Corporate tax cut in GOP scam only adding debt. And they want Tax Scam 2?

Even Mick Mulvaney and the rest of the Trump acolytes at the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) are now admitting that the deficit would be higher than they projected back in January, and would near $1.1 trillion next year.

And Jim Tankersley of the New York Times focused on a big reason why these tax cuts aren't "apying for themselves" - because corporations are paying much less to Uncle Sam.

The reason is President Trump’s tax cuts. The law introduced a standard corporate rate of 21 percent, down from a high of 35 percent, and allowed companies to immediately deduct many new investments. As companies operate with lower taxes and a greater ability to reduce what they owe, the federal government is receiving far less than it would have before the overhaul….

From January to June this year, according to data from the Treasury Department, corporate tax payments fell by a third from the same period a year ago. The drop nearly reached a 75-year low as a share of the economy, according to federal data.

“If we hadn’t changed our tax system,” said Kimberly A. Clausing, an economics professor at Reed College in Portland, Ore., who studies business taxation, “you would be expecting rising revenues.”

That’s especially true because corporations continue to book hefty profits, with pre-tax totals rebounding in Q1 after a decline at the end of Q4 (likely due to corporate write-downs and other moves to lower their profits for the 2017 tax year, when they were taxed at a higher rate).



We know the extra profits aren’t trickling down into wage growth, as hourly earnings growth is no better it was 6 months ago, with the only difference being an increase in inflation that eats up more of those raises.



On top of the lower corporate tax rates, Tankersley notes that other incentives tucked into the GOP Tax Scam encouraged other moves that cut corporate tax liabilities by favoring capital investments over hiring people and raising their wages.

Other factors could also be holding corporate tax receipts down. Some analysts believe the so-called expensing provisions of the new tax law, which allow companies to write off new investments immediately, may prove more popular than some forecasters anticipated. Companies, for example, could write off investments in software or machinery or new buildings.

If that’s true, “it means the government will lose more revenue than we all originally thought, especially in the short run,” said Kyle Pomerleau, an economist with the Tax Foundation in Washington, which forecast a large increase in economic growth from the tax cuts and the expensing provision. Such a scenario, Mr. Pomerleau said, would mean that growth should be even stronger than expected.

And yet the GOPs in the House of Representatives are planning to put this failing policy on steroids. Not only do they want to make the current tax cuts permanent (they were slated to expire in 2025 so that they “only” cost $1.5 trillion for 10 years), they want to vote on additional write-offs in the next 2 months.

House Republicans plan three pieces of legislation covering permanence, savings and business in hopes of reaping some success in the Senate. Other ideas, including a measure to protect capital gains on business investments from inflation, are also under discussion….

Additionally, the proposal would create “fully flexible” Universal Savings Accounts for families, allow education savings to be spent on apprentice fees and give new parents penalty-free access to retirement accounts for child expenses.

Stan Collender – aka “The Budget Guy” - called out House Ways and Means Chairman Kevin Brady's plan to double down on tax cuts as an unserious measure intended to grab campaign donations versus actually get passed into law.

It has nothing to do with taxes, fiscal policy or economics: Brady is using his new tax cut scheme to solicit campaign contributions from corporations and industries who want something in these bills.

The best way for corporations to get Brady to pay attention will be to contribute to him, the GOP’s campaign arms, other Ways and Means Republicans, the leadership political action committees and the Trump reelection effort, and to do it before the election.

Brady and the rest of the House GOP will be looking for first-time or increased campaign contributions/political tribute from three categories of tax cut supplicants:

The companies, industries and groups that didn’t get anything in the tax cut enacted last December.

The companies, industries and groups that didn’t get all they wanted in the tax cut enacted last December.

The companies, industries and groups that need a change from what they got last December (a so-called “technical correction’) because that bill was drafted improperly.

So there's no economic or pragmatic reason for Tax Scam 2, other than to pose for and kiss up to right-wing oligarchs who are already haven't done much to add to the real economy with all the giveaways in the first Tax Scam.

I find myself thinking of this song a lot these days when discussing the GOP’s regressive tax schemes and the inevitable failures of their cynical politics.

"Dead last for Midwest GDP" isn't something Walker agencies want to mention

You may remember our Wisconsin Department of Revenue tweeting this out in May.

In 4th Quarter 2017, Wisconsin real GDP grew 3.1%, ranking 8th in the country! #WIWorking @WisconsinMC @CROWE_UW pic.twitter.com/n3YOQDrkMn

— Wis Dept of Revenue (@wi_revenue) May 4, 2018

I called that taxpayer-funded campaigning out at the time for its obvious cherry-picking, and how it forgot to mention the state’s underperformance for all of 2017 as well as the first 6 years of the Age of Fitzwalkerstan.

Well yesterday, we got a report from the US Bureau of Economic Analysis that gave the 1st Quarter GDP figures for Wisconsin and all other 49 states. So why didn’t I see that news being plastered on Walker Administration social media?



Oh, that’s why. Dead last for GDP growth in the Midwest for the first 3 months of this year (BEFORE we started losing jobs in Q2), and 40th in the US.

A big culprit in Wisconsin’s subpar showing was a significant loss in agriculture/forestry sector, which subtracted nearly 0.5% from Wisconsin's total by itself. I've got to wonder if it’s related to the increasing number of dairy farms going under at the time, a trend that continued through the 2nd quarter.

Despite the weak 1st Quarter, the last 12 months measured still has GDP looking pretty good for Wisconsin (4.5% for current dollar GDP, around 2.0 % in real GDP). But in the 7 years since Act 10 was rammed through the Legislature in March 2011, the picture continues to show a subpar performance in Wisconsin.



5th out of 7 Midwestern states, and well behind the US rate of growth. I'm guessing Scott Walker's taxpayer-supported campaigners won't be tweeting out that picture either.

Trump trade wars failing economically and in execution

I want to draw your attention to a wide-ranging article from Rick Barrett in yesterday’s Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel that discussed how President Trump’s proposed and imposed tariffs may affect numerous Wisconsin businesses and consumers.

Let me back up and mention that I am far from a believer in low-tariff, unrestricted trade. The greed of corporations have led them to use “free trade” as an excuse to shed American jobs over the last 30 years, and use the threat of outsourcing to lower the wages in the jobs that did stay. This has resulted in real economic problems that exist today.

But Trump’s answer to that real problem in 2018 is to slap tariffs on imported materials that US manufacturers rely on to make their products, instead of putting them on the final products to protect and potentially increase wages and jobs for the industries that are made here.

Targeting the tariffs to final products could give American manufacturing a chance to be more competitive on price without having to sacrifice more wages and jobs to do so. But the only area that the Journal-Sentinel article indicates that it this is potentially being “done right” is through the higher tariffs on imported vehicles.

In Milwaukee, Mike Darrow, president of the Russ Darrow Group of automotive dealerships, says sales of cars and trucks could hit a wall if Trump follows through on a threat to impose a 25 percent tariff on imported vehicles and parts.

It would raise the price of a typical new car sold in the U.S. by $4,400, according to the Center for Automotive Research in Ann Arbor, Mich.

That’s an estimated $2,270 for U.S.-built vehicles, since they have foreign parts, and up to nearly $7,000 for luxury imports.

But of course, if the higher prices cut into demand too much in the US, it can drag down an economy that’s 70% based on consumer spending. Which illustrates the tightrope that Donny Two-Scoops isn’t walking very well as of now.

As the J-S article also notes, another problem with the Trump tariffs is that suppliers are greedily taking advantage of the situation, which also hurts the businesses that are supposed to be protected from foreign competitions. An executive at Sheboygan’s Vollrath Company mentions that the higher prices that are now being demanded by American companies are ironically making them look to overseas suppliers.

“These tariffs are now forcing us to aggressively look at foreign sources and potential acquisitions abroad,” said company Chief Financial Officer Steve Heun.

“We have always purchased our raw metal from U.S. suppliers, not imports. However, once the tariffs went into place, domestic suppliers immediately raised prices,” Heun said.

And you can see where this spirals if you’re trying to have Vollrath keep buying from Americans, because then you have to chase where the foreign suppliers are coming from, and putting new duties on there.

Of course, Wisconsin farm businesses are also being endangered by the fallout from Trump’s trade policies, as countermeasures by overseas trading partners are hitting state farmers especially hard. Yesterday, GOP Rep. Dave Steffen and Dem Rep. Peter Barca sent a letter to Wisconsin’s delegation in Congress asking to “work toward a remedy to this situation before businesses in our communities suffer losses or entire industries are permanently damaged.”

As part of that letter, Barca and Steffen asked Wisconsin’s Legislative Council to give a list of state products that are currently on the list for retaliatory tariffs that are being imposed on US products by Canada, Mexico, China and the EU. Here’s a look at the top items that are on that list. (the Leg Council only included categories of $5 million or above)

Top Wisconsin exports subject to new tariffs
Paper products $231.0 million (Canada)
Meats and sausages $50.7 million (Canada and Mexico)
Various cheeses $47.0 million (Mexico)
Whey and Modified Whey $47.0 million (China)
Kitchen appliances and various fans $45.6 million (Canada, Mexico)
Bread and Pastry $45.6 million (Canada)
Cranberries $42.0 million (Mexico, China and EU)

A whole lot of agriculture along with our paper industry. And both of those industries might be getting taxpayer support to avoid going under in the late 2010s.

This includes the revived possibility of a Kimberly-Clark bailout in Wisconsin to prevent over 600 jobs from being lost in the Fox Valley due to “restructuring”. And it includes our president* and his administration announcing yesterday that they plan to give $12 billion to US farmers who are facing the double-whammy of fewer customers overseas, and plunging prices at home.

[US Secretary of Agriculture Sonny] Perdue and other USDA officials say the aid will be available in three forms; direct payment to producers of soybeans, sorghum, wheat, cotton, dairy and hogs; government purchases of fruit, nuts, legumes, and some meats for distribution to food banks; and development of new export markets.

Officials say they will be using a Depression-era program, the Commodity Credit Corporation, to secure money from the U.S. Treasury and will not need to ask Congress for the funds.

It is interesting to note that ag prices have bounced back a bit after yesterday’s announcement of a farm bailout, but they’re still way below where they were before the Trump Trade Wars began.





Oddly, we were adding a sold number of jobs back in manufacturing before the Trump Trade War was put in place (with growth of just over 20,000 a month since Trump took office). Sure, the wages still suck, but the added factory jobs is arguably the one item of Trump’s “America First” talk that has actually worked out. And now that dimwit is putting it in danger due to the reckless of his trade policy.

It is the mark of a man whose “business sense” has involved throwing Daddy’s money around by trading real estate, as well as working on other grifts. What Trump has little idea about are the steps and process of production, and that’s killing the US in this trade war. It also reveals a spoiled brat who has rarely been said “no” has a hard time comprehending that maybe the US doesn’t have the upper hand here, and that foreign countries can do better-targeted countermeasures that hurt us more than it hurts them.

And sure, the stock market was happy to see Trump and the EU trade rep claim this afternoon that they wouldn't impose further trade measures and would work toward "no-tariff policies." However, you should be skeptical, because as the Guardian put it

....while their remarks represent a breakthrough after weeks of stalemate, they were short of detail and given Trump’s mercurial record, the detente could easily come undone as negotiations begin in earnest.

Experts urged caution. Bart Oosterveld, director of the global business and economics programme at the Atlantic Council thinktank in Washington, said: “The avoidance of a disaster is not a success. What I think we saw is the resumption of some basic dialogue. Individual items like soybeans and LNG [liquefied natural gas] are not massively significant. I don’t think the EU would agree to a major revision of trade terms without steel and aluminium being taken off the table first.”

Exactly. Like most things Trump, this is big talk for a one-day headline, and little (if any) good is likely to come from it in the long run.

And if the bailout of agriculture and other flailing reactions from Trump and other officials are any indication, there will be plenty of extra costs in the Trump Trade War to come, beyond the damage that is already being done.

Schimel shift on "school safety" funding shows it to be a cynical sham

After spending $55 million of a $100 million program intended for safety-related upgrades in school infrastructure, apparently Attorney General Brad Schimel wants to change direction for the last $45 million.

The second round of grant funding, utilizing the remaining $45 million, will advance baseline mental health and physical security improvements made in the first round of grant funding through advanced training for teachers on mental health; the creation of local teams of educators, counselors, and law enforcement to develop School Safety Intervention Teams that will assess threats and identify students in need of support; and additional physical security upgrades. Schools interested in applying for the second round of grant funding must submit a mandatory “intent to apply” to the OSS by August 13, 2018.

Schools applying for the second round of grant funding must agree to send 10 percent of full-time teachers and counselors to DOJ-approved 12-hour Adolescent Mental Health training by August 31, 2020, and schools may use grant funds to pay expenses incurred (tuition, travel, lodging, meals, substitute teacher pay, etc.). Schools applying must also establish a School Safety Intervention Team (SSIT), based on a model set by the U.S. Secret Service, which will engage in behavior monitoring, threat assessments, and intervention. Funding will also be available for more physical security improvements….

Under the second round of grant funding, grant funding will be awarded on a perstudent formula, according to student enrollment as reported to the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction (DPI). No awardee will receive less than $10,000 nor receive more than $2.5 million, in order to ensure all applicants receive sufficient funding to make meaningful physical security improvements. The final award amount will depend on the number and size of schools that apply. Interested schools can find more information on the DOJ Office of School Safety website.

That announcement comes one day after the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction said it would ask for an additional $60 million in the next state budget to improve mental health services in school, and this sudden change for Brad (Politics and Donations Over Anything Else) Schimel doesn’t seem to be a coincidence.

That being said, I have to wonder if Schimel’s shift of $45 million into mental health services keeps with the spirit of this new program. Let’s see what the Wisconsin Legislative Council said about the School Safety grants when it was signed into law in late March.

Act 143 creates an Office of School Safety within the Department of Justice (DOJ), and creates a 1.0 FTE director position appointed by the Attorney General. The Act tasks the Office of School Safety with: (1) creating model practices for school safety, in conjunction with DPI and after consultation with the Wisconsin School Safety Coordinators Association and the Wisconsin Safe and Healthy Schools Training and Technical Assistance Center; (2) compiling school blueprints and geographic information system (GIS) maps, in coordination with schools and the Department of Administration; and (3) offering training to school staff on school safety, which may be provided by either DOJ or by a contracted party.

The school safety training offered by DOJ may include information regarding trauma informed care and how adverse childhood experiences impact a child’s development and increase needs for counseling and support. DOJ may charge a school for the safety training, if the school receives school safety grant funds for the training….

The Act specifies certain eligible expenditures, but does not otherwise limit DOJ authority to determine how grants are awarded or what expenditures are eligible. Eligible expenditures explicitly include: (1) expenditures for compliance with DOJ model practices for school safety; (2) expenditures for DOJ school safety training; (3) expenditures for safety-related upgrades to school buildings, equipment, and facilities; and (4) expenditures necessary to comply with requirements to submit school blueprints to law enforcement and the Office of School Safety.

So I suppose the repurposed $45 million falls into that part I bolded in the 2nd paragraph, but it sure seems sketchy to create a second round of grant applications and change the focus of what those grant dollars would be used for. If you go back to the first grant application, it was supposed to spend all $100 million on “security”.

One of the problems with the original grants for security is that districts were expected to put together their plans and proposals in a matter of a few weeks under criteria that Schimel’s Department of Justice drew up by themselves. This was one of the flaws I and many others identified with the original bill back in March. Why weren't these decisions on school safety being made by DPI, who funds and oversees most other items involving K-12 schools and knows how any changes might affect current services? That was a "tell' to me.

This tweet is another reason that I have strong suspicions that the biggest goal of the program isn’t school safety, but to serve as a thinly-disguised campaign ad for an unpopular AG.

Since June 1, DOJ has awarded 449 schools more than $31.5 million for mental health training in trauma informed care and physical security upgrades. https://t.co/IUZxZThv7w

— WI AG Brad Schimel (@WisDOJ) July 24, 2018

And the fact that Schimel plans to hand out this $45 million in mental health funding to happen in the month before the 2018 elections shows the “school safety” to be an even bigger SHAM that uses taxpayer dollars to promote the campaign of GOP politicans. But again, when you have an incompetent crook in charge, why would we expect any type of strategy or plan with this program other than “get Schimel’s face in the newspaper and on TV?”

Get this bum out of the AG’s office, and get Josh Kaul in to restore integrity. I prefer to have my Wisconsin Department of "Justice" to use tax dollars for reasons that go beyond “make me look good” and “use my position to do the dirty work for my donors.”

Fearing voters, WisGOPs now want to revive bailout of Kimberly-Clark

Well this is an interesting set of dominoes in the Fox Valley. Maybe Kimberly-Clark won’t be shutting their Cold Spring facility near Appleton and laying off over 600 workers after all. This is after the corporation reached an agreement with the United Steelworkers that are employed at the plant last night.

“It’s a new collective bargaining agreement that would provide Kimberly-Clark with concessions that would allow the facility to remain open,” said Dave Breckheimer, president of USW local 2-482.

“But nothing happens unless the state comes through with the incentive package,” Breckheimer said. “That’s the next step towards this becoming a reality. Those tax incentives have to be available.” ….

Breckheimer wouldn’t say which concessions employees made in the new Cold Spring collective bargaining agreement negotiated over months with the company and approved Monday night.

But he did confirm that concessions were not as severe as previously stated.

In a prior story, Cold Spring employee Karmen Jones said K-C “was asking workers to make concessions that would cut their average labor costs by more than $20,000 per person.”

How surprising that workers get less so they might keep working at a multinational who said the main reason behind the planned layoffs because the Trump/GOP Tax Scam gave them enough extra cash so they could afford to "restructure" their company. Ah, 21st Century “capitalism”.


And Kimberly-Clark might be getting another tax break at the state level, as that tentative collective bargaining agreement revives the possibility of a Kimberly-Clark bailout from Wisconsin taxpayers. You may remember this coming up 6 months ago, when K-C initially announced its plans to shut down the plant.

The bailout plan would have given Kimberly-Clark writeoffs that were similar to the package given to Foxconn last year, including 17% cas0h back on all salaries and 15% back on any new equipment or facility renovations.

The State Assembly passed the Kimberly-Clark bailout in February (4 GOPs voted no, 1 Dem voted yes), But it didn’t have enough support to go to the State Senate when that upper chamber allegedly adjourned for the 2017-19 session in March.

Now Senate President Roger Roth (a Republican from the Fox Valley who is one of the most vulnerable GOPs in November) wants to get GOP Leader Scott Fitzgerald to call the senators back into Madison in order to pass the Kimberly-Clark bailout.

Roth said Tuesday that passing it through the Senate won't be easy -- adding that it may not be able to pass with support from GOP senators only.

"We'll need some Democrats to come to the table," Roth said.

Fitzgerald's office could not immediately be reached for comment Tuesday on whether he would reconvene the Senate.

Governor Walker also gave a statement of support of the K-C bailout and of “working with Senate leaders and the company”. Which is ironic since the main reason Walker gave for trying to block special elections to fill vacant seats in the Legislature was as follows.

Under state law, a special election for a vacant seat in the legislature cannot be called at this time until after 4/3. The Legislature will be done for the year by then and nomination papers for the fall elections come out 4/15.

— Governor Walker (@GovWalker) February 27, 2018

Bit now Scotty and Senator Roth are asking Senate Dems, including newly-elected Caleb Frostman, to be part of a group that could jam through “Foxconn, Part 2” for Kimberly-Clark. In the process, the GOPs want to throw out even more money when we already are staring at a $1 billion structural deficit for the next budget.

It’s amazing to see how the prospect of job losses and a Blue Wave at the ballot box in 3 ½ months has turned “free-market” Republicans into believers of corporate welfare and the use of tax dollars to keep and add jobs, isn’t it? It’s almost like they aren’t tough on spending at all, but merely redirect where the tax dollars go - to their donors and to corporations in the hope that they might trickle down a few jobs.

And given how Gov Dropout is making ads that claim he’s “Mr. Education” these days, it’s almost like GOPs know that their prior austerity plans and privatization schemes have failed when it comes to improving the state’s economy, and that they need good ol’ fashioned government spending to stabilize things and make people's situations better before the November elections.

What a bunch of frauds.

Pro-corporate Dems know two things - big money and bad strategy

I read this article over the weekend, and it was very hard to keep my eyeballs from sticking to the top of my sockets.

Pragmatism may be a tougher sell in the Donald Trump era, but with the 2020 presidential race just around the corner, moderate Democrats know they are running out of time to reassert themselves.

The gathering here was just that — an effort to offer an attractive alternative to the rising Sanders-style populist left in the upcoming presidential race. Where progressives see a rare opportunity to capitalize on an energized Democratic base, moderates see a better chance to win over Republicans turned off by Trump.

The fact that a billionaire real estate developer, Winston Fisher, co-hosted the event and addressed attendees twice underscored that this group is not interested in the class warfare vilifying the "millionaires and billionaires" found in Sanders' stump speech.

Gee, why would a billionaire real estate sleazeball not want to discuss why so many are struggling and lack hope in a society that gives a lot of power to the rich and corporate? Apparently a mirror wasn't a good investment for Mr. Fisher.

Look, at this point, if you recognize that Donald Trump and the complicit GOP is bad for this country, but you might not vote Democrat in November because...everyone might get health care if you paid a few more dollars in taxes? That makes you a bigger deplorable than most of the hateful trash that wear MAGA hats, and people like that aren't worth being pandered to.

Here are some of the genius ideas this crew came up with.

Some of the key initiatives are a massive apprenticeship program to train workers, a privatized employer-funded universal pension that would supplement Social Security and an overhaul of unemployment insurance to include skills training. Other proposals included a "small business bill of rights" and the creation of a "BoomerCorps" — like the volunteer AmericaCorps for seniors.

Meanwhile, they say the progressive agenda is out of date. They dismiss, for instance, a federal jobs guarantee as a rehash of the New Deal.

"Our ideas must be bold, but they must also fit the age we are in," Cowan said. "Big isn't enough. If it's bold and old — it’s simply old."

Yes, let's have an economic policy based on the goodness of corporate America and make everyone else adjust their lives and grovel to get the scraps they choose to hand out. That'll do absolutely nothing to meet the needs of single parents making poverty-level wages and having to get by on food stamps. And it'll won't do jack for skilled workers who are having a hard time affording health care and seeing their jobs threatened by the profit-hoarding tactics of outsourcing and automation.


Care to answer why this happened, guys?

Dirty secret- Rich a-hole Donald Trump won votes from many less-fortunate Americans because he ran to Hillary Clinton's left on issues such as trade, valuing manufacturing jobs, and recognizing that Obamacare wasn't the be-all, end-all solution to people's ability to afford health care. A lot of these people were willing to roll the dice with Trump, because they knew the status quo that Hillary Clinton had to offer wasn't going to get them much. And yes, these voters are conservative on cultural issues like guns or religion or racism, but they are closer to Bernie Sanders than a calculated centrist when it comes to jobs and what government should do to help people make ends meet.

Sure, Trump had no clue about how to really fix these economic issues himself, and he and the rest of the GOP have made these situations worse in the last 18 months. And that should give an opening for the Dems to win back a sizable amount of voters that they lost in 2016, as well as gain new voters who were previously politically apathetic and/or indifferent between the two parties, but are now disgusted with both Trumpism and corporatism. Instead, these Third Way types want to tamp down on people's rightful disgust and angry responses because....it takes away the power from their inner circle?

As usual, Charlie Pierce recognized this BS for what it truly is, and wrote about it for Esquire's site today.

Big. Bold. Warmed-over Clintonism with a touch of delicately spiced Kempism, a lovely little time trip back to 1990, and almost perfectly designed political chickenshit at a time of national crisis. And absolutely nothing that will do anything about massive income inequality and the concomitant control that the corporate class has assumed over every institution of government....

I realize that as long as there are wealthy people who are not the Koch Brothers, and as long as there are television green rooms and newspaper editorial boards, this kind of don’t-disturb-the-horses politics always will have a constituency. But, while it may have had a place 20 years ago, it is utterly inadequate to the political circumstances of the day. There are no small-scale solutions to the gigantic structural problems that have grown in our economics and in our politics.

And, if there are answers to these, they won’t be found in yet another paean to the imaginary heartland voters who are just dying to join the BoomerCorps.

Charlie ends his column by going back into the NBC News column from oligarch-land, and points out this absurdity from a Northeastern "Democrat"

Rep. Jim Himes, D-Conn., the chair of the New Democrat Coalition, said members of his side are not "naturally arbiters of emotion and anger." "How we tell our story and put forward our polices in a way that makes people want to mount the barricades is one of the biggest challenges we have," said Himes, a former Goldman Sachs banker who represents Fairfield, Connecticut. He pointed to calls to "Abolish ICE," for instance, which he characterized as emotionally understandable but politically illogical. "It hurts us in areas where we need to win," Himes warned of "Abolish ICE" in the midterms. "You have now made life harder for the 60 or 70 Democrats fighting in districts where we need to win if we ever want to be in the majority."

Yes, because when I look for Democratic solutions to the nation’s rural problems, I look for leadership to a guy from a luxurious Connecticut zip code who used to work at Goldman Sachs. Yes, it’s a big tent, but somebody has to sit in the back. It’s these people’s turn now.

Precisely. These Third Way "problem solvers" don't have a clue about how and why these small-town white people vote. I'll give them a hint- left-right ideology has little to do with it, and top vs. bottom (or perceived top vs bottom) is the bigger separator.

The idiots who hate/fear brown-skinned immigrants aren't going to vote Dem whether they call to abolish ICE or not, and Dems should make clear that their party is not the one those dipshits should look for anyway. Meanwhile, we should be drawing attention to the numerous abuses that ICE is doing as the foot-soldiers for this outlaw Administration, and say "America is not about putting 2-year-olds in cages and making them testify in immigration court."

Speak to VALUES. Say "we're better than this" and speak out against corruption and corporatism. It will ring true, and gain more votes than it loses, especially from the "Independents" that we are told are the key to any election.

There must be something about the Coasts that make these types sound this foolish. Maybe because these ex-GOP suburbs are some of the few places in America where people are comfortable enough that they can afford to balance their interests between some more bucks in their pocketbook or their belief in science and a decent society.

But that's sure not true for much of the rest of us - we're just trying to pay our bills and hang on to what's left of democracy in light of the mess that the GOP is making of our state and our country. And that's why these Coastal Third Way types need to be kicked to the curb (or at least out of the decision-room) for a long time if Dems actually want to get back in power in most parts of America.

We are in a time to grab people in the gut, and validate to them that this shit is unacceptable. And it's not going to be fixed by playing nice with the bad guys and trimming a few things around the edges, while letting the unacceptable shit continue to rot our state and our country away.

Wisconsin birth rate lower, but bigger problem is that it's getting older

There's been some recent attention given in the news about the US's declining birth rate, which is now at 30=year lows, and the effects that might have on the economy and our society. And Wisconsin is not alone in this declining birth rate, which the
Wisconsin Policy Forum looked into in a recent report.

Over the past three decades, Wisconsin’s birth rate fell 22.3%, from 14.8 births per 1,000 residents in 1989 to 11.5 in 2016. (See Figure) The trend does not appear to be abating; Wisconsin’s birth rate has fallen in all but one year since 2007.

Less of these guys around in 2018

Most of the nationwide stories about declining borth rates center around the lower wages and larger debt loads that Millenial-aged parents have to deal with in 2018. Combine that with the lack of family leave in this country, the rising costs of child care (since both parents are working to pay off that debt and don't have the leave time), and the costs to have the baby at the hospital (even with state benefits, I was told it cost over out-of-pocket $2,000 to have that little guy), and it helps explain why fewer people are choosing to have children in the US.

But narrowing it down to Wisconsin, what’s interesting in the Policy Forum’s analysis is that the decline in birth rate has less to do with women not choosing to have kids. Instead, it has more to do with fewer younger women being in Wisconsin compared to other places.

These trends can be attributed in part to Wisconsin’s aging population. The decline in the birth rate over the years can be partially explained by the shrinking share of women between the ages of 15 and 44. While the total population of Wisconsin has continued to increase over the past three decades, the state has fewer women of child-bearing age now (1.08 million) than it did in 1989 (1.12 million). Similarly, because most births occur with mothers between ages 20 and 34, a drop in the share of women in those peak years can also lower the fertility rate…

Compared to other states, Wisconsin’s birth rate is relatively low, ranking 38th of the 50 states and 5.6% below the national average of 12.2 births per 1,000 people. Wisconsin’s fertility rate, by contrast, is only slightly lower (0.7%) than the national average of 62. Among the states, Wisconsin’s fertility rate is near the median, ranking 28th. States with the highest birth and fertility rates are scattered throughout the West, while those with the lowest rates are clustered in New England.

The decline in the state birth rate mirrors a national trend; since 1989, the U.S. and Wisconsin birth rates have fallen by 25.5% and 22.3%, respectively. When it comes to fertility, however, the state has recently diverged from the rest of the country. Although Wisconsin’s fertility rate remains slightly below the national average, the gap has narrowed substantially in recent years. (See Figure) As recently as 2002, the national rate exceeded the Wisconsin rate by 6.3 babies per 1,000 women of child-bearing age. By 2016, however, the gap had narrowed to 0.4%.

But the demographic issues still mean that Wisconsin has a lower birth rate in 2018. And that, combined with an increase of older Wisconsinites of all genders means that the state’s ability to grow its population has been limited.

The WisContext site from Wisconsin Public Radio and UW-Madison took on this topic of Wisconsin demographics in a recent article discussing the state’s low population growth in the 2010s. The article notes that Wisconsin is in the bottom ¼ among US states for the rate of population growth since Scott Walker and the Wisconsin GOP came to power in 2011 (39th), and has an uphill climb when it comes to adding people due to demographics.

Within these national shifts, Wisconsin tends to trail other states in population growth. The state generally has an older population, with a median age in 2016 of 39.3, compared to 37.9 for the U.S. as a whole. At the same time, Wisconsin receives fewer international migrants than other states — Wisconsin is home to 1.8 percent of the nation’s residents, but averages only 0.7 percent of its total immigrants.

Overall, Wisconsin’s population has remained fairly stable in the 2010s. Its total population change has been the twelfth lowest in percentage terms among all 50 states and the District of Columbia between 2011 and 2017.

Annualized Population Change Rates per 1,000 Residents, 4/1/2010 - 7/1/2017,
Infogram

Courtesy WisContext

A primary factor in Wisconsin’s modest growth rate in the decade is that the state has experienced a steady decline in its natural increase since 2007, the first year of the Great Recession. From its peak of 26,640 that year, the state’s natural increase has fallen 44 percent, to 14,810 in 2016. Wisconsin’s natural increase is ranked twenty-second [lowest] among the 50 states and Washington, D.C. in the period between 2010 and 2017.

Wisconsin also ranks in the bottom half of the Midwest for this statistic in the 2010s, only beating the even Rustier Belt states of Michigan and Ohio, and being notably slower than the two blue states that border us.

Annual “Natural Increase” per 1,000 residents, 2010-2017
Minn +5.17
Ill. +4.24
Ind. +3.56
Iowa +3.33
Wis. +3.08
Ohio +2.14
Mich +2.13

Think that strong number for Illinois and Minnesota may have something to do with offering higher wages along with a well-funded education system which encourages young families to live there? Sure, a lot of FIBs have been moving out as they get older, but if the exodus ever stops, you can see where they are poised to regain some of those population losses.

WisContext notes that Wisconsin did improve in 2017 when it came to population growth, adding over 20,000 people in a year for the first time since the Age of Fitzwalkerstan began in 2011. The main reason why was that we didn’t lose as many people to other states, and continuing a 2-year reversal of a trend where increasing number of people were Escaping from Wisconsin through 2015.

Wisconsin's Annual Population Change by Components, July 2017-July 2017
Infogram

Courtesy Wiscontext

Also note that 2017 was the first year in the Age of Fitzwalkerstan that we more international immigrants came to Wisconsin than the net number of Americans that moved out, meaning the state gained people from that trade. With these 2017 figures in mind, WisContext says that Wisconsin may be well-positioned to get back toward the level of population growth that it had in the 2000s, when the state gained more than 320,000 people.

But like a lot of things during this WisGOP Reign of Error, the state has been set so far behind that any “recovery” in economic and population stats still means that we end up trailing most of our neighbors for this decade, and the country as a whole. And only a change at the top will lead to the higher quality of life, smarter investments and better wages that could turn around the state’s declining demographics and still-tepid population growth.