Unemployment claims stay high, and offer strong proof many Americans got cut off

January has been a bad month when it comes to Americans falling out of work. Today’s unemployment claims report followed that trend, with the number of new claims well above the highest levels of the Great Recession of 2007-2009.

In the week ending January 16, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 900,000, a decrease of 26,000 from the previous week's revised level. The previous week's level was revised down by 39,000 from 965,000 to 926,000. The 4-week moving average was 848,000, an increase of 23,500 from the previous week's revised average. The previous week's average was revised down by 9,750 from 834,250 to 824,500.

Bad enough that 900,000 people filed new unemployment claims last week, but the gig-economy-based PUA program also has had a rising number of applicants in each of the last 2 weeks, bouncing back above 400,000 after a quick driop around the start of the year.

The reason for that fall and rise seems to be related to the same reason that as many as 3 million Americans got cut off from unemployment benefits over the new year - delays by Congress and the Trump Administration in getting the stimulus bill signed.

More than 1.7 million people dropped off Pandemic Unemployment Assistance, a program paying benefits to self-employed, gig, part-time and other workers, between Dec. 26 and Jan. 2, according to the Labor Department.

Roughly 1.1 million stopped receiving Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation, which offered extra aid to those who ran out of their standard allotment of state benefits.

Other programs barely picked up the slack. States offer Extended Benefits during times of high unemployment, for example. Only 83,000 people rolled into that program over the same time period. Those benefits were available in just 20 states as of Jan. 2.

And Wisconsin is not one of those states that have Extended Benefits (EB), which made the lapsing of PEUC in our state and other places all the more alarming.

As I have pointed out in the past, many Americans had already reached the time limit under PEUC before the end of the year. And while PEUC got extended for 11 more weeks in that stimulus bill, a sizable number of people still weren’t getting those benefits, or PUA benefits as 2021 began.

The drop of 3 million off unemployment rolls doesn’t include Americans who had exhausted their entitlement to aid before the official cliff. More than 2 million had run out of benefits through the PEUC program by the end of November, for example.

Many of these workers are now eligible for additional aid from the $900 billion relief law, including back pay for any missed weeks. However, some states haven’t begun issuing that assistance yet, potentially stressing Americans struggling to pay bills now.

At least as of 10 days ago, Wisconsin is also among these states where new PUA and PEUC claims haven’t restarted, but Wisconsinites did finally start getting the $300 add-on for claims that was part of that stimulus bill last week.

We'll see if the continuing PUA claims and extended unemployment claims also rise over the next couple of weeks due to re-enrollments in those programs. But December's delays in passing the short-term stimulus had a significant effect on the number of Americans getting aid as 2021 began, and the increased new claims for the first 3 weeks of January inidcates puts even more stress on an economy that is already teetering.

So who's getting the shot? More Sconnies can, but the shots need to be there

As of tomorrow, the State of Wisconsin will likely allow a lot more state residents to get their COVID shots.

A subcommittee for the State Disaster Medical Advisory Committee last week had proposed adding 1.1 million people to the next wave of vaccines, called 1b, including those over 70, inmates, corrections staff, inmates and those in other congregate living facilities, people living in shelters, teachers and daycare workers, police and firefighters and mink farmers.

On Tuesday the subcommittee lowered the age limit to 65, for a total of 700,000 seniors, the demographic that has overwhelmingly seen the greatest number of deaths. And on Wednesday the subcommittee added 40,000 to 50,000 disabled adults and senior care beneficiaries, and 138,000 essential workers, including 911 operators, utility employees, public transit workers and food chain employees, which include grocery store workers.

These groups of people will be added to nursing home residents, the staff at the nursing homes, and frontline health care workers. And those people in group 1a are dealing with their own holdups.

Recriminations don't get jabs into arms. Health officials slam Walgreens and CVS for 'fiasco' vaccine rollout to nursing homes. #vaccine https://t.co/klffOBGcxx

— Irving Stackpole (@istackpole) January 20, 2021

And the problems with the CVS/Walgreens program isn't the only reason that Wisconsinites will still be waiting a while to get vaccinated, even with more people being able to get the shot. That's because there are significant supply constraints on how many doses of the vaccine will be available in Wisconsin.

The expansion of those eligible to receive vaccines doesn’t mean shots will be available for those groups anytime soon because the state is expecting only about 70,000 new doses of vaccine per week.

But officials say that as the vaccinations of medical workers and nursing home residents winds down, the expanded pool of vaccine recipients will allow flexibility to the state’s approximately 1,200 vaccinators to use available doses.

Eventually, health officials say the number of doses will ramp up, but two to three times the current allotment would be needed to open the state to mass vaccination, deputy DHS Secretary Julie Willems Van Dijk said Tuesday.

And reports indicate we'll have to wait until May or June before that happens. Which means that middle-aged, normal health guys like me are several months away from getting our shots, barring some huge ramp up in production and improved distribution.

However, it looks like the WisGOP Legislature has a plan to get people like me vaccinated sooner than that. At Warp Speed, if you will.

Everyone would be eligible for the COVID-19 vaccine by mid-March regardless of how much vaccine is available, under a bill heard by the Assembly Health Committee on Wednesday.

The state is taking a “lackadaisical” approach to vaccinating people, bill sponsor and committee chairman Rep. Joe Sanfelippo said at a hearing on the measure Wednesday. The bill would speed the vaccine rollout and another proposal would expand those who can deliver the shots.

“We want to safely administer as many vaccines to as many people as quickly as possible," Sanfelippo said.

This is where I tell you that Joe Sanfelippo has a Scott Walker level of education ("attended", but did not graduate from, Marquette), and his expertise in medicine comes from.... owning a landswcaping company and a Christmas tree farm.

Medical logistics, that's my game!

Needless to say, the people who actually know something about medicine and vaccinations said that this wouldn't work out.

The Wisconsin Public Health Association and the Wisconsin Association of Local Health Departments and Boards issued identical written comments raising concerns about the supply of vaccine coming to the state.

“We appreciate the bill’s intent to make sure the vaccine is utilized as quickly as possible,” the groups said. “However, we believe the source of the issue is a lack of vaccine supply. Once supply is sufficient, the challenge will be enough workforce to administer.”

At least we now have a president who will try to get things out quickly and efficiently, and utilize the power of the Federal Government to give sufficient dosages for everywhere, unlike the last guy.

But having dumb state legislators trying to put in place idiotic rules and mandates in order to have AM radio talking points is clearly going to be a problem in getting this done well or quickly in Wisconsin. It's bad enough that months of bad GOP (non) leadership in DC is making vaccination go slower and be more confusing than it should be. Having these arrogant, gerrymandered clowns trying to play doctor and dealer is a real problem that Evers will need to overcome.

WisGOP "solutions" for unemployment issues? More buck-passing and foolishness

After months of concern about Wisconsinites not getting unemployment benefits, the Wisconsin State Legislature was given another chance to do something about it today. That was the date Governor Tony Evers gave to start a special session of the Legislature to take up a bill that would spend $5.3 million to upgrade outdated infrastructure at the Department of Workforce Development.

You can guess what "action" the Legislature took on that bill.

Republicans gavel in and then quickly adjourn special session on unemploymenthttps://t.co/qwB2VV10GX

— Urban Milwaukee (@UrbanMilwaukee) January 19, 2021

The line from Republicans that run the gerrymandered Legislature is that Governor Evers should be acting on his own to upgrade infrastructure at DWD.

According to a Legislative Fiscal Bureau memo, the Evers administration has numerous current appropriations that could potentially be used for IT upgrades.
· Finance a system through the state master lease program (which is how IT upgrades are typically financed)
· Expedite the procurement of a new system and any contractors needed to successfully implement a new system
· Utilize past or future federal funds made available to the administration
· Existing appropriations which the governor has the authority to prioritize
· Request expenditure authority through the Joint Committee on Finance review process.

The GOPs also included a memo from the Legislative Fiscal Bureau as evidence of this claim. But naturally, they’re not giving the full story on this.

First, let’s go over what the LFB says about the Master Lease Program, which is what often funds large-scale tech/equipment purchases by state government.

The master lease program is administered through DOA and is available for all state agencies, and any association, society, or other body of the state entitled to expend appropriated funds, including the Legislature and Courts. Under the master lease program, state agencies submit requests to DOA for approval. The Department's review includes a determination as to whether lease financing is the best alternative for acquiring the equipment and the state agency has the resources to make the required lease payments. An agency's master lease payments are not included in the state budget as a separate line item, but rather are included with other expenditures in one or more of an agency's existing appropriations.

From July, 2014, through December, 2019, $157.9 million of master lease funding was approved by DOA, of which 90% ($142.1 million) was related to 28 information technology projects. During the same time period, state agencies made $154.4 million in master lease payments, including repayment of principal, interest, and administrative fees. As of December, 2019, $88.6 million in certificates of participation was outstanding.

It should be noted that DWD assumes a UI benefit system upgrade project could cost between $48 million and $70 million. It is also thought the development of a new UI benefits system would require both a substantial period of planning prior to executing a purchase, as well as funding to complete such processes. Once a purchase agreement is in effect, it is not immediately clear how long a master lease term would last for such a purchase and what DWD's annual cost would be.

Basically, this would require DWD to go into debt in order to buy the upgraded technology, and then pay it back over the coming years. Sure, Evers could go ahead and do it, but you know WisGOP would then start bitching about the extra costs in future years.

You can't expect us to actually do stuff, can you?

Naturally the WisGOPs say NOTHING in their press release about being willing to set aside funds to pay those debt costs in future budgets. So what happens if the Legislature takes those costs out of the staffing costs for DWD in future years, or from other agencies? After all, these guys always say the Legislature is an equal partner in the budget.

As for the current DWD fund availabilities, there is about $14.45 million in an account for “program integrity”. But that is also money that goes into researching whether applicants are committing fraud, as the LFB describes.

Currently, this fund is used for fraud investigation, worker classification enforcement and outreach, identity verification and crossmatching, and investigation and prosecution of criminal UI fraud.

Not surprisingly, as the number of unemployment applicants skyrocketed in Spring 2020, the state spent more than 7 times in the last fiscal year to verify claims than it did the year before.

Program integrity fund expenditures, Wisconsin DWD
2018-19 $663,472
2019-20 $4,774,673

And the amount of money coming into the fund is likely to remain the same under current law, because the funds come from a 0.01% unemployment tax on employers, and penalties from people convicted of committing fraud. Given that we are likely to now have a full fiscal year of elevated unemployment claims, that $14.45 million in the Program Integrity account is likely to be gone quickly.

That is, unless the WisGOPs want to get rid of all of the barriers and forms it put in place to cause all of this work that goes into Program Integrity, and make it easier for Wisconsinites to get their benefits. But I don’t see them putting up any bills to do that.

The other money lying around DWD is $15.6 million that comes from “unemployment interest and penalty payments”. But a lot of this money is set to be sent back….and then some!

The Department has estimated an $85 million liability to this appropriation account once DWD has completed noncharging reimbursable employers, as specified under 2019 Act 185.

This is an act that the WisGOP Legislature added to the state’s CARES bill last April, as a scheme to make sure employers continued to pay lower unemployment taxes. OOPS!

As for federal funds, there isn’t really much coming from the Feds outside of extra money to pay for expanded unemployment benefits. The LFB mentions $1.6 million is left over from the 2009 stimulus bill for “unemployment administration”, which I suppose could be used to pay for this. But that’s a small portion of the $48 million -$70 million that the IT upgrade would cost.

The LFB adds that there could be money moved from one agency to another, but the Joint Finance Committee would have to sign off on it, and Evers would have to identify what agency gets cut to pay for DWD’s IT upgrade. JFC and the Legislature could also try to transfer funds from one agency to another, claiming a “fiscal emergency”, but they haven’t chosen to take that step.

That being said, if I was Evers, I would call the bluff of the WisGOPs, and ask for the money via some kind of transfer between accounts (if there is money to be found), then also ask the Legislature to cut expenses in the Program Integrity Fund by removing the barriers that WisGOP built in order to make it such a pain to get benefits.

How would WisGOP react? Likely the same way they are now.

via GIPHY

Because WisGOP doesn't want to step up and help Wisconsinites get their benefits in a smoother manner. They just want to whine about the situation and push all the blame on Evers for the problems that WisGOP caused through their Walker-era negligence and talk-show based idiocy.

Wisconsinites continue to pay less in taxes. But is it enough for our budget?

In something Republicans view as a great accomplishment, Wisconsin's taxes are the lowest they've been in decades. That was reported in-depth in a recent report from the Wisconsin Policy Forum. The Policy Forum says it was the 9th straight year state and local taxes as a % of income dropped.

The effect of the coronavirus could be seen across many of the state’s major revenue streams, with gas tax collections falling for the first time since 2013 and driver’s license fees also dipping. One exception was corporate tax revenues, which remained surprisingly strong despite the downturn.

Local taxes rose more rapidly, hitting their fastest growth since 2010. The larger increase reflects the fact that the property tax – Wisconsin’s most important local tax by far – remains more stable in recessions and was increased by local officials on bills that went out a year ago prior to the pandemic. Among local taxes, the main pandemic-related impacts involved sales taxes – mostly at the county level – and room taxes on hotel stays.

Though both state and local taxes grew in the most recent year, their overall increase was outpaced by the income that state residents collectively receive from employers and many other sources. That left the tax burden slightly smaller when measured according to Wisconsinites’ ability to pay it – 10.2% in fiscal year 2020 compared to 10.3% in 2019 (see Figure 1). That was the lowest since at least 1970.

As the report mentions, this decline reflects incomes rising in a growing economy, and taxes paid not rising as much. It makes you wonder if those trends last in a recession with depressed employment. I also wonder if the state continues to benefit from the major increase in corporate taxes that we have seen in the last few years, including a jump of more than 20% in 2020.

The Forum has noted several factors that may have played a role in strengthening collections in recent years, from an increase in state auditors to federal and state legislation that may have led more business entities to file and pay their taxes at the corporate level. Like workers, businesses benefited as well from various efforts at the federal level to bolster the national economy amid the blows from the coronavirus.

It also gives an indication just how much of a break corporations have gotten at the federal level, if they're willing to pay more taxes at the state level. With the recession likely to lead to significant tax refunds for corporations in the coming months, it'll be intriguing to see if those high levels of collections continue for the rest of Fiscal Year 2021.

We've also seen individual income taxes decline at the state and federal levels in recent months as layoffs has grown.

Change in individual income tax revenues, FY to date
Wisconsin -0.3% July-Nov
Federal -10.9% Oct-Dec

It's not necessarily alarming at this point, as the estimates that the Wisconsin DOA put together in November counted on a decline of -2.3% in income taxes for the 2021 Fiscal Year. But it also counts on corporate taxes continuing to rise by 15.9% from their already high levels in FY 2021.

I bring this up because we will likely find out this week what the Legislative Fiscal Bureau will estimate for tax revenues over the next 2 years, which will be what Governor Evers and the Legislature will base as a method of figuring the amount of money that might be available for the 2021-23 budget.

Right now, it appears that Wisconsinites aren't paying all that much, but enough has come in from state taxpayers as well as through increased aid from DC to keep a significant budget crisis from appearing, even with the COVID-induced recession. But the recent layoffs and economic slowdown may change the calculus, as might the possibility of more stimulus coming as a result of complete Dem control of DC.

Lastly, let's not confuse a lower tax burden with a great overall situation in Wisconsin. We had exactly 1 quarter in that time period of lower tax burdens where we reached the top half of job growth in America, as measured by the Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages (QCEW), and were well behind the rate of growth in the rest of the country.

We also had a slowdown in population growth in the 2010s, and especially 2020, so the lower taxes didn't exactly get people to flock to Wisconsin. And frankly, more population, more jobs and a higher quality of life are things that should matter more than tax rankings when it comes to figuring how Wisconsin is shaping up. Especially as we need more services and supports given the rough circumstances of the COVID World.

COVID cases going down in Wisconsin, but stupidity is still widespread

The previous week indicated that there was a bit of progress in the fight against COVID 19 in Wisconsin. We had the second-lowest amount of new weekly cases in the last 3 months, although it's still well above 2,000 Wisconsinites getting the virus every day.

The numbers in the largest counties in Wisconsin also saw decent declines last week.

But let's check back on that Brown County number in a couple of weeks.

This makes me so mad. pic.twitter.com/8YLjEORf76

— Mike Zoller (@mikezoller) January 17, 2021

Stadium View Bar comes under fire for hosting large Packers watch party during pandemic. https://t.co/8pCdRPPP0B

— Green Bay Press-Gazette (@gbpressgazette) January 18, 2021

And there's another game next weekend. I hope the fans are celebrating again (I think there's a good chance they will), but I don't want to see them jamming establishments on Lombardi Avenue and Holmgren Way, tearing up the town as the Pack go to the Super Bowl.

After Trump, we cannot "return to normal". MLK knew it, and DC Dems better know it

On this Martin Luther King Day, one statement keeps coming back to me as we have watched the horrors of the last 12 months.

This desire for "order" kept far too many people from taking the steps needed to deal with the real crises that are ravaging the country. This is particularly when it comes to the evils, abuses and violence of Trumpism, which has put our country in previously unimaginable circumstances. And the inability of our leaders to admit that evildoers have exploited flaws in our political and law enforcement systems could lead to serious catastrophe this week if we don't honestly deal with the wreck that we have become.

As of now, President Biden is planning on having an Inaugural ceremony that is little different than others, outside of the heavy military presence around the Capitol. This is despite the fact that there is still an ongoing investigation into who caused the deadly riot in DC less than 2 weeks ago, with major questions as to how much of an inside job it was.

Here's Facebook video of Rep. Mikie Sherrill (D-NJ), a Navy vet, Annapolis grad and member of the Armed Services Committee, saying she witnessed a reconnaissance mission by "fellow members of Congress who had groups coming through the Capitol...on Jan. 5."pic.twitter.com/0J2kptBHn4

— Amee Vanderpool (@girlsreallyrule) January 13, 2021

Yet Biden seems determined to cling to an swearing-in ceremony that will have former presidents, VP Kamala Harris, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other political dignitaries in the same place outside. You know who won't be there? Any member of the Trump family.

It sounds like the setup for some kind of political thriller movie where a terror attack happens from supporters/allies of the President that was voted out, either in a last-ditch attempt to retain power, or to leave the country in a smoldering ruin that can't recover. And it's predictable as hell, to the point that you want to yell "Can't you see where this is going?" to the screen.

I am far from the only one with this fear. Elie Mystal of The Nation is spot-on with how the concerns of political upheaval and racists in law enforcement/White House security are a scary nexus for this Inauguration ceremony.

Everything I read is telling me I undersold this point when I made it last week.
Law enforcement cannot be trusted, we should separate our leaders to reserve the line of succession.https://t.co/Qw3ldRaQ6l

— Elie Mystal (@ElieNYC) January 18, 2021

...No matter how many threats Biden receives from Trump supporters and their enablers in Congress and the current administration, he will be inaugurated on that platform for everybody to see. It’s a statement, not just to white seditionists like Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley but also to governments around the world that the United States is “strong” and cannot be intimidated by violence. As far as Biden is concerned, he has to be inaugurated on that stage—the same stage Trump supporters clambered over on their way to assault the Capitol—no matter how manifestly unsafe the conditions of his inauguration may be.

Biden has to be there, but Kamala Harris does not. Nor does Nancy Pelosi. The principle of protecting the continuity of the government suggests that Harris and Pelosi, who are respectively the first and second in line to assume the presidency should something happen to Biden, must be shielded at all costs during Biden’s big day.

The problem is, even more than a celebration, we deserve Harris alive. And we deserve a government that can continue to function in the face of a white-supremacist attack. We don’t let the president and the vice president fly on the same plane lest bad weather decapitate our government. So why would we risk having both of them in the same place, at the same time, when the forces of white supremacy have promised to return to the Capitol they just tried to sack, in more numbers and with more guns, to finish the job?

I don’t think the MAGA crowd can overcome the United States paramilitary apparatus that is set to be deployed to defend our government. I don’t think law enforcement can be overpowered in a repeat of its January 6 failures—unless, that is, its members want to be overpowered. We still haven’t wrestled with the fact that the people who stormed the Capitol clearly benefited from inside help—or at least from permissiveness from members of the Capitol Police. Ayanna Pressley reports that the panic buttons had been ripped out of her office. Women of color like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Cori Bush all recount harrowing experiences. Jim Clyburn says the mob found his private, unmarked office—not the one with his name on the door. Nobody knows if people of color in Congress are safe from their own law enforcement.

Two officers have already been suspended for appearing to aid the insurrectionists on the day of the riots. More suspensions could be coming. But whether the department suspends two or 200 more officers, there is zero chance we will have rooted out all the Trump sympathizers within the Capitol Police by the time of the inauguration.

But yet, so many DC Dems think that once we get to January 20 and Biden can get put into power, and gets his people in charge of agencies and a few executive orders are signed, that things will return to "normal." That somehow the evil of Trumpism and misinformation media will melt away.

This mentality is why no impeachments and few hearings were held in the 2 months after the election to look into why the Trump Administration was preventing the Biden Transition Team from getting national security information. Or why the Defense Secretary and several other top Pentagon officials were removed by Trump right after the election, and replaced by Trumpist hacks. Or why Bill Barr resigned as Attorney General 4 weeks before Biden was going to take office.

And there were plenty more signs that bad things were afoot. But instead, Congress decided that keeping government functioning as-is was more important than seeing the steps toward treason that were occurring right before our eyes. Instead of challenging the OLC memo from 47 years ago that claimed a sitting president can't be indicted, so many Dems in DC and other places decided they would wait it out until Jan. 20, without realizing that another antiquated DC ceremony on January 6 came first.

It's still happening today. Even after the riot of 1/6, Senate Dems reverted to "typical procedure" and allowed a measure that prevented any discussion of removing Trump for nearly two weeks. Here's the description from the chief of staff to the previous Dem Senate Leader, Harry Reid.

It was agreed to late last night/early this morning. Technically, any senator can block a new UC from being entered. Realistically, that would be a heavy lift if the House impeaches. And there is the backstop that current UC expires 1/19 at which point the Senate can convene. https://t.co/ibZLJvarY7

— Adam Jentleson 🎈 (@AJentleson) January 8, 2021

Why was this agreed to? Chuck Schumer and DC Dems should have been demanding hearings about what happened at the Capitol, and holding immediate public testimony and evidence-gathering at the Capitol. Sure, Moscow Mitch McConnell might have blocked it, but it would have kept the issue in Americans' cosciousness, and maybe Moscow Mitch and enough Republcians would have decided to get Trump out of there to avoid being lumped in with the traitors.

Of course, part of the problem is that Republicans are still in charge at the Senate as of now, even though Georgia voters chose 2 Dems to put Dems in power 2 weeks ago. Georgia officials could allow Jon Ossof and Raphael Warnock to take office and force a 50-50 tie in the Senate, as all counties certified their results by Saturday. And why aren't Dems publicly demanding the state act to draw attention to this delay?

On a related subject, why do we allow a crook from Kentucky to decide the agenda and proceedings for the entire a 100-person Senate, other than "it's always been done this way"? This is the type of "default to tradition" that Trump?GOP showed to be only as worthwhile as the people who decide to keep it, or destroy it. And perhaps some traditions don't need to continue after we've seen how they can be abused in this horrible time.

You can bet GOPs will try to memory-hole all of the abuses and Trump-encouraged violence that has occured in this awful era, just like how so many House GOPs claimed it would be "divisive" to actually do something about the attempted insurrection on 1/6 (and what a bunch of disingenous crap that was, as if unity can't be acheived by saying "INSURRECTION AND OVERTURNING ELECTIONS IS WRONG.")

These slugs will try to do the same stuff they did the last time a Dem took over from a horrible GOP president.

This is exactly what happened after Bush, before Trump the worst president since Nixon and one of the least popular by the end. He helped them out by disappearing to Highland Park to paint and never going into the news, but it's the same playbook.

— Aaron (@BobbyBigWheel) January 18, 2021

And we can never forget or forigve all of the Republicans and others in DC that knew better, and refused to step up and tell the truth. Because they cared more about their careers than their country.

They spoke to reporters on background to show they knew Trump was unhinged. But they didn’t tell their fellow citizens before the election. They knew election fraud was a big lie. But they didn’t do much to alert their fellow Trump supporters.

They knew. And they said nothing.

— Bill Kristol (@BillKristol) January 18, 2021

So many are still trying to hang on through Wednesday, and trusting that the Biden Inaugural will work out like all others have. But that ignores the many warning lights that are flashing about, and Dr. King's warning about the white (or Dem) moderate that claims it's not worth the battle to eradicate this disease of Trumpism that has infected so many parts of our country seems especially prescient today.

These are not normal times, we should not pretend that they are. With that in mind, Biden should hold the Inaugural at a private, undisclosed location in DC, or at his front porch in Wilmington. This is not a time for ceremony and other DC BS - believing in that, and the "institutions of government" gave openings for Trumpism to ooze its way in. It is a time to GET TO WORK, and you can't get to work if you aren't around to be the president, or if there isn't anything to preside over.

That's a sad way to approach things. But it's also the right way to approach things in January 2021. To fix the mess, you don't ignore how it was messed up. You have to identify what caused it, how it has to be cleaned up, and remove who is trying to keep you from making it better.

Oops! Trump/GOP shorts Wisconsin and US on vaccines. So Vos/Assembly GOP blames...Evers?

While the impeachment and fallout from the Capitol Riot of 1/6 rightfully were the biggest headlines of last week, there was another disaster led from this Administration last week. It turns out the Trump Admin lied about how many vaccines were available.

Both the coronavirus vaccines currently authorized in the U.S. require two doses to be fully effective. So when distribution of first doses began, the Trump administration held back matching second doses to make sure recipients would be fully protected against COVID-19. Amid a massive demand for more doses, Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar announced earlier this week that the department would begin doling out those reserved doses to more people, saying increased production speed would make up for the soon-to-be-depleted reserve.

But as officials soon learned, the federal government had stopped stockpiling second dose vaccines weeks ago, they tell the Post. Both first and second doses were instead taken right off the manufacturing line. That meant Azar's announcement reportedly released a stockpile that didn't exist. The U.S. had already reached its maximum distribution capacity, and new doses distributors were expecting next week weren't coming, the Post reports.

HHS spokesperson Michael Pratt confirmed in an email to the Post that the last of the reserve had been taken out for shipment this weekend. He didn't acknowledge Azar's comments, but said Operation Warp Speed had "always intended to transition from holding second doses in reserve as manufacturing stabilizes and we gained confidence in the ability for a consistent flow of vaccines." he also said states had only ordered 75 percent of the vaccines available to them.

Well, given that the vaccines ARE GONE, I guess it's a good thing that states didn't order more, eh?

As you'd imagine, governors that were left in the dark about the lack of vaccines were not pleased.

'A slap in the face to the people of Wisconsin': Evers says Pence promised him vaccine doses that don't exist https://t.co/Yvjjz01w96

— Journal Sentinel (@journalsentinel) January 15, 2021

Evers said when he and other governors spoke with Pence and U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar earlier this week, Pence and Azar gave the impression that they'd be shipping states vaccine doses that had been stockpiled.

"I guess they may have been telling the truth, because it's zero," Evers said.

Evers said it led the governors on the call to believe that the country would be in good shape to provide second doses of the vaccine that the federal government previously said it would hold back to ensure proper supply.....

Also on Friday, Evers — along with Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz — sent Azar a letter urging him to allow states to directly purchase doses of COVID-19 vaccine.

"It has become abundantly clear that not only has the Trump administration botched the rollout of the safe and effective COVID-19 vaccine, but also that the American people have been misled about these delays," they said.

And that's not the only screw-up that TrumpWorld has caused, which has delayed the vaccine out to Americans. Like many other states, Wisconsin is intending to use local pharmacies to vaccinate people living in assisted living centers and similar large-resident settings. But Trump Admin policy and the convoluted program that is part of it is getting in the way.

As this other post points out, @cvspharmacy and @Walgreens have no incentive to go fast https://t.co/uZN1wmqC5r pic.twitter.com/brG7VUiy0M

— Alex Leo (@AlexMLeo) January 15, 2021

So you're telling me that a centralized, government-directed distribution program works better than the fragmented mess that we have today? I'm shocked, SHOCKED!

Which makes lines like these from Wisconsin Republicans to be all the more craven BS.

Along with @RepSteineke, I issued a letter to the governor regarding concerns about his administration's COVID-19 vaccine distribution plan. There is widespread confusion about who’s eligible to get the vaccine & when. We need a plan now.
https://t.co/uBydFFol09

— Speaker Robin Vos (@SpeakerVos) January 13, 2021

Hey Robbin', seems like the problem is that there is no plan from DC on how many of these vaccines will go out, who should get them, and the places they should be able to get them at. But God Forbid, a Republican ever hold another GOP responsible for the messes they cause.

This is what happens when you put a Swampy drug company exec in charge of the nation's public health, and would anyone be surprised to find out that Azar and TrumpWorld are being cut in on some kind of deal with vaccine distribution that directs big $$$ to some company they are associated with? Me neither.

Meanwhile, the economy continues to falter with few Americans vaccinated, and COVID cases and casualties continuing to rise. That's also true in Wisconsin, where 128 more people were reported dead due to COVID, setting another new one-day record in the state. And we continue to have more than 2,000 new cases a day in the state 10 months after the first cases were reported here.

But instead of trying to step up and have a role in stopping the spread of the virus and getting more people vaccinated, Robbin' Vos and Jim Steineke and the rest of the Assembly Republicans want to stop new measures that Evers and the Wisconsin Senate have agreed to.

Vos and @RepSteineke say three issues stick out when deciding to not take up the bill. The senate version removed:
-restrictions on how local health depts can close/restrict business capacity
-ban on employers requiring COVID-19 vaccination
-legislative oversight over federal $

— A.J. Bayatpour (@AJBayatpour) January 13, 2021

This is all talk-radio-based GARBAGE that has nothing to do with funding and supporting the effort to get Wisconsinites vaccinated, and has nothing to do with giving economic relief to the many Wisconsinites struggling through the COVID Winter. And for what? So Wisconsin continues to struggle with COVID for much of 2021 and citizens get even moree angry and frustrated?

Sadly, I think that is their goal. Because Assembly GOPs care more about trying to lay the blame on Evers and gain politically instead of make things better for all Wisconsinites (which getting people vaccinated would certainly do). And that fact needs to be called out and hammered into the heads of people throughout the state - Republicans don't care how much you get hurt, as long as they think they can gain from it.