Just in time for today's health care summit, I wanted to relay the story of my friends Steve and Tracy. They are a brilliant couple with extensive backgrounds in IT-related jobs, and would be well worth to have on most companies' payrolls. Steve has had debilitating back pain for several years (at the ripe old age of 35), and it had degenerated to the point that he could not work, and required spinal fusion surgery. Sad and unfair enough, but nothing compared to their treatement by our health care system.
See, Steve's condition left him basically uninsurable either through his former job or Tracy's. They don't have kids, so BadgerCare Plus or any similar subsidiary doesn't help them, and Medicaid won't cover an "optional" surgery like spinal fusion, despite the fact that Steve's back was keeping him from leading any sort of decent lifestyle or contributing any significant amount of work. So, in order to allow Steve to live anythng resembling a normal life, they checked the Internet listings and decided to go ahead with the spinal fusion surgery...in one of the only places they could remotely get it- Malaysia.
The trip required almost full-day plane trips in Steve's debilitated condition, but they finally got halfway around the globe in absurd conditions, and were able to have the surgery, which has greatly relieved Steve's back pain. However, all of the reclining positions exacerbated blood issues Steve had from the compressed pain, and led to blood clots in his leg and groin, which knocked him back another week in Malaysia. A few weeks after the surgery, Steve's leg is still swollen from the clots, and he struggles to walk around as a result.
They took one more all-day trip back to the States, and are presently back in Verona, but Steve is still far from OK, due to the clots and recovery time. They took him to a doctor this week to draw blood, and he promptly passed out from the bodily stress. Tracy estimates the total out-of-pocket for this ordeal at nearly $55,000, and they are not finished yet. I went over to their place to drop off some supplies for one of their friends, and noticed a "for sale" sign outside of the home, and I don't think they were planning to relocate out of town. I'm not going to ask them if it's related to the medical bills, but it's not like they're loaded with money, and you can't help but believe it's related.
Now think about this in terms of our current health care situation. There is an estimated eight health care lobbyists for every member of Congress at an estimated 2009 price tag of $1.2 billion. That's $1.2 billion that could have gone toward medical breakthroughs, expanded coverage, or lower premiums for consumers. Explain to me how guaranteeing Well Point's board of directors their 8-figure salaries over covering our people is something remotely productive for our economy?
How has our health care system helped Steve and Tracy? How has pricing them out of the market and preventing them from getting the coverage and treatment they deserve helped our economy in any way? Isn't it better to have people healed and working instead of being 1. infirmed at home and/or 2. indebted due to the foreign travels they've had to make to.
The health care companies and the insurance whores in Congress get to get paid at the expense of people like Steve and Tracy every day. I'm getting very close to stepping up, and making the execs and other scumbags find out just how good their medical coverage really is. Making them feel the pain may be the only way they do anything to lessen ours, and get our economy off the disastrous track that our country's unregulated health insurance leads to.
I'd like to go into things further, but it sickens me too much. RECONCILE THIS BILL NOW, single-payer health care as soon as possible, and cut the costs for all other groups of real people in the process (heck, it'll also cut your property taxes at the local level. Government worker medical care and low-income Medicaid comes from somewhere, doesn't it?). This is real life with real problems, and I' very tempted to make anyone who tries to lie about the way things really are have to get some health care of their own.
Thursday, February 25, 2010
Saturday, February 20, 2010
Government is not an IPOD
You knew this was coming. Scott Walker's low-tax "leadership" leads to an attempt to give mid-year paycuts to County employees under contract.
Read some of the comments below. You can spot the clueless ones when they start saying "In tough times, all parties should tighten their belts, just like the private sector." The problem with that thinking is that government services do NOT have lower demand when the economy suffers, because people still use the parks, people still need law enforcement on the street, and there is an added amount of people in need of financial assistance due to higher unemployment and lower wages. In the private sector, expenses and hiring occurs when demand for a product is high, why isn't it the same for the public sector if they should treated the same...RIGHT?
Of course, that last part is in jest, as people don't like to see taxes go up when they're struggling, but it proves the flaw in the "run it like a business" argument. Government is NOT a business. It delivers services that might not be cost-effective to improve the choices available to citizens, and improve the chances of businesses succeeding. It delivers services like education to children, health care, food stamps, green space, and transportation that private operators would never offer due to cost-effectiveness reasons, but are requirements for a functioning society and any sort of improving quality of life. And government has an extra layer of accountability to the taxpayer that profit-driven corporations will never have, and therefore requires that its provision of services be looked after in a closer manner, and operated more responsibly than their private sector counterparts.
There's no question Milwaukee County workers have some benefits that are out of whack with what many people get in their jobs. But they also give up some of the pay that would come with it, and do thankless jobs like social work that the majority people are too unqualified and uninterested in doing, but are requirements for the world we live in. Walker could have shown legitimate leadership by negotiating in good faith, and offered items such as required contributions to employee pensions and lowered benefits in the future (or an encouragement of early retirement).
This is what Tom Barrett did in the City of Milwaukee for the 2010 budget (I know, I was there), and got the needed concessions out of most City workers with fewer furlough days, and no major holes in the budget deficit. Now, the City still has structural issues in its budget, but they were lessened in this latest round of negotiations, because THE MAYOR'S OFFICE DECIDED TO NEGOTIATE AND GOT SOME OF WHAT THEY WANTED. Walker has decided to score political points with suburb boys instead of work with the unions, and the County workers have rightfully told him to shove it. The Milw. County union's act is no different than corporations shopping their facilities to local communities, trying to score any tax break they can at the expense of everyone else in that town. Strangely, angry white man radio ignores those people who work for the best deal, I suppose because they have money and white collars, while dumping on people who perform real work and have blue collars that are trying to do the same thing.
I agree that unions have to understand they can't have it all, just like corporates should. But demonizing your workers and trying to play games with their jobs is not the way to get anything done as an employer, and a very telling sign of the type of disaster someone like Walker would be as the head of a McDonald's (if he ever had a private sector job), and he's worse of being head of something we DO need, like government services.
Read some of the comments below. You can spot the clueless ones when they start saying "In tough times, all parties should tighten their belts, just like the private sector." The problem with that thinking is that government services do NOT have lower demand when the economy suffers, because people still use the parks, people still need law enforcement on the street, and there is an added amount of people in need of financial assistance due to higher unemployment and lower wages. In the private sector, expenses and hiring occurs when demand for a product is high, why isn't it the same for the public sector if they should treated the same...RIGHT?
Of course, that last part is in jest, as people don't like to see taxes go up when they're struggling, but it proves the flaw in the "run it like a business" argument. Government is NOT a business. It delivers services that might not be cost-effective to improve the choices available to citizens, and improve the chances of businesses succeeding. It delivers services like education to children, health care, food stamps, green space, and transportation that private operators would never offer due to cost-effectiveness reasons, but are requirements for a functioning society and any sort of improving quality of life. And government has an extra layer of accountability to the taxpayer that profit-driven corporations will never have, and therefore requires that its provision of services be looked after in a closer manner, and operated more responsibly than their private sector counterparts.
There's no question Milwaukee County workers have some benefits that are out of whack with what many people get in their jobs. But they also give up some of the pay that would come with it, and do thankless jobs like social work that the majority people are too unqualified and uninterested in doing, but are requirements for the world we live in. Walker could have shown legitimate leadership by negotiating in good faith, and offered items such as required contributions to employee pensions and lowered benefits in the future (or an encouragement of early retirement).
This is what Tom Barrett did in the City of Milwaukee for the 2010 budget (I know, I was there), and got the needed concessions out of most City workers with fewer furlough days, and no major holes in the budget deficit. Now, the City still has structural issues in its budget, but they were lessened in this latest round of negotiations, because THE MAYOR'S OFFICE DECIDED TO NEGOTIATE AND GOT SOME OF WHAT THEY WANTED. Walker has decided to score political points with suburb boys instead of work with the unions, and the County workers have rightfully told him to shove it. The Milw. County union's act is no different than corporations shopping their facilities to local communities, trying to score any tax break they can at the expense of everyone else in that town. Strangely, angry white man radio ignores those people who work for the best deal, I suppose because they have money and white collars, while dumping on people who perform real work and have blue collars that are trying to do the same thing.
I agree that unions have to understand they can't have it all, just like corporates should. But demonizing your workers and trying to play games with their jobs is not the way to get anything done as an employer, and a very telling sign of the type of disaster someone like Walker would be as the head of a McDonald's (if he ever had a private sector job), and he's worse of being head of something we DO need, like government services.
Friday, January 29, 2010
Who's Really Surrounded by Reality? (economic)
Now, here's part 2 of how far suburban Milwaukee is out of step with the rest of Wisconsin.
I was inspired to look into this when the Brookings Institute sent out a report on the increasing amount of poverty being seen in suburban America. The Journal-Sentinel covered the release with a decent article, and included Milwaukee area data as part of it. It may surprise some that over 47,000 people in Milwaukee's suburbs live in poverty (especially Sykesists who think that poverty and a lack of opportunity are for those "other people in the messed-up city"), but those rates are still dwarfed the City of Milwaukee's rates, where nearly 1 in 4 deal with poverty.
Now, Wisconsin does have low poverty rates in general, in no small part due to its progressive tradition of strong public education, high access to health care, and general respect for quality of life. In 2008, the U.S. Census estimated Wisconsin's poverty rate at 10.7%
Now let's take a look at that 10.7% rate and compare it to the JS story that gave the rates of poverty in Scott Walker Country.
suburban Milwaukee County: 6.5% (61% of state rate)
Washington County: 4.3% (40% of state rate)
Waukesha County: 3.9% (36% of state rate)
Ozaukee County: 3.6% (34% of state rate)
But that can't be much differnt than rich, latte-sipping Madison, as well as the stats for the equally wacky Dane County.
Dane County 10.9% (101.9% of state rate)
Madison 17.3% (162% of state rate)
So while Madison is significantly above the state rate at 62% higher, it's still not much different than having poverty rates 60-66% below the state average, like what you see in Wauzaukington County. And Madison's rates are skewed higher by the disproportionate amount of students that live there. Since their incomes are lower, it runs the poverty rate higher than what the standards of living would indicate.
In fact, if you look at the Wisconsin city rates of poverty , Wauzaukington County communities stand out even more for being unusual. Out of the largest communities in Wisconsin, the ones with the 6 lowest poverty levels are in Wauzaukington County.
Mequon 1.7%
Menomonee Falls 2.4%
Brookfield 2.5%
New Berlin 2.5%
Franklin 3.1%
Muskego 3.3%
Of course, when you charge an admission fee to get into these towns in the form of specialized zoning and overpriced homes, it's not surprising that you can keep the poor people out.
One more stat to go along these lines. Check out what the median (half above, half below) household made in income in 2008 for these towns, then compare it to the crazies on the Isthmus, as well as the state's largest city.
Milwaukee $37,331
STATE OF WISCONSIN MEDIAN HOUSEHOLD INCOME $52,094
Madison $53,516 (2.7% above the state median)
Dane County $61,441 (17.9% above the state median)
Washington County $63,332 (21.6% above the state median)
Ozaukee County $69,376 (33.2% above the state median)
Waukesha County $75,372 (44.7%! above the state median)
So to review, the City of Madison is far from outside of reality, and in fact has a mixture of poverty and income that comes closest to what is seen in the rest of Wisconsin. Wauzaukington County is every bit out of step when it comes to income as the City of Milwaukee...and the City of Milwaukee has that lower level in no small part to Wauzaukington County's policies and flight from reality.
What becomes laughable (well, would be laughable if radio stations and political discourse weren't overrun by these folks) is that it's the WAUZAUKINGTON COUNTY folks who dare to run their mouths with all the answers about what ails low-income folks in Wisconsin. Like they have any clue how people in low-income communities deal with life on a day-to-day basis. But somehow, that little tidbit doesn't keep them from talking about it. Some Madison people are certainly Pollyannish about the world (which pisses me off probably more than the angry-man radio listeners, because it keeps Madison from acting like the large city it now is), but I can bet at least a few of them have actually seen poverty and maybe have studied some of the research about how to help people out of it. You think a Wauzaukingtonian knows about these studies or poverty's reality, or that they even care? Heck, poor people make them "uncomfortable", and so they try not to deal with it, or denigrate these others, to make their barely above-average lives seem accomplished.
Fortunately, lots of people like me that grew up in the burbs got older, went to college, learned from others, perhaps worked with and taught others less fortunate than us, and realized that we were pretty fortunate to have had the supportive and relatively affluent upbringing we had. Who I feel bad for (well, sorta) are the people who spend their whole lives thinking Wauzaukington County is the normal, and that others are the ones who don't get it. No wonder these people hold such absurd political views, because they've never stepped outside of their comfortable little bubble where everything's taken care of for them. It's up to us to puncture that bubble, because we've seen how suburban "ownership society" works in the real world, and it's a disaster.
So Madtown, hold your head up high, and keep telling Sykes-World about reality's liberal bias. Because it's likely that a Madisonian like you lives your life more in line with the average Wisconsinite than the suburb boys that get all the air time representing "the Silent Majority".
I was inspired to look into this when the Brookings Institute sent out a report on the increasing amount of poverty being seen in suburban America. The Journal-Sentinel covered the release with a decent article, and included Milwaukee area data as part of it. It may surprise some that over 47,000 people in Milwaukee's suburbs live in poverty (especially Sykesists who think that poverty and a lack of opportunity are for those "other people in the messed-up city"), but those rates are still dwarfed the City of Milwaukee's rates, where nearly 1 in 4 deal with poverty.
Now, Wisconsin does have low poverty rates in general, in no small part due to its progressive tradition of strong public education, high access to health care, and general respect for quality of life. In 2008, the U.S. Census estimated Wisconsin's poverty rate at 10.7%
Now let's take a look at that 10.7% rate and compare it to the JS story that gave the rates of poverty in Scott Walker Country.
suburban Milwaukee County: 6.5% (61% of state rate)
Washington County: 4.3% (40% of state rate)
Waukesha County: 3.9% (36% of state rate)
Ozaukee County: 3.6% (34% of state rate)
But that can't be much differnt than rich, latte-sipping Madison, as well as the stats for the equally wacky Dane County.
Dane County 10.9% (101.9% of state rate)
Madison 17.3% (162% of state rate)
So while Madison is significantly above the state rate at 62% higher, it's still not much different than having poverty rates 60-66% below the state average, like what you see in Wauzaukington County. And Madison's rates are skewed higher by the disproportionate amount of students that live there. Since their incomes are lower, it runs the poverty rate higher than what the standards of living would indicate.
In fact, if you look at the Wisconsin city rates of poverty , Wauzaukington County communities stand out even more for being unusual. Out of the largest communities in Wisconsin, the ones with the 6 lowest poverty levels are in Wauzaukington County.
Mequon 1.7%
Menomonee Falls 2.4%
Brookfield 2.5%
New Berlin 2.5%
Franklin 3.1%
Muskego 3.3%
Of course, when you charge an admission fee to get into these towns in the form of specialized zoning and overpriced homes, it's not surprising that you can keep the poor people out.
One more stat to go along these lines. Check out what the median (half above, half below) household made in income in 2008 for these towns, then compare it to the crazies on the Isthmus, as well as the state's largest city.
Milwaukee $37,331
STATE OF WISCONSIN MEDIAN HOUSEHOLD INCOME $52,094
Madison $53,516 (2.7% above the state median)
Dane County $61,441 (17.9% above the state median)
Washington County $63,332 (21.6% above the state median)
Ozaukee County $69,376 (33.2% above the state median)
Waukesha County $75,372 (44.7%! above the state median)
So to review, the City of Madison is far from outside of reality, and in fact has a mixture of poverty and income that comes closest to what is seen in the rest of Wisconsin. Wauzaukington County is every bit out of step when it comes to income as the City of Milwaukee...and the City of Milwaukee has that lower level in no small part to Wauzaukington County's policies and flight from reality.
What becomes laughable (well, would be laughable if radio stations and political discourse weren't overrun by these folks) is that it's the WAUZAUKINGTON COUNTY folks who dare to run their mouths with all the answers about what ails low-income folks in Wisconsin. Like they have any clue how people in low-income communities deal with life on a day-to-day basis. But somehow, that little tidbit doesn't keep them from talking about it. Some Madison people are certainly Pollyannish about the world (which pisses me off probably more than the angry-man radio listeners, because it keeps Madison from acting like the large city it now is), but I can bet at least a few of them have actually seen poverty and maybe have studied some of the research about how to help people out of it. You think a Wauzaukingtonian knows about these studies or poverty's reality, or that they even care? Heck, poor people make them "uncomfortable", and so they try not to deal with it, or denigrate these others, to make their barely above-average lives seem accomplished.
Fortunately, lots of people like me that grew up in the burbs got older, went to college, learned from others, perhaps worked with and taught others less fortunate than us, and realized that we were pretty fortunate to have had the supportive and relatively affluent upbringing we had. Who I feel bad for (well, sorta) are the people who spend their whole lives thinking Wauzaukington County is the normal, and that others are the ones who don't get it. No wonder these people hold such absurd political views, because they've never stepped outside of their comfortable little bubble where everything's taken care of for them. It's up to us to puncture that bubble, because we've seen how suburban "ownership society" works in the real world, and it's a disaster.
So Madtown, hold your head up high, and keep telling Sykes-World about reality's liberal bias. Because it's likely that a Madisonian like you lives your life more in line with the average Wisconsinite than the suburb boys that get all the air time representing "the Silent Majority".
Who's Really Surrounded by Reality? (voting)
One of my bigger complaints I hear from angry-man radio and similarly clueless folks is some kind of knock-off of the Lee Sherman Dreyfus line about Madison being "____ miles surrounded by reality." It's often done to discount the quality of life and thought coming out of the state capital and home of the state's flagship university, and indirectly is used to justify the way of life of "normal, salt-of-the-earth" Wisconsinites (Sarah Palin might call them part of the "real Wisconsin"). Well, the Sykes and Belling backers that are most likely to give that line may want to check themselves, because suburb boys like them aren't in line with the real Wisconsin either.
So let's look at the results of the 2008 presidential election. Since Madtown's filled with crazy hippies and arrogant Prius drivers, I bet they're going to be a crazy outlier compared to the decent-living folks that live just outside of Milwaukee. Right? (we'll leave out 3rd party votes for this arrangement, as they were around 1% of the total vote in the state- a bit more in Madtown).
City of Madison 2008 presidential election
Obama 112,411- 80.8%
McCain 26,639 19.2% (Obama +61.6%)
Not surprisingly, it's heavily Dem. So let's now take out Madison and see how the rest of the state went.
Obama- 1,565,010 55.9%
McCain 1,235,754 44.1 (Obama +11.8%)
So Madison was +49.8% heavier for Obama than the rest of Wisconsin. Yeah, that seems to on the heavy side for one candidate. I'll bet the Milwaukee suburbs fit in with reality more, as the following data will show.
Ozaukee County
McCain 32,172 (61.0%)
Obama 20,579 (39.0%) (McCain +22.0%)
Rest of state: Obama wins 57.4%-42.6% (Obama +14.8%)
Ozaukee Co. difference: McCain +36.8%
Nearly 37% off of the state, but still isn't quite as weird as Madison. Let's get off the lake and head to the west.
Washington County
McCain 47,729 (65.0%)
Obama 25,719 (35.0%) (McCain +30.0%)
Rest of state: Obama wins 57.6%- 42.4% (Obama +15.2%)
Washington Co. difference: McCain +45.2%
Can't you see how we can get clowns like Annette Ziegler and Glenn Grothmann from here?
Waukesha County
McCain 145,152 (63.0%)
Obama 85,339 (37.0%)(McCain +26.0%)
Rest of state: Obama wins 58.8%- 41.2% (Obama +17.6%)
Waukesha County difference: McCain +43.6%
Now, here's the real fun part. Let's combine those 3 suburban Milwaukee counties, and make them one big county. Call it Wauzaukington County (and why not, is there really any difference between these three places?)
Wauzaukington County
McCain 225,053 (63.2%)
Obama 131,137 (37.8%) (McCain +25.4%)
Rest of the state: Obama 59.8%-40.2% (Obama +19.6%)
Wauzaukington County difference: McCain +45.0%
So to review
Madison +49.8% effect for Obama
Wauzaukington County +45.0% effect for McCain.
Looks like mostly a wash to me, as both areas are well out of step with how the rest of the state voted. And Madison mentality doesn't get hours upon hours on high-powered AM stations bamming their angry-man garbage throughout the state every day, like Wauzaukington County does.
And here's the final kicker for how disproportionate the votes were for the 2 candidates in these 2 places.
% of Obama's Wisconsin votes from Madison: 6.7%
% of McCain's votes from Madison: 2.1% (4.6% difference)
% of Obama's votes from Wauzaukington County: 7.8%
% of McCain's votes from Wauzaukington County : 17.8%! (10% difference)
Sure, the stat's a bit flawed due to there being more people in Wauzaukington County than Madtown, but that reiterates the point even more. Madison doesn't dominate the Democratic votes in this states anywhere near the way that Wauzaukington County does for the Republican.
So the next time someone says Madison should be ignored in elections because they're 92 square miles surrounded by reality (depending on what's being annexed that day), remind the whiner that being surrounded bny reality in a cool city with a lake, intellectuals and 2-liter boots of beer is a whole lot better than being surrounded by reality in a lame cul-de-sac with no nightlife, stultifying conformity, and irrational fear of being exposed as nothing special.
I'll be back with the economic stats, which will make it even more obvious that it's the 2000 square miles of Wauzaukington County that's truly surrounded by reality.
So let's look at the results of the 2008 presidential election. Since Madtown's filled with crazy hippies and arrogant Prius drivers, I bet they're going to be a crazy outlier compared to the decent-living folks that live just outside of Milwaukee. Right? (we'll leave out 3rd party votes for this arrangement, as they were around 1% of the total vote in the state- a bit more in Madtown).
City of Madison 2008 presidential election
Obama 112,411- 80.8%
McCain 26,639 19.2% (Obama +61.6%)
Not surprisingly, it's heavily Dem. So let's now take out Madison and see how the rest of the state went.
Obama- 1,565,010 55.9%
McCain 1,235,754 44.1 (Obama +11.8%)
So Madison was +49.8% heavier for Obama than the rest of Wisconsin. Yeah, that seems to on the heavy side for one candidate. I'll bet the Milwaukee suburbs fit in with reality more, as the following data will show.
Ozaukee County
McCain 32,172 (61.0%)
Obama 20,579 (39.0%) (McCain +22.0%)
Rest of state: Obama wins 57.4%-42.6% (Obama +14.8%)
Ozaukee Co. difference: McCain +36.8%
Nearly 37% off of the state, but still isn't quite as weird as Madison. Let's get off the lake and head to the west.
Washington County
McCain 47,729 (65.0%)
Obama 25,719 (35.0%) (McCain +30.0%)
Rest of state: Obama wins 57.6%- 42.4% (Obama +15.2%)
Washington Co. difference: McCain +45.2%
Can't you see how we can get clowns like Annette Ziegler and Glenn Grothmann from here?
Waukesha County
McCain 145,152 (63.0%)
Obama 85,339 (37.0%)(McCain +26.0%)
Rest of state: Obama wins 58.8%- 41.2% (Obama +17.6%)
Waukesha County difference: McCain +43.6%
Now, here's the real fun part. Let's combine those 3 suburban Milwaukee counties, and make them one big county. Call it Wauzaukington County (and why not, is there really any difference between these three places?)
Wauzaukington County
McCain 225,053 (63.2%)
Obama 131,137 (37.8%) (McCain +25.4%)
Rest of the state: Obama 59.8%-40.2% (Obama +19.6%)
Wauzaukington County difference: McCain +45.0%
So to review
Madison +49.8% effect for Obama
Wauzaukington County +45.0% effect for McCain.
Looks like mostly a wash to me, as both areas are well out of step with how the rest of the state voted. And Madison mentality doesn't get hours upon hours on high-powered AM stations bamming their angry-man garbage throughout the state every day, like Wauzaukington County does.
And here's the final kicker for how disproportionate the votes were for the 2 candidates in these 2 places.
% of Obama's Wisconsin votes from Madison: 6.7%
% of McCain's votes from Madison: 2.1% (4.6% difference)
% of Obama's votes from Wauzaukington County: 7.8%
% of McCain's votes from Wauzaukington County : 17.8%! (10% difference)
Sure, the stat's a bit flawed due to there being more people in Wauzaukington County than Madtown, but that reiterates the point even more. Madison doesn't dominate the Democratic votes in this states anywhere near the way that Wauzaukington County does for the Republican.
So the next time someone says Madison should be ignored in elections because they're 92 square miles surrounded by reality (depending on what's being annexed that day), remind the whiner that being surrounded bny reality in a cool city with a lake, intellectuals and 2-liter boots of beer is a whole lot better than being surrounded by reality in a lame cul-de-sac with no nightlife, stultifying conformity, and irrational fear of being exposed as nothing special.
I'll be back with the economic stats, which will make it even more obvious that it's the 2000 square miles of Wauzaukington County that's truly surrounded by reality.
Thursday, January 7, 2010
The elderly are being driven out of their homes!!!
Well, not quite, according to a paper from a group that includes one of my former La Follette School instructors (Andy Reschovsky- who was kind of a blah teacher, but he has an awesome knowledge of state and local taxation.)
Here's the paper on Property Taxes and Likelihood of Moving.
Basically, the biggest changes happen with people 75+ facing property tax increases of more than 5% in a given year. And how many of those people have to move for reasons that have nothing to do with the property tax? (i.e. need more assistance, spouse dies, etc.) Even among the super-elderly (80+), it appears that income changes are the bigger factor vs. property taxes, with more money making them more likely to move. This holds for the younger folks as well, as the people most likely to move are ones under 50 that make more money and are more likely to both upgrade and move for job reasons.
Anyway, much like the reasons that companies locate, this study says there are many more reasons that are more important than property taxes in determining whether the elderly and others choose to move. Not that property taxes are a variable to be ignored, they need to be part of the equation and strategy that communities and individuals take in when making decisions. But it also holds that taxes are the #1 determiner of outcomes only in Sykes-world, and not the real one.
Here's the paper on Property Taxes and Likelihood of Moving.
Basically, the biggest changes happen with people 75+ facing property tax increases of more than 5% in a given year. And how many of those people have to move for reasons that have nothing to do with the property tax? (i.e. need more assistance, spouse dies, etc.) Even among the super-elderly (80+), it appears that income changes are the bigger factor vs. property taxes, with more money making them more likely to move. This holds for the younger folks as well, as the people most likely to move are ones under 50 that make more money and are more likely to both upgrade and move for job reasons.
Anyway, much like the reasons that companies locate, this study says there are many more reasons that are more important than property taxes in determining whether the elderly and others choose to move. Not that property taxes are a variable to be ignored, they need to be part of the equation and strategy that communities and individuals take in when making decisions. But it also holds that taxes are the #1 determiner of outcomes only in Sykes-world, and not the real one.
Saturday, December 19, 2009
Following the bouncing taxes and fiscal years
I think a lot of people get confused over how different levels of government work with each other in Wisconsin, and politicians and cynical talk show hosts use this to their advantage. I'm going to give the 3 of you who might read this blog a better understanding of how this all fits together, and then it's your job to tell others and lessen the chances of more duping of the "talk more than I know" crowd. Ready? GO!
We hear a lot about the federal government and their spending, because our media is based on national news and doesn't make a whole lot of effort to get out of their D.C./ NYC bubbles. So we get to understand that the federal government spends for programs like health care coverage, interstate highways and rail, and military expenditures (although our media doesn't do a good job of explaining that the money for these things come from the same place- us). I also think people mostly understand that these items are paid for by federal income taxes, but they don't get that capital gains taxes are significantly lower, or understand that cap. gains is for productive uses like day trading of stocks, house-flipping and other legalized forms of gambling (as opposed to more legitimate but illegal forms like betting lines on sporting events).
They get a bit fuzzy when you try to explain that Social Security and Medicare are paid for by segregated funds, although once you show them that FICA line, they get it a bit more. But they think any potential deficit there is somehow different than the deficits that come from spending more of the non-Social Security/ Medicare money, when it's really not. We get those deficit funds from the same place- China and various others we like to owe. But once you get to state and local spending, the just know that "they pay a lot of taxes" and have no idea where all that spending is from. And that's why I'm here.
First of all, the feds, state and local governments have 3 different fiscal years.
Fed- Oct. 1 to Sept. 30 (i.e. Oct. 2009 starts the first fiscal year under Obama, the record deficit recently completed was based on the last budget for Dubya).
State- July 1 to June 30. 2-year budget. We are currently in 2009-2010, and 2010-2011 is mostly set and starts in 6 1/2 months.
Local- Jan.1 to Dec. 31, so their new 2010 fiscal year begins in 12 days.
You can see where this becomes a problem if you are the city of Madison and get nailed with a 17-inch storm in December, because you're working on a budget you set 13 months ago in November 2008, when you anticipated normal snow and normal levels of opperations, and you're trying to ride it out till the end of the year. When this comes up, you usually have to borrow money or take it out of your contingent fund to cover it, but most citizens think that city budgets are set for the entire "winter season", instead of being two separate budgets that change over come Jan. 1.
This also leads to confusion on when states and localities receive their funding from one of their main sources - higher levels of government. Many government grants are handed out to lower levels with the idea that the more local levels might be able to direct resources to better places (which may or may not be true, depending on who you're dealing with). So when you hear all this whining about stimulus funds not being spent, the different dates of government fiscal years is a good explanation. For example, Wisconsin's new budget started on July 1, and generally used stimulus funds for those two years (July 2009- June 2011). Part of it was to fill their huge budget deficit, and part of it was to jump on projects they'd otherwise be spending themselves (Gov. Doyle's billion-dollar adventure on I-94 from Milwaukee to Kenosha is a good example). Likewise, Obama wasn't even elected when local governments made their 2009 budgets, so while they've had to change around some priorities and items this year, more likely they used the stimulus funds and programs to deal with their 2010 budgets. It's why you will likely see a ton of construction projects around Milwaukee and other communities next Spring and Summer, because it's the first budget year where the extra money from the feds kicks in, and local officials prefer that the feds pay for it than with property taxes, as it tends to help their future job prospects.
A problem comes up when the higher levels don't decide to help their brethren down below. For example, when huge amounts of federal money are going to overseas adventures and you have a president and Congress who don't like book-learning, often items such as medical research at universities are cut. A lot of states have schools like UW that rely on large amounts of research being offset by federal grants, since people in other states stand some chance of being helped by medical or producitivity advances that come out of thinking places. So now they have to find a place to get the money to do their jobs of research. Maybe that comes from the state, if you have a mindset that education is important, or maybe you hit up donors or corporations to help you out to get it done. Of course, that means you need to find someone that cares enough about the subject to help pay for it, and that person might want to see a certain result regardless of what the facts say, but that's the way it goes when you don't get cash from a taxpayer accountable entity. Or you might not get the money at all, and you don't do the research, regardless of the needs.
Another issue might be when a needed expense keeps rising, kind of like what is happening in Wisconsin with Medicaid expenses . If you think giving medical help to those without a lot of money is a priority, and if companies choose not to offer coverage or if economic conditions (like the deregulation-driven recession we're now in) drive down incomes enough to greatly increase the amount of people needing help, then these expenses go up. The same situation happens if you think locking up criminals for various offenses is worth doing and your prisons fill up, requiring you to feed and house more inmates (as has happened in Wisconsin). Since the pot of money is limited in what states can spend money on, and these items keep going up, you can either 1. Cut out some of these priorities, and therefore give less coverage to the sick (as Robin Vos would like to do in the article) or 2. You knock out some other item you usually spend on. In the state's case, this means they'll decide to give less money to previous priorities like the UW System, or they'll cut the money they share to all the local governments in Wisconsin, and tell these groups to come up with their own funding.
So you drop down to local governments, who handle needs like police and fire services, snow plowing, street fixing, and other extravagances. In Wisconsin, localities can only raise revenue in a handful of ways outside of state and federal allocations. Most of this is through property taxes, but they can also institute a sales tax (if the state lets them, which is has not done for the City of Milwaukee), some other user tax like rental cars or hotels (again, if the state will let them) licenses and fees to do certain actions (i.e. bartender licenses, building permits, parking on city streets), tickets from law enforcement, and selling locally-owned assets (cars, land, etc.) What they cannot do is put in a local income tax (the state explicity prohibits this), and they have to balance their books. So because the feds don't want to handle it, and the state doesn't want to handle it, the locals have to handle it. And the locals can't go many routes to handle it, based on the state not allowing them to do much other than raising property taxes and other fees, so that's what they raise to make sure cops are on the street and potholes get fixed and related things.
NOW, here's the fun part. Tea-baggers and corporates complain that taxes and spending are too high in D.C., so they try to limit tax levels and pass the buck to the state. Sykesist tea-baggers blame people in the Legislature for high taxes and make up stats about how the state is some kind of tax hell (they conveniently leave out the state's low sales taxes and license fees when they do), so the legislators are cowed into budget games to avoid raising state income or sales taxes (which despite all the squawking, they've pretty much done for most of us in the real Wisconsin), but they do it by cutting shared revenue and other state help to localities.
So when localities have to figure out how to come up with things the tea-baggers want to see (like cops on the streets or their roads plowed), they raise the one thing they can - property taxes - or they try to sell their land or services. Who does the land or services go to and who are they accountable to? In the Bush era, it was people like Blackwater and Haliburton for the feds, or maybe it's Scott Walker's buddy that runs a custodial service, or maybe it's former Bush Budget guy Mitch Daniels in Indiana, who sells off the state's Social Services (oops, scratch that last one) .
So in a nutshell in Wisconsin, the feds won't tax and pay their share and pass the buck to the state, who won't tax and pay their share and passes it to the locals, who raise property taxes and/or don't pay for what's needed, and the tea-baggers complain that government is dysfunctional and doesn't work. And the argument of "government doesn't work" means that there should be lower taxes and spending, which makes the feds pass the buck to the states who...and the cycle continues.
And the corporates who tell the tea-baggers what to say blame government for their property taxes and state taxes going up and not doing a good job, when it would do a better job, be more fucntional, provide better services and not need local or state taxes to go up if they didn't try to placate the corporates and cut the damn expenses at the higher levels in the first place!
There, now go forth and spread the good word this Christmas season!
We hear a lot about the federal government and their spending, because our media is based on national news and doesn't make a whole lot of effort to get out of their D.C./ NYC bubbles. So we get to understand that the federal government spends for programs like health care coverage, interstate highways and rail, and military expenditures (although our media doesn't do a good job of explaining that the money for these things come from the same place- us). I also think people mostly understand that these items are paid for by federal income taxes, but they don't get that capital gains taxes are significantly lower, or understand that cap. gains is for productive uses like day trading of stocks, house-flipping and other legalized forms of gambling (as opposed to more legitimate but illegal forms like betting lines on sporting events).
They get a bit fuzzy when you try to explain that Social Security and Medicare are paid for by segregated funds, although once you show them that FICA line, they get it a bit more. But they think any potential deficit there is somehow different than the deficits that come from spending more of the non-Social Security/ Medicare money, when it's really not. We get those deficit funds from the same place- China and various others we like to owe. But once you get to state and local spending, the just know that "they pay a lot of taxes" and have no idea where all that spending is from. And that's why I'm here.
First of all, the feds, state and local governments have 3 different fiscal years.
Fed- Oct. 1 to Sept. 30 (i.e. Oct. 2009 starts the first fiscal year under Obama, the record deficit recently completed was based on the last budget for Dubya).
State- July 1 to June 30. 2-year budget. We are currently in 2009-2010, and 2010-2011 is mostly set and starts in 6 1/2 months.
Local- Jan.1 to Dec. 31, so their new 2010 fiscal year begins in 12 days.
You can see where this becomes a problem if you are the city of Madison and get nailed with a 17-inch storm in December, because you're working on a budget you set 13 months ago in November 2008, when you anticipated normal snow and normal levels of opperations, and you're trying to ride it out till the end of the year. When this comes up, you usually have to borrow money or take it out of your contingent fund to cover it, but most citizens think that city budgets are set for the entire "winter season", instead of being two separate budgets that change over come Jan. 1.
This also leads to confusion on when states and localities receive their funding from one of their main sources - higher levels of government. Many government grants are handed out to lower levels with the idea that the more local levels might be able to direct resources to better places (which may or may not be true, depending on who you're dealing with). So when you hear all this whining about stimulus funds not being spent, the different dates of government fiscal years is a good explanation. For example, Wisconsin's new budget started on July 1, and generally used stimulus funds for those two years (July 2009- June 2011). Part of it was to fill their huge budget deficit, and part of it was to jump on projects they'd otherwise be spending themselves (Gov. Doyle's billion-dollar adventure on I-94 from Milwaukee to Kenosha is a good example). Likewise, Obama wasn't even elected when local governments made their 2009 budgets, so while they've had to change around some priorities and items this year, more likely they used the stimulus funds and programs to deal with their 2010 budgets. It's why you will likely see a ton of construction projects around Milwaukee and other communities next Spring and Summer, because it's the first budget year where the extra money from the feds kicks in, and local officials prefer that the feds pay for it than with property taxes, as it tends to help their future job prospects.
A problem comes up when the higher levels don't decide to help their brethren down below. For example, when huge amounts of federal money are going to overseas adventures and you have a president and Congress who don't like book-learning, often items such as medical research at universities are cut. A lot of states have schools like UW that rely on large amounts of research being offset by federal grants, since people in other states stand some chance of being helped by medical or producitivity advances that come out of thinking places. So now they have to find a place to get the money to do their jobs of research. Maybe that comes from the state, if you have a mindset that education is important, or maybe you hit up donors or corporations to help you out to get it done. Of course, that means you need to find someone that cares enough about the subject to help pay for it, and that person might want to see a certain result regardless of what the facts say, but that's the way it goes when you don't get cash from a taxpayer accountable entity. Or you might not get the money at all, and you don't do the research, regardless of the needs.
Another issue might be when a needed expense keeps rising, kind of like what is happening in Wisconsin with Medicaid expenses . If you think giving medical help to those without a lot of money is a priority, and if companies choose not to offer coverage or if economic conditions (like the deregulation-driven recession we're now in) drive down incomes enough to greatly increase the amount of people needing help, then these expenses go up. The same situation happens if you think locking up criminals for various offenses is worth doing and your prisons fill up, requiring you to feed and house more inmates (as has happened in Wisconsin). Since the pot of money is limited in what states can spend money on, and these items keep going up, you can either 1. Cut out some of these priorities, and therefore give less coverage to the sick (as Robin Vos would like to do in the article) or 2. You knock out some other item you usually spend on. In the state's case, this means they'll decide to give less money to previous priorities like the UW System, or they'll cut the money they share to all the local governments in Wisconsin, and tell these groups to come up with their own funding.
So you drop down to local governments, who handle needs like police and fire services, snow plowing, street fixing, and other extravagances. In Wisconsin, localities can only raise revenue in a handful of ways outside of state and federal allocations. Most of this is through property taxes, but they can also institute a sales tax (if the state lets them, which is has not done for the City of Milwaukee), some other user tax like rental cars or hotels (again, if the state will let them) licenses and fees to do certain actions (i.e. bartender licenses, building permits, parking on city streets), tickets from law enforcement, and selling locally-owned assets (cars, land, etc.) What they cannot do is put in a local income tax (the state explicity prohibits this), and they have to balance their books. So because the feds don't want to handle it, and the state doesn't want to handle it, the locals have to handle it. And the locals can't go many routes to handle it, based on the state not allowing them to do much other than raising property taxes and other fees, so that's what they raise to make sure cops are on the street and potholes get fixed and related things.
NOW, here's the fun part. Tea-baggers and corporates complain that taxes and spending are too high in D.C., so they try to limit tax levels and pass the buck to the state. Sykesist tea-baggers blame people in the Legislature for high taxes and make up stats about how the state is some kind of tax hell (they conveniently leave out the state's low sales taxes and license fees when they do), so the legislators are cowed into budget games to avoid raising state income or sales taxes (which despite all the squawking, they've pretty much done for most of us in the real Wisconsin), but they do it by cutting shared revenue and other state help to localities.
So when localities have to figure out how to come up with things the tea-baggers want to see (like cops on the streets or their roads plowed), they raise the one thing they can - property taxes - or they try to sell their land or services. Who does the land or services go to and who are they accountable to? In the Bush era, it was people like Blackwater and Haliburton for the feds, or maybe it's Scott Walker's buddy that runs a custodial service, or maybe it's former Bush Budget guy Mitch Daniels in Indiana, who sells off the state's Social Services (oops, scratch that last one) .
So in a nutshell in Wisconsin, the feds won't tax and pay their share and pass the buck to the state, who won't tax and pay their share and passes it to the locals, who raise property taxes and/or don't pay for what's needed, and the tea-baggers complain that government is dysfunctional and doesn't work. And the argument of "government doesn't work" means that there should be lower taxes and spending, which makes the feds pass the buck to the states who...and the cycle continues.
And the corporates who tell the tea-baggers what to say blame government for their property taxes and state taxes going up and not doing a good job, when it would do a better job, be more fucntional, provide better services and not need local or state taxes to go up if they didn't try to placate the corporates and cut the damn expenses at the higher levels in the first place!
There, now go forth and spread the good word this Christmas season!
Friday, December 11, 2009
UW-Marquette quick thought
I was thinking of a big rant on tax structures and the general idiocy of Climategate (it isn't anything except in the Angry Man Radio/ Writer world, and their yapping will only make those of us in the reality community more pissed off and willing to bring the myriads of facts). But I decided the Viagra addicts' act was starting to eat me up from the inside, and since that's what those losers want, I decided to instead do some Christmas gift wrapping, got groceries, and will try out this Point Winter brew.
I will give a few words on tomorrow's UW-Marquette tussle at the Kohl Center. Without being the kiss of death, I like the chances of UW bouncing back at home. Plus, they gave UW-GB their moment of glory for the next decade earlier this week, going with the Wisconsin Idea of having the Madison campus help all corners of the state. This is quite a bit different than the Wells Street cult of displaced FIBs and Sykesists, now isn't it?
Oh, and with that in mind:
Tom Barrett- UW undergrad, UW law.
Scott Walker - Marquette dropout.
It don't happen in a vacuum folks.
I will give a few words on tomorrow's UW-Marquette tussle at the Kohl Center. Without being the kiss of death, I like the chances of UW bouncing back at home. Plus, they gave UW-GB their moment of glory for the next decade earlier this week, going with the Wisconsin Idea of having the Madison campus help all corners of the state. This is quite a bit different than the Wells Street cult of displaced FIBs and Sykesists, now isn't it?
Oh, and with that in mind:
Tom Barrett- UW undergrad, UW law.
Scott Walker - Marquette dropout.
It don't happen in a vacuum folks.
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