Posted on 06/30/2015 3:54:44 PM PDT by Laissez-faire capitalist
As Gov. Scott Walker prepares to announce his campaign for president next month, promising to bring what he calls "big bold leadership" to Washington, as he did in Wisconsin, he faces a cloud over that story line: Republicans back home are in revolt.
Leaders or Mr. walker's party, which controls the Legislature, are balking at his demands for the state's budget. Critics say the governor's spending blueprint is aimed more at appealing to conservatives in early-voting states like Iowa than doing what is best for Wisconsin.
Lawmakers are stymied over how to pay for road and bridge repairs without raising taxes or fees, which Walker has ruled out. The governor's fellow Republicans rejected his proposal to borrow $1.3 billion for the roadwork, arguing that adding to the state's debt is irresponsible.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
——Forbes has criticized him on more than one occasion for creative accounting in trying to make the budget deficit not appear as bad as it is
You tried that crap before and I’m calling you on it. That Forbes article was 3 years old and commented on a budget deficit that three years later was a 500 million surplus. You have got to stop lying here.
The Wisconsin state budget ended the last fiscal year with a $517 million surplus.
http://fox6now.com/2014/10/15/status-of-wisconsin-state-budget-due-in-report/
Stop lying about Walker. You are demeaning this site.
The NYT doesn’t even know where Wisconsin is on the map.
How do they know how the State GOP thinks.
They don’t even know how NYC voters feel about their Marxist Mayor.
This is yet another hit piece from the MSM.
-—Last I heard was that the taxpayers will be footing the bill for a portion of that as well to the tune of $250 million (about half).
You are not in close touch with recent developments.
It calls for $55 million in bonding from the state, $55 million from Milwaukee County, and another $93 million from the Wisconsin Center District, which runs a convention hall in Milwaukee
http://www.wpr.org/assembly-republicans-votes-are-there-bucks-deal
——Walker’s campaign was cited for cheating when he ran for office at Marquette. He is still under investigation for illegally coordinating campaign funds during his last two elections.
An unfounded rumor and a lie Next you will be telling us about his love child.
I called you on the John Doe misinformation last time. You are just a fount of lies.
Hillary supporters pretending to be conservative.
.
>> “Hillary supporters pretending to be conservative.” <<
.
We have them here!
.
It’s going to be a long f’in election with the mother of lies running.
I have relatives in Wisconsin. Real close to Madison. Course the house is divided liberal and conservative. But I have heard first hand about the trials and tribulations of Governor Walker as the events unfolded. Notice the sign up dates of these out of state harpies planting lies, calling themselves conservative.
Frankly....I've not seen too many FReeper's saying that the NY Times...was worth spit.
Can you name 5 or 10?
-—Notice the sign up dates of these out of state harpies planting lies, calling themselves conservative.
Yep, we have to develop antibodies against the diffusion of untruths. You can buy a lot of infiltrators when you run a 2 billion dollar international charity/slush fund. We’ll have to stay alert.
——are huge cuts to education that Walker wants
Either lying or ignorant here.
Walker did propose education cuts, the legislature has restored them and added an increase. That is not part of what is holding up the budget.
-—Their unemployment rate is almost a point below the national average, but not enough to account for that low percentage of job production.
you knew I was coming to your party. Wisconsin’s unemployment rate is 4.4 percent!!! That is below the accepted level for full employment
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Full_employment
So it IS enough to account for job production numbers that are not as great as states that suffered more in the Obama depression.
Highlights of today’s BLS release of Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages (QCEW) through the fourth quarter of 2014 include:
——Wisconsin ranked 16th highest in the number of manufacturing jobs gained during the 12-month period ending in December 2014.
-——A 6.4 percent gain in construction jobs (+6,158), reflecting the sector’s highest fourth-quarter annual growth rate since at least 2002.
——Total private-sector wages increased by 4.9 percent in the fourth quarter of 2014 over the same quarter in 2013.
http://dwd.wi.gov/dwd/newsreleases/2015/150617_bls_qrt_decending_2014.htm
Chief Executive Magazine ranked Wisconsin the “12th Best State for Business” in its annual survey of CEO’s, an increase of two spots over the 2014 ranking, and a significant increase since 2010, when the state ranked 41st.
Manpower Employment Outlook Survey gave Wisconsin the 3rd best outlook in the US for the 3rd quarter.
http://dwd.wi.gov/dwd/newsreleases/2015/150617_bls_qrt_decending_2014.htm
The liberal/progressives have a deep seated hate for Walker. The liberal slimes spilling ink about him, is more than a bit curious. There is no just cause for so called conservatives to tell lies. Thank you for exposing the lies.
Walker has a track record but frankly he looks dopey and he doesn’t have a college degree. He has no chance in a general.
Walker is my second choice behind Cruz and his actions and the validity of that statement are the main reasons.
Scott Walker says next state budget will begin with $535 million surplus By Dave Umhoefer on Wednesday, October 22nd, 2014 at 5:00 a.m.
Mary Burke and Gov. Scott Walker shook hands before their final debate on Oct. 17, 2014. JS Photo Michael Sears
Gov. Scott Walker put a happy face on the state’s long-term budget outlook in his second debate with Democratic challenger Mary Burke.
"The most recent fiscal year just ended with a cash balance of some $517 million," Walker said. "And the next state budget will begin with a surplus of over half a billion dollars -- $535 million to be exact. That means we can invest in our priorities."
That first figure is undisputed and widely reported: The state ended the year from July 1, 2013 to June 30, 2014 in the black by $517 million.
But Burke challenged Walker’s second figure.
There’s a $1.8 billion shortfall heading into the 2015-’17 budget, she said, not a "surplus of over half a billion dollars." ,P> That’s a huge difference.
To determine if Walker is right about the projected $535 million surplus, we turned to reports issued by the state’s nonpartisan budget scorekeeper, the Legislative Fiscal Bureau.
But first, we want to be crystal clear about what is being debated here.
It’s not a prediction of how the second year of the 2013-’15 budget will end up.
Rather, Walker is talking about projections on where the state’s finances will be as the next governor and Legislature put the 2015-’17 budget together in early 2015.
This is what is often referred to as the "structural deficit." The name is unfortunate. The figure does not reflect a "deficit" or -- if Walker is right -- a "surplus" at the end of a budget year.
Rather, it is a tally of past decisions -- both in spending and in tax collections -- that officials will have to account for in the next two-year budget. As such, it’s a benchmark for the size of the budget challenge.
The Fiscal Bureau does this exercise periodically, mostly during budget season. The bureau’s longstanding method is to assume no loss or gain in revenue and no changes in spending. Applying the same approach allows for a consistent picture over time. The bureau’s latest estimate came out Sept. 8, 2014.
The bottom line: a $1.76 billion deficit heading into the 2015-’17 budget.
Among the chief reasons for the gap: Tax cuts approved by Walker and the Republican-led Legislature, which contributed to a slowing of revenue.
The numbers cited by Walker
So what is Walker referring to with his $535 million surplus figure?
That figure is contained in a Sept. 18, 2014 Fiscal Bureau memo to a Republican state representative, John Nygren of Marinette.
In the wake of the $1.8 billion estimate, Nygren asked the bureau to look at it a different way.
He asked for an estimate of the budget challenge assuming that lawmakers would hold most spending at 2014-’15 levels for the two following years, and tax revenue would rise at the five-year average of 2.9 percent.
That yielded an estimate of a $535 million surplus.
The Fiscal Bureau also got a request from a Democrat, state Sen. Jennifer Shilling of La Crosse. It asked the Fiscal Bureau to run an estimate based on increases in school spending, granting state agencies their $1 billion spending requests and other changes. Budget requests came in Sept. 15, 2014.
That estimate was a $2.7 billion shortfall. Another scenario run for Shilling was a deficit of $4 billion.
You get the idea. Just weeks from the Nov. 4, 2014 election, both parties have come up with ways to manipulate the Fiscal Bureau’s $1.8 billion estimate using some scenarios that range from spending freezes to giving agencies everything on their wish lists.
We’re not buying it.
Walker’s own budgets report the "structural deficit" number using the method the Fiscal Bureau used to come up with $1.8 billion.
And lawmakers of both parties have done the same for years.
Indeed, Walker has used the "structural deficit" estimates to his advantage in the past and even has made it the centerpiece of his re-election campaign.
Every time you hear the governor say he inherited a $3.6 billion "deficit" from Gov. Jim Doyle, it’s a reflection in part of the $2.5 billion "structural deficit" the Fiscal Bureau estimated in 2011 as Walker prepared his first budget.
And Walker, again using the Fiscal Bureau’s traditional methodology, has touted the fact that his tight budgeting actually eliminated -- however temporarily -- the structural deficit heading into his second budget.
Walker’s campaign argues that the Fiscal Bureau memo is based on some outdated figures and that it’s zero-growth assumption is unrealistic.
But the governor is seeking to have it both ways, trumpeting the bureau’s method when it suits him and rejecting it when it does not.
The numbers will change again when the Fiscal Bureau updates its report in early 2015.
Our rating
Walker told debate viewers: "The next state budget will begin with a surplus of over half a billion dollars -- $535 million to be exact."
That rosy number flies in the face of the official estimate that uses a long-established method used by members of both parties, and the governor’s budget office.
We rate the claim False.
BizTracker | Economy
June 08. 2015 9:56AM
Wisconsin now ranks last among the 50 states in the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation rankings for business startup activity, according to a new report issued this week.
Wisconsin dropped to 50th from 45th last year, according to the Kauffman Index for Startup Activity.
The annual report ranks states in three categories: rate of new entrepreneurs; opportunity share of new entrepreneurs; and start-up density, the number of start-up firms divided by total population of a place.
The top five states on the Kauffman rankings were: Montana, Wyoming, North Dakota, Colorado and Vermont. The states with the lowest rankings for entrepreneurial activity were: West Virginia, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, Alabama and Wisconsin.
Startup activity improved in 32 of the 50 U.S. states last year, and 18 of the nation’s top 40 metropolitan areas also saw increases in new venture activity, according to the report.
“There’s been an explosion of entrepreneurship programs and events across the country in recent years, and while we don’t fully understand their impact, last year’s rebound in new business creation is a good sign,” said Dane Stangler, vice president of Research and Policy at the Kauffman Foundation. “State and local leaders need to understand how many startups they have in their regions and who’s starting them so they can make decisions on how to build on what they currently have.”
The rankings also assessed the rates of business startup activities in the 40 largest metropolitan markets. The Milwaukee market ranked 39th among the 40 markets, unchanged from the previous year. The best markets for business start-ups were Austin, Miami, San Jose, Los Angeles and Denver.
“Historically, the Plains and Rocky Mountain regions have not been thought of as hotbeds of entrepreneurial activity,” said Arnobio Morelix, research analyst at the Kauffman Foundation, and one of the studies’ authors. “But entrepreneurship is closely associated with economic growth, so it should not be surprising that some of the states seeing increased levels of startup activity have experienced high rates of real GDP expansion in recent years.”
Kauffman, based in Kansas City, Mo., is focused primarily on entrepreneurship and education. The full report is available at www.kauffmanindex.org.
Posted by Linda Richter on March 24, 2015
State
Wisconsinites got the disturbing news last week that our state, which has been lagging the nation in job creation during Gov. Walker's tenure, had fallen from a rank of 31st to 40th among the 50 states.
The Associated Press report ( published by Wisconsin State Journal on March 19) conveys:
"Wisconsin added jobs at half the national average, ranking it 40th in private-sector job growth for the 12-month period that ended in September, according to figures released Thursday by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics."
"The latest jobs number, based on a survey of nearly every employer in the state, were down from the previous quarterly report in which Wisconsin ranked 31st in job growth."
"The numbers show that private-sector jobs grew 1.16 percent in Wisconsin during the 12-month period, while the national growth rate was twice as high at 2.3 percent. "
"All other neighboring states grew at a higher rate than Wisconsin."
"When public sector jobs are included, Wisconsin ranked 38th in growth."
"Walker last week signed a right-to-work law, which he and supporters said would help increase jobs in the state. But critics say the fact that Wisconsin lags other states in job creation shows Walker's policies, including the 2011 law that nearly eliminated collective bargaining for most public workers, are hindering the state's growth."
Also---
If you feel like you're working harder for less money, it's not your imagination says The Capital Times.
Today's ( March 24) The Cap Times informs us:
According to a new report, Wisconsin ranks worst in the nation in terms of a shrinking middle class, with real median household incomes here falling 14.7 % since 2000.
"The Pew Charitable Trust report showed Wisconsin with the largest decline in the percentage of families considered "middle class, or those earning between 67 and 200 percent of their state's median income."
"in 2000, 54.6 percent of Wisconsin families fell into the middle class category but that has fallen to 48.9 percent in 2013, according to U.S. Census figures compiled by Pew. All other states showed some decline but none as great as Wisconsin's 5.7 percent figure."
"In addition, many Wisconsin families are now paying a higher percentage of their income to cover housing costs. In 2000, only 24 percent of state families were spending more than the 30 percent of their income on rent or a mortgage but that has increased to 31 percent."
"In most states, the growing percentage of households paying 30 percent (the federal standard for housing affordability) or more of their income on housing illustrates that it is increasingly difficult for many American families to make ends meet," said the Pew report."
"the median household income in Wisconsin was $60,344 in 2000 but now stands at just $51,467 after adjusting for inflation. That’s a dip of 14.7 percent. Nationally, median household incomes fell from $55,987 to $51,939 over the period, a decline of 7.2 percent."
" Put another way, Wisconsin incomes were well above the national average in 2000 but are now below the national average, according to the data."
Walker has proposed steep budget cuts to education. Wisconsin already spends well below the national average per pupil. That was indeed a point of contention between Walker and the legislature. Those cuts were mostly restored by the legislature.
Wisconsin is by one month’s figure at 4.4% unemployment. It is surrounded by neighboring states with even lower unemployment that are growing their economy and creating jobs, while Wisconsin has become the Mississippi of the north.
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