Posted on 04/24/2015 7:19:44 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
(I would be more thrilled if Walker won, but wither Cruz or Walker would be wonderful.)
Mark Levin on the Supreme Court.
My 2016 mottos:
A Walker or a Cruzer, the rest are losers; or
Ted or Scott, the rest-NOT, or
Better a leper albino than another Rino
2012 Texas Presidential Results M. Romney GOP 57.2% 4,555,799
2012 Texas Senate Results Winner T. Cruz GOP 56.6% 4,456,599
Guffaw
John Bolton as SoS.
very well said.
Here is a link on the shutdown.
Negative Ghost Rider, the pattern is full.
You should put things in perspective...
Far Left Blogger Carl Gibson Claims Minnesota Proves “Trickle Down is Bunk”
There’s a Huffington Post article going viral that concludes with: “It’s official — trickle-down economics is bunk. Minnesota has proven it once and for all. If you believe otherwise, you are wrong.”
The full evidence proves Minnesota’s example wrong.
Far left blogger Carl Gibson published a new piece earlier this week entitled, “This Billionaire Governor Taxed the Rich and Increased the Minimum Wage — Now, His State’s Economy Is One of the Best in the Country.” It’s received more than 300,000 Facebook likes so far and more than 20,000 shares online.
The narrative is predictable: look at this benevolent, billionaire governor – Mark Dayton (D-Minn.) – who’s raised taxes and the minimum wage and has produced the world’s greatest economy and look at that evil, billionaire governor – Bruce Rauner (R-Ill.) – who refuses to raise taxes or the minimum wage, at least condition free.
While progressive circles are eager to like and share this post all over the net, the cherry-picked stats that Gibson uses for this opinion-laced analysis is deceptive at best and flat out “wrong” at worst, to use his word.
Let’s break it down by section.
Comparing Tim Pawlenty’s tenure with Mark Dayton’s tenure also while attacking Scott Walker
When he took office in January of 2011, Minnesota governor Mark Dayton inherited a $6.2 billion budget deficit and a 7 percent unemployment rate from his predecessor, Tim Pawlenty, the soon-forgotten Republican candidate for the presidency who called himself Minnesota’s first true fiscally-conservative governor in modern history. Pawlenty prided himself on never raising state taxes — the most he ever did to generate new revenue was increase the tax on cigarettes by 75 cents a pack. Between 2003 and late 2010, when Pawlenty was at the head of Minnesota’s state government, he managed to add only 6,200 more jobs.
During his first four years in office, Gov. Dayton raised the state income tax from 7.85 to 9.85 percent on individuals earning over $150,000, and on couples earning over $250,000 when filing jointly — a tax increase of $2.1 billion. He’s also agreed to raise Minnesota’s minimum wage to $9.50 an hour by 2018, and passed a state law guaranteeing equal pay for women. …
Between 2011 and 2015, Gov. Dayton added 172,000 new jobs to Minnesota’s economy — that’s 165,800 more jobs in Dayton’s first term than Pawlenty added in both of his terms combined. … As of January 2015, Minnesota has a $1 billion budget surplus, and Gov. Dayton has pledged to reinvest more than one third of that money into public schools.
The 800-lb. gorilla in the room Gibson intentionally ignores is the fact that by the time Pawlenty left office, the Great Recession had done its damage, wiping out the jobs gained since 2003 in Minnesota or any other state for that matter.
Up until the biggest GDP contraction since the Great Depression in late 2008, Minnesota had created a net 114,000 jobs under Pawlenty. Indeed, the Great Recession caused every state to bleed jobs during the contraction, but growth went back to normal by 2011.
Using that same snapshot in time, we could make the inverse case for Republican governors who succeeded Democratic ones immediately after the Great Recession. Next door in Wisconsin, for example, Gov. Scott Walker (who Gibson also attacks in this piece) inherited a $3.6 billion deficit and a 7.8% unemployment rate from his predecessor, Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle – under whose tenure of which Wisconsin lost a net 133,000 jobs during the Great Recession. Only Walker did the opposite – he cut taxes, cut state spending and left minimum wage at the federal level of $7.25 an hour.
Walker, too, has created a net 158,000 jobs and also produced a $1 billion budget surplus – using the very “trickle down economics” that Gibson claims is universally “bunk.” Only Walker gave half the surplus back to Wisconsin taxpayers.
The bottom line is any governor in any state who immediately succeeded one who was unlucky enough to be in office when the Great Recession hit is going to look better in an economy that isn’t contracting any longer. In fact, Dayton is probably the only one that happened to be a Democratic governor succeeding a Republican one immediately after the Great Recession, and now Gibson wants to use Minnesota as a universal model for why “raising taxes and the minimum wage” is a winning ticket while the economic growth Republican governors in nearly every other state have produced immediately after the Great Recession – including Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, North Dakota, South Carolina, Texas, Florida, Utah, and others – well, are completely ignored by Gibson.
And just to drive this point home, while Gibson points to a Forbes article ranking Minnesota as the ninth best state for business, he fails to mention (accidentally, we’re sure) that six of the top eight on that list are fully controlled by the GOP, who aren’t raising taxes or the minimum wage in those states, but rank higher than Minnesota.
Gibson also conveniently leaves out a tax cut package that Dayton enacted in Minnesota last year that is expected to save taxpayers just over $443 million during the 2014-15 fiscal year and $956 million in 2015-16. Among other things, it repealed the sales tax on certain business inputs, exempted higher estate taxes, and repealed the state’s gift tax.
“Raising taxes on those who can afford to pay more will turn a deficit into a surplus and raising the minimum wage will increase the median income.”
Even though Minnesota’s top income tax rate is the 4th-highest in the country, it has the 5th-lowest unemployment rate in the country at 3.6 percent.
Ah, but the four states with lower unemployment than Minnesota – Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Utah – all have tax rates far lower than Minnesota (or none at all, like South Dakota). And for that matter, every other top tier tax rate state next to Minnesota ranks in the top 15 highest unemployment rates in the country – illustrating Minnesota as a stunning exception.
Yet Gibson conclusively declares Minnesota to be the universal and final proof that “trickle down economics is bunk” forever and ever.
As mentioned above, several other state experiments prove that conclusion to be patently false. But take a look at the bigger picture if you need more proof.
Progressives constantly lament “trickle down economics,” and even capitalism in many cases, as a “failure.” To the contrary, capitalism has not only grown the wealth and prosperity of all Americans, but it has raised our standard of living much higher than the rest of the world’s. Consider the fact that the average American household is richer than 93% of the rest of the world, according to a World Bank report.
Even the bottom 5% of income earners – the very poorest Americans – are richer than 68% of the rest of the world, proving once and for all that while the rich are getting richer, the poor are indeed getting richer, too, in the U.S.
But what about that socialist utopia called Europe, about which American progressives always dream so fondly? As even the New York Times’ and NPR’s Adam Davidson explains:
GDP per capita in the U.S. is nearly 50% higher than it is in Europe. Even Europe’s best-performing large country, Germany, is about 20% poorer than the U.S. on a per-person basis (and both countries have roughly 15% of their populations living below the poverty line). While Norway and Sweden are richer than the U.S., on average, they are more comparable [by population] to wealthy American microeconomies like Washington, D.C., or parts of Connecticut — both of which are actually considerably wealthier. A reporter in Greece once complained after I compared her country to Mississippi, America’s poorest state. She’s right: the comparison isn’t fair. The average Mississippian is richer than the average Greek.
Finally, if raising taxes will turn a deficit into a surplus and raising the minimum wage will increase the median income as Gibson so claims, then Illinois should be experiencing that same wonderful growth that Minnesota currently is after the Prairie State, under Democratic rule, has implemented these same policies for years.
Only that’s not the case.
Gov. Pat Quinn (D-Ill.) raised Illinois’ income tax rate by 67% and corporate tax rate by 46% in 2011 when the state was facing a $13 billion deficit four years ago. In the wake of the tax hike, Illinois’ budget deficit only grew to $18 billion due to its out of control state spending.
Illinois’ minimum wage has also been higher than many other states at $8.25 an hour – even higher than Minnesota’s. Only Illinois has the 14th highest unemployment rate in the country too. One in every three Illinoisans are now living at or near poverty according to the Social IMPACT Research Center. The 33% figure is up from 25% of Illinoisans who lived in or near poverty in 2000. In 1990, it was 27%; in 1980, 26%. The study also found that almost half of Chicago’s population (47%) is living in or near poverty.
Illinois labor is dominated by trade unions. Right-to-work states, however, have higher job growth than union states and when differences in cost of living are taken into account, wages are roughly the same – or even higher – in right-to-work states.
It’s clearly evident that Gibson’s biased analysis of one state outlier fails to support his conclusion that Minnesota is indeed the rule and not merely the exception.
We’ll continue monitoring the media coverage.
John Jay
>>Second, Walker’s Wisconsin record is tarnishing. Wisconsin ranks 35th in job creation since 2011. <<
Wisconsin’s actual jobs numbers haven’t increased to the extent Walker hoped, I’ll concede that point, although not without pointing out that this recovery, under Obama, has been a far slower recovery than normal especially considering the depths of the recession. With a recovery anywhere near normal, the 250,000 he forecast would have probably been achieved.
That said, it will be interesting to watch Wisconsin employment over the next two to three years. Why? Because Gallup polls hiring intentions and reports an annual ranking of the states.
Under Governor Doyle in 2009 Wisconsin ranked 35th in hiring intentions, tied with three other states and in 2010 had moved back up to 18th tied with 5 other states. Walker’s first year in office, 2011 saw Wisconsin at 20th tied with 7 other states, but in the next three years the state’s ranking moved to 14th, then 10th, and in 2014, to 2nd behind only ND and tied with TX and Nebraska.
So, Wisconsin employers are in a hiring mood. We’ll see if that translates into faster job growth over the next two to three years.
Notes: 1) The survey asks employees whether their employers are hiring, laying off, or doing nothing. In 2014, 42% were hiring and 11% were laying off, giving a net advantage of 31 points.
2) The 2014 report shows WI in 4th place, not second, but both TX and NE had similar 31 scores. Those two states most likely had a few tenths of a point advantage that rounded to 31. I used the same methodology for ranking throughout and only the raw scores were reported for earlier years, so I listed WI as tied with two other states (at 31) in second place, similar to how I listed earlier years.
so..... guess you are a Gov Perry man based on your jobs comment
“I like Ted Cruz. I would be thrilled if he won. But I hate this circular firing squad that conservatives made in 2008, 2012, and are making again now in 2016.”
So I guess you supported McCain and Romney?
Mark Kirk is running for re-election this year too.
(Note: concerning my post..."Walker has stumbled whenever he has spoken extemporaneously on topics he is not familiar with - monetary policy and foreign policy to name a couple."
http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/414609/two-scott-walkers-eliana-johnson
“Walker is my guy.”
Mine too.
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