WisGOP legislators melt down, as budget implodes

The delays in finalizing the state budget blew over into an absurd exchange of press releases from some of Wisconsin’s top Legislative Republicans today, and it underlines just how much of FUBAR Scott Walker’s state budget has become.

The first shot came this morning from Assembly Speaker Robin Vos and Joint Finance Committee Co-Chair John Nygren, who called out the other Joint Finance Committee Co-Chair, State Sen. Alberta Darling, and accused her of lying about where the budget stood when it came to transportation issues.

Recent reports have the co-chair saying false statements claiming that the Speaker and Assembly Republicans want to “delay the Zoo Interchange to put pressure on the Senate to go along with a hike in the gas tax or registration fees.”

Throughout the budget process, Assembly Republicans have put forth a position that the state must pay up front for its road improvements and not just run up the state credit card. However, we have been clear that we would not support an increase in the gas tax. As soon as it became known that the governor changed his position and would not support an increase in registration fees, that option was taken off the table. To say that Assembly Republicans are now pressing for both of these revenue enhancers would be incorrect. In fact, Alberta Darling is being disingenuous in making that characterization.

As Assembly Republicans move forward in the budget discussions, we want to ensure that any transportation reductions are felt equally across the state. Under the Senate plan, outstate legislators would feel the brunt of the cuts and many in our caucus don’t feel that option is fair. We are advocating for the best possible budget for all of Wisconsin and not just one area of our state. By working together, I know that we can arrive at solution in the near future.

"False statements"? "Disingenuous"? WOW! When arguably the two most important Republicans in the Assembly are laying the smack down on the highest-ranking Senate GOP in the Joint Finance Committee, it’s safe to say that there are some serious fissures in the GOP caucus regarding this budget. And Sen. Darling isn’t backing down from her claims, and she adds that a delay of the Zoo Interchange project "could jeopardize safety [and] harm our state’s economy."

The Zoo Interchange argument underscores that regional differences are starting to show through in these statements, as you can see from Vos' and Nygren's comment about not working for “just one area of the state.” This seems to be clear evidence that this budget is going down in flames outside of the cultural cesspool known as the GOP-voting Milwaukee suburbs (not coincidentally, the people who live in that cesspool are the ones who will benefit most from the Zoo Interchange project). And that attitude was reiterated in this brutal and likely race-based tweet from the number 2 GOP in the Assembly, Rep. Jim Steineke from the Fox Valley town of Kaukauna.

MN also has a first class city that isn't a drain on the rest of the state. #DemLeadership #MKEinCrisis https://t.co/3S0hw4QDyo

— Rep. Jim Steineke(@jimsteineke) June 18, 2015

Given that our Governor is a product of that corporate slimeball/suburban Milwaukee bubble, it makes you wonder how disliked outside of the 262 he’s become, and how little legislators from outside that area might want to be associated with Walker’s plans.

Or maybe the GOPs knew that May’s jobs report in Wisconsin was going to be a disaster, with 12,200 total jobs lost including revisions, and they were feeling a bit bitchy. That awful report turns the spotlight onto their failed policies burn even brighter, and they’re not very good at explaining themselves under the bright lights of public attention. State Sen. Jon Erpenbach noted the absurd squabbling and other GOP meltdowns going on at the Capitol, and said these screw-ups also stem from who is not there.

"The public in-fighting between Senate and Assembly Republican leadership is of no benefit to the people of this state. It does show an inability to govern, even though there are overwhelming GOP majorities in both houses. The GOP throw down also underscores the real problem: The continued absence of a Governor in Wisconsin. Governor Walker’s failed and absent leadership is the root cause of unnecessary delay for this budget. Teleporting press releases on what he will and will not do from hundreds of miles away or sending a tweet with his veto threats is ridiculous. Governor Walker’s absence is a failure of epic proportions and there is no excuse for it at this point, not even a presidential one.”
- State Sen, Jon Erpenbach

100% true, Jon. This is the fallout of a budget written by a Governor who cared much more about scoring points with Grover Norquist, the Koch Brothers, and other right-wing bubble-worlders than he did in improving the lives for the Wisconsinites who pay his salary. And he seems to have no interest in taking time out from his permanent campaign to work on the many problems and debates that have cropped up in the 4 ½ months since he handed in the budget.

And because the GOPs in the Legislature are also beholden to those special selfish interests over the people who elected them, it is making them incapable of working out this mess of a document, and trying to turn it into something that won’t totally screw up the state and their future electoral prospects. This group cannot handle the tough decisions of how to fund the state’s transportation (including raising the taxes to complete the road projects that you want to see done), or increasing wages to improve worker talent and demand for the state’s businesses, or considering responsible moves such as pausing a corporate tax cut that will cost this state $226 million in revenue in the next two years.

The AM radio and GOP primary worlds ain’t the real world in Wisconsin, and the weak-minded GOPs in the Legislature aren’t dealing very well with reality right now. Which is why they gotta go ASAP.

A horrendous May Wisconsin jobs report

In between the awful events in Charleston and with the budget meltdowns going on at the Wisconsin Capitol, you may not have noticed that we had a state jobs report go public in Wisconsin this afternoon. And there's a reason the Walker Administration was remarkably silent about what was in, because May's stats were horrible.

The damage includes 8,600 overall jobs lost, with 6,100 in the private sector. In addition, April’s totals were revised down by 3,600 overall jobs with 3,400 in the private sector, which means total losses were 12,200 jobs compared to the numbers that were out a month ago, and 9,500 of those losses were in the private sector. These numbers are an utter disaster, and largely wiped out any job gains that had occurred previously in 2015. We now have only gained 7,200 private sector jobs and 5,300 total jobs in the five months measured so far for this year.

As a result, the Walker jobs gap has exploded well past 90,000 for private jobs and jobs overal, because the nation regained its economic footing in May, and added 280,000 jobs while our state was getting clobbered.





The unemployment rate in Wisconsin also spiked up from 4.4% to 4.6%, but not for the reasons I thought they might. The Wisconsin labor force fell AGAIN in May by 4,900 people, but because that survey also reported a loss of 8,800 jobs, unemployment still went up. The lower labor force repeats a trend we’ve seen in the household survey for the last four months, and making the state's unemployment rate artificially low.

Wisconsin unemployment, Jan 2015 vs May 2015

Change in “employment” -14,400
Change in labor force -29,200
Change in “unemployment” -14,800

Jan 2015 unemployment rate 5.0%
May 2015 unemployment rate 4.6%
May 2015 UE with Jan 2015 labor force 5.5%

So it’s only because of a huge drop in the state’s labor force (because a lot of people are leaving?) that we have that “lower unemployment” Scott Walker likes to brag about when he talks to the GOP rubes in other states. Funny, I seem to recall a lot of GOPs whining about lower participation rates to knock down the Obama recovery, conveniently not mentioning that the percentage of people employed is still the highest in 6 years. But I guess they want folks to look the other way when it happens to one of their guys.

A look further inside the May Wisconsin jobs report in Wisconsin makes things seem even worse, if that’s possible. When you add in April’s downward revisions, take a look where the job losses were.

Construction -4,300
Manufacturing -1,500
Government -2,700
Trade -1,900
Educational/Health Services -1,500
Financial Activities -1,400

The Construction numbers are very distressing, as it shows lower-than-normal hiring for Summer road and building work. The only place where there was sizable hiring in May was in the "Leisure and Hospitality" sector (+3,700 in May), which is bars, hotels, and similar low-paying and/or tourist-related jobs. And if the people with jobs in those other sectors don’t have money to spend in the Leisure and Hospitality sector, you can bet those jobs will dry up more than normal after this Summer.

The scarier stat is that the May jobs survey happened in the middle of the month, before students got out of college and a decent amount entered the ranks of the unemployed, before K-12 teachers and university personnel get laid off around the state with the end of the school year, and before the 700+ layoffs at Gemini Cares, or the 140 call center workers for Frontier Air Lines lost their jobs. Both of those mass layoffs were scheduled for May 31, and indeed, we’ve seen an increase in unemployment claims over the last 2-3 weeks in the state, including an increase of more than 700 last week while the country had an unadjusted drop in initial claims of 17,500.

Is it possible that this jobs report is so bad that it’ll cause a revenue shortfall when the fiscal year ends in less than 2 weeks? I’m starting to think it is, because we had no wiggle room to begin with, and the Republicans in the State Legislature have acted very uncomfortable with the state budget in recent weeks, exploding into dysfunction and accusations that major members of their own party are lying about the budget over the past week.

Given that this is likely the last jobs report that will come out before Gov Walker officially announces his run for the presidency, you have to think these brutal jobs and budget numbers will demand a lot of questions from the national media. Kind of hard to say you've done a great job and deserve a promotion when your state was last in the Midwest for job growth during your first term, and it's lost more than 12,000 jobs in the 3 months before you announce your candidacy. Those questions will demand answers well beyond the Palin-esque word salad and lame excuses that our paid-off media has allowed Scotty to throw out during his Reign of Error here in Wisconsin.

More updated info on Wisconsin's lagging jobs

Turns out I was wrong, the "gold standard" Quarterly Census on Wages and Employment came out today. And it revealed a number of shortcomings for Wisconsin's economic performance for both 2014, and the entire Age of Fitzwalkerstan. Here is a short list of the levels of fail.

38th in the nation in both overall and private sector job growth, next to last in the Midwest (only Iowa was worse). While the 1.51% private sector job growth is the best of Walker’s 4 years in Wisconsin, it’s still barely above the 1.50% that the state achieved in Jim Doyle’s last year in office in 2010. And the U.S. economy in 2014, which saw the best job growth in the 21st Century, was a whole lot better than what the post-recession nation was dealing with four years prior, as U.S. unemployment stayed above 9.0% for all of 2010.

And as you'll see here, that 1.51% is still lower than the rate of job growth we were seeing in early 2011- before Act 10 and Walker's first budget took effect.



32nd in average weekly wage growth for a private sector job, 5th out of 7 Midwestern states. I suppose that’s better than the 42nd place standing we had at the end of the 3rd Quarter, but it’s still nowhere near good enough, and only Iowa and Indiana had lower average weekly wages than Wisconsin.

44th in manufacturing wage growth (also 5th in the Midwest). These average wages only grew by 2.4% in Wisconsin for 2014, and this was before (right-to) work-for-less legislation was passed. And it’s not like workers in manufacturing were pulling down big money to begin with.

Average weekly manufacturing wage, Dec 2014
Ill. $1,329
Mich $1,300
Minn $1,209
Ohio $1,180
Iowa $1,169
Ind. $1,133
Wis. $1,112

Again, this is before work-for-less was passed. These numbers show that Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce were lying when they claimed that Wisconsin had high labor costs that were preventing growth, because Wisconsin workers were already being paid less than their neighbors. Then the corporate dingbats at WMC turn around and whine that they can’t find qualified workers to hire. Maybe you could try PAYING THEM A COMPETITVE WAGE, you dumb fucks!

With the WMC mentality running through the state’s economic policies the last 4 years, is it any surprise that the overall record sucks? This QCEW report allows for a great comparison of the first terms of Scott Walker and several other Midwestern governors that were elected in 2010. As you’ll see, Scotty, and the WMC/ALEC lackeys in the WisGOP legislature are standouts when it comes to job growth…in a very bad way.

Private sector job growth, QCEW Dec 2010 – Dec 2014

Mich 11.41%
Ind. 9.03%
Minn 8.04%
Ohio 7.67%
Iowa 6.50%
Ill. 5.98%
Wis. 5.69%

DEAD FUCKING LAST. Not like we didn’t know this already, but this a new piece of evidence proving these regressive policies in Fitzwalkerstan have not worked and will not work. And it’s up to us to let the rest of the nation know the same thing as Scott Walker goes around the country trying to claim he’s “turned Wisconsin around.” Oh he turned it around alright…from a state with a decent economy and high quality of life, to one that is the worst in the Midwest, with a declining standard of living.

Go ahead Scotty and WisGOP, run on your record in 2016. Especially since we know the stats will likely look even worse after this absurdity of a deficit-ridden austerity budget takes effect (assuming it one day will be passed by the scared and clueless crew occupying our Capitol).

Upcoming Wisconsin jobs numbers worth the look

As the Republicans in the Wisconsin Legislature fumble around on the state budget with less than 2 weeks to go in the state's fiscal year, there are a couple of big Wisconsin jobs reports that will hit in the next 2 days that might well add to the heat that the GOP is clearly feeling.

Both reports come out on Thursday, and one is the regular monthly jobs report for May. What's interesting about this one is that it comes after the U.S. had a surprisingly strong report for last month, with 280,000 new jobs in May, and the previous months revised up by a total of 32,000 jobs. This was a welcome pickup after a slight slowing of job growth at the start of the year, but it also means that Wisconsin will need to add nearly 6,000 jobs in this month just to keep pace with the rest of the country. Otherwise, the Walker jobs gap will get even larger than the 79,000 private sector jobs that it stood at in April.





Also worth looking at in the Wisconsin jobs report is the labor force and unemployment rate. Gov Walker has been bragging to the out-of-state GOP rubes about the state's reported unemployment rate of 4.4%, but a closer look shows that this number has little to do with robust job growth, and a whole lot more to do with a shrinking labor force. Both the U.S. and Wisconsin had lower amounts of people in the labor force for the previous three months measured, but Wisconsin's drop is especially severe.

Change in labor force, Jan 2015- April 2015
Wis.-24,800 (-0.79%)
U.S. -108,000 (-0.01%)

The U.S. had a major bounce back in work force numbers for May, with 397,000 more people coming back into the work force. This explains how the unemployment rate could rise from 5.4% to 5.5%, despite good jobs numbers nationwide and the employment-population ratio being at its highest point in nearly 6 years. Let's see if Wisconsin's labor force has a similar seasonally-adjusted increase (which would be something like 7,500 people), and if so, that makes it very likely Wisconsin's unemployment rate will also rise. Math indicates that if the state's labor force had merely stayed level between January and April that we would have had an unemployment rate that rose from 5.0% to 5.2%, instead of dropping to 4.4%. That reality's not something that Scott Walker's telling the folks in Iowa and New Hampshire and wherever else he thinks GOP donors will give him a buck, but it definitely could hold back the state's projected revenue growth, and make this "crap" budget even worse that it already is.

Thursday also gives the release of the "gold standard" Quarterly Census on Wages and Employment. This features the figures for calendar year 2014, and the Wisconsin DWD already released their preliminary numbers with May's report, which indicated that there were 35,736 private sector jobs added for 2014, and 36,191 overall. This sounds good on the surface, but it's only a 1.51% increase in private sector jobs while the U.S. had an increase of 2.63%. Thursday's QCEW report also gives us an idea how Wisconsin shakes out vs. the rest of the Midwest and all other states in the jobs and wages metrics, and we'll see if Wisconsin can move up from its dreadful performance from the 12 months ending Sept. 2014, where we ended up 40th in private sector job growth and 42nd in wage growth.

Given that this is likely the last jobs report to come out before Gov Walker officially announces for the presidency, there is quite a bit that will be used (and likely abused) from these figures, and we need to have the numbers at the ready to call "BULSHIT" on what are sure to be many cherry-picked claims by Gov Dropout. Especially given that the QCEW will now include all 4 years of Gov Walker's first term in office, we will see just how much we will be behind most of our neighbors (and we will), and we better be prepared to say it loud and clear to make sure the national media isn't tricked by this guy when he tries to run on his record of "success."

Walker claims, Abele schemes on Bucks arena not working out

Lots of intriguing recent developments on the Bucks arena issue, and most of them seem to be pointing against the current arena plan going through any time soon. I'll remind you that this is the "new and improved" version of the Bucks arena bill that was announced earlier this month, as opposed to the already-discarded plan of $220 million in state borrowing that was in Governor Walker's budget. But the results of this new proposal seem to be going the same way as the first defeated plan, as the claims made by arena proponents aren't proving true, and the financing numbers keep looking like a massive giveaway to a connected few at the expense of many others.

Over the weekend, State Rep. Dean Knudson (R-Hudson) released a column explaining his opposition to the Bucks bill, and as part of it, he showed figures that blew up Governor Walker's central argument that the arena should be built because it was "cheaper to keep" the Bucks. Rep. Knudson starts out by not buying the claim that if the Bucks left Milwaukee, that the Milwaukee area and the state of Wisconsin would lose millions in revenue, and in doing so, echoes other studies that say people will find other things to spend money on if there isn't an NBA team around.

First, the state currently collects $6.5 million on NBA income each year. Granted this revenue source would be lost, but not all of the revenue. Arena promoters make the mistake of ignoring “that which is unseen”. If the team moves, the dollars spent each season on the Bucks will instead be spent on other forms of entertainment, movies, travel, restaurants, tourism, advertising, etc. This redirected spending will be spread among thousands of businesses in the state, generating sales tax, income tax and property taxes, significantly offsetting the income tax no longer paid by NBA players.

Second, NBA player salary increases are difficult to predict. Governor Walker projects NBA players’ income in Wisconsin will rise to $149 million in 2020, $260 million in 2030, $450 million in 2040 and $610 million by 2046. My skepticism is supported by published reports putting the NBA team salary caps for the 2018-19 season at $100 million. I could be wrong but remember, all spending and income in Wisconsin can be expected to grow significantly over the next 20 years, so again this is fuzzy math at best.

I'd say the promises of huge increases in players' income question is open to debate. The NBA salary cap is expected to go up significantly in coming years due to a new TV deal, with ESPN's Mark Stein reporting 2 months ago that the cap could go from $67.1 million next year, to $89 million in 2016-17, and $108 million in 2017-18. That's a huge increase, but it's still well below the figures that the Walker Administration was projecting. That being said, perhaps the bill will be written to include all Bucks team personnel, which would raise the number to levels around $149 million in 2020. However, there is no guarantee that the league will continue to receive massive increases in income over the next 30 years, and expecting salaries to continue to nearly double every 10 years is a massive gamble. And as mentioned earlier, the tax revenues from Bucks personnel could well be replaced by added incomes from numerous other Wisconsinites in other places who benefit from added spending on their business.

In addition, Knudson released a study from the state's Legislative Council that went over potential major maintenance needed at the Bradley Center. Governor Walker claimed that maintenance would cost $120 million over the next 10 years, but the Leg Council said the cost was actually $16 million. Yes, the Council says another $14 million are scheduled to be thrown in for game-experience amenities like a better scoreboard, seating improvements and WiFi for fans, but a lot of those aren't going to be as needed if there's not an NBA team taking up 45 dates a year in the BC.

In addition, Milwaukee County's portion of the arena bill is looking quite tenuous. The County Board's Economic and Community Development Committee held off on approving the sale of 10 acres of land for $1, which would allow developers to build near the Bucks arena. And the reason for the delay is that the numbers for the County's side of the Bucks deal don't seem to be adding up.

Under a plan negotiated by [County Executive Chris] Abele, the county would cover a $55 million share of the proposed $250 million public financing component for a new Bucks arena. The county would pay off the debt over 20 years through collections of unpaid debts, primarily on property taxes and court fees. Including interest in the $55 million, the plan means the county would dedicate $80 million of its debt collections to the project.

Abele’s plan would have the state of Wisconsin take over the collections, a move that is envisioned to increase the amount of debt the county recovers. As pitched, the plan would generate the additional $4 million needed for the arena debt, while still recovering the county’s usual share of the money.

[County Comptroller Scott] Manske analyzed the numbers over the weekend and said the plan would definitely gather the $4 million needed annually for an arena. However, long-term, it could mean a reduction in the amount of money the debt collections send into the county budget.

There is enough money to make the $80 million payment,” Manske said. “The second question becomes is there enough money, however, excess that comes in so there is not an impact to the county’s tax levy. That is the question where I am coming up and saying I don’t believe there is enough money, and we are going to have to find other sources to cover that."

This is similar to the skepticism Bruce Murphy at Urban Milwaukee had about the County's side of the Bucks deal, as his numbers indicated that the County's "debt recovery" plan wouldn't work out. And if the money does indeed run short, then which taxes go up or which cuts have to be made at the County level as a result of this arena? In addition, which areas near the arena are (or are not) getting breaks on their property taxes, causing more revenues that have to be made up by local taxpayers? Abele or Walker won't say, and since we haven't seen the bill in written form, we have no idea.

And maybe we won't see a bill at the state level for a while. Joint Finance Committee co-chair John Nygren (R-Marinette) says the Bucks arena bill could well be separated from the state budget, as not enough GOP legislators will vote for it if it's in the budget, and no Milwaukee-area Dems would vote for Gov Walker's budget under any circumstances because of all the regressive crap that's in it. And if it is a standalone, Urban Milwaukee's Steven Walters indicates that it might not pass anyway, because too many non-Milwaukee legislators don't want to be associated with giving taxpayer money to the Bucks when they run for re-election in 2016.

So it seems that the Bucks arena issue will be dragging out well beyond the July 1 start of the state fiscal year, with big decisions that still need to be made at the state, county, and city level in the coming months. And with the numbers not adding up to support the claims of arena proponents, that seems to be making a "yes" decision at all of those levels less and less likely.

Wisconsin events show why tenure, public employee unions are needed

Why do public employees need tenure, unions, and other protections? Take a look at these three stories from recent months in Wisconsin.

1. Look at how State Sen. Steven Nass reacted to a study on the (right-to) work-for-less legislation from March.

"Attached is yet another example of wasted resources at the UW-Madison/UW Extension to issue a trumped up report from a partisan academic against Right to Work," writes Nass, a Republican from Whitewater. "Hiding behind academic freedom to issue partisan, garbage research is what we have come to expect from some of the overworked and stressed faculty at UW-Madison."...

The report summarizes the common arguments for and against right-to-work legislation, acknowledging that there is "little agreement within the literature that has attempted to empirically document the impact of [right-to-work] laws."

Using income, poverty and unemployment data from states with and without the anti-union legislation and comparing them using a statistical test to identify significant differences, Deller found that "right-to-work states tend to have lower manufacturing wages and overall income levels, higher poverty rates and lower education levels."

So in right-wing world, actual numbers and comparisons are "partisan garbage" that should be ignored? With that attitude, you can see where a researchers and other faculty members could be pressured and threatened by people who might not take kindly to statements and findings than counteract their agenda, especially when those people are making appointments to the Board of Regents. This is exactly why tenure exists, to insulate researchers from those poitical pressures, and to allow them to independently find facts and conclusions.

2. We see a similar type of pressuring and muting of potential dissent with the state budget's planned cuts of positions at the Science Services section of the Department of Natural Resources. Let's just say that the Wisconsin GOP may not like what these people could have to say.

The budget says only that the positions no longer serve the DNR's core mission. Asked to expand on [Gov] Walker's rationale, the governor's spokeswoman, Laurel Patrick, said in an email that Walker is focused on streamlining state government and making it more efficient.

The Bureau of Science Services' biennial research plan released in 2013 called for extensive study on how climate change has affected the Great Lakes, Wisconsin's river ecosystems, and the state's forests, wildlife and fish. According to the nonpartisan Legislative Fiscal Bureau, of the 96,200 hours the bureau worked in fiscal year 2013-'14, 2,800 hours were spent on climate change-related research.

The plan also called for research into what it termed "emerging" pollutants such as prescription drugs, hormones and industrial additives and agents. It also called for developing ways to predict and mitigate how sand, iron and sulfide mining affects air and water, plants and animals, and creating new monitoring strategies for newly permitted mines.

The bureau's fish and wildlife-forestry sections undertook 109 projects in the 2012-'13 and 2013-'14 fiscal years, according to the Fiscal Bureau. Thirteen involved pollution research. One involved providing research to the DNR's water division on recommendations for monitoring parameters in iron mining applications.

In other words, the Fitzwalkerstanis' reaction to findings that don't match what they want to hear is not to adjust policy to the facts and reality that may exist (aka "governance"), but to GET RID OF THE PEOPLE WHO ARE SAYING THOSE THINGS and stick their heads in the sand. That's mature leadership, isn't it?

3. The same methodology of intimidation and abuse of power may have happened at the Wisconsin Department of Justice, as the Associated Press reported last week that crime lab manager Amy Lautenbach was fired based on reasons that seemed to crop up after she complained about the workplace environment and statements from her right-wing bosses under former Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen.

In a written response to the [bosses'] evaluation, Lautenbach said its contents were a surprise and accused the administration of moving the lab away from objective science.

Lautenbach told the AP her problems began when she complained to a supervisor about a comment Brian O'Keefe, administrator of the DOJ's Law Enforcement Services Bureau, which oversees DOJ's crime labs, made during an April 2014 meeting.

Lautenbach claimed O'Keefe said that DOJ should issue bumper stickers saying they shoot people who coexist, a play on a bumper sticker that says the world's religions should coexist. She mentioned the remark briefly in her response to her evaluation.

After she complained, she said her supervisors stopped communicating with her, making it impossible to relay information to her staff. She also said her superiors were upset with her because she had to leave work at 6 p.m. to pick up her son every day and ridiculed her suggestion to include a room for nursing mothers as part of the lab's $5 million renovation.

Now, if there was a union to speak up for Ms. Lautenbach, maybe the guys at the office wouldn't have been quick to blow her off, or find reasons to get rid of her. But in the post-Act 10 world, Lautenbach claimed that "the politicians [at DOJ] do the politicking. They don't care about the lab or doing the job."

Related to that, the political element at DOJ may be going a long way toward explaining why we continue to be denied a full and open investigation of the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation (WEDC), even while more headlines keep coming out about the millions of dollars in taxpayer-funded loans and incentives to Walker donors that are being written off. Because Brad Schimel is a partisan hack who doesn't want to have his party feel the damage from what might be found, any state DOJ action against WEDC has been stalled, despite actions that seem to be clear fraud in what these alleged "job-creating" projects are, as well as outright money-laundering of taxpayer dollars to businesses run by Walker donors. It is why a federal investigation is warranted, because those of us who have followed the WEDC disaster know that Schimel and his GOP-run Department of "Justice" cannot be trusted to do the right thing, precisely because there aren't independent investigators being allowed to examine this slush fund.

This is why there needs to be a backstop for public employees against partisan hacks, and it was an argument that always should have been made in debates over the working conditions for public employees. It shouldn't be just about pay, but it should be about serving the public , and reiterating that public employees and UW faculty don't just work for their political bosses, but for the people of Wisconsin.

I'll go back to what I said nearly 3 years ago, right after Gov Walker survived the attempt to recall him in 2012.

This is where people such as AFSCME's Marty Beil and WEAC's Mary Bell have failed in the last 18 months. Instead of turning the debate on public employees into an illlustration of why we need an independent public sector that values competence over ass-kissing and politics, they decided to concentrate on the issue of money and gaining power through politics. And sure, it's hard to get anything done in government without having politicians on your side, but Marty and Mary tried to do this through the insider game (remember their idiotic support of Kathleen Falk early on?) instead of continuing to educate the voters ON THE ISSUES....

...Look at the stories that have come out in the last few days regarding new school-board imposed handbooks for teachers in Madison-area districts, to the mass desertions in New Berlin the year after the new handbook took effect. What Act 10 and the daily rantings from hate radio have done is to devalue public service and is [dis]couraging well-qualified individuals from staying in (or considering) public sector jobs.

This devaluing of public service was something Tom Barrett effectively pointed out in his stump speeches, but the DPW and the unions failed to drive this point home during the recall campaign, leaving the Fitzwalkerstanis to be the ones allowed to define the issue, and portray teachers, road workers, fire fighters, and police officers as "takers" instead of the people who stabilize our communities and improve the quality of life for all of us.

And it plays right into the hands of GOP puppet-masters, who want public service to be just another extension of the elected hacks in the Legislature and the Governor's Office, and not to have accountability to anyone but the corrupt bosses who call the shots.

I'd like to say I'm gloating about being right about this, but I'm actually very sickened about it. And the threats to the independence of UW faculty and other public employees are more severe now than they were in Summer 2012.

AMT price tag- $62 million in tax increases?

In the middle of a strong piece on Blogging Blue that categorizes the many economic failures under Gov Scott Walker that have been in the news, I found a reference to the LFB budget paper that goes over the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT). This has an updated price tag on Dale (Koo-Koo) Kooyenga's plan to abolish the AMT, and also gives more information on just how slanted toward the rich that this plan is.

First of all, the paper makes it clear that the first round of Koo-Koo tax cuts in 2013 are the major reason that there was a huge jump in richer Wisconsinites paying the AMT, which leads to Koo-Koo's desire to "reform" it in 2015.

4. The largest increases, both in the count of taxpayers subject to the minimum tax and in AMT liability, occurred for taxpayers with AGI of $200,000 to $500,000. In this income group, the count increased from 2,552 to 20,081, and the total AMT liability increased from $2.2 million to $14.3 million. By combining the third and fourth tax brackets, Act 20 created a bracket which is quite wide, compared to the two lower tax brackets. In tax year 2013, the third tax bracket reached from $21,490 to $236,599 for single filers and from $28,650 to $315,459 for married-joint filers. Prior to the Act, the marginal tax rates for the two tax brackets were 6.5% and 6.75%, but the marginal rate for the combined brackets is now 6.27%. Previously, the marginal rates were at or above the AMT rate, but now the rate for the combined brackets is below the AMT rate.

5. The juxtaposition of the marginal tax rates and the AMT rate results in taxpayers in the third tax bracket (6.27%) more likely to be subject to the AMT than persons in the top tax bracket (7.65%). Under the new tax structure, taxpayers in the 6.27% bracket can incur an AMT liability while claiming few or no tax preference items in calculating their regular tax. Higher income taxpayers are more likely to have enough of their income taxed at the 7.65% rate under the regular tax so that they do not have an AMT liability unless they also claim tax preference items. It can be argued that this treatment between the two taxpayer groups is contrary to the purpose of the AMT, which is to ensure that taxpayers are not able to eliminate their regular tax liability through tax preference deductions.

It's a classic example of WisGOPs reacting to the consequences of their first idiotic tax cut by doubling down and doing a second one to "fix the problem they caused. And naturally, the overwhelming number of people who would benefit are people who make well above Wisconsin's median household income of $51,467. In 2013, here's a simple breakdown of the income tax levels of Wisconsinites that paid the alternative income tax.

Payers of Wisconsin AMT, 2013
Under $200,000 26.3%
$200,000+ 73.7%

So this "reform" helps the richest Wisconsinites by nearly 3-to-1, and the Wisconsin Budget Project shows that they would also be the people getting a major payoff.



Getting rid of the AMT is not a small tax cut. As the LFB points out, it'd create a sizable hole in an already deficit-ridden budget.

Repealing the Wisconsin alternative minimum tax, effective in tax year 2015, would decrease individual income tax collections by an estimated $33.1 million in 2015-16 and $29.8 million in 2016-17. In tax year (2015 ??), an estimated 31,000 taxpayers are estimated to have an AMT liability under current law provisions.

That adds up to a $62.9 million budget hole! And you can bet that hole gets larger in later years due to inflation, and the lower base of tax revenues that the state would have to start from. And if you take Koo-Koo Kooyenga at his word that he would work out deal where getting rid of the AMT would be "revenue-neutral", then there are nearly $63 million in tax increases to be sprung on people somewhere else in the budget. You can bet those tax hikes are not going to be put back on the same rich folks getting the break from removing the AMT, but instead will be paid by everyday working Wisconsinites.

This AMT move is plain old THEFT, and further hamstrings a budget that already will dish out major economic damage to the state of Wisconsin. This move needs to be forcefully pushed back against, as proof of who Koo-Koo Kooyenga, Scott Walker, and the rest of the Wisconsin GOP are truly working for- and it ain't you and me.