Republican Public Policy Does It Again (And It's Not Good)

Poverty across Wisconsin reaches highest level in 30 years

Just a short list of the many Scott Walker failures:

• Slow job growth
• Budget deficits alongside giveaways and tax breaks for cronies
• Costing Wisconsin millions by refusing to expand health care under the Affordable Care Act; leading to less people having health care
• Increasing poverty

Scott Walker burst onto the scene and into the governor's mansion primarily on his self-proclaimed know-how for creating 250,000 new jobs. Wisconsin ranks 38th in private-sector job growth in 2015. So, we'll check that off as a failure on job creation.

Budget deficits were estimated at $1.5 to $2.2 billion when Walker first entered the governor's office. (The $3.6 billion estimate was from the Walker camp.) Legislative Fiscal Bureau analysis shows Wisconsin is back in the red for 2015-17, at $1.8 billion, which could grow to $2.2 billion. Wisconsin’s per-capita state debt has grown 2.9 percent during his tenure as governor, compared with a 0.34 percent decline nationwide over the same period, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Looks like we're treading water here. But, Walker did come in claiming he was going to move hell and high water; I guess we'll have to check this off as a failure, too.

Walker's health care decision means that state taxpayers are paying more to cover fewer people in the BadgerCare Plus health plan. The decision to reject that federal money is estimated to have a net cost to the state of more than $100 million in the current two-year budget. The federal money would have allowed the state to cover an estimated 84,700 more people through BadgerCare. Failure ... check.

And now, due to the tax cuts and slow job growth, poverty is on the rise. Is that another failure? It sure is ... check.

Deregulation, tax cuts, supple-side economics, anti-unionism, anti-science, anti-environmentalism, privatized healthcare and underfunded education - the Republican policy playbook - are not the policy prescriptions for success. Republican legislation has proven this again and again.

For Further Reading:

Budget woes complicate Gov. Scott Walker's White House ambitions

There Is No Budget Surplus in Wisconsin

Wisconsin Is About To Make It Easier For Debt Collectors To Go After Consumers

A closer look at Wisconsin’s economy under Gov. Scott Walker
Scott Walker Saves More Money For Menard

Scott Walker Approves Obscure Tax Break For Furniture Company, Quickly Collects Large Campaign Donation

Special Interests Pig Out On The Taxpayers’ Tab

Scott Walker: Even Worse Than You Thought

Walker Ends State Funding For Bike Program
Bicycling And The Economy
Walker's Budget Reduces Historic Tax Credits
Measuring Economic Impacts Of Historic Preservation
Scott Walker Says He'll Sign Fast-Tracked Right-To-Work Bill
Right-To-Work 101
Scott Walker Embraced By Voodoo Economists
The GOP: Still The Party Of Stupid
The Walker Economic Record
Scott Walker Will Have A Hard Time Explaining His Economic Record If He Runs For President 
What Fox Won't Tell You About Scott Walker's Economic Record
Walker Budget Again Declines Federal Money For Medicaid Expansion And Defers Debt Principal Payment To Balance Books
How Not To Interview Scott Walker About His Weak Economic Record
Walker's Budget Expands School Vouchers, Holds Line On Taxes
Vouchers Don't Work: Evidence From Milwaukee
How Could Walker Refuse Incredible Deal?
Walker's Budget Borrows Big
Walker Takes Milwaukee County To Brink Of Bankruptcy
Walker Proposes $300 Million Cut To UW System
Reckless Proposal To Gut UW From Gov. Scott Walker
State Shortfall Could Be $928 Million Over Next 2 1/2 Years
Wisconsin Officials Call Scott Walker's Budget 'Nonsensical'

Walker & Republicans, Stop Lying! A $1.8 Billion Deficit Isn't Budget-Saving!

Another conservative hack was given space in the Journal-Sentinel to espouse more complete right-wing fabrications. David Fladeboe, of the Wisconsin chapter of Americans For Prosperity, referred to Scott Walker's Act 10 as "budget-saving."

A $1.8 billion deficit, for those of us familiar with arithmetic, would not be considered budget-saving.

Fladeboe blathers on, "In no universe real or otherwise were powerful labor bosses and their unions ever going to make meaningful concessions that benefited hard-working teachers and public safety workers, let alone Wisconsin taxpayers."

I don't remember the Republicans calling teachers "hard-working" during the past two election cycles. "Overpaid," I believe, was their favorite adjective for teachers back then. And, public safety workers were exempted from Act 10 -- meaning -- they can still bargain for higher wages.

Fladeboe obviously has no idea what he is talking about. He's simply repeating the misguided Republican talking-point about thuggish and greedy unions, completely unaware of the fact that, over the past decade, union members have paid more for health care and pensions, gone without raises, and taken furlough days. Again, for those of us familiar with arithmetic, these would be considered "meaningful concessions."

And the idea that public sector workers are to blame for budget deficits turns reality on its head. It was all those deregulated, tax-avoiders connected to Wall Street (whom the Republicans adore and subsidize) that drove our economy into the ditch.

[I haven't seen the counter-point to these blatant right-wing falsities in the Journal. Timeliness is of the essence in these matters. Especially during election season.]

Here again we have the right-wing lying, attempting to rewrite history, and claiming their policies are working. The Democrats, the Unions, Liberals, etc. - everything is their fault. The Republicans promised jobs and budget surpluses. Neither of those promises has materialized, but they still keep on claiming and writing about how all their policies are working. And our media, for the most part, seems to be letting them get away with it. But that doesn't change the fact - the Republicans and their henchmen are lying to us.

For Further Reading:
Wisconsin's budget deficit was created by Scott Walker's irresponsible policies

Will Gov. Scott Walker Ever Come Clean On Wisconsin's Budget Deficit?

Scott Walker's budget implodes. $1.8 BILLION in Wis deficits

Give Reality Back To Taxpayers

Lt. Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch took to the Journal Sentinel to boast about all Scott Walker has done for Wisconsin and to propose giving the budgetary "surplus" back to the taxpayers.

If you consider borrowing, increasing long-term debt, as a "surplus," then Scott Walker has really been on point. Yet, as most can see, this is merely kicking the can down the road. A bit of smoke and mirrors for Mr. Walker, so he can present the illusion of positive policy outcomes. But in reality, he's just burying Wisconsin is debt so he can advance his own political career.

To come up with her rosy picture, Kleefisch compares the Walker administration's tenure with the peak of the recession. One would expect improvement after hitting rock bottom. They could have taken office and done nothing and things would have shown some improvement. For a truer test, we need to see where we were at before the recession. To show real gains one would expect improvement above and beyond the norm, and improvements that rank near the best among states, especially if one is going to claim his or her policies are doing so much good.

Kleefisch crows about the improvement in the unemployment rate. "Four years ago, the state's unemployment rate was 9.2%. In fact, Wisconsin lost more than 133,000 jobs and lost 27,000 businesses during Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle's final term in office. After Gov. Walker and I were sworn in, we took aggressive action to get Wisconsin working again. Now, the unemployment rate is the lowest it has been in more than five years at 6.2%."

As you can see from the graph below, its awfully convenient to choose 2010 for comparison, rather than any other time before that. When we look back just a bit further, we see Wisconsin still has a way to go to reach full employment. Our current unemployment rate ranks us 22nd among the states. In 2011 and 2012, although we had higher unemployment rates (6.9 and 7.5), we ranked 19th among the states for both years. As far as the state is doing compared to others, we've actually gotten worse.

[source]

Kleefisch talks of turning a deficit into a surplus. "We also took necessary steps to get our fiscal house in order over the past few years. We inherited a $3.6 billion budget deficit when we took office and turned it into a $759 million surplus by the end of the 2011-'13 budget."

As Media Matters commented, "Fox News hyped Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker's economic record, claiming that the governor's economic plan generated a nearly $1 billion budget surplus while ignoring that the current surplus is built upon a projected structural deficit and that the state ranks 28th in the nation for job creation under Walker's tenure." From the same article, "The Legislative Fiscal Bureau: Under Walker's Budget, Wisconsin's Structural Deficit Would Grow To $725 Million. A non-partisan analysis of Walker's most recent budget concluded that the Governor's proposed tax cuts would increase the state's budget shortfall over the coming years. Walker's tax plan hyped by Fox would in fact cost the state $180 million and would ultimately turn the touted surplus into a deficit by 2017."

The Democratic Party of Wisconsin also notes, "When Scott Walker was running for governor, he promised to balance budgets Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP); however, the budget he claims as balanced is anything but when using GAAP. By gutting public education to the tune of $2.6 billion and slashing more than $500 million from public healthcare, along with skillfully kicking the can down the road with accounting tricks that pass debt onto future budgets, Walker has given the appearance of a balanced budget. But when using the GAAP that Walker promised to use, Wisconsin’s deficit will actually be more than $3 billion at the end of the biennium – a larger deficit than Walker inherited."

Kleefisch continues, "And some 100,000 jobs and nearly 13,000 new businesses have been created since we took office." Again, as we can see from the graph below, all this "job creation" has only gotten us back to 2004 levels. Oddly, I remember some politician promising 250,000 new jobs in his first term. 

[source]

Republicans always talk about "putting money back into taxpayers pockets." Although Kleefisch didn't mention it in her op-ed, lets take a look at the real median household income in Wisconsin. Are those wonderful Walker policies fattening your wallet? As the graph below shows, the median household actually has less now than they did during the peak of the recession. 

 [source]

Kleefisch and Walker are giving Wisconsin taxpayers a bigger debt burden, meaningless promises and a false reality. 

U.S. Deficit Fell 37 Percent In 2013

From Neil Irwin, at the Washington Post:

The federal government's 2013 fiscal year ended Sept. 30, though most of us were so busy focusing on the government shutdown that accompanied the new fiscal year that there wasn't much time to reflect on the year that had passed. 

Now the Treasury and Office of Management and Budget is out with the final budget results. Surprise! The deficit fell quite a bit in 2013. The federal government took in $680 billion less revenue than it spent, or about 4.1 percent of gross domestic product. In 2012, those numbers were $1.087 trillion and 6.8 percent of GDP. That means the deficit fell a whopping 37 percent in one year. 

This is the first sub-$1 trillion and sub-5 percent of GDP deficit since the 2008 fiscal year, which ended the very month that Lehman Brothers fell and a deep crisis set in. 

What's behind it? 

Most of all, there was more revenue. Government receipts totaled $2.774 trillion, up $325 billion from 2012, and rising to 16.7 percent of GDP from 15.2 percent. That reflects in part a stronger economy that increased income and payroll taxes. It also includes the expiration of a payroll tax holiday that increased tax receipts, and higher rates for upper-income Americans agreed to for this calendar year. 

There was less spending, amid the drawdown of U.S. involvement in Afghanistan, lower unemployment insurance benefits due to an improving economy, and the enactment government enacted budget cuts called for in the 2011 debt ceiling deal, including the sequestration automatic spending cuts that began in March. Overall outlays were $3.454 trillion, the treasury said, falling $84 billion compared with the 2012 fiscal year. That fall moves government outlays from 22 percent of GDP to 20.8 percent. 

It remains true that there are longer-term challenges facing the U.S. government finances, particularly around rising health-care costs. But the reality is that much of the conversation around debt and deficits is missing this basic fact: Deficits are, for now, falling fast. If anything, too fast. Just Wednesday, the Federal Reserve concluded a policy meeting with a statement that asserted, as it has in the past, that "fiscal policy is restraining growth" and that its forecasts are "taking into account the extent of federal fiscal retrenchment over the past year." Independent economists outside the government have reached similar conclusions, and now worry that deficits will fall so fast as to undermine the recovery.

Weekend Reading: Scott Walker Edition

Scott Walker Medicaid Decision Could Cost Wisconsin Employers $36 Million
Wisconsin Gets An "F" For Disclosing Its Spending
Scott Walker Budget Could Create Deficit In Next Biennium
Walker Loves Milwaukee? We're Not Feeling It
Wisconsin A Tax Haven For Businesses
Wisconsin Falls To 44th Nationally In Private-Sector Job Creation

Wisconsin ranked 44th out of the 50 states in private-sector job creation in the 12 months from September 2011 to September 2012. The state's position has deteriorated progressively from a revised rank of 41st in the previous 12-month period through June 2012; and from a rank of 37th in the 12 months through March 2012.

But wages in Wisconsin fell faster and harder than most of the nation. When ranked by the percentage change in all private-sector employment, Wisconsin average wages had the 45th-worst ranking out of 50 states.

In the manufacturing economy, where Wisconsin has a disproportionate share of its employment, Wisconsin's wages also dropped more than national wages did, ranking 46th in terms of the change from September 2011 to September 2012.