The Journal Sentinel's Fake Reality

Leave it to the Journal Sentinel to add in their usual big bowl of wrong following Tuesday's election.

Since Walker and the Republicans were victorious, it's up to the Democrats to "reach out and find common ground."

Yes, because the Democrats have been so unwilling to cooperate up until now? This false equivalency bullshit is so tired.

The idea that Democrats haven't been trying, forever, to negotiate on policy with the Republicans is ridiculous.

The Journal rants:

Pouting and stomping their feet doesn't work and will only drive them farther from state voters. That's a lesson they should have learned during the Act 10 days of protest when state senators fled for Illinois to delay a vote on the measure that effectively killed public sector unions in Wisconsin. Fist-shaking and name-calling wasn't effective then and isn't going to be very effective in the months ahead.

Has the Journal been paying attention to Republican politics for the last 40 years? The Republicans have been the party of pouting, stomping their feet, fist-shaking and name-calling.

The Democrats' claims against the Republicans for fraud, lying, deception, favoritism, cronyism, etc. have all been true.

The Republicans have manufactured a false reality for their constituents and the media has been a willing accessory.

The Journal continues:

Walker won, and not just because he ran a better campaign than Burke. At least 52% of voters like the governor and like his message better than they liked Burke's. They like balanced budgets. They like a healthier economy. And they think Walker and his fellow Republicans can deliver on those issues better than the Democrats can.

A balanced budget? A healthier economy? Republicans deliver [on these issues] better than the Democrats?

WTF?!

These claims are all demonstrably false! How can the Journal write such easily disproven drivel?

The Journal then attempts more revisionism:

Some of Walker's opponents argue that he has demonized public sector employees and teachers. He did not, although some of his supporters have.

So, it wasn't Scott Walker claiming unions [not Wall Street] destroyed the economy and teachers [not CEOs] are overpaid?

They continue with a 'Democrats are meanies' meme, "Many of Walker's opponents have demonized the governor and his supporters, comparing him to past dictators, for example, or charging that he is a puppet of the evil Koch brothers and big mining companies."

I guess the Journal would just like to ignore the fact that both of these claims are true. It seems their form of journalism has a real problem with calling it like it is.

Until Republicans and the Journal Sentinel can come to grips with reality, it looks like we will be faced with a continual string of false equivalencies and manufactured narratives.

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

Comparing State Pension Costs To Corporate Subsidies And Tax Breaks

Putting State Pension Costs In Context 

PUTTING PENSION COSTS IN CONTEXT: NEW REPORT SHOWS CORPORATE TAX SUBSIDIES AND LOOPHOLES OFTEN EXCEED STATE RETIREMENT COSTS 

Attacks on Pensions, Safety Net Programs, Distract from Corporate Giveaways that Exacerbate Economic Inequality 

Washington D.C., January 30, 2014 — State lawmakers who are considering drastic cuts to the retirement benefits of state workers are simultaneously giving away billions of dollars in corporate tax subsidies and loopholes, often in amounts far exceeding the cost of pensions, according to a new report. 

Putting State Pension Costs in Context by Good Jobs First examines 10 states where elected officials are threatening to undermine retirement security by cutting the pension benefits of their teachers, firefighters, police officers, and hundreds of thousands of other public employees. The states included in the report are: Arizona; California; Colorado; Florida; Illinois; Louisiana; Michigan; Missouri; Oklahoma; and Pennsylvania. 

The findings show that in each state, the revenue lost to corporations through loopholes and tax breaks outpaces the current cost of pension benefits to state employees. 

“In states across the country, politicians are attempting to solve the budget woes caused by Wall Street and the Great Recession by cutting the pension benefits of public employees,” said Philip Mattera, Research Director of Good Jobs First. “It is often stated that budgets are a matter of priorities. And our research shows that corporate interests are generally prioritized over teachers, firefighters, police officers, and thousands of other employees who dedicate their lives to public service.” 

The average retirement for a member of the Louisiana State Retirement fund is $19,000 a year. Yet, Louisiana gives away about $1.8 billion a year to corporations through corporate subsidies and tax loopholes—totaling about five times the annual pension cost for state workers. 

Pennsylvania loses nearly $4 billion annually as a result of corporate subsidies and loopholes—more than two and half times the cost of public pensions. Pennsylvania’s state pensions average a modest $24,000 a year. In Michigan, corporations also enjoy about $1.8 billion in subsidies and tax breaks – more than three times the cost of meeting the state’s commitment to retirees. The list goes on. 

These ten states were chosen for analysis because their legislatures are underfunding pensions or elected officials are threatening to cut pension benefits. Actuarial analysis provided the normal cost of funding pensions on a yearly basis, which excludes the costs of making up for past underfunding. Data was derived by examining the latest state tax expenditure reports, state budget documents, and reports by state tax and budget watchdog groups. 

“As a matter of honest accounting and fair budgeting, state leaders should examine all forms of spending before they single out pensions or any other expense,” said Mattera. “Corporate tax breaks and loopholes are often poorly understood and little-noticed because they do not get debated as appropriations, nor do they often get sunsetted or audited. But over time they add up to hundreds of millions, or even billions, of dollars per year.”

Walker & Republicans Wrong On Budgets & Taxes

Gov. Scott Walker signs 2-year, $70 billion Wisconsin budget

The budget approved by the Republican-controlled Legislature includes all of Walker’s priorities, including a $650 million income tax cut, expansion of private school vouchers and changes to the state’s Medicaid and food stamp programs... 

The “biggest, boldest reform” in the budget was new work requirements for people on food stamps. Able-bodied adults must spend at least 20 hours a week working or getting trained for a job, or they will be limited to three months of benefits over three years. Walker described this as a kindness. 

“We say it’s time to get the training, and the access to training so that when a job becomes available, you are ready to get in the game,” he said.

Tax Plans for Wisconsin Go From Bad to Worse

Here is how the tax cut would be distributed among income groups: 

- The top 5% of earners alone, a group with an average income of $392,000, would receive more than 1/3 of the benefit of the income tax cuts.
- The top 20% of earners, a group with an average income of $183,000, would receive more than 2/3 of the benefit.
- The bottom 60% of earners – those making $60,000 a year or less – would only receive 11% of the benefit of the income tax cuts.
- The 20% of the Wisconsinites with the lowest incomes would receive just two cents out of every $100 in individual income tax cuts under this proposal.

Bad Budgets Become Law in Ohio and Wisconsin

The budget Governor Walker just signed also created a structural deficit of $505 million in the next biennium.

The Truth About State Taxes

The record suggests that taxes in Wisconsin were lower under Doyle than under any governor in the last five decades, as compared to other states...

One of the peak levels of taxation came under Republican Gov. Tommy Thompson, who increased taxes to the point that they took 13.1% of personal income in Wisconsin in 1996, when the state ranked 3rd in taxes nationally. The state still ranked 4th when Thompson left office...

Another way of measuring this is to look at total state-local spending. The WisTax figures show the 2011 state/local expenditures per person were $8,351 nationally and almost exactly the same, $8,383 in Wisconsin.

For Further Reading:
Legislative Fiscal Bureau 2015-2017 General Fund Budget
Budget Bill Turns Large Surplus into a $505 Million Hole in 2015-17 Biennium

Fiscal bureau: $500 million structural deficit in 2017 anticipated

Wisconsin Corporate Blackmail

From Bruce Murphy, "Wisconsin, it turns out, is also a paradise for companies seeking handouts, as a ground-breaking story in the New York Times documents. The story’s online tracker allows you to check any state, which shows Wisconsin spends $1.53 billion in taxes per year on incentives for business. That equals 10 percent of the state’s annual budget and costs $268 per per person. Wisconsin, land of the supposedly bad business climate, ranks ahead of 33 other states and the District of Columbia in per-capita payments to business."

Go read Murphy's entire Land of Corporate Blackmail article.

We're Broke?

State gives $5 million to BMO Harris Bradley Center for repairs.

Yes, we are so broke.

Unless the already well-to-do and well-connected want millions for their private playgrounds.

Run It Like A Business?

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State Spending

Weekend Reading

Americans Brace For Next Wave Of Foreclosures
Bankruptcy Costs & America's Household Debt Crisis
The 401(K): American Not Prepared To Manage Their Own Retirement
Housing Scorecard Points To Stability In Market
The Impossibility Of Defense Cuts
MIT Predicting Global Economic Collapse By 2030
More Public Pension Scare Stories At The Post
U.S. Labor Market Increasingly Low-Wage Driven
Where America Needs Doctors
Where Do Our State Tax Dollars Go?
Will Foreclosures Drive Home Prices Lower?
Why A Housing Recovery Could Happen Sooner Than You Think

Wisconsin Reading

Republican Amateurs Screw Up Wisconsin Budget
Slammed For Raising Taxes
Walker-Inspired Job Losses
Walker's Plan To Take Mortgage Money
Walker Stealing Money To Repair Budget

The Gazoo Government

I happened to stumble across Turner Hall's 4th Street Forum this morning while flipping through the channels. Eric Isbister, CEO Gen Met Manufacturing, was part of a panel discussing Wisconsin's "business climate." Mr. Isbister obviously read his Republican business climate talking-points before going on the show. Government needs to get out of the way, government needs to regulate less, taxes need to be lowered...but the government should be training people and providing an educated workforce for the private sector and helping to fill positions for these private sector companies when needed.

Despite decades of evidence to the contrary, Isbister believes Repulican policies are better for small business in the long-term. Jon Perr elaborates on the failure of Republicans policies over the years, based on numerous economic indicators.

It's as if private-sector CEOs see the government as Gazoo, from the Flintstones. A magical entity that can appear only when you want and whom will make whatever you need happen and then go away.

The Fiscal Policy Institute has found, States with minimum wages above the Federal level have had faster small business and retail job growth. Raise The Minimum Wage has more on wages across the country. One would hope the U.S. would be trying to increase the wages, and thus the quality of life, for it's citizens.

Public sector compensation was a convenient scapegoat of the right-wing to blame for our recession. But, as the Center for American Progress has shown, State budget deficits are not an employee compensation problem. The Great Recession has crushed budgets all around. The busting of the bubble and subsequent lack of demand are the real culprits.

Empirical evidence has been quite clear - cutting taxes does not lead to economic, income or wage growth, nor does it lead to job creation. Lane Kenworthy has done international comparisons and found higher taxes aren't necessarily bad for the economy. Kenworthy has also discovered that the tax burden on the top 1% is lower now than it was in the 1970s. Alejandro Reuss also explains that lower tax rates do not increase government revenue, as conservatives illogically claim. The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities reports that higher state taxes bring more revenue, not more migration.

The "business climate" talking-point is merely an extension of the mythology that is trickle-down, neoliberal, supply-side economics. Another fable the conservatives can spin to claim regulation is burdensome, taxes are too high, and government is always to blame. People need to, finally, realize the right-wing has basically made this stuff up. The real world just doesn't match up with the stories Republicans are selling.

Looking at the evidence, reality does appear to have a liberal bias. It's time for all of us to stop giving equal time, equal weight or the benefit of believing their views are based on rational or reasoned analysis, to these Republicans fairytales of how the world works and what helps it work best.

Reality & Public Sector Compensation

With election season heating up, Republican myth-making and outright dishonesty can't be far behind. In anticipation of the next round of right-wing attacks on government and the public sector, here is some of the latest research completely debunking the Republicans' attempted deception on government size and public worker pay.

Are Wisconsin Public Employees Overcompensated?
Right-Wing Media Pushing Phony Public Sector Worker Stats
State Budget Deficits Are Not An Employee Compensation Problem
Wisconsin Has Lean Public Sector
Wisconsin Public Employees
Wisconsin Public Sector Workers Are Undercompensated

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Facts & Fiction About Student Loans

First Look At U.S. Pay Data, It's Awful

How The Austerity Class Rules Washington

Inequality, Leverage and Crisis

Local Public Employees Layoffs Fuel Vicious Cycle of Economic Crisis

Long, Steep Drop for Americans' Standard of Living

State & Local Fiscal Fortunes: Follow the Money

Tax Reform Act of 1986: Should We Do It Again?

Wisconsin Spending

The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities comments, "In Wisconsin, lawmakers enacted over $90 million in new tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy. For example, corporations will be allowed to claim as a tax deduction a greater share of the losses they have incurred in past years and will tax less of their capital gains income. Together with other tax cuts enacted earlier this year, the total revenue loss to the state is about $200 million over the next two year budget cycle, requiring further budget cuts. Lawmakers filled $56 million of the budget shortfall by scaling back the state’s Earned Income Tax Credit for 152,000 low-income working families, at an average cost of $518 for families with 3 or more children and $154 for families with 2 children, annually."

Sunday Reading

Infrastructure Crumbles

Race To The Bottom

Wisconsin Tax Avoiders

Turning Tax Exemptions Into Revenue For Government

Unemployment Compensation in Wisconsin

Who Does Not Pay Taxes?

Wisconsin Values Budget

We're Broke?

"The final figures show that the median pay for top executives at 200 big companies last year was $10.8 million. That works out to a 23 percent gain from 2009," reports Pradnya Joshi.

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How State Are Rigging The 2012 Election

How The U.S. Detoured To Massive Debt

Mr. Keynes & The Moderns

Overworked America

7 Things About Debt, Deficits, & The Dollar

Supply-side Nonsense

Tax Cuts Don't Pay For Themselves

The Illusions of Psychiatry

The Truth About Wisconsin's Budget, Taxes & The Phony Crisis

Who Doesn't Pay Federal Income Taxes

Kucinich Decimates Walker

Recoiling Retirement

The Republicans seem hell-bent on a national plan to end collective bargaining, to shift away from pensions to 401Ks (even more so), and to kill mandated employer-provided health care. Specifically, regarding retirement, using the poor economy (as they've used in all of their "crisis" talk) as their springboard, we are told that pensions are antiquated and bankrupting states.

John Schmid, of The Journal Sentinel, gives the pension-killing details in Scott Walker's budget bill which helps move Wisconsin toward more 401Ks and less defined-benefit plans (pensions). The article is laden with dubious assertions and less-than credible quotations. But there are a few nuggets that can be extracted by discerning readers which reveal the stupidity of moving towards 401Ks and the falsity of the "crisis" argument.

One sentence gets to the heart of things, "But the recession and the ensuing government budget crisis have created upheaval of the sort that often leads to dramatic policy changes." This is a sweeping generalization and not really true. But it also get shows that Republicans have twisted a down economy into a "crisis" and are using it to push their ideological policies. We're in a recession. One would expect stocks, pensions, jobs, etc. to be down during such. As the economy recovers, so will retirement plans and stocks. To stretch this into a "pensions and collective bargaining caused this" mantra is demonstrably false.

I've have written previous posts explaining the mistake of moving toward defined contribution rather the defined benefit retirement plans. "The 401K originally came about as a 1978 congressional provision intended to offer tax breaks on deferred income; which tends to benefit wealthy individuals." So, not only was this originally initiated to primarily benefit wealthy people, 401Ks are especially volatile and subject to the business cycle. And, if you happen to want to retire during an economic downturn, think again. This also keeps more people in the labor pool, opening up less jobs, driving down wages, and increasing unemployment. But the Wall Street-types make fees off managing 401K accounts (lots of money), so Republicans - and their corporate masters - are happy, and not all that concerned with the stability of your retirement.

As Dallas Salisbury (of the Employee Benefit Research Institute) is quoted in Schmid's article,"If the market goes down, that's your problem. If it goes up you win. If it's enough to retire on, fine. If not, keep working." This is just what someone who has showed up to work everyday, been a loyal worker for 25 or 30 years, wants to hear right at the time they're ready to retire. This isn't a retirement plan, it's a game of craps.

We used to be in this together. We wanted to find ways to raise all boats. If one worker, or a group of workers, gained a right or benefit, we tried to expand this to all workers. Instead, led by Republicans, we are in a race to the bottom. Workers are forced to bicker amongst themselves and rally against other workers who have better benefits. If I can't have a pension, neither can you. If I can't make a living wage, neither can you. As Jonathan Cohn asked, "To what extent is the problem that retirement benefits for everybody else have become to stingy?"

As the National Association of State Retirement Administrators states, "The retirement security of working Americans presently appears shaky outside the public sector." Republicans want everyone's retirement to be shaky, rather than improving the stability - with pensions - of retirement for Americans.

This is yet another detail and example of why the fight occurring in Wisconsin, and many other states, right now is so important to the future of America and American workers.

Kevin Hall, at McClatchy, in an excellent article, details the absurdity and outright lies in the Republicans' assault on pension plans.

• The short answer is that there's simply no evidence that state pensions are the current burden to public finances that their critics claim.
• Pension contributions from state and local employers aren't blowing up budgets. They amount to just 2.9 percent of state spending, on average, according to the National Association of State Retirement Administrators. The Center for Retirement Research at Boston College puts the figure a bit higher at 3.8 percent.
• The nonpartisan Employee Benefit Research Institute estimates that retirement funding for private employers amounts to about 3.5 percent of employee compensation.
• In 1980, 84 percent of workers at medium and large companies in the U.S. had a defined-benefit plan like those still predominate in the public sector. By last year, just 30 percent of workers in these larger companies were covered under such plans.
• Two out of every three public-sector workers aren't union members.
• Wisconsin's public-sector pension plan still has enough assets today to cover more than 18 years of benefits.
• Since September 2008_ when state and local government employees numbered 19,385,000 and the economic crisis turned severe — the governments' payrolls shrunk by 407,000, to 18,978,000 this January, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data. When calculating from December 2007 _ the month that the National Bureau of Economic Research determined was the start of the Great Recession _ state and local government employment has fallen by 703,000 jobs amid a downturn that cost the nation more than 8 million jobs overall.

For Further Reading:

Deferred Wages

An Overblown 'Crisis' For State Pension Funds

Retirement Revisionists

Selling Our Soul To The Company Store

Walking Off A Cliff

Correcting The Broken Record

Jon Stewart's magnum opus. In the way only the Daily Show can, Stewart completely exposes the folly of our recent budget dialogue. Teachers must suffer. Yet corporate taxes should be lowered. It's fine to bad-mouth union workers. But please stop being mean to the really swell bankers. The poor must suffer through layoffs, wage cuts, and increased health care costs. We must not ask the rich to sacrifice anything. We need to cut their taxes and just hope some money trickles down.

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