Posted on 04/13/2020 9:36:13 AM PDT by Diana in Wisconsin
MADISON, WI — COVID-19 and Gov. Tony Evers’ emergency orders have pummeled business and Wisconsin’s economy at large.
As earlier dire pandemic projections improve, restive lawmakers and business leaders insist the social-distancing cure for the coronavirus may be deadlier than the disease — at least for Wisconsin’s failing economic health.
Evers’ top jobs administrator, Department of Workforce Development Secretary Caleb Frostman underscored the problem Friday during a Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce COVID-19 teleconference update. Frostman laid out the woeful numbers: more than 313,000 total new applications for unemployment benefits between March 15 and April 6, with weekly claims hitting nearly 590,000.
That’s part of historic U.S. jobless numbers that saw 6.6 million Americans filing first-time unemployment claims last week, according to the U.S. Department of Labor. The previous week posted 6.86 million new claims, numbers that shatter the worst the Great Recession dished out.
“This is unprecedented territory,” Frostman said.
No doubt.
WMC and 18 other statewide business associations and 33 local chambers of commerce sent a letter to the governor on Thursday urging his administration to “put together a plan that allows the state’s economy to get moving again.”
“We want to protect lives but we also want to protect livelihoods,” WMC President Kurt Bauer said.
Certainty is what businesses and workers are craving more than ever, Bauer said, noting that the process of restarting the economy should begin on April 24 — the day Evers’ “Safer at Home” order is set to expire.
Some lawmakers don’t want to wait that long.
Sen. Duey Stroebel (R-Cedarburg) released a statement Friday asserting that it’s time to re-evaluate Wisconsin’s COVID-19 policies. He notes that Sunday will mark one month since Evers declared a public health emergency based on troubling national models projecting horrifying outbreak rates. The projections have been revised downward.
“The trajectory of cases and deaths in Wisconsin is many times lower than the initial projections upon which Governor Evers and (Department of Health Services) Secretary-Designee (Andrea) Palm based their policies. With COVID-19 patients only taking up about 13.3% of all ICU beds in Wisconsin, with about 29% of ICU space still available, the concern of overwhelming our medical system is not as imminent or inevitable as it may have seemed previously,” Stroebel said.
Evers and his team argue that the case and fatality numbers are lower than projected because their isolation policies are working. But there is a growing body of evidence contradicting that all-or-nothing approach.
As Wisconsin enters the new phase of the COVID-19 response, Stroebel said it’s time to take a fresh look at control measures.
“Every sickness and death is a tragedy, but so are businesses and livelihoods ruined by shelter in place orders. The same rings true for the pronounced negative impacts on civil liberties and quality of life,” Stroebel said. “Besides being counterproductive, indefinite sheltering orders will eventually lead to civil disobedience. We need to begin planning an orderly method of reopening our civil life in stages to refresh our economy and liberties soon.”
Conservative lawmakers warn that the Legislature and the governor will have to make some tough decisions about state spending ahead. Wisconsin, unlike the federal government, can’t simply print money or borrow its way out of what expects to be a huge funding hole ahead.
Republican legislative leaders say they have been working with Democrats to craft legislation that truly meets the needs of the crisis, even as the governor has preemptively vowed to veto any spending cuts to schools or government operations. The GOP-led Legislature is preparing to meet in extraordinary session on Tuesday.
“We’re confident that this plan will make the necessary legislative changes to help Wisconsin deal with the extensive challenges from this public health crisis, while also protecting the integrity of our state budget,” Assembly Speaker Robin Vos (R-Rochester) and Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald (R-Juneau) said in a joint statement.
Stroebel said he’s not going to tell constituents who are going out of business, getting laid off or watching their retirements melt away “pay higher taxes so that state and local employees can avoid unpaid furloughs, or so that government programs can grow at twice the rate of inflation.”
“We do not yet know what our fiscal challenges will look like in a few months, but these are challenges that will only get worse if we fail to reopen our society in a timely fashion,” Stroebel said.
I felt overly-confident that Evers (D, WI) COULDN'T do much to ruin our stellar state economy, what with our legislature firmly in the hands of Republicans, but I might be wrong.
So, we wait and see how long Evers drags this out. Current 'release date' for Wisconsinites is April 24th, and we still don't know the results of our Supreme Court race on April 7th!
Evers is either very incompetent or an evil genius.
It could be worse...you could be locked down here in CT until our release date of MAY 20!
It will not happen soon. May first at the earliest and probably Memorial Day for most places.
Cries for relief will not be met by the states with any level of cases.
This is going to be the norm.
The calls for “re opening” are loud here, but in the general population the vast majority are not ready for it.
Well, it can ALWAYS be worse, and it WILL be worse until it gets better, again. ;)
I don’t even have to go ANYWHERE and I’m sick of it! Mainly sick of watching our businesses suffer and our hospitals remain half-EMPTY.
What a bunch of BS this has been. Blech!
Evers will open the State when he’s told by the Democrat running things from Wausau tells him to open it.
I’m betting if things aren’t open by May 1st you’re going to see a lot of us Wisconsinites giving the middle finger to him and taking back our State and regional parks at a minimum.
“The calls for ‘re opening’ are loud here, but in - Blue States - the vast majority - of dictatorial Democrats - are not ready for it.”
Fixed! :)
Two weeks ago Half Whit tried to shut Mi down until Mid June.
Thankfully we still have the legislature and they said no. after that she banned buying house paint and driving to moms to see how your mother is doing.
God. Less Uey....he’s my senator and a really good guy.
::Tough times ahead for those of us unfortunate enough to have a BLUE Governor during all of this. :( ::
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Well, there’s hope. Tweets from our great president:
For the purpose of creating conflict and confusion, some in the Fake News Media are saying that it is the Governors decision to open up the states, not that of the President of the United States & the Federal Government. Let it be fully understood that this is incorrect....— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 13, 2020
....It is the decision of the President, and for many good reasons. With that being said, the Administration and I are working closely with the Governors, and this will continue. A decision by me, in conjunction with the Governors and input from others, will be made shortly!— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 13, 2020
Well, there’s hope. Tweets from our great president:
For the purpose of creating conflict and confusion, some in the Fake News Media are saying that it is the Governors decision to open up the states, not that of the President of the United States & the Federal Government. Let it be fully understood that this is incorrect....— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 13, 2020
....It is the decision of the President, and for many good reasons. With that being said, the Administration and I are working closely with the Governors, and this will continue. A decision by me, in conjunction with the Governors and input from others, will be made shortly!— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 13, 2020
Half Whit needs to be recalled. If nothing else, people will see how much the democrats love their power and control and perhaps will vote to get them out of there. I dare say dem constituents don’t like being told what they can and can’t buy at a store and where they can go. Not a good look for the power hungry dem politicians.
Well, WI is pretty blue, then.
Come on Tony, we’ll take our chances. We do daily with the flu. We did so with H1N1. We do driving our vehicle. Get the businesses back operating and the people back to work. Thousands of children are killed in the womb but Democrats care little about that, if at all.
Supreme Court overrode Evers once already. Between them and the legislature, Evers can pound sand.
In 1 more year, we can get rid of Tony, provided we continue with Voter ID. The progs lost out on postponing the April election, after all.
No, our Governor is, and two counties are. The rest of us are sane. We flipped WI for President Trump and we’ll give our votes to him this time around, too. :)
Glad to read that! :)
Good luck. Really.
Heck, I live in Cali and I’m working on creating an animated fireworks display in case our lockdown extends past July 4.
How long do they expect people not to have scheduled surgeries and hospitals to be empty and broke?
I'm pretty sure they still perform emergency surgeries (appendectomies, bypass operations, etc.). If it's something that can wait you're probably better off waiting until the majority of CV patients have left the hospital one way or another. Hospitals are a common source of many infections. I was supposed to get tested for a congenital heart condition at the end of March. Obviously that didn't happen. I think I'll manage not to keel over until then.
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