost of gasoline.
So does Tom Tiffany and the GOP really want to talk about David Crowley's budget choices in this Fall's elections? Because if we look at the reality and have that debate, it's one the WisGOPs deserve to lose. Milwaukee County's property tax rates have gone down significantly under Crowley, while Tom Tiffany voted to defund K-12 schools and local governments while in the Legislature, causing property taxes to rise throughout Wisconsin. And Tiffany's reckless votes in DC to give even more tax cuts for the rich and corporate have caused long-term interest rates to rise, raising borrowing costs for businesses and homeowners.
But the Crowley campaign and the WisDems have to make the argument to make the average voter think about these facts. So get to it, guys.
Caught the Up Front show this morning, and it included an interview with both Democratic Guv nominee David Crowley and GOP Guv nominee Tom Tiffany. I wanted to give you Tiffany's interview (which begins at 7:42 of this clip) because even though Matt Smith wasn't exactly going Mike Wallace on Tommy Tiff, Tiffany still looked lame and scared.
Off the bat, Tiffany tries an attack on Crowley claiming "there's not a dime's worth of difference" between Crowley and Hong and that "the leadership of the Democrat (SIC!) Party has capitultated to this Democrat (SIC!) Socialist movement".
Now does Tiffany say what policies Crowley and Hong agree or how the Party has "capitulated" to the DSA "movement"? NO, OF COURSE NOT! Does Matt Smith ask "In what way has that happened?", to make Tiffany answer how he can say that? NO, OF COURSE NOT! He just moves on to the next question.
Tiffany pulls another bunch of empty statements later on when he talks about what really matters in this election.
TIFFANY: [Democrats] are going to try to divert from the real issues of this campaign and there's a reason for that. That's because they've been giving the 400-year property tax increase (something that's only possible by WisGOP refusing to fund schools at the state level), the over $2 billion in rate increases - at this place we're sitting at right now, his utility bills went up $400 a month in the last year, and that's because they've just been rubber-stamping these increases. We have to deal with the affordability issue, and I'm going to do that.
Does Tiffany say HOW he's going to "deal with the affordability issue"? OF COURSE NOT! He's a Republican, do you think he knows anything beyond complaints and generalities? And does Smith ask how that's going to happen? OF COURSE NOT!
Smith asks what role Donald Trump and his support of Tiffany will have in the election, and that's where the Tiffany Tap Dance begins.
TIFFANY: ...the other side, they're going to campaigning against Donald Trump. I'm going to be campaigning for the State of Wisconsin, and I've really stayed foused throughout this campaign. This is about being governor. This isn't about being in Wisconsin and shouting at Washington DC. You control the things you can control, and that's what I'm going to do as Governor."
Oh? What happens in DC doesn't have any effect on what happens for the Governor of Wisconsin, despite the fact that nearly 30% of Wisconsin's state budget comes from the federal government?
But those federal aids may be getting lower under Trump/GOP. For example, UW-Madison reported a drop of $27 million in federally-funded research under the first year of Trump 2.0, due to loss of 145 federally-funded grants. In addition to the loss of potential findings and improvements for overall life, the loss of grants is a loss of jobs and economic activity, particularly with higher-educated people who have a lot of options on where to live. And do you think a Governor Tom Tiffany would do anything to advocate to the Trump Administration for those jobs or improvements?
Know how else a Governor "shouts at Washington DC"? By asking for disaster aids when weather events strike. Which seems really important given the headlines we've seen over the last year with this Administration.
“Trump has rejected disaster aid for Democratic-run states at the highest rate in the 47-year history of the Federal Emergency Management Agency.”
Right now people in blue states are basically paying federal taxes as if they’re colonized territories of red states. www.politico.com/news/2026/03...
We saw a similar dynamic play out here in Wisconsin, as the county David Crowley runs did not get tens of millions of dollars in aid requested after record rains hit Southeastern Wisconsin this time last year.
Disaster relief for six Wisconsin counties inundated by historic flooding back in August has again been denied by the federal government. It’s the second time that Waukesha, Ozaukee, Washington, Grant, Milwaukee, Door and Grant counties have been denied assistance from the Trump administration since the floods drowned parks, damaged homes and trapped people in their cars in the middle of the night.
This latest denial was in response to an appeal filed by Gov. Tony Evers in November, after the first denial came from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). At the time, Evers stressed that the extreme storms had left over $26.5 million in disaster costs.
In a statement Monday, Evers called the new denial “completely unsatisfactory,” saying that the Trump administration had again denied the relief for Wisconsin “without any explanation” and calling for the decision to be reversed. “Wisconsinites have been hard at work to build back from these historic flooding events, but folks are not out of the woods yet,” said Evers. “Efforts to rebuild will cost tens of millions of taxpayer dollars that local communities will be on the hook for, and it’s really disappointing to see our federal leadership turn their backs on Wisconsin, our families, and our communities in our time of need. We will continue to advocate to the Trump Administration and our federal partners that Wisconsin needs these resources to rebuild and recover, and we will continue to do what we can to support our local partners however we can in the meantime.”...
Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley called the denial for disaster relief “deeply disappointing” in a statement Monday. “My administration has worked to rebuild and recover after last summer’s historic storms and flooding,” said Crowley. “Without federal assistance, the financial burden of these public infrastructure repairs falls to local governments to cover. Communities rely on intergovernmental partnerships in times of crisis, and this decision by the Trump administration erodes that public trust. To move forward, my administration will continue working with the State of Wisconsin, our municipalities, and community partners to identify responsible funding solutions to rebuild our roads, bridges, parks, and public buildings. Our residents should not be forced to shoulder the full cost of disasters beyond their control, and we will continue advocating for the resources our community deserves.”
Relatedly, doesn't Tom Tiffany have a job right now in Washington DC that pays $174,000+ per diem expenses and benefits? Couldn't he do something right now to deal with a pointless, losing war in the Middle East and record profits in the US that are raising prices and causing problems back here in Wisconsin? Shouldn't he be using his position as an elected Congressman to vocally push for aid to go to the Fox Valley after their devastating storms from late July, like Governor Evers has done?
Sure leads one to ask a simple question of Tom Tiffany.
To Matt Smith's credit, he does ask about another item where the presidency and the Governor of Wisconsin would interact - certifying the presidential elections, which is something Tiffany voted against doing in 2020. And Tiffany's answer is both lame and non-reassuring.
SMITH: The Democrats are going to come at your hard for your vote on the 2020 election. Do you regret that at all, not voting to certify the results?
TIFFANY: No, Joe Biden won the election, and we've lived with the consequences of the massive inflation after he became president. Inflation went up the most in 40 years, and now it's up to us to do everything we can to fix those problems that were created from that. I'm looking forward, not backward.
SMITH: Do you regret your vote, though?
TIFFANY: I'm looking forwards, not backwards.
So not only does Tiffany not want to talk about why he decided to throw out the votes of Americans to keep Trump in office after 2020, he seems to think it was OK because...he didn't like how the Biden Presidency went?
Hey Tommy, if you don't like the outcome of what Wisconsinites choose in the 2028 elections because you think having Dems in charge is a bad outcome, WILL YOU STILL VOTE TO CERTIFY THE ELECTION? Because it sure seems like what you're saying you won't.
This guy is weak, and has nothing but surface-level complaints to go along with lots of weaknesses in both votes and policies. He should be hit constantly until he gives a real answer with real substance, which will damage his campaign even more, since Tiffany's solutions (what few they are) are going to be things that Wisconsin voters do not want.
I don't count on our corporate media to do that job (they love that dirty Uihlein/Hendricks ad money), but all Dems and their supporters sure should, and Dems should be filling in the blanks for the many things Tom Tiffany won't talk about.
