By all factual measures, Minnesota’s recovery from the Great Recession is a continuing and highly visible embarrassment…to Wisconsin. But voters in The Badger State can change that.
End the state GOP’s one-party reign-of-error. Vote stupid out.
Minnesota’s economic health is a damning indictment of GOP mis-rule in the Badger State, because the policies and legislation the GOP legislative majority railroaded into law here (sometimes late at night and without debate), rubber-stamped by our idiot-puppet governor, have not promoted broadly-shared economic recovery.
They weren’t intended to.
Far from it. Instead, Governor Walker and the GOP majority reengineered the state economy to further enrich the already-rich by robbing ordinary Wisconsinites. The Badger State, as too many ordinary Wisconsinites are slowly realizing (no thanks to AM talk radio), has been a test tube for toxic “Kochanomics.” And that lead boat don’t float.
2016 Median Annual Household income in Wisconsin was $59,817. In Minnesota it was 70,218. (1)
“Minnesota reported wages and salaries totaling $11.9 billion more than Wisconsin in the first quarter of 2008. By first quarter 2018, that total wage gap had nearly doubled to $22.4 billion.” (2)
“After Walker and Dayton assumed office, wages in Minnesota have taken off, while in Wisconsin, they have stagnated. Since 2010, growth at every point in the wage distribution has been stronger in Minnesota than in Wisconsin. From 2010 to 2017, the median wage in Minnesota cumulatively rose 2.4 percent over and above inflation—meaning that middle-wage workers in Minnesota have had a measurable improvement in their living standards. Minnesota’s median wage growth was also stronger than the 1.6 percent the U.S. experienced as a whole over the same period. In contrast, from 2010 to 2017, the median wage in Wisconsin rose only 0.3 percent after inflation. In other words, middle-wage workers in Wisconsin are treading water, barely hanging on to the same buying power they had in 2010.” (2)
Ordinary Wisconsinites and journalists need to hound Walker and the GOP majority in the legislature with this question: “How does this wage gap improve our own economic security and quality of life?”
Followup questions: “Why did you let this wage gap continue? What have you been doing for seven years, seven years (!), instead of addressing this wage gap?”
Academics, social workers and economists know: Walker and the GOP have been busy lowering the quality of life and the economic security of ordinary Wisconsinites in many other ways:
“On virtually every metric, workers and families in Minnesota are better off than their counterparts in Wisconsin—and the decisions of state lawmakers have been instrumental in driving many of those differences.” (2)
Those differences in the legislative activity of the Minnesota and Wisconsin legislatures are so startling that they can be characterized as diametrically (and ideologically) opposed. The consequences for ordinary Wisconsinites of being subjected to the wrong ideology? “Bad” doesn’t begin to describe it…
Walker and the GOP majority in the state legislature lifted their agenda from the ALEC playbook, and from one-percent-funded lobbying firms disguised as “think-tanks.” These so-called institutes of low-to-no learning are stuffed with fifth-rate, trickle-down ideologues and apologists who masquerade as academics.
But Walker and his galloping gang of one-percent sycophants in the state legislature never strained their greedy, self-absorbed, reptilian brains to critically, honestly examine the radioactive agenda they were ordered to enact, nor have they ever, ever, cared enough about ordinary Wisconsinites to reverse the long term economic damage they have caused! Yet they took oaths to act as public servants and as stewards of the prosperity and wellbeing of all citizens, even the ordinary ones.
But let’s be clear: Walker and the state GOP care nothing for ordinary citizens. They work for the one-percenters and for the large corporations.
The proof lies in those statistical differences cited above, in more to follow, and in the consequences of the actual legislation enacted in Wisconsin versus legislation enacted over the same span of time in Minnesota.
Minnesota, you see, has elected citizens to public office of late who, by and large, conducted themselves as actual public servants, and not mere partisans and one-percent puppets. These Minnesotans put public interest above party agenda, especially the regressive, bizarrely punitive GOP agenda of late, and collaborated to restore, enlarge, maintain and protect prosperity for the vast majority of Minnesotans.
They did, in short, what they were elected to do. They did not, with knee-jerk speed, jury rig the state economy to primarily benefit only corporations and one-percenters.
Wisconsin, in sad contrast, elected a majority of its legislators from a cult that merely masquerades as a “political” party. This sorry sack of ignorant ideologues claim to be “conservative,” which is code for “we-rob-the-poor-and-the-middle-class-to-further-enrich-the-already-rich.” A modern day synonym for these self-proclaimed conservatives is “Fascists.”
Once elected, Walker and the GOP majority in the state legislature quickly acted on the demands of their masters. They gave large tax cuts to the already-wealthy and to big business, while giving ordinary Wisconsinites a token tax cut to “prove” their action was “fair,” and not the lopsided handout to the least-deserving one-percenters that it really was. While doing so, they quacked about how this welfare-for-the-wealthy would “trickle down” to ordinary Wisconsinites in the forms of new jobs and economic growth.
Seven years have passed. Wisconsinites are still waiting for those jobs and that growth. What have Wisconsin’s one-percenters been doing with their welfare instead?
Walker and the GOP majority also slashed the budget of state government, rendering it less able to serve and protect ordinary citizens (!), slashed spending on K-12 and higher education, rejected federal funding for infrastructure improvements and for Medicaid expansion, cancelled a contract for a high-speed rail link between the state’s two largest cities, Milwaukee and Madison, the capitol city, and more. Much more.
A word about slashing state government budgets in response to economic downturns: stupid.
“Between budget cuts and tax increases, budget cuts pose a more immediate threat to the economy because the contractionary effect of tax increases can be mitigated — by targeting them to high earners. Low-income individuals spend most or all of what they make, so reducing their disposable income through tax increases or cuts in services will have a large and direct impact on consumer demand. High earners, on the other hand, have a higher propensity to save, meaning that they are more able than low earners to pay the taxes by cutting their savings rather than by reducing their purchases.” (4)
Governor Dayton and the Minnesota legislature did their homework. And it really shows. And it really worked. In a time of economic contraction, they raised taxes on the wealthy.
Meanwhile, Wisconsin’s idiot-ideologues also slashed the state transportation budget, causing the road system to decay, delayed the state’s debt repayments (5) (costing Wisconsin taxpayers some 2.3 million dollars more in interest. Not principal. Interest. This from the idiots (Did I mention they’re idiots?) who populate the party of “fiscal responsibility.” Walker and the GOP legislative majority assumed this would be fine for the vast majority of Wisconsinites, i.e., the ones they prey upon but otherwise ignore. Walker and the GOP majority rationalized that incurring additional future interest debt was okay if delaying debt repayments meant they could “balance” the then-current state budget. They failed to even do that (!), and merely made the budget appear to balance by resorting to accounting gimmicks.)
As proof that the party of greed and stupidity is ideologically blinded and the handmaiden of oil-igarchs, they slashed spending on green energy programs, despite the fact that green energy has survived regressive efforts to smother it and become a vigorous, job-creating growth industry spurred by university-level research. (Walker and the GOP majority cut 250 million from the University of Wisconsin System budget. (6)(7) They couldn’t risk helping talented, educated innovators and researchers toss that job-creating monkey wrench of progress and upstart entrepreneurialism into their masters’ vision for a Neo-feudal, Fascist utopia, run, of course, by old sociopaths floating in old money.)
Idiots. These GOP puppet-legislators are idiots. Idiot-run government is bad for ordinary citizens, because idiots do what one-percent and corporate sociopaths tell them to do.
Walker and the GOP majority cut spending on social safety net programs, allowing more ordinary Wisconsinites to slip into poverty. They can take credit for Wisconsin’s disturbing rise in child poverty.
“(Between 2010 and 2014) The proportion of Wisconsinites under age 18 living in poverty has risen from 15.8% to 18.5%. The increase in child poverty in Wisconsin is twice as large as the increase in Minnesota, 2.7% compared to 1.3%.” (8)
The percentage of children living in poverty in Minnesota between 2010 and 2014, even at its highest, never rose to the even the lowest percentage seen in Wisconsin over this same period. No level of child poverty above zero is cause for celebration, but Minnesota’s progressive governance has at least slowed the growth of such blatant economic and social failure to a level well below Wisconsin’s, and far below the national average. But the issue needs far more intervention from a supposedly “great” nation, and from its state and federal governments. Don’t hold your breath waiting for the tRump administration or for GOP-dominated state governments to reverse this travesty…
By another measure, about one in six Wisconsin children live in poverty. (9)
Looking at the overall poverty rates in the two states (i.e., including adults), only makes GOP social and economic engineering in Wisconsin more despicable:
“According to the CPS (Current Population Survey, a U.S. Census Bureau summary), the poverty rate in Minnesota declined by 2.1 percentage points from 2010 to 2016, reaching 8.7 percent in 2016—4.0 percentage points lower than the national average and one of the lowest in the country. In contrast, over the same period, the poverty rate in Wisconsin rose by 0.6 percentage points to 10.7 percent—ironically, about the same rate that Minnesota had back in 2010 (10.8 percent). Notably, the national poverty rate declined from 2010 to 2016, meaning that Wisconsin was bucking the national trend (U.S. Census Bureau 2017c).” (2)
Walker and the GOP majority just don’t want to know…
Walker and the GOP majority also abolished the GAB (Government Accountability Board) to make their political skullduggery and economic re-engineering machinations less transparent to the public, passed a “Voter ID” law designed to discourage low income citizens and minorities from voting, (10) and, with the passage of Act 10, sharply curtailed the power of most public sector labor unions to negotiate new contracts. Later these same GOP puppets passed a mis-named “Right-to-Work” law which limited the ability of labor unions to collect dues from the workers whose interests they represent.
None of this legislative butchery helped ordinary Wisconsinites in the wake of the Great Recession, nor was it intended to. It did nothing to promote rural economic development or maintain/upgrade state infrastructure. It didn’t even succeed in luring manufacturers to the state to create those 250,000 jobs that Walker promised would appear before his first term in office ended. He failed, miserably, to fulfill that promise. It was, like so much of the vacuous babble his masters pump into his pie hole, hot air. It was a lie. He lied to get elected.
None of that legislative butchery was even the most feeble attempt to restore broadly-shared prosperity, or to serve ordinary Wisconsinites’ current and future needs.
Walker and the GOP majority have had seven years to serve Wisconsinites. They haven’t spent a single hour of a single day in all those years serving our interests. Quite the opposite is true. Their machinations are monumental, sociopathic dereliction of duty, proof only of their slavish devotion to the whims of their owners.
Eliminating the collective bargaining rights for public sector unions (excepting firefighters and police officers) did nothing to spur economic recovery in the Badger State. Private sector employees gained nothing, nothing, from this disenfranchisement of public sector employees.
Nothing. No ordinary citizens in Wisconsin benefitted from this GOP punishment of public sector workers. In fact, disenfranchising public sector workers did harm to the private sector.
“Each dollar in (state budget) cuts has a ripple effect that results in $1.41 of lost economic activity. Forty-one cents of that loss is spending taken right out of the private economy, while $1 is the reduction in direct government spending (i.e., education) and transfers (i.e., Medicaid). Twenty-five cents of that dollar is reductions in transfers to private individuals, while 75 cents is reductions in direct government spending. But 30% of that 75 cents—or 22 cents—is in reduced demand for supplier industries, leaving only 53 cents in actual loss to the public sector. Taken together, a full 88 cents —or 62% of the total economic impact of a dollar in budget cuts—falls on the private sector. (11)
Passing a mis-named “Right-to-Work” (RTW) law did nothing to spur economic recovery in the Badger State. Nor did it spur wage growth that, after decades of stagnation, finally promised to keep pace with inflation.
RTW had nothing to do with serving the needs of ordinary citizens. That punitive law enriched no employee anywhere in the state. Not a one. The purpose of RTW laws is to lower wages. (12)
Abolishing the GAB, a watchdog entity that acted independently of the three branches of government, did nothing to spur economic recovery in the Badger State.
Nothing.
See the pattern here? GOP-dominated government in Wisconsin has arrogantly ignored the actual needs of ordinary Wisconsinites for over seven years. They’ve done nothing, nothing, to spur robust economic recovery in the wake of The Great Recession.
Instead they ignored (wait, that is too mild)- they actually spurned- the needs of ordinary Wisconsinites. They acted and still act only to enrich their masters and to secure permanent majority status in state government.
The contrast between Minnesota and Wisconsin legislative activity could not be more stark. Legislators in the The Gopher State collaborated (!) to create two new tax brackets that captured revenue from Minnesota’s top income earners, the two percenters, a group too-long undertaxed. In Wisconsin, by sorry contrast, top income earners are wallowing in unearned, undeserved tax cuts, welfare-for-the-wealthy, thanks to the GOP.
And has the Wisconsin one-percenters’ receipt of this welfare “trickled down” to ordinary Wisconsinites, spurred economic recovery that resembles, even remotely, that robust recovery and broadly-shared prosperity seen in Minnesota? Nope.
Hell no.
The only trickle-down happening in Wisconsin is that large corporations and the rich are pissing on the rest of us. Walker and the GOP majority made sure of it. And they expect ordinary Wisconsinites to thank them for this abuse by reelecting Walker and a GOP legislative majority.
Tellingly, Minnesota legislators also authorized the unionization of new groups of state funded workers, signaling the nation that The Gopher State would defy the well-funded and longstanding union-busting efforts of trust fund babies like the Koch Brothers and similar regressive fossils/parasites. Such social, ethical and moral predators hide their efforts to disenfranchise ordinary citizens behind faux “think tanks” that are really lobbying firms. The shoddy, pseudo-academic “research” these cabals churn out attempts to rationalize trickle-down economic twaddle and union-busting.
(When reporters and sane editorial writers get a hold of these pseudo-academic tracts, they can barely contain their mirth as they point out the abundance of untenable premises piled upon yet more untenable premises. And they gleefully pick apart the cherry-picked statistics that supposedly support the laughable conclusions-in-search-of-evidence contained therein.)
Minnesota government also raised the minimum wage and tied it to inflation, accepted Medicaid expansion (Walker and Wisconsin’s GOP majority rejected it), made it easier to vote, bolstered the states’ unemployment insurance program, passed a gender pay equity law, opened access to full-day kindergarten, expanded preschool, and more.
The legislative actions Governor Dayton and the Minnesota legislature took have a solid, fact-based foundation in vetted research by legitimate academics. Minnesota government, in short, recognized the problems faced by ordinary citizens in the wake of the Great Recession and did their homework before legislating.
EPI Economist David Cooper summarizes the two states’ radically different legislative activity:
“The direct effects of the Minnesota reforms were unambiguously progressive—directing resources toward low- and moderate-income households and strengthening rules explicitly meant to boost these households’ economic leverage and bargaining power. The direct effects of the Wisconsin reforms were unambiguously regressive. Fiscal resources were transferred from low- and moderate-income residents to richer ones, and rules that buttressed the economic leverage of low- and moderate-wage workers were weakened.” (2)
“In contrast, (Minnesota) Governor Dayton’s policies embraced the role of government in regulating markets, improving the welfare of workers and their families, and boosting private-sector growth through public-sector investment.” (2)
Huh. Minnesota state government acts to promote broadly-shared prosperity, enlarges the state’s social safety net, invests in infrastructure and education, makes it easier to vote, raises taxes on the wealthy (!), and the apocalypse does not ensue! There’s a stick in the eye to The Heritage Foundation!
Instead, Minnesotans have had to endure a booming economy, suffer the heartbreak of increasing levels of discretionary income and savings, and confront the horror of almost certain retirement security. Sucks to be them, huh?
Minnesota’s economic success makes one-percenters furious. A public service-oriented state government is spitting in their faces…instead of bowing and scraping before them. “Egad! These public servants in Minnesota even refuse to shovel taxpayer money into our pockets!” (No, for that kind of deference to old money you have to move to Wisconsin. Walker and the Wisconsin state GOP worship trust fund babies and Foaming-at-the-mouth Fascists.)
Behind the radical differences in legislative activity seen in these two state governments lie some less-visible and less-openly declared assumptions about the role of government in the lives of citizens and, perhaps more importantly, some less-visible and less-openly declared assumptions about the role that the public sector plays within the state economy. A followup article will explore those assumptions.
Among the unquestioned (and grossly erroneous) ideological assumptions animating Walker and his fellow one-percent-puppets in the state legislature is a belief that a state government’s public sector operations are not actually part of (or should even BE part of) the state economy.
Nothing could be more wrongheaded. And these morons cannot (or petulantly refuse to) grasp this truth. Of course, they are spoon-fed propaganda by the Heritage Foundation, Club for Growth and similar Fascist lobbying cults, and are used to being told what to think. Political sheeple make bad leaders and incompetent, easily corruptible legislators.
State governments are constituted to protect, maintain and improve the quality of life for all residents, not just the wealthy ones. (Ordinary citizens certainly cannot expect one-percenters or corporations to safeguard their wellbeing and prosperity.) Effective, incorruptible, public-minded elected officials operate the levers of state government to create states that are desirable places in which to live, work and play.
It’s that simple. Make the confines of the state’s geographic boundaries a place where people want to live.
Some ordinary Wisconsin residents have felt the impact of a state government that is operated by and for the exclusive benefit of one-percenters, and voted with their feet.
Wisconsin, you see, is depopulating. (14) That speaks volumes. Do Walker and the GOP majority even notice? Nope.
In 2017, Wisconsin was rated dead last in business startup activity…for the third year in a row. (14)
Are Walker and the GOP majority listening? Are they even tuned in? Is the radio on? Nope. The tin ears of the state GOP’s Mutual Admiration Society hear only the preaching of their one-percent messiahs, who speak in tongues as the Holy Spirit of Trickle-Down fills their cranial vacuums with unicorn farts.
Idiots. Walker and the GOP majority are narcissistic, sociopathic idiots.
These walking pathologies are not public servants.
Vote’em out.
Bibliography
1) https://www.kff.org/other/state-indicator/median-annual-income/?currentTimeframe=0&sortModel=%7B%22colId%22:%22Location%22,%22sort%22:%22asc%22%7D.
2) Cooper, David. 2018. As Wisconsin’s and Minnesota’s lawmakers took divergent paths, so did their economies. Economic Policy Institute, May, 2018.
3) https://blogs.mprnews.org/newscut/2018/06/latest-data-show-minnesota-economy-crushing-it-vs-wisconsin/ . Tosto, Paul. 2018. Latest data show Minnesota economy crushing it vs. Wisconsin. Minnesota Public Radio blog, June, 2018. (Original source for graph: U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis).
4) Economic Analysis and Research Network. 2009. “Economists’ Letter on State Budgets.” Washington, D.C.: Economy Policy Institute. March. http://www.earncentral.org/EARN_State_ Budgets_Letter.pdf
5) https://www.wisconsingazette.com/news/state-budget-faces-problems-walker-delays-m-in-payments/article_6e1ba119-c210-5918-8d98-3b77c636c850.html. Westberg, Louis. 2016. State budget faces problems, Walker delays $101M in payments. Wisconsin Gazette, May. 2016.
6) https://madison.com/wsj/opinion/letters/scott-walker-s-cuts-to-uw-were-devastating--/article_edd16f5f-4403-5394-a9a7-200a67a36ac8.html. Bratburd, Jennifer. 2018. Scott Walker's cuts to UW were devastating. (Editorial) Wisconsin State Journal, June, 2018.
7) https://www.forbes.com/sites/stevensalzberg/2015/08/14/scott-walker-takes-250-million-from-u-wisconsin-gives-250m-to-billionaire-sports-team-owners/#662f1995674e. Salzburg, Steven, 2015. Scott Walker Takes $250 Million From U. Wisconsin, Gives $250M To Billionaire Sports Team Owners. Forbes, August, 2015.
8) http://cepr.net/blogs/cepr-blog/wisconsin-vs-minnesota-what-the-data-show. Ratliff, Michael. 2016. Wisconsin vs. Minnesota: What the Data Show. Center for Economic Policy and Research, July, 2016. (Original Source for graph: U.S. Census Bureau).
9) http://kidsforward.net/five-charts-about-poverty-in-wisconsin/ (no authors listed) 2017. Five Charts about Poverty in Wisconsin. Kids Forward, September, 2017.
10) https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/25/us/wisconsin-voters.html. Wines, Michael. 2017. Wisconsin Strict ID Law Discouraged Voters, Study Finds. New York Times, September, 2017.
11) Pollock, Ethan, 2009. Dire States: State and Local Budget Relief Needed to Prevent Job Losses and Ensure a Robust Recovery. Economic Policy Institute Briefing Paper no. 252, November 2009.
12) https://www.epi.org/blog/new-study-confirms-that-right-to-work-laws-are-associated-with-significantly-lower-wages/. Eisenbrey, Ross. 2015. New Study Confirms that Right-To-Work Laws Are Associated with Significantly Lower Wages. Economic Policy Institute, April, 2015.
13) https://isthmus.com/news/cover-story/booming-dane-county-leads-the-state-economic-recovery-but-small-towns-and-milwaukee-are-hurting/ Eisen, Mark, 2015. The Two Wisconsins. Isthmus, October, 2017.
14) https://www.bizjournals.com/milwaukee/news/2017/05/18/milwaukee-wisconsin-again-take-last-place-spots-in.html Lawder, Melanie. 2017. Milwaukee, Wisconsin again take last-place spots in annual startup report. Milwaukee Business Journal, May, 2017.