Monday, February 12, 2024

Are WisGOPs trying to trap Gov Evers by accepting his maps, and keeping gerrymander for November?

On the surface, this looks like a sign of progress.

If signed into law, this would make maps much fairer for November than they are today. It would allow Dems a decent shot of winning control if they win statewide by about 3-5%, instead of having to win by 13-15%.

But given that Republicans have fought every possible attempt to remove their gerrymander up to this point, why would they give in now?

One possibility is that the GOP knows that taking Evers' maps is likely to be a better outcome than whatever decision the Wisconsin Supreme Court comes back with in the next month, as Evers' maps give GOPs a better chance of staying in power in the Legislature than the other maps in serious consideration. The negative partisan bias numbers in this chart show the advantage that GOPs would have under various map scenarios.

But Dem Congressman Mark Pocan thinks there is something more sinister going on.

I wasn't seeing this when Mark first brought it up, and I didn't understand how appealing this would be different than appealing a decision from the State Supreme Court/. But because a Supreme Court decision sets new boundaries via a court decision, and not from a bill that goes through the typical legislative process, it is a different thing where a court decision is being appealed by the Legislature, vs some outside person complaining how wronged they were by the bill.

And after some explanation and further analysis, the worry for Rep. Pocan and some others would be that this chain of events happens after a new maps bill is signed.
1. Signing the maps opens the door for WILL or some other RW front group to get someone to file to lawsuit to the Federal courts.

2. Federal courts put a hold on the new maps, which means:

3. November 2024 elections are held under the GOP gerrymander.

With that in mind, I'd advise Evers to say "TOO LATE!" to the GOPs who could have done this when the Guv put out his first set of maps 3 years ago, and veto this. It's a very explainable thing to do, where Evers can explain that Robbin' Vos and company cannot be trusted to do anything in good faith, and that there is a Supreme Court decision due in a month, and we will see what happens with that.

So let's see if the GOPs in the Legislature even try this desperate/cynical move to pass Governor Evers' maps in the next 2 weeks, before they go on their 10-month paid vacation. But if they do, I'd recommend Evers to just say NO to this gambit. We are so close to having fair maps for our State Legislature for the first time in 14 years. We need to lessen the chances of daylight to allow for a BS GOP maneuver that delays it for another election cycle.
Posted by at 1 comment:

Sunday, February 11, 2024

Hey DC Dems - GOPs and DC Media are working as a team, willingly or not. GO AFTER THEM

When I heard of the story of Trumpist Attorney Robert Hur giving a ratfuck of a report on Joe Biden's handling of classified documents (which Hur admits was legal and fine), I got enraged. Somewhat because of Hur's unwarranted judgments about Biden's state of mind, but mostly because it was such a PREDICTABLE hit job.

The reason I say the word "predictable" was perfectly summed up in a recent Substack by historian Heather Cox Richardson. Richardson notes that it has been SOP for Republicans for decades to (ab)use the power of investigation in order to amplify lies and slanders against Democrats.
As far back as 1950, when Senator Joe McCarthy (R-WI) insisted—without evidence—that the Department of State under Democratic president Harry Truman had been infiltrated by Communists, Republicans have used official investigations to smear their opponents. State Department officials condemned McCarthy’s “Sewer Politics” and the New York Times complained about his “hit-and-run” attacks, but McCarthy’s outrageous statements and hearings kept his accusations in the news. That media coverage, in turn, convinced many Americans that his charges were true.

Other Republicans finally rejected McCarthy, but in 1996, congressional Republicans frustrated by the election of Democratic president Bill Clinton in 1992 and the Democrats’ subsequent expansion of the vote with the so-called Motor Voter law in 1993 resurrected his tactics. They launched investigations into two elections they insisted the Democrats had stolen. They discovered no fraud, but their investigation convinced a number of Americans that voter fraud was a serious problem.

There were ten investigations into the 2012 attack on two U.S. government facilities in Benghazi, Libya, in which four Americans were killed and several others wounded; Republican-dominated House committees held six of them. Kevin McCarthy bragged to Fox News personality Sean Hannity that the Benghazi special committee was part of a “strategy to fight and win” against then–Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

The strategy of weaponizing investigations went on to be central to the 2016 election, when Trump ran on the investigation of Clinton’s email practices, and to the 2020 election, when Trump tried to weaken Biden’s candidacy by trying to force Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelensky to say that Ukraine was opening an investigation into Hunter Biden and the company he worked for.

Going into 2024, the House is investigating Hunter Biden, and while witness testimony and evidence has not supported their contention that President Biden is corrupt, the stench of the hearings has convinced a number of MAGA voters of the opposite.
Also note that the GOP House refuses to allow Hunter Biden to testify in public, and instead want to be able to take his words out of context in reports they will amplify on Faux News and other GOPper-ganda. Likewise, we have no tape of Biden's alleged mental lapses, just Hur's written opinions.

By comparison, we have plenty of tape of Biden's likely opponent being senile, nuts, and dangerous to national security. Including this weekend.

Trump can't even walk 18 holes, let alone 7 miles. Oh, but it's Biden's mental acuity and overall health that we should be worried about? BULLSHIT.

I am sick and tired of Dems having to be 5 times better than Republicans to have things be evaluated equally. It is a failure of DC/Coastal Media that they continue to have this double-standard, and of DC Dems for not attacking DC Media for their pro-GOP reporting.

Michelle Wolf nailed this at the White House Correspondents Dinner in 2018.

\
"I think what no one in this room wants to admit, is that Trump has helped all of you. He couldn't sell steaks, or vodka, or water, or college, or ties, or Eric. But he has helped you. He's helped you sell your papers, and your books, and your TV. You helped create this monster, and now you're profiting off of him. And if you're gonna profit off of Trump, you should at least give him some money because HE DOESN'T HAVE ANY."
All Dems should treat the media with the contempt that DC Republicans pretend to give when they're trying to "work the refs" into amplifying the lies and misdirections they want average voters to hear. And DC Dems should be directing the media back to the reality they refuse to cover, and just like Faux News, they need to be constantly doing it, and not letting up until those discussions actually happen. Stop the typical DC Dem act of talking about something for two days and then moving on to something else in the name of "governance" or some other "go high" BS that stopped being something that made a difference in elections a decade ago.

Elite DC/Coastal Media still thinks politics in 2024 is all a game where they can profit of off ratings and the interest of what is perceived to be a close race. They will not be fair in 2024, and should be considered the enemy until they are forced to call it fair.

Posted by at 1 comment:

Saturday, February 10, 2024

Warm February having bad economic side effects for some in Wisconsin

Been some unusual and damaging weather in these parts for the usually cold and snowy month of February.

On the other end of the state, the lack of snow up North is leading to economic hardship for businesses that rely on Winter tourism.

At Clayton's 1881 Room restaurant in Three Lakes, owner Scott Wisner is crossing his fingers to get 100 customers through the door in any given week, about a third of what they get in a normal winter.

At Track Side rentals and service shop in Eagle River, workers are catching up on projects around the shop as not a single one of their 75 rentable snowmobiles have hit a trail this winter season.

Mercer's Great Northern Hotel's best weekend this season saw just 10 of its 80 rooms rented. Last winter all 80 rooms were rented every weekend from Christmas to the beginning of March.

"It's been pretty awful," said Eric Behnke, who owns the hotel. "It's not a fun time up here."....

"We make money for three or four months, then operate in the red for four months, and usually recoup when snowmobilers come up," Behnke said. "To go nine months in the red — I don't know if it's possible to survive that."
And from the "snow tourism" side doesn't look like it's going to be any better for the upcoming President's Day Weekend (when most of Illinois is off on that Monday). Barring some unforeseen snowfall this week, the deficit for Northwoods tourism businesses is likely to grow by quite a bit.

Interestingly, the State of Wisconsin just added more than $3 million dollars to pay for weather-related disasters, with much of that heading to Northern Wisconsin.

So is it time for Governor Evers to call for using some of our surplus to help the people in Northern Wisconsin and Rock County that suffered damages due to weather, instead of more tax cuts to the rich and comfortable? And given that every legislator north of Highway 29 is a Republican (thanks gerrymandering!), why aren't they raising more of a concern about the many constituents that are going to be going through hard times due to this warm winter?

Seems like that may be in order before the Legislature goes on their 10-month paid vacation. Or maybe Governor Evers has to drop a line to President Biden asking for some FEMA help for these weather-related damages, if the state doesn't do anything (although that takes time to get reimbursements on)?

Not that I'm complaining about a lack of 10-degree days (I'm liking it a lot, in fact), but I know that it's something that has its drawbacks. Especially when it's a sudden change that damages the economy as it has in February 2024.
Posted by at 2 comments:

Thursday, February 8, 2024

$2 billion in GOP tax cuts would bust Wisconsin's budget. Especially after recent developments

Yesterday, the Joint Finance Committee met and the GOP-dominated panel passed along a series of tax cuts, likely sending it to a vote of the full Legislature next week.
The state Assembly is set to vote next week on a $2.1 billion tax package that would significantly expand the state's second-lowest tax bracket to include more than 1 million Wisconsin residents earning between $19,000 and $150,000 per year, but Gov. Tony Evers is noncommital on supporting it.

The Legislature's Joint Finance Committee voted 11-4 along party lines on Wednesday to advance the four Republican bills, which were introduced late last month and are scheduled for an Assembly vote on Feb. 13.

The proposal would overhaul the state's tax system by also exempting up to $75,000 of retirees' income and expanding tax credits for married filers and for filers with children.
That's not the entire context of the tax cuts, as that "$19,000 to $150,000" is taxable income, in a state that already exempts as much as $23,600 for married couples, and because Wisconsin already exempts Social Security and some federal pension income for its retirees. But there are still a few million Wisconsinites that would likely get some kind of tax relief out of these GOP tax cuts, especially those in the middle classes and above.

So let's first look at the total price tag of these tax cuts, which wouldn't hit the state's bottom line until after the next Fiscal Year starts on July 1. And you'll see some tax cuts are a lot bigger than others.

I'll add that the reason the tax bracket cut is larger in Fiscal Year 2025 is because the GOP bill also wants to have the Wisconsin Department of Revenue to update the withholding tables on July 1, increasing the take-home pay on every paycheck instead of having it tax cuts off in higher refunds (you'll likely see those higher refunds in the next 2 months).

Let's also take a step back and look at what the state's budget situation is before being affected by any of these tax cuts. There already was going to be a huge imbalance between revenues and expenses for this Fiscal Year, as the surplus is being spent down on a number of one-time spending items, including over $1 billion to pay for capital projects in cash instead of borrowing, and an additional $555 million being sent into the Transportation Fund.

Then the LFB told us 2 weeks ago that revenue growth was going to be a bit less than what was assumed in the state budget. And in the same meeting where the Joint Finance Committee passed the tax cuts, they also agreed to spend another $423 million in cash-funded projects for the UW System, as part of the deal where the UW limited their DEI initiatives at Robbin' Vos' demands.

That means that due to changes on both the revenue and expenditure sides, the $7 billion that we carried over on June 30, 2023 will diminish over the following 2 years.

And that means there is less surplus to play with on tax cuts. Which led to a concern from Joint Finance Dems about what these GOP tax cuts would do to future budgets.
Rep. Tip McGuire, D-Kenosha, said he's worried the package could lead the state into a risky financial position.

"I’m worried that we would be running Illinois-style deficits. I’m worried that this would be fiscally irresponsible and that the people that would support this would be fiscally irresponsible budgeters, or FIBs," McGuire said.
And when you look at the numbers, you can see why Rep. McGuire would say that. It's one thing to spend $3 billion more than you take in for one year, as Wisconsin is slated to do on a one-time basis in Fiscal 2024, as long as you go back near balance in the next year. It's a whole 'nother thing to run $2 billion+ deficits year after year, which is what is slated to happen if all of these GOP tax cuts were to be put in place.

And that imbalance means that we would have to figure out a way to make up more than $3 billion in the next budget, instead of having a cushion of more than $2.5 billion.

But I'll note that the Republicans put these tax cuts in the form of 4 separate bills, which may give a way out. Because the price tag of the higher married couple credit and expanded child care credit is much less than the lower tax brackets or retirement income tax cut (those two total just under $234 millon a year), Governor Evers could sign those two tax credits, and veto the others. Then Tony can say "let's see where we stand at the next budget" to see if there is a better chance of the cushion growing in the meantime.

Both Dems and Republicans would get something out of it, and both sides can make their arguments for or against more tax cuts (and the budget handcuffs they would impose) this Fall during Election season under fair maps. Who says no?
Posted by at No comments:

Tuesday, February 6, 2024

A huge 2023 for construction in America. Biden stimulus has to be given credit for it

As part of a series of strong pieces of data, I note that construction spending and the construction sector in general has become a sizable boost to our economy in the Biden presidency. That continued with another positive month of construction spending in December, as we found out last week.
Construction spending during December 2023 was estimated at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $2,096.0 billion, 0.9 percent (± 0.8 percent) above the revised November estimate of $2,078.3 billion. The December figure is 13.9 percent (±1.5 percent) above the December 2022 estimate of $1,840.9 billion. The value of construction in 2023 was $1,978.7 billion, 7.0 percent (±1.0 percent) above the $1,848.7 billion spent in 2022.
An increase of nearly 14% year-over-year is quite a jump, given how inflation grew by less than 4% in the same time period. And one of the reasons behind the gain is that a decline in single-family home construction reversed starting in April, with the amount of new single-family homes being put into service going up by more than 14% in the last 8 months of the year.

That increase in residential construction goes along with Biden/Dem policies that have kicked in over the last two years which have encouraged more street and road repairs, as well as a boom in building for manufacturing businesses.

With all of that new construction happening, it's not a surprise that there has been a steady increase of construction jobs over the last two years. That's happening at the same time that manufacturing hiring has mostly leveled off (which is something to keep an eye on, given all of the new manufacturing facilities that are being built).

It's remarkable that the construction strength has continued even as interest rates have gone up, which increases borrowing costs for those projects. It's quite an accomplishment, and it's something that the Biden Administration and other Dems should talk about more, as this construction boom is something that should be easy to show in communities around the country, and seems to be directly related to 2021 stimulus policies that resulted from Dems having complete control of government in DC.
Posted by at No comments:

Saturday, February 3, 2024

Even outside consultants agree WisDems are the only ones that can do fair maps

Those of us who believe in fairness and decency figured that we'd hear good news this week from the 2 PoliSci professors that are looking at possible redraws of Wisconsin's Legislative maps. But I was still surprised to see their report (which you can read here) say this.

Which tells you that the consultants were looking at OUTCOMES over how a map might "look" geographically or other criteria. Basically a "reverse gerrymander", undoing outcomes that are not in line with the wishes of the statewide electorate.

This is further illustrated by a number of analyses the consultants gave which discussed results of statewide elections since 2016, and whether the winner of those races carried a majority of seats in the State Assembly and State Senate. They combined that information into a stat called mean-median which is the difference between the outcome in the statewide races, and where the control of a legislative chamber may happen.

The Dem-drawn maps all were relatively close on this measure. The GOP gerrymanders? They were not (although the "Johnson" maps from WILL are at least closer than the garbage we have today).

The consultants also included a stat called "Majoritarian Concordance", which looks at how often the statewide winner would have also won a majority of districts in the Legislature. The GOP gerrymander is obvious here, but there is also a bit of difference between the Dem maps.

In digging into this stat further, I note that Tony Evers' 1.2% win in 2018 would have still seen Republicans winning a majority of Assembly seats in every one of these maps, and all but 1 of the Senate maps. But Joe Biden's 0.6% win in 2020 also is a Dem win on half of the Dem maps, and Josh Kaul's 1.4% win in 2022 is a Dem majority in 3 of 4 Dem maps (albeit not the same 3 of 4, which is interesting).

On the flip side, Republican Ron Johnson's 1.0% win in 2022 is an Assembly GOP majority in 3 of the 4 Dem maps, and a Senate GOP majority in 2 of the 4. That is also the way it should work. I'm a staunch Dem, but I'm not a hack, and if GOPs can actually win statewide, they deserve to be in control.

So let's review these maps, and I'll use the Senate maps for ease of viewing. First, we have the maps Governor Evers sent to SCOWIS.

Then, we have the maps that were presented by Clarke and the other defendants in the lawsuit against the WisGOP Legislature.

Then here is what the Wisconsin Senate Dems wanted to be able to run on.

And the last map is one drawn up by a set of mathematicians who wanted balance as much as possible, which is listed as "Wright" in the consultants analyses.

Based on the consultants' report, I like the Clarke maps and Governor Evers' maps for fairness. And given that the Clarke maps run the table in picking the Assembly winners in the 2020s, and split up fewer communities and wards than any map not drawn up by WILL, I'd lean toward that one, if I had one to pick.

I would guess/hope that means the Wisconsin Supreme Court would choose one of these 4 maps, using various criteria that I would think they'd explain in their decision. And that we find out in the next month, to both satisfy the Wisconsin Elections Commission's deadline, and to allow the GOP to inevitably try their Hail Mary attempt to get the US Supreme Court to break their own precedent, and try to interfere with a State Legislature's map largely drawn on the basis of election outcomes.

If the maps are allowed to stand, then we get our first legitimate fight for legislative control in 14 years, and it's something that is so badly needed. Not only because I think it'll lead to better policy outcomes, but also because many more legislators will finally have to stop worrying as much about what their party bosses and dimwitted primary interests think, and care more about normal Wisconsin voters who just want our lawmakers to deal with real problems, and try to give them a better chance of success and fairness in their everyday lives.

Posted by at No comments:

Friday, February 2, 2024

2024 jobs market started out with a bang. And 2023 ended up being even better

Today portended to be a big jobs report. First of all to see if Americans kept gaining jobs at the start of 2024, after what had been a strong 2023.

On that front, January was pretty darned good for American workers.

That's great in its own right, but the bigger news was that the January report also featured the annual benchmarking where the Bureau of Labor Statistics takes all of the added data from the "gold standard" Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages (QCEW) and other data and revises all of the months of 2023. And that showed 2023 being even better than we knew.

Which is pretty amazing given that unemployment started the year at 3.4% and in theory there shouldn't have been many more jobs to be found. But we kept rolling along, and in fact, job growth for 2023 didn't level off nearly as much as we thought in the 2nd half of the year, as total job growth revised up by 359,000.

Previous years were also revised, which indicated that overall numbers weren't that different, but with some changes if broken down into 6-month intervals. For example, job growth was stronger in the first 6 months of the Biden Administration than numbers previously indicated, but also that late 2021 and late 2022 weren't as big for gains as originally indicated (although still pretty darn good).

What you see here is a steady US jobs market since inflation peaked in mid-2022, and it shows that Fed concerns of overheating have been off-base for quite a while.

Generally I'd say "what's not to like"? But I do notice the lower participation rate of 62.5% in December and January compared to 62.8% that we had in November, and average weekly hours worked dropped by 0.2 hours, meaning that weekly wages fell by 39 cents while hourly wages were going up. That may be a reflection of the horrible cold snap that hit in mid-January (which is when the monthly jobs report was compiling its data), but let's see if that means there might be soft underbelly that creeps up as 2024 moves ahead.

But that also illustrates how you have to grasp for bad things in this otherwise great jobs report. It offers even more proof that sustaining this strong economy has to be the overall goal for President Biden and honest Americans in 2024. Prices are in check, and productivity is up. And yes, we gotta keep it ROLLIN'.

The bigger threat for 2024 is people not spending on big-ticket items because of interest rates that are higher than they need to be, or losing jobs not because of a soft economy, but because of corporate greed.

Those are the things we need to call out and fight against in this Election Year. Things are very good overall, but they could be even better if the Masters of the Universe realized that they won't be allowed to get away with trying to steal from others and damage this economy without paying a price themselves.
Posted by at No comments:
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)