It's a surplus, but it ain't working for most of us

   I'm sure the righties are all pointing their fingers and claiming vindication with the Legislative Fiscal Bureau's release of revenue estimates that add another $575 million in revenue by the end of FY2015, resulting in a projected surplus of $524 million that can now be played with. Well, since revenues are up, it must mean that Walker policies are "working" after all, and that this state's going in the right direction economically, despite the bad jobs stats.

Umm, not exactly. Let's check out HOW we got that revenue upside surprise.

At the time the January estimates were prepared, income tax collections through December, 2012, (after adjusting for timing impacts) were running 4.3% above collections for the same period in the previous year. However, this growth rate was a significant improvement over the preceding months. In November, 2012, year-to-date collections were only 2.8% higher than in the previous year, and in October, they were 1.9% higher. The January estimates assumed that the 4.3% growth rate would not be sustained, because of a relatively large indexing adjustment for tax year 2012 and tax reductions that were taking effect or being phased in in 2012.

To-date, the expected deceleration in collections has not occurred. As of the end of April, year-to-date income tax collections are running 7.0% above last year's amount. April was an especially strong month, with growth of 12.4% over April, 2012. The main area of strength has been quarterly estimated payments of taxes on non-wage income, primarily business and investment earnings. Estimated payments in April, 2013, were 35.9% above last April's amount, and the year-to-date amount is 24.4% higher. Another, much smaller component of income tax collections is withheld taxes on profits distributed to the owners of pass-through entities (partnerships, limited liability companies, and tax-option corporations). These collections were also very strong in April, with monthly growth of 49.1%. Year-to-date growth in pass-through entity withholding is 45.7%. Income tax refunds (net of payments with returns) are almost identical to last year.

And this is also reflected in increases in corporate taxes as well.

Compared to the previous estimates, the revised estimates represent increased corporate income and franchise tax revenues of $55 million in both 2012-13 and 2013-14, and $80 million in 2014-15. The new estimates reflect year-to-date corporate income and franchise tax collections, particularly corporate pass-through entity collections, which are over 40% higher than last year. In addition, corporate profits are forecast to increase over 4% in 2014.

Looks like the profits and stock gains and those types of business and investment revenues are going gangbusters (kind of like the stock market is right now). Looks like we should be booming. So why aren't we doing so? Here's why.

In contrast to the strength in estimated payments and pass-through entity withholding, revenues from withheld taxes on wage income have shown weakness. Since the previous estimates were prepared, withholding taxes have increased by 0.9% compared to the same four-month period last year. The year-to-date rate of growth in withholding collections has fallen from 3.8% at the end of December to 2.5% at the end of April. Withholding taxes are the largest component of individual income tax collections, and will likely account for more than 90% of the income tax revenues that will be collected over the remainder of 2012-13.

OOOPS! Wages are basically flat for the start of 2013 vs. 2012 in Wisconsin, and the rate of wage growth is slowing down. MAJOR problem. In addition, sales taxes weren't revised at all, and are projected to barely grow above 2% during fiscal 2013. And that number is NOT adjusted for inflation, meaning total sales also are basically flat over the last 12 months. Not that I needed any reminding, but this shows NONE OF THESE PROFITS HAVE TRICKLED DOWN, and real Wisconsinites are falling rurther and further behind, even as the aggregate numbers on the surface look good.

And those revenue numbers don't take into account the needed increases in spending for the last two months for Logisticare, or the increased monthly costs that'll go to new provider MTM (who will start on August 1, as was announced this week). Also, it doesn't account for the tens of millions of dollars that will be needed to make up funding for the sequester cuts, since it seems unlikely that it will be repealed. And oh yeah, there's still a sizable deficit in the Transportation Fund lurking, and still needs to be fixed.

So while the GOPs may brag on the numbers, the reality on the ground is that those numbers further illustrate the increase in inequality and wage stagnation that have been a hallmark of Fitzwalkerstani policy. And that's a trend that isn't going to change any time soon.

WEDC budget bunko

Lot of events to look at for tomorrow's Joint Finance meeting, with the main headline being the discussion of the WEDC budget, despite the protestations of Democrats who want the hearing delayed till after tomorrow's Audit Committee meeting comes up with discussions and recommendations of actions to fix WEDC's many problems. And I'd say there's a point to be made about that, because having a number of hearings at once is a typical way to sweep things under the rug (which there is no doubt WisGOP wants to do with the dog known as WEDC).

So let's dive into what Governor Walker had planned for WEDC, and see how this thing is funded.

First off, WEDC gets a sizable amount of cash from both general taxpayers and businesses. The plan is to use $73.6 million of GPR (General Purpose Revenue) for the next two years, an average of $36.8 million, which is $4 million a year more than the $32.8 million a year they're getting right now. And the reason is because the Walker Administration wants to pump up WEDC's PR abilities.

Governor: Provide $3,750,000 GPR in 2013-14 and $7,150,000 GPR in 2014-15 primarily for increased marketing activities....

WEDC marketing activities include starting the "In Wisconsin" branding campaign, paid media and Internet advertising, website development, videos, and related materials that promote the benefits of starting, expanding, or locating a business in Wisconsin. The WEDC marketing budget is $2 million in 2012-13.

So they're going to throw an extra $11 million in the next 2 years onto WEDC's marketing, because apparently THAT'S what this state needs to break out of its "44th in the nation" job status. Of course, it might be a bit hard to do some of these outreach activities when one of its top spokesmen just had to quit after it was discovered he owed tens of thousands of dollars in back taxes and got nearly $8,000 in improper unemployment benefits. I got a better idea, guys. Maybe instead of throwing $11 million more into marketing, try hiring better people. It won't change the "corrupt unaccountability" part of the WEDC fail, but at least you won't have law-breaking fuckups working there.

The other way WEDC gets funding is through what used to be the state's Recycling Fund (because these guys aren't so keen on that hippie recycling things these days) and the LFB describes this fee on businesses. It's slated to collect around $27 million a year for each of the next two years, and funds many WEDC tax credits and loan programs.

The primary source of SEG funding is the economic development surcharge, which was formerly the recycling surcharge that was deposited in the recycling fund. Under provisions of Act 32, the recycling fund was renamed the economic development fund, and the recycling surcharge was renamed the economic development surcharge, and deposited in the fund...As noted, $23.2 million annually is appropriated. In addition, the Department of Revenue (DOR) is appropriated $210,800 SEG annually, and is provided 1.0 SEG position to administer the surcharge.

The economic development surcharge is imposed on farm and nonfarm businesses that have more than $4 million in "gross receipts from all activities" The surcharge equals 3% of gross tax liability for corporations (including insurance companies and limited liability companies [LLCs] taxed as corporations), or 0.2% of net business income for sole proprietorships, partnerships, LLCs taxed as partnerships, and tax-option (S) corporations...In general "gross receipts from all activities" means gross receipts, gross sales, gross dividends, gross interest income, gross rents, gross royalties, the gross sales price from the disposition of capital assets and business assets, gross receipts passed through from other entities, and all other receipts that are included in gross income for Wisconsin income/ franchise tax purposes.

So at least some of the WEDC money handed out to corporations is money they originally paid to the state in the form of this Economic Development Surcharge (yes, that is some serious gallows humor).

So Walker's budget plans to spend another $6 million of this Economic Development Fund revenue over the next two years, with most of it targeted on start-up businesses and "training, mentoring, and financial assistance to entrepreneurs" in certain fields. Not a bad idea on its face, God knows Wisconsin does horribly on developing new businesses and ideas (which famously led a WEDC official to say "We suck, we're bad" after Wisconsin was listed as 47th in the U.S. for entrepreneurship), so it's not a bad idea to encourage new businesses over the established oligarchs who have been failing to get the job done in the Age of Fitzwalkerstan.

Of course, the fact that the program's good doesn't mean that the money will be handed out fairly or tracked well. This type of failure is why WEDC's "Federal money" line goes from $20 million this year to $0 in Walker's 2013-15 budget. As LFB explains

Delete $20,000,000 FED annually to reflect establishing administrative responsibility for the federal small cities community development block grant (CDBG) with the Department of Administration (DOA).

Prior to 2011 Wisconsin Act 32 [the state budget] , the Department of Commerce was the state's designated recipient of federal funding for the small cities Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) program. Under Act 32, Commerce was eliminated, and expenditure authority for CDBG funds was provided to the Corporation. However, the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) designated the Department of Administration (DOA) as the state's designated recipient of CDBG funds with authority to administer the program. This provision zeroes-out the WEDC continuing expenditure authority estimate for federal funds to reflect establishment of program authority for the CDBG program with DOA.

If this sounds familiar, it should, because WEDC's sketchiness with CDBG money was the subject of a huge expose by Scott Wittkopf last year. The CDBG funds had to be pulled from WEDC after the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development had to remind Walker's DOA that WEDC was never officially allowed to be the group that could handle this federal money, and therefore

WEDC had no legal authority to award or administer CDBG funds.

As of April 12, 2012 WEDC must immediately cease the award and administration of all CDBG funds.

Remember that? How the Walker boys just allowed WEDC (with little to no oversight from anyone, remember) hand out CDBG funds as it damn well pleased? Oh, but I'm sure Reed Hall and the folks at WEDC will tell us it's all different now, and that they can be trusted with $73 million in general tax revenue for the next 2 years, and another $55 million from what used to be the Recycling Fund, and that there are now procedures in place that'll allow for funds to be tracked and criteria developed to fairly distribute funds.

Why don't I believe this? Oh, that's right, because there's nearly a 2 year track record of WEDC corruption and failure, and the LAB's humiliation of WEDC gave little indication that any of this had been cleaned up over the several months they spent studying WEDC's method of doing business. I got a better idea for the $73 million in GPR that's slated for WEDC- send it to K-12 schools to give them some needed help, or to local communities that are dealing with shared revenue freezes.

Given that school and local communities have fought through cuts from the state while WEDC has wasted tens of millions of dollars and made the state look like a corrupt Banana Republic, it's the least that can be done to level the field in the Age of Fitzwalkerstan. And unlike WEDC, helping local communities and schools might actually improve service, make it easier for something to be created in Wisconsin other than corporate welfare and (gasp!), help the chances for job creation.

WEDC + Skyward + Infinite Campus = We all lose

Late last week, we had the next step in the continuing fiasco involving Wisconsin's state K-12 school information systems. It's been a brutal sequence of screw-ups, corruption from the failing WEDC, a bad model of service, and potentially the loss of hundreds of Wisconsin jobs.


1. The state originally set up its plans for the bid for the state system over a year ago, and seemed to have been planning for a relatively smooth bid process. But then WEDC interceded, and promised tax credits to Skyward before the bid even closed. Then-WEDC CEO Paul Jadin said he couldn't understand how this type of promise could be considered uncouth, especially since WEDC officials felt state government rules didn't apply to them.

Wisconsin Economic Development Corp. leader Paul Jadin told The Associated Press his legal team advised him that the offer to Skyward Inc. was allowed because the year-old agency isn’t bound by procurement laws that forbid bid-rigging.

“It was indicated that we could make a contingency offer,” Jadin said in his first public remarks on the controversy since it came to a head earlier this month. “We’re satisfied that we could make the offer.”

We still don't know who contacted who first, but we definitely do know that WEDC found this type of sketchiness not to be a problem when they tried to steer the original bid to Skyward. You know who did have a problem with it? the then-CEO of Minnesota-based Infinite Campus, Eric Creighton. Creighton sent a letter complaining about the procedure to the Walker DOA, while not blaming Walker himself (despite Walker being the Chariman of the Board of the same organization Creighton accused of the sketchiness).

2. Once this potential bid-rigging hit the public (naturally, right after the recall elections on June 5), Gov. Walker's office all of a sudden saw a potential conflict, and DOA pulled the bid on June 18, saying the negotiations got in the way of having a fair and competitive bid. So the state decided to re-bid the school informations system contract, and instead of allowing the possibility of multiple bidders getting pieces of the contract the state decided to use the "one-provider-for-the-entire-state" model that has been a total failure with Logisticare for Non-Emergency Medical Transport. But then again, having only one provider means there's only one set of potential donators to look after, so it might be easier to do business from that point of view.

3. So the bid was redone, and this time Infinite Campus wins the estimated $15 million contract, after which Skyward complained that the contract was incorrectly awarded, and charged that the DOA changed scoring criteria and overall scores to favor Infinite Campus over Skyward. As a follow-up, Fox 6 in Milwaukee ran a thorough report on the Student Info Systems bid, and I find the following passage quite intriguing.

Through open records requests, FOX6 News discovered the RFP was initially scored in Skyward’s favor, but (and it is unclear why), the same proposals were rejudged and the scored were essentially flipped.

“Skyward actually won the scoring by about 300 or 400 points. After the rescore happened, Skyward lost by over 1,400 points, so there was a swing of 1,700-1,800 points on a scale of 10,000 where the vendors actually changed positions,” Weber said.

“Other things we noticed in the proposal is 73 times the selected vendor was scored higher than the maximum points allowed — 73 times. 139 times Skyward was not given the minimum amount of points they deserved based on the rubrics associated to their evaluation process,” [Skyward founder Jim] King said.

Skyward officials also mention that the loss of this bid also means they will lose the business from the 200+ school systems they serve, which could result in a major loss to the Stevens Point area.

According to an economic report commissioned by the council, the Wood, Portage and Marathon County region could lose about $20 million in earnings if the company leaves the state.

Skyward leaders said they're happy in Stevens Point and want to expand, but after losing out on a statewide education contract, they said there's no point staying.

"It's pretty significant because I think it was a grand total of 825 jobs is what we estimated," said Skyward CEO Cliff King.

The Portage County Business Council commissioned the report two years ago when Skyward started the bidding process.

Needless to say, I don't think Infinite Campus is adding 825 jobs back, and certainly not all in Stevens Point. Ruh roh.

4. And we had another development last week, when the DPI denied Skyward's appeal on the bid last week, saying the bid was properly scored. Skyward founder Jim King held a news conference soon after, appearing with Point-area legislators, and is now requesting an intervention from DOA to stop the contract, or at least to modify it, and is also asking for the state to ditch the "one-size-fits-all" model for service.

The Fox 6 report also quotes King and ISCorp president and CEO Mike Weber (who does a lot of work with Skyward) as claiming the one-size-fits-all contract was a setup from the beginning, with the idea of getting the contract to Infinite Campus.

"Certainly, Kurt Kiefer had an agenda. He had a preferred vendor. When he didn’t get his result the first time around, they rescored,” Weber said.

Before Kiefer became the Assistant State Superintendent, he was the superintendent of the Madison School District, where he had done business with Infinite Campus — even appearing on the company’s website, endorsing the product.

“In my opinion, Kurt Kiefer was still promoting the Infinite Campus product while he was Assistant Superintendent to the state of Wisconsin and while he was writing, constructing and editing his white papers for why Wisconsin should go to a single vendor. Again, the DPI basically chose because they controlled the RFP process,” Weber said.

Evers is Kiefer’s boss, and Evers defends Kiefer’s actions.

“That was when he worked for the Madison School District. When he worked for us he wasn’t advocating for any of it, and he wasn’t part of the decision-making with the Dept. of Administration, so no. I don’t think he influenced it at all,” Evers said.

Kiefer argued passionately for the single vendor system before the Joint Finance Committee.

“It definitely to me looks like collusion. Certainly the person who has written all the white papers being Kurt Kiefer who is the Assistant Superintendent of the Department of Instruction — he’s the one who wrote all the facts of why it should go single vendor,” Weber said.

Yeah, I don't think we've heard the end of this one yet. It's got all the ingredients of Fitzwalkerstani failure. WEDC acting improperly and believing it was above the law. Seemingly arbitrary decisions by state officials, complete with a "revolving-door" scenario where one former business partner encourages the state to install a system that ends up giving business to a favored client (and you thought this only happened with Michael, Best and Friedrich?). And Wisconsin-based companies getting the short end of the stick, resulting in more job losses for the state.

By the way, I don't necessarily mind if Infinite Campus would have won this bid on a fair basis- as taxpayers, we should demand the best quality and cost-effectiveness there is. But the whole way this bid was approached, the way the contract was designed to be a one-vendor-fits-all process, and the more you peel back the onion of this bid and look at how the state and WEDC has dealt with both Skyward and Infinite Campus, the sketchier this deal appears.

Beer- where REAL job-creators exist

Just in time for Madison Craft beer week, I was given a heads-up on this interesting story, which illustrates the number of different breweries that have been in existence in America since 1890. Check out the trajectory of this chart.



Look at how the chart takes off, especially in the last 15 years, to the point that we now have more breweries in the U.S. than we had 125 years ago, when the costs and ability to transport was a lot less nationalized. You want to talk about entrepreneurship, innovation and job-creation, THIS is where it's being done.

And it looks like I'll be getting a chance to sample the creations of many of these true entrepreneurs this Summer, as for the 7 straight year, I'm going to be IN for the Great Taste of the Midwest in Madison in August.



Good times for all, and with the overdue outbreak of SPring for the first part of this week, even better (got the burnt neck from Capital Brewery to prove it!)

Maybe Wisconsin's natural beauty matters

I'm not in the mood to go in-depth on WEDC failures or job reports today, so instead I'll forward you to another interesting report I saw released today.

It was the Wisconsin Department of Tourism's annual report on the economic impact of tourism on Wisconsin's economy in 2012.

And here are a few interesting takeaways from this very thorough report. We'll start with the places in Wisconsin that draw the most tourism dollars, and the places that saw the biggest jumps in tourism dollars for 2012.

Tourism-related spending, Wisconsin Counties ($16.8 billion total)
Milwaukee Co. $2.898 billion
Dane County $1.694 billion
Waukesha Co. $1.160 billion
Sauk County $1.090 billion (Dells)
Brown County $907 million (Go Pack Go!)
Walworth Co. $605 million

Biggest increases in tourism-related spending, 2012
Rusk County 14.0%
Iron County 13.1%
Walworth Co. 10.4%
Pierce County 10.1%
Vilas County 9.9%
Washburn Co. 8.6%
St. Croix Co. 8.4%

Interesting cross-section, isn't it? The big cities of Madison and Milwaukee draw the most tourism dollars, along with the Dells area, but the places that had the biggest increases were either way up North (Iron and Vilas County), or places that draw a lot of their tourism from Chicago and the Twin Cities. Rusk County's numbers are skewed a bit by being low (they only had $35.5 million in tourism-related spending), but even the folks in Ladysmith benefit from being relatively close to Minnesota and the great scenery that is Wisconsin north of Highway 10.

What these numbers tell me is that Wisconsin has a clear advantage with its natural beauty, and it also draws plenty of people and dollars in from out of town for its largest cities.

It's also interesting to see in what areas people spend their tourism dollars in Wisconsin

Sources of tourism spending, Wisconsin 2012
Lodging $2.7 billion (26%)
Food + Beverage $2.6 billion (25%)
Retail $2.2 billion (21%)
Recreation $1.3 billion (13%)
Non-air transport. $1.2 billion (11%)
Air transport. $0.4 billion (4%)

In particular, 92% of the state's lodging industry is based on tourism, as is 35% of the state's recreation dollars, and 22% of the state's dollars for food and beverages. That's a whole lotta jobs dependent on tourism in Wisconsin. So with that in mind, here's my question.

Why would our state try to tear down one of our best economic advantages by putting in an open-pit mine in Iron County that would tear up the great landscape and open spaces that attract many people from out of town? Likewise, why would you mess up the services and vibrancy of the state's two biggest cities with punitive shared revenue limitations and the defunding of public schools. In addition, why would you restrict these communities in Milwaukee and Madison from throwing higher sales taxes onto the FIBs and others that come in from out of town, and instead force these places to dump off all of the extra needs and services that result from the extra tourism onto the locals?

Interesting question, isn't it? Proves yet again that the WisGOPs in power really don't understand what makes Wisconsin unique, what separates its economy from that of non-scenic Confederate states, and why it's a great place to live in. And as a result, these people are putting in policies that make Wisconsin just another state in flyover country, and a mediocre place to live in. Which is yet another reason these guys have to go.

Pierce draws the WEDC-ALEC lines

Charlie Pierce keeps cementing his status as a leading "guy who gets it," particularly about things here in Wisconsin. He hits on the WEDC story and connects it to Walker's overall failure on jobs here.

As you know, Walker's great promise in both [governor] elections was that he would turn the state around and make it a friendlier place to despoil the wildernes...er...do business. He's certainly done any plutocrat could have asked on that score; I'm surprised they aren't digging for iron ore under the dome of the state capitol by now. The problem — and anyone who's thinking about him as a presidential candidate in 2016, as I certainly am, should recognize it — is that Scott Walker is really rather bad at this.

Those are the numbers provided by the U.S. Chamber Of Commerce, which is basically a trade organization for oligarchs. And they show that Walker has managed to place Wisconsin dead freaking last in short-term job growth and 44th out of 50 states in its overall ranking. It is very hard to get nominated for president as a Republican if the U.S. Chamber is throwing tomatoes at your resume just for laughs. (hilariously, this was released just days after Walker kissed up to the Chamber at an event in D.C. on Monday) Luckily, though, Walker established a special agency to monitor job growth in the state, so he's right on top of this problem.

Except, well, no. They're pretty much screwing up, but they're having a grand old time doing it.

"Auditors also said employees of the Wisconsin Economic Development Corp., a quasi-private entity, made a number of questionable and unexplained purchases, including season tickets to UW-Madison football games and iTunes gift cards, and contracted for services without conducting open and competitive selection processes."

Pierce goes on to end his blog by reiterating that privatization giveaways like WEDC aren't something unique to Wisconsin, but are instead a nationally-orchestrated campaign.

I'm telling you, don't sleep on this place. Wisconsin is the lab rat for what they want to do everywhere. That they are also screw-ups is comforting, but it's not a real defense.

As I've mentioned before, it's no coincidence that WEDC was a carbon copy of Mitch Daniels' IEDC in Indiana, and that fellow Koch-head John Kasich's "Jobs Ohio" was a copy of both, including the same claims of immunity from audits and disclosure of funds. What is going on here is a national agenda that comes from right-wing stink tanks, and has nothing to do with helping these individual states create jobs or improve the quality of life for the vast majority of the state's residents.

LAB lambastes WEDC

I'll add more to this at a later point (when it's not the most beautiful day of the year so far), but I can't help but laugh my ass off at the audit the Legislative Audit Bureau released today on WEDC. We already knew these people were unaccountable and clueless, but we didn't know just how bad it was. Let me just give you a taste of what's in the first few pages of the report.

WEDC did not have sufficient policies to administer its grant, loan, and tax credit programs effectively, including some statutorily required policies. It had no policies for determining how to handle delinquent loan amounts. In other instances, WEDC did not consistently follow statutes or its existing policies when making awards. We reviewed files for 64 awards that WEDC made in FY 2011-12 and found that WEDC made some awards to ineligible recipients, for ineligible projects, and for amounts that exceeded limits specified in its policies.

WEDC lacked invoices or other contractually required documentation showing that authorized costs were incurred for 7 of 29 grant and loan awards that we reviewed. In addition, four contracts executed through the Jobs Tax Credit program allocated four businesses a total of $906,000 in tax credits for job creation and employee training that had occurred before the contracts were executed.
   
Statutes require WEDC’s governing board to stipulate contractually that recipients of grants and loans of $100,000 or more must provide a verified financial statement, signed by an independent certified public accountant and by the recipient’s principal officer, describing how the funds were spent. Our review included 14 grant and loan contracts of at least $100,000 for which the recipients had spent all awarded funds as of December 2012. Information provided by WEDC indicated that 12 recipients had not submitted the statutorily required verified financial statements...

Statutes require WEDC’s governing board to establish goals and expected results for each of its programs, monitor the contractually specified performance of recipients of financial awards, and report publicly on program results. Expected results were not established for 10 of WEDC’s 30 programs in FY 2011-12. Information provided by WEDC indicates that from July 2011 through December 2012, recipients of 59 awards that we reviewed submitted 45.0 percent of 40 contractually required reports on their progress toward meeting their contractual terms. Statutes require the governing board to verify the performance information reported by a sample of grant and loan recipients. From July 2011 through December 2012, WEDC conducted no such verification efforts.

It looks like the Walker boys passed WEDC into law in 2011 without any plan for executing the merger, any policies for oversight of these tax credits and taxpayer funds, and basically with no orders other than "give the businesses whatever they want, don't ask questions and don't follow up."

Who could have possibly seen THIS coming, eh? Oh wait, this guy did last summer. Given that WEDC was a paint-by-numbers copy of Mitch Daniels' IEDC, all you had to do was to see how that organization was wracked with cronyism, corruption, and underperformance in jobs to see what would happen in Dairyland with WEDC.

And what it Mitch Daniels doing today? Oh, he's now running Purdue University and will be receiving a $250,000 prize from the Bradley Foundation for his "economic reforms" in Indiana (reforms which left the Hoosier state with the lowest per-capita income in the Midwest).

None of this should be a surprise, and it shows just how fake the outrage the GOPs have with their complaints about the "unaccountable" UW System. WEDC is literally losing track of money with no measures in place to stop it, and the GOP is noticeably silent about the whole issue. Let's see if they stay silent when WEDC comes before the Joint Audit Committee next week, and its budget goes before the Joint Finance Committee later this month.

Somehow, this song is quite fitting today, and about the whole Age of Fitzwalkerstan for that matter.