Showing posts with label Walmart. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Walmart. Show all posts
Sunday, August 11, 2019
Saturday, March 26, 2016
Weekend Reading
Wisconsin's Voter ID Law Requires Education Campaign, Which The State Hasn't Funded
The End Of Research In Wisconsin
Six Achievements Of Obamacare
What Happens When Walmart Dumps You
How Federal Lending Programs Served As A Big Shadow Stimulus
Americans' Home Wealth Recovers $7 Trillion As Prices Firm
House Speaker Paul Ryan Becomes Leading Opponent Of DOL Fiduciary Rule
Republican Governed Red States Are Economic Parasites
The End Of Research In Wisconsin
Six Achievements Of Obamacare
What Happens When Walmart Dumps You
How Federal Lending Programs Served As A Big Shadow Stimulus
Americans' Home Wealth Recovers $7 Trillion As Prices Firm
House Speaker Paul Ryan Becomes Leading Opponent Of DOL Fiduciary Rule
Republican Governed Red States Are Economic Parasites
Sunday, January 31, 2016
The Bigger-Is-Better Racket
Since Reaganomics began eviscerating the middle class, mergers and a bigger-is-better attitude has dominated our development and economic thinking. Economies of scale were going to trickle down riches on each and every one of us.
But, it turns out, much of this was just merely oligopoly power solidifying itself. Big companies became too big to fail, and the wages of most workers stagnated.
In our haste to believe that all we'd learned from the Great Depression was wrong, we marched ahead cutting taxes, cutting regulation, getting government out of the way of all-knowing business. Zoning laws changed and development intensified.
The small mom-and-pops, which were the hubs of smaller communities throughout the nation, were inefficient and antiquated. Travel patterns were changed. The off-ramp economy was the path to prosperity. A new automobile-dominated society was deemed superior. Big boxes and one-stop shopping were supposed to transform daily life, for all, for the better.
But what happens when the oligopoly changes the lifestyle in a community, only to desert it years later?
First, the traffic to-and-from these megaplexes disrupts as much as it invigorates:
They come to town, change the traffic flow and the character of the place, they push many of the costs of their employees onto the locality and the state, they avoid their fair share of taxes, they pocket a financial windfall, and then they leave town.
When it comes to economic development, place-making and community, bigger isn't always better.
For Further Reading:
Walmart: It Came, It Conquered, Now It's Packing Up & Leaving
The Perils Of Walmart Dependence
Big, Empty Boxes
Impact of Big-Box Stores on Taxes and Public Costs
But, it turns out, much of this was just merely oligopoly power solidifying itself. Big companies became too big to fail, and the wages of most workers stagnated.
In our haste to believe that all we'd learned from the Great Depression was wrong, we marched ahead cutting taxes, cutting regulation, getting government out of the way of all-knowing business. Zoning laws changed and development intensified.
The small mom-and-pops, which were the hubs of smaller communities throughout the nation, were inefficient and antiquated. Travel patterns were changed. The off-ramp economy was the path to prosperity. A new automobile-dominated society was deemed superior. Big boxes and one-stop shopping were supposed to transform daily life, for all, for the better.
But what happens when the oligopoly changes the lifestyle in a community, only to desert it years later?
First, the traffic to-and-from these megaplexes disrupts as much as it invigorates:
Traffic and noise depress property values in nearby neighborhoods. More traffic in- creases the cost of local government services, such as road maintenance and police. [source]Many of these big boxes also use their size and strength to avoid taxation:
As one example, take Walmart, the largest among them, which looks for tax loopholes wherever it can find them. “For every kind of tax that a retail company would normally pay or remit to support public services, Walmart has engineered an aggressive scheme to pay less and keep more,” found a 2011 report by the non-profit research organization Good Jobs First. These include using its fleet of lawyers to systematically challenge its property tax assessments, and gimmicks such as deducting rent payments made to itself through captive real estate investment trusts. Good Jobs First calculated that these tactics cost state and local governments more than $400 million a year in lost revenue, and concluded, “Walmart may be more of a fiscal burden than a benefit to many of the communities in which it operates.”Much of the cost for the employees at these big boxes is placed upon the locality and the state:
Large numbers of big-box employees rely on Medicaid, food stamps, and other public assistance programs to get by. Several states have reported that their Medicaid rolls are now swollen with su- perstore workers. In 2005, for example, Massachusetts disclosed that some 9,500 Wal-Mart, Home Depot, and Target em- ployees and dependents were receiving publicly-funded health care at an annual cost to taxpayers of over $12 million.It's also been found that these big boxes hurt the local job market:
Perhaps most disturbing, researchers at Penn State University, after controlling for other factors that influence poverty, found that counties that gained Wal-Mart stores during the 1990s fared worse in terms of family poverty rates than those that did not. [source]
As these businesses are forced to down- size or close, the resulting job losses typi- cally equal or exceed the number of new jobs created by the big-box store.This was recently shown in a large-scale study con- ducted by Univ. of California economist David Nuemark and his colleagues at the Public Policy Institute of California. The study examined 3,094 counties across the U.S., tracking the arrival of Wal-Mart stores between 1977 and 2002.And when they leave, they typically leave blight behind. As the Institute for Local Self-Reliance discovered:
The study found that the opening of a Wal- Mart led to a net loss of 150 retail jobs on average, suggesting that each Wal-Mart em- ployee replaces approximately 1.4 workers at other stores.
These stores tend to remain vacant because retailers often continue paying rent or take other steps to block competitors from occupy- ing the site. Clauses in many big-box lease agreements forbid property owners from leas- ing the building to another company without the original tenant's approval.
When it comes to economic development, place-making and community, bigger isn't always better.
For Further Reading:
The Perils Of Walmart Dependence
Big, Empty Boxes
Impact of Big-Box Stores on Taxes and Public Costs
Saturday, October 3, 2015
About Meijer Grocery Coming To Wisconsin...
Think you'll be saving money by shopping at Meijer? Think again.
Here we have yet another large corporation using their boardroom of lawyers to lower their property taxes...which means you'll be paying more.
In a long-building tax avoidance scheme, big businesses and their lawyers, with the help of malleable appraisers and tax representatives, are turning the appraisal profession on its head.
Some basic economic principles are imbued in property appraisal. Substitution is the idea that a comparable must not only be similar physically, but also economically (similar rents, expenses, etc.).
Typically the details and length of the lease are common factors a buyer would consider when contemplating the purchase of an income-producing property. The appraisal profession typically considers the rents a property can charge an outcome of the location - the land. Now, according to the lawyers, the value is due to goodwill and other intangibles...and, conveniently, most of these aren't taxable.
Take Walgreens, a court recently ruled that sales of Walgreens weren't good comparables or good indicators of value for ... Walgreens. Typical retail, a closed Blockbuster store, and mom-and-pop stores were deemed more comparable.
The City of Milwaukee recently settled a property tax dispute, dating back to 2010, with Walgreens, on 18 of their stores. The settlement was for $3.7 million dollars.
Opinions in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel on the topic (incorrect grammar and all) were things like: "Is it any wonder why citizens and businesses want to get out of the City?" or "This should be good news for mayor Berrett now he has another excuse for not fixing the pot holes on almost every street in the city. Waite for him to try increasing the wheel tax again. Which reminds me is he spending any of the wheel tax money on streets."
So, giving a business a refund of $3.7 million is a reason for a business to go away? Not to mention, the $3.7 million Walgreens is not paying, now has to be paid by other citizens. When corporations avoid paying their fair share, everyone else has to pick up the slack.
Much of what this case hinges on is that fact that Walgreens claim the leases they have are not market rate and actual sales of other Walgreens are also not comparable market transactions.
On the transfer returns (which names the buyer and seller; and separates real estate, equipment and business value) for the Walgreens sales, the Property owners claimed the total sale prices were for the real estate. Plus, in their actual leases on these properties, they specifically state these are real leases and not financing instruments. [Transfer returns and court transcripts, which contain this, are public information.]
Yet, in court they have claimed just the opposite. And the judge agreed in a City of Madison v. Walgreens court case. Although, if we're going to accept these revelations as true, this means that Walgreens has submitted falsified transfer returns and entered into bogus contractual leases.
Much of how a property's value is declared is based on accounting - wherever they can shift the supposed value to lower their taxes the most (based on things like depreciation, etc.), that's where they'll enter it in the ledger. A Walgreens is built to be a Walgreens, nothing else. Just as other special purpose properties (like gas stations, car washes, etc.) are built for a specific use. The builder/owner does this because they expect a certain return on their investment at that specific site.
Walgreens feels more appropriate comparable properties, to establish the value of their properties, are vacant buildings and and other neighborhood establishments.
This is like saying to find out what my Chevy Camaro is worth I should look at what Ford Taurus' are selling for. They're both cars, right?
The court completely ignores the concept of substitution. A property is only comparable if a buyer would actually consider it as an alternative investment. A vacant store does not have the same marketability and value as a store with a 25-year lease.
If a current owner of a Walgreens store were to sell, he/she would base the sales price on what the income stream is worth - how much he/she gets from the leases. Which is why most Walgreens sell at twice what Walgreens are claiming they are worth in court.
This whole fiasco ignores the general market that is the triple-net lease, investment grade properties. These are properties under long-term leases (usually 25 years) where the tenants pay the expenses. Thus vacancy (a typical deduction from the cash flow) is non-existent for the property owner. And, expenses are minimal to non-existent since they are the responsibility of the tenant. For these reasons, the standard Walgreens drug store sells for $467 per square foot at a 5.6% capitalization rate. The minimum typical footprint of a Walgreens is 12,000 square feet; this equates to a $5,604,000 value (or a rental rate of roughly $26 per square foot).
Even though the market evidence indicates this is what typical investors buy and sell these properties for, Walgreens astonishingly claims the stores are only worth half that.
All of these factors corroborated the City's assessments on the Walgreens' properties. Yet, for some inexplicable reason, the judge bought Walgreens' self-interested and contradictory argument and decided rather than comparing apples to apples, one should compare apples and rotten apples. And, because of this, my fellow taxpayers, you will pay more since Walgreens is paying less.
And taxpayers should be upset over this (and start complaining to their city attorney office to fight back against this shakedown) because theambulance-chasing lawyers tax representatives are trying to use these same arguments all over the country on restaurants, big box stores and a whole host of other properties. Which means, in the next few years, residential home owners will be paying a lot more, while commercial property owners will laughing all the way to the bank.
And, for big boxes (like Meijer, Target, Walmart, Lowes), some courts have decided the best comparable indicators of value are vacant, or "dark", stores. Somehow, a building that is closed and out of business is a viable alternative investment to an successfully operating one.
Olivia LaVecchia has more of the gruesome details:
For Further Reading:
For Cities, Big Box Stores Are Becoming Even More Of A Terrible Deal
Multibillion dollar Meijer, Inc. finds another way to screw Michigan cities and kids
Unfair Comparisons? Meijer, other big-box retailers use ‘dark store’ loophole to cut their Michigan property tax bills
Big box stores ringing up property tax discounts
Are big-box retailers getting a tax break at schools’ expense?
Here we have yet another large corporation using their boardroom of lawyers to lower their property taxes...which means you'll be paying more.
In a long-building tax avoidance scheme, big businesses and their lawyers, with the help of malleable appraisers and tax representatives, are turning the appraisal profession on its head.
Some basic economic principles are imbued in property appraisal. Substitution is the idea that a comparable must not only be similar physically, but also economically (similar rents, expenses, etc.).
Typically the details and length of the lease are common factors a buyer would consider when contemplating the purchase of an income-producing property. The appraisal profession typically considers the rents a property can charge an outcome of the location - the land. Now, according to the lawyers, the value is due to goodwill and other intangibles...and, conveniently, most of these aren't taxable.
Take Walgreens, a court recently ruled that sales of Walgreens weren't good comparables or good indicators of value for ... Walgreens. Typical retail, a closed Blockbuster store, and mom-and-pop stores were deemed more comparable.
The City of Milwaukee recently settled a property tax dispute, dating back to 2010, with Walgreens, on 18 of their stores. The settlement was for $3.7 million dollars.
Opinions in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel on the topic (incorrect grammar and all) were things like: "Is it any wonder why citizens and businesses want to get out of the City?" or "This should be good news for mayor Berrett now he has another excuse for not fixing the pot holes on almost every street in the city. Waite for him to try increasing the wheel tax again. Which reminds me is he spending any of the wheel tax money on streets."
So, giving a business a refund of $3.7 million is a reason for a business to go away? Not to mention, the $3.7 million Walgreens is not paying, now has to be paid by other citizens. When corporations avoid paying their fair share, everyone else has to pick up the slack.
Much of what this case hinges on is that fact that Walgreens claim the leases they have are not market rate and actual sales of other Walgreens are also not comparable market transactions.
On the transfer returns (which names the buyer and seller; and separates real estate, equipment and business value) for the Walgreens sales, the Property owners claimed the total sale prices were for the real estate. Plus, in their actual leases on these properties, they specifically state these are real leases and not financing instruments. [Transfer returns and court transcripts, which contain this, are public information.]
Yet, in court they have claimed just the opposite. And the judge agreed in a City of Madison v. Walgreens court case. Although, if we're going to accept these revelations as true, this means that Walgreens has submitted falsified transfer returns and entered into bogus contractual leases.
Much of how a property's value is declared is based on accounting - wherever they can shift the supposed value to lower their taxes the most (based on things like depreciation, etc.), that's where they'll enter it in the ledger. A Walgreens is built to be a Walgreens, nothing else. Just as other special purpose properties (like gas stations, car washes, etc.) are built for a specific use. The builder/owner does this because they expect a certain return on their investment at that specific site.
Walgreens feels more appropriate comparable properties, to establish the value of their properties, are vacant buildings and and other neighborhood establishments.
This is like saying to find out what my Chevy Camaro is worth I should look at what Ford Taurus' are selling for. They're both cars, right?
The court completely ignores the concept of substitution. A property is only comparable if a buyer would actually consider it as an alternative investment. A vacant store does not have the same marketability and value as a store with a 25-year lease.
If a current owner of a Walgreens store were to sell, he/she would base the sales price on what the income stream is worth - how much he/she gets from the leases. Which is why most Walgreens sell at twice what Walgreens are claiming they are worth in court.
This whole fiasco ignores the general market that is the triple-net lease, investment grade properties. These are properties under long-term leases (usually 25 years) where the tenants pay the expenses. Thus vacancy (a typical deduction from the cash flow) is non-existent for the property owner. And, expenses are minimal to non-existent since they are the responsibility of the tenant. For these reasons, the standard Walgreens drug store sells for $467 per square foot at a 5.6% capitalization rate. The minimum typical footprint of a Walgreens is 12,000 square feet; this equates to a $5,604,000 value (or a rental rate of roughly $26 per square foot).
Even though the market evidence indicates this is what typical investors buy and sell these properties for, Walgreens astonishingly claims the stores are only worth half that.
All of these factors corroborated the City's assessments on the Walgreens' properties. Yet, for some inexplicable reason, the judge bought Walgreens' self-interested and contradictory argument and decided rather than comparing apples to apples, one should compare apples and rotten apples. And, because of this, my fellow taxpayers, you will pay more since Walgreens is paying less.
And taxpayers should be upset over this (and start complaining to their city attorney office to fight back against this shakedown) because the
And, for big boxes (like Meijer, Target, Walmart, Lowes), some courts have decided the best comparable indicators of value are vacant, or "dark", stores. Somehow, a building that is closed and out of business is a viable alternative investment to an successfully operating one.
Olivia LaVecchia has more of the gruesome details:
Figuring out the value of a property can be a complicated business. In Michigan, town and county assessors typically use a property’s construction costs, minus depreciation, as a primary metric to determine its fair market value; taxable value is half that amount. Property owners sometimes prefer, instead, to use the sale prices of comparable properties. This was the approach that Lowe’s took—with a catch. Lowe’s looked at the definition of the word “comparable,” and decided to stretch it. It said that, because big-box stores are designed to be functionally obsolescent, comparable stores are those that have been closed and are sitting empty—the “dark stores” behind this method’s name...
It’s an established part of the big-box retail model that the boxes themselves be custom-built, cheaply constructed, and disposable. If retailers decide that they need a bigger space, it’s cheaper for them to leave the old one behind and build a new one. When Walmart, for instance, opened its wave of new, twice-the-size Supercenters across the country in 2007, it left hundreds of vacant stores behind it. This means that new, successful stores like the Marquette Lowe’s are rarely the locations that are up for sale, and that when big-box stores do come on the market, it’s because they’ve already failed or been abandoned by the retailer that built them. In other words, Lowe’s was saying, it had built a property that, despite generating roughly $30 million in annual sales for the company, had very little value, and because of that, it should get a break in its property taxes...
Despite all of this, cities and towns continue to buy into the myth, sold to them by the mega-retailers themselves, that big-box stores spark economic development. In service of this myth, local and state governments across the country have granted at least $2.6 billion in subsidies to just six large retailers, including $160 million to Walmart and $138 million to Lowe’s, according to another study from Good Jobs First.When these businesses use their clout to avoid taxation, all other taxpayers pay more.
For Further Reading:
For Cities, Big Box Stores Are Becoming Even More Of A Terrible Deal
Multibillion dollar Meijer, Inc. finds another way to screw Michigan cities and kids
Unfair Comparisons? Meijer, other big-box retailers use ‘dark store’ loophole to cut their Michigan property tax bills
Big box stores ringing up property tax discounts
Are big-box retailers getting a tax break at schools’ expense?
Sunday, October 26, 2014
Special Alert: You're Not Saving Money At Walmart!
Walmart prices, overall, are no better than most other shopping options. Just as 'Dollar' Stores Aren't Actually The Cheapest Stores. It sounds good (hey, I'm going to save money) and we hear it so often, it's taken for granted. Though, most of the time, it is not true.
As Forbes reported:
“The study estimated the cost to Wisconsin’s taxpayers of Walmart’s low wages and benefits, which often force workers to rely on various public assistance programs,” reads the report, available in full here.
“It found that a single Walmart Supercenter cost taxpayers between $904,542 and $1.75 million per year, or between $3,015 and $5,815 on average for each of 300 workers.”In a study by Jon Hotchkiss, he found, "On the grocery items I compared, Walmart was cheaper some of the time. However, they were more expensive other times. Moreover, several times when they were cheaper, it was just by a penny or two."
Walmart is the worst grocer according to Consumer Reports.
Costco pay its workers much better and actually provides them with health insurance.
So Walmart's low-price mantra is more pomp than circumstance. They also cost communities money in the form of health care, food stamps and numerous other subsidies. And, if you must shop at a mega-mart, you'd be better off - for yourself and your community - to shop at Costco.
For Further Reading:
Wal-Mart Low Prices Myths
Saturday, October 18, 2014
Weekend Reading
Paul Ryan Declares War Against Math
The Remarkable Impact Of The Deep Tunnel
Corporate Deadbeats: How Companies Get Rich Off Taxes
Return Of The Bums On Welfare
Skill Gaps, Skill Shortages, And Skill Mismatches: Evidence For The U.S.
Rep. Paul Ryan's Whopper About Competitive Districts
Why Public Investment Really Is A Free Lunch
Unlike Walmart, Costco Has No Plans To Cut Employee Health Benefits
The Koch Brothers' War On Transit
Wisconsin Supreme Court Vs John Doe
The Remarkable Impact Of The Deep Tunnel
Corporate Deadbeats: How Companies Get Rich Off Taxes
Return Of The Bums On Welfare
Skill Gaps, Skill Shortages, And Skill Mismatches: Evidence For The U.S.
Rep. Paul Ryan's Whopper About Competitive Districts
Why Public Investment Really Is A Free Lunch
Unlike Walmart, Costco Has No Plans To Cut Employee Health Benefits
The Koch Brothers' War On Transit
Wisconsin Supreme Court Vs John Doe
Saturday, April 12, 2014
Tuesday, December 24, 2013
Holiday Reading
Why Shopping At Walmart Is No Bargain
Raising The Minimum Wage: Old Shibboleths, New Evidence
Is Service Work Today Worse Than Being A Household Servant?
It's Business That Really Rules Us Now
Thorstein Veblen's Critique Of The American System Of Business
NFL On Defense With Tax Break
California's Finances Improving Faster Than Expected
Right Vs. Left In The Midwest
After Less Than 20 Years, Atlanta Braves To Get New Stadium
Raising The Minimum Wage: Old Shibboleths, New Evidence
Is Service Work Today Worse Than Being A Household Servant?
It's Business That Really Rules Us Now
Thorstein Veblen's Critique Of The American System Of Business
NFL On Defense With Tax Break
California's Finances Improving Faster Than Expected
Right Vs. Left In The Midwest
After Less Than 20 Years, Atlanta Braves To Get New Stadium
Wednesday, August 28, 2013
Midweek Reading
You Give Religions More Than $82.5 Billion A Year
This year, Walmart is back with a new "Buy America" program. In January, the company announced that it would purchase an additional $50 billion worth of domestic goods over the next decade. This week, Walmart is convening several hundred suppliers, along with a handful of governors, for a summit on U.S. manufacturing .The Reason Americans Are Less Healthy Than Other Developed Nations
This sounds pretty substantial, but in fact it's just a more sophisticated and media savvy version of Walmart's hollow 1980s Buy America campaign. For starters, $50 billion over a decade may sound huge at first, but measured against Walmart's galactic size, it's not. An additional $5 billion a year amounts to only 1.5 percent of what Walmart currently spends on inventory.
Worse, very little of this small increase in spending on American-made goods will actually result in new U.S. production and jobs. Most of the projected increase will simply be a byproduct of Walmart's continued takeover of the grocery industry. Most grocery products sold in the U.S. are produced here. As Walmart expands its share of U.S. grocery sales — it now captures 25 percent, up from 6 percent in 1998 — it will buy more U.S. foods. But this doesn't mean new jobs, because other grocers are losing market share and buying less. What it does mean is lower wages. As I reported earlier this year, Walmart's growing control of the grocery sector is pushing down wages throughout food production ...
In a way, Walmart's Buy America program represents the home stretch of the economic transformation the company set in motion decades ago, when it set out to replace the American middle class, rooted in small business ownership and unionized jobs, with a vast underclass that has little choice but to rely on theshoddy, short-lived products sold at big-box stores to get by.
Back in 1990, shouts a new study just published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, the United States ranked a lowly 20th on life expectancy among 34 major industrial nations. The United States now ranks 27th — despite spending much more on health care than any other nation...
Just how does inequality translate into unhealthy outcomes? Growing numbers of researchers see stress as the culprit. The more inequality in a society, the more stress. Chronic stress, over time, wears down our immune systems and leaves us more vulnerable to disease.
Saturday, August 3, 2013
Income Inequality
Did Sprawl Kill Horatio Alger?
A Tale Of Two Rust Belt Cities
Will SCOTUS Voting Rights Ruling Yield A Blue State Refund?
Without State Spending There'd Be No Google Or GlaxoSmithKline
Econ 101 Is Killing America
McDonald's Budget Plan Leaves Out Corporate Welfare
The Case For Paying People More
Mr. President, Have Pity On The Working Man
How Intellectual Property Reinforces Inequality
Is Productivity Being Translated Into Pay Increases?
Higher Productivity Used To Mean Higher Wages. Has That Broken Down?
Wages Fall At Record Pace
Walmart One Of The Major Welfare Recipients In America
Who's Dependent On Food Stamps? Cheapskate Corporations
Inequality In America: The Data Is Sobering
A Tale Of Two Rust Belt Cities
Will SCOTUS Voting Rights Ruling Yield A Blue State Refund?
Without State Spending There'd Be No Google Or GlaxoSmithKline
Econ 101 Is Killing America
McDonald's Budget Plan Leaves Out Corporate Welfare
The Case For Paying People More
Mr. President, Have Pity On The Working Man
How Intellectual Property Reinforces Inequality
Is Productivity Being Translated Into Pay Increases?
Higher Productivity Used To Mean Higher Wages. Has That Broken Down?
Wages Fall At Record Pace
Walmart One Of The Major Welfare Recipients In America
Who's Dependent On Food Stamps? Cheapskate Corporations
Inequality In America: The Data Is Sobering
Thursday, June 6, 2013
Saturday, May 11, 2013
Wisconsin Reading
Other critics, though, say the job cuts suggest that waging war on public-sector worker unions, cutting funding for public education and proclaiming the state “open for business” won’t magically turn Wisconsin into a new economy powerhouse.
“What it says to me is that political rhetoric is irrelevant,” says Jack Norman, past research director at the Institute for Wisconsin’s Future.
Norman says companies make hiring and other decisions based on demand for their products and whether they can do business better in a different location. The effect of government policies is somewhere on the fringe, he says.
On the other hand, Norman says one could argue the cuts to public worker take-home pay and other cost-savings measures under Walker have actually made Wisconsin’s economy worse. Here is a graphic showing job growth in Wisconsin before and after he took office.
“I think we’re seeing a local version of the austerity vs. investment debate going on across the capitalist world,” says Norman. “And right now, some countries are getting rid of their austerity policies because they aren’t working.”
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Light rail from downtown Milwaukee to Waukesha? Republicans at the state killed it.
Kenosha-Racine-Milwaukee (KRM) commuter rail? Republicans at the state killed it.
Extending the Amtrak Hiawatha Service to Madison at 110 mph (with stops in Brookfield and Watertown)? Republicans at the state killed it.
Building a maintenance base for trainsets the state had already purchased from Talgo? Republicans at the state killed it.
Rebuilding the train shed at Milwaukee Intermodal Station? Republicans rejected federal funds to fix the non-ADA compliant shed and are now left with a situation that will cost Wisconsinites millions.
A streetcar starter system in downtown Milwaukee? Republicans killed it.
The common link? All the projects were proposed by Democrats, had a presence in the City of Milwaukee, and involved steel wheels on steel rails.
Since becoming Governor in 2010, Scott Walker will have effectively rejected over $1 billion in federal money for rail transportation projects. The loss of high-speed rail funds to connect Chicago, Madison, and Milwaukee represent $823 million. The KRM funds would have beenat least $140 million. Assuming Walker (who has made clear his opposition to the Milwaukee streetcar) ultimately supports the amendment proposed by the Joint Finance Committee, he will also be rejecting $54.9 million for the Milwaukee Streetcar, which is the last of a $289 million 1991 federal grant.
The Fiscal Bureau reports that case law is on the side of Milwaukee on the subject of residency, noting that the U.S. Supreme Court and various state courts "have tended to uphold the constitutionality of the municipal residency requirements, generally siding with the public interests of governments and its policy reasons for such requirements."
Sweeping aside a 75-year-old City of Milwaukee residency ordinance and others like it, Republicans on the Legislature's budget committee voted Thursday to allow police and firefighters to live at least 15 miles outside of any community in the state and bar utility ratepayers from having to bear any costs for a proposed streetcar in the city - potentially killing the project.
On several votes Thursday, the Joint Finance Committee loaded up the state budget with policy items that had little to do with Wisconsin's finances. Many of the other policy items also limited the powers of local governments, such as a measure barring them from regulating the size of sodas.GOP fakes up a controversy over the UW system's financial reserves
Opposition Group Zones In On Walmart's New Berlin Plans (Other Walmart reading: 1, 2, 3, 4)
The Facts Are In And Paul Ryan Is Wrong
The Facts Are In And Paul Ryan Is Wrong
Friday, November 23, 2012
Saturday, September 29, 2012
Saturday, May 12, 2012
Weekend Reading
American Corporations Made Record $824 Billion Last Year
Assessing Yet Another Round Of Structural Unemployment Arguments
How To End This Depression
It Was The Housing Bubble, Stupid
Is Your Stuff Falling Apart? Thank Walmart
The Legendary Paul Ryan
Lehman E-mails Show Wall Street Arrogance Led To Fall
Private Jobs Increase More With Democrats In White House
Assessing Yet Another Round Of Structural Unemployment Arguments
How To End This Depression
It Was The Housing Bubble, Stupid
Is Your Stuff Falling Apart? Thank Walmart
The Legendary Paul Ryan
Lehman E-mails Show Wall Street Arrogance Led To Fall
Private Jobs Increase More With Democrats In White House
Thursday, October 20, 2011
The (Horrible) Reality of Walmart
Now, it appears, South Milwaukee has succumb to the siren song of Walmart.
For Further Reading:
Always the low-road strategy
Cudahy: Out of ideas
Purchasing power
Walmart subsidy report for Wisconsin
For Further Reading:
Always the low-road strategy
Cudahy: Out of ideas
Purchasing power
Walmart subsidy report for Wisconsin
Friday, July 1, 2011
Saturday, June 25, 2011
Wednesday, February 2, 2011
Always The Low-Road Strategy
Just what Milwaukee needs, another WalMart.
As a previous post stated, "Good Jobs First (as reported at Walmart Subsidy Watch - WSW) has found five subsidy deals for WalMart worth $21,750,000 in Wisconsin. WSW also states that WalMart workers and their dependents, participating in Wisconsin's Badger Care, cost Wisconsin $3.7 million per year."
For Further Reading:
Saturday, June 6, 2009
The Real Cost Of Walmart
Good Jobs First (as reported at Walmart Subsidy Watch - WSW) has found five subsidy deals for Walmart worth $21,750,000 in Wisconsin. WSW also states that Walmart workers and their dependents, participating in Wisconsin's Badger Care, cost Wisconsin $3.7 million per year.
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