Month: July 2024

A pair of questions on Wisconsin’s August 13 ballot would give state legislators more control over how federal money is spent in the state.

If approved by a majority of voters statewide, the Republican-backed proposals would amend the Wisconsin Constitution to limit the governor’s power to spend federal funds unilaterally in specific instances. The proposals would work in tandem. One would require legislative approval before Wisconsin’s governor could expend federal money earmarked for the state. The other would bar future Legislatures from giving that power away.

Question 1 on statewide ballots reads, “Shall section 35 (1) of article IV of the constitution be created to provide that the legislature may not delegate its sole power to determine how moneys shall be appropriated?”

Question 2 asks voters, “Shall section 35 (2) of article IV of the constitution be created to prohibit the governor from allocating any federal moneys the governor accepts on behalf of the state without the approval of the legislature by joint resolution or as provided by legislative rule?”

Wisconsin’s Constitution gives lawmakers control over the state’s purse strings. But there are exceptions. Under state law, a governor can accept and distribute federal money without the Legislature’s involvement, as long as those allocations comply with the federal laws which made the money available.

Wisconsin’s governor has held that discretion over federal funding since the 1930s, according to an analysis from the nonpartisan Legislative Reference Bureau.

The proposed changes to the state constitution would strip Wisconsin’s governor of that unilateral authority by requiring legislative sign-off.

Wisconsin is one of 40 states that allow their executive branch to spend “unanticipated” federal funds without special legislative approval, according to a 2022 Legislative Reference Bureau analysis. But nearly three-quarters of those states have some type of restriction on that authority, according to the LRB, which cited the National Association of State Budget Officers.

A new report from the Wisconsin Policy Forum finds that while permitting rates for building new housing have increased since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, they still trail permitting levels in the early 2000s.

Mark Sommerhauser, policy researcher and communications director for the Wisconsin Policy Forum, told WPR’s “Wisconsin Today” that building levels stayed relatively low for years after the 2008 financial collapse.

The forum’s report looked at the rates of both single and multifamily housing permitting statewide. They found that the state’s peak permit activity was between 2002 and 2004. Over the past three years, both types of permitting were down, with single-family permitting rates being nearly half of 2002-2004 levels.

Since 2021, data show a stark divergence in the types of housing projects that are receiving permits.

“There’s just very little question that statewide, in virtually every metro area, we’ve seen a really significant uptick in multifamily housing permitting,” Sommerhauser said. “What we have not necessarily seen is a corresponding increase in single-family (permitting).”

Single-family permitting increased by around 21 percent in recent years. But that’s compared to a greater-than 60 percent increase in multifamily permitting.

Sommerhauser said certain factors like the cost of building materials and mortgage interest rates are out of the control of state or local policymakers. At the state level, he said policymakers can focus on tax cuts or regulatory changes to make construction cheaper.

The Governor’s Task Force on Workforce and Artificial Intelligence has issued its final action plan, covering a wide array of policy proposals across education, government, workforce and economic development.

Within the education section of the report, the task force is recommending: new investments in AI research at the Universities of Wisconsin; integrating AI into curriculum development; supporting faculty recruitment and retention in AI fields at UW schools and in the Wisconsin Technical College System; offering new “stackable” credentials in AI that build on prior learning, and more.

The task force recommends efforts to modernize state government infrastructure with AI, as well as considering its deployment for energy management, traffic control and wastewater treatment. It also suggests the creation of a unit within the Department of Administration to create an “enterprise-wide data governance framework” to ensure proper use of data, particularly in AI applications.

On the workforce development side, recommendations include: expanding apprenticeship programs to incorporate AI; providing training to workers displaced by AI adoption; funding employer-led AI training programs for their workers; creating an AI “layoff aversion program” and an AI workforce talent pipeline; launching a digital literacy campaign and more.

Economic development policy proposals in the report include offering help to small businesses looking to use AI, creating “AI Innovation Hubs” for startups using the technology in manufacturing and agriculture, and holding forums to lay out an “AI roadmap” for companies in the state.

Economic activity in the U.S. was considerably stronger than expected during the second quarter, according to an initial estimate Thursday from the Commerce Department.

Real gross domestic product, a measure of all the goods and services produced during the April-through-June period, increased at a 2.8% annualized pace adjusted for seasonality and inflation. Economists surveyed by Dow Jones had been looking for growth of 2.1% following a 1.4% rise in the first quarter.

Consumer spending helped propel the growth number higher, as did contributions from private inventory investment and nonresidential fixed investment.

Personal consumption expenditures, the main proxy in the Bureau of Economic Analysis report for consumer activity, increased 2.3% for the quarter, up from the 1.5% acceleration in Q1. Both services and goods spending saw solid increases for the quarter.

On the downside, imports, which subtract from GDP, jumped 6.9%, the biggest quarterly rise since Q1 of 2022.

For the first time, a fusion device at the University of Wisconsin in Madison has generated plasma, inching one step closer toward using nuclear fusion as a a new source of carbon-free energy.

The university’s physicists and engineers have been building and testing the device at a lab in Stoughton for the last four years, which is referred to as the Wisconsin HTS Axisymmetric Mirror or WHAM. The magnetic mirror device became operational on July 15. Researchers worldwide have been working for decades to harness energy from nuclear fusion reactions that power the sun and the stars. That reaction relies on heated plasma, which is a gas of hot ions and free-moving electrons.

Cary Forest, a UW-Madison physics professor, said generating plasma is an exciting step.

Until now, nuclear power has come from fission reactors that split atoms. Fusion reactors would join atoms together.

Unlike current nuclear plants, Forest said fusion would not produce radioactive waste, adding it’s also safer. Forest said the university lab’s success in generating plasma is an important development toward harnessing fusion as a new carbon-free energy source.

“In addition to wind and solar, we’re going to need these hard, intense, always-on systems for making things and heating houses in the dead of winter,” Forest said.  “There really isn’t an alternative to either this or something like nuclear fission if we really want to get rid of carbon in our energy supply. It’s fission or fusion.”

President Biden announced Sunday that he is dropping out of the 2024 presidential race and threw his support behind Vice President Kamala Harris.

“While it has been my intention to seek reelection, I believe it is in the best interest of my party and the country for me to stand down and to focus solely on fulfilling my duties as president for my term,” Mr. Biden posted in a statement on social media.

Shortly after the announcement, he endorsed Harris for the Democratic nomination, although Mr. Biden cannot appoint a nominee himself. A source familiar said Mr. Biden and Harris spoke multiple times earlier Sunday ahead of his announcement. There was an emergency meeting of senior Democratic National Committee members happening Sunday.

“My very first decision as the party nominee in 2020 was to pick Kamala Harris as my Vice President,” Mr. Biden posted on social media. “And it’s been the best decision I’ve made. Today I want to offer my full support and endorsement for Kamala to be the nominee of our party this year.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is cracking down on so-called paycheck advance programs, which have grown popular with workers in recent years.

Such programs, also known as earned wage access, allow workers to tap their paychecks before payday, often for a fee, according to the CFPB.

The CFPB proposed an interpretive rule on Thursday saying the programs — both those offered via employers and directly to users via fintech apps — are “consumer loans” subject to the Truth in Lending Act.

More than 7 million workers accessed about $22 billion in wages before payday in 2022, according to a CFPB analysis of employer-sponsored programs also published Thursday. The number of transactions jumped more than 90% from 2021 to 2022, the agency said.

If finalized as written, the rule would require companies offering paycheck advances to make additional disclosures to users, helping borrowers make more informed decisions, the CFPB said.

Perhaps most important, costs or fees incurred by consumers to access their paychecks early would need to be expressed as an annual percentage rate, or APR, akin to credit card interest rates, according to legal experts.

The typical earned-wage-access user pays fees that amount to a 109.5% APR, despite the service often being marketed as a “free or low-cost solution,” according to the CFPB.

Retail sales were unchanged in June from May, after being revised upward to a 0.3% increase in May, according to the Commerce Department report Tuesday. Last month, April sales were revised downward — a 0.2% decline, from unchanged. Sales rose 0.6% in March and 0.9% in February. That comes after sales fell 1.1% in January, dragged down in part by inclement weather.

Sales at gas stations and auto dealerships weighed down the figure. Excluding gas prices and auto sales, retail sales rose 0.8%. Sales at gas stations were down 0.3%, while business at auto stores fell 0.2%, as dealerships were disrupted by a multiday outage after cyberattacks on a software supplier.

The snapshot offers only a partial look at consumer spending and doesn’t include many services, including travel and hotel lodges. But the lone services category – restaurants – registered an uptick of 0.3%.

Elsewhere, plenty of areas were strong. Online sales rose 1.9%, while clothing and accessories store sales rose 0.6%. Department stores posted a 0.6% increase. Stores selling building materials and garden supplies rose 1.4%.

The return of Obama-era net neutrality rules is temporarily halted through the beginning of next month, according to a court of appeals order released Friday.  The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit put a temporary stay until August 5 on the rules the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) voted to restore in April.

The temporary halt put in place comes after multiple broadband providers filed a motion in favor of a stay on the FCC’s restored rules.

Net neutrality rules aim to bar broadband providers from blocking or throttling internet traffic to some websites and speed up access to others that pay extra fees.

The rules were put in place under former President Obama in 2015, but the Trump administration repealed them in 2017.

Supporters of net neutrality, like Democratic FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel, say the rules help to ensure a fair and open internet. But critics such as Republican FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr argue the rules expand government control over the internet to solve a problem that has not been as pervasive as supporters of the rules warned.

The Labor Department said Friday that its producer price index — which tracks inflation before it reaches consumers — rose 0.2% from May to June after being unchanged the month before. Excluding food and energy prices, which tend to bounce around from month to month, so-called core wholesale prices increased 0.4% from May and 3% from June 2023.

The June increase was attributed to a sharp rise in final demand services, specifically trade services margins, which soared 1.9% from May and offset lower energy prices and still-falling goods production prices. It’s the largest monthly increase for trade services since March 2022.

“The increase was broad-based among wholesalers and retailers of fuel, autos and other goods, but almost certainly is not the start of a resurgence in margins,” Ian Shepherdson, chairman and chief economist for Pantheon Macroeconomics, wrote in a note to clients on Friday. “The data are volatile and often revised a lot. Margins will come under increasing pressure as growth in consumers’ spending continues to slow.”