Brian Dake

The Department of Workforce Development (DWD) recently released the 2017 Unemployment Insurance (U) Financial Outlook Report, which projects continued growth for the Wisconsin UI Trust Fund throughout the projection period. In addition to continued growth, the UI Trust Fund is predicted to have a balance of $1.2 billion or greater on June 30th, which would result in the third straight year that Wisconsin employers who participate in the UI program would experience a tax reduction. Due to the vastly improved Wisconsin economy and common-sense reforms made to the UI program, when combined with the reductions for the 2016 and 2017 tax years, tax schedule changes are estimated to reduce total UI taxes by over $150 million.

“Wisconsin’s UI Trust Fund has come a long way over the past six years, from a deficit of over $1 billion which brought over $360 million in additional costs to employers due to borrowing money from the federal government to a healthy UI Trust Fund balance of over $1 billion,” DWD Secretary Ray Allen said. “Wisconsin’s Trust Fund is continuing to grow, but we must ensure that we avoid the additional burden that borrowing money to pay benefits puts on the employers who fund UI benefit payments.”

The projections are included in the state’s 2017 UI Financial Outlook report, which DWD submitted on April 14 to the Governor and legislative leadership as required by statute.

Highlights of the report include:

• Wisconsin’s UI Trust Fund ended 2016 with a positive balance of roughly $1.2 billion
• UI benefits are expected to stay at historically low levels throughout the projection period, and the UI Trust Fund is expected to grow to over $1.5 billion by the end of 2019
• Wisconsin’s UI Trust Fund balance is projected to be greater than $1.2 billion on June 30, which will move UI taxes to the lowest tax schedule, schedule D. This would result in a tax reduction for the third straight tax year for most Wisconsin employers covered under the UI program.

Other indicators of the health of Wisconsin’s UI program and overall economy include:

• Initial UI claims ended 2016 at their lowest level since 1988. Year 2017 initial UI claims are running at their lowest levels in at least 30 years
• Continuing UI claims ended 2016 at their lowest levels since 1973. Year 2017 Continuing UI claims in Wisconsin are running at their lowest level in at least 30 years.

Attorney General Brad Schimel and West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey are leading a 14-state coalition urging a federal court to uphold an executive order aimed at reducing the regulatory burden on state governments and citizens.

“In recent years, bureaucrats in Washington, D.C. have been expanding their power and reach through regulatory actions, and little has been done to remove unnecessary federal regulations,” said Attorney General Schimel. “This executive order will protect Wisconsin from more years of the same, allow Wisconsinites to operate in a simplified regulatory environment, and protect our state’s sovereignty.”

The friend-of-the-court brief, filed late Monday, defends the “1-in-2-out” rule, which strives to eliminate unnecessary and costly regulation by requiring the federal bureaucracy to do away with two regulations for every new rule it creates. The coalition argues that the executive order effectively reins in a bureaucracy that has implemented a far greater regulatory burden than Congress ever envisioned.

The brief further contends past presidents, of both political parties, have enacted similar mechanisms to ensure review of regulations within the executive branch. Such measures have instructed agencies to consider the cumulative costs, the impact on the national economy and the effect of rules on state and local government.

Wisconsin and West Virginia filed the coalition’s brief before the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. Other states participating are Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Georgia, Kansas, Louisiana, Michigan, Nevada, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Texas and Wyoming.

President Trump will sign a double-barreled executive order Tuesday that will clamp down on guest worker visas and require agencies to buy more goods and services from U.S. companies and workers.

Trump will sign the so-called “Buy American, Hire American” executive order during a visit to Snap-On Tools in Kenosha, Wis., Tuesday, said two senior administration officials who briefed reporters on the order Monday.

By combining aspects of immigration policy with federal procurement regulations, Trump is using executive action to advance his philosophy of economic nationalism without waiting for action from Congress.  But like many of his previous executive orders, the order will largely call on cabinet secretaries to fill in the details with reports and recommendations about what the administration can legally do.

Specifically targeted: The H-1B visa program, which allows 85,000 foreign workers into the United States each year to take specific high-skilled jobs with U.S. companies. The program is popular with the information technology industry, which Trump has accused of “importing low-wage workers on H-1B visas to take jobs from young college-trained Americans.”

The “Buy American” portion of the order will tighten the waivers and exemptions that agencies use to get around procurement laws that favor American-made goods, and require agency heads to sign off on those waivers. It will require agencies to consider whether foreign governments are using unfair trade practices when considering the lowest responsible bidder. And it includes language requiring transportation projects to use steel “melted and poured” in the United States.

With the U.S. saturated with milk and Wisconsin dairy farmers desperately seeking buyers, a new state-led dairy trade mission to Mexico announced Thursday comes at a critical time.

Ben Brancel, secretary of the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection, will lead a delegation of state officials and representatives from nine dairy and agricultural companies to Aguascalientes, Mexico, May 4-7 where they will attend Expo Leche, Mexico’s largest annual dairy industry conference. State officials say the goal is to strengthen Wisconsin’s relations with its existing dairy customers but also to find new opportunities for the state’s dairy businesses.

Brancel said the trade mission to Mexico was in planning long before the recent situation that was created when Grassland Dairy Products Inc. of Greenwood informed several dozen Wisconsin dairy farms it no longer would accept milk from them after May 1. Grassland lost its Canadian customers, who each day purchased more than 1 million pounds of ultra-filtered milk, a product with elevated protein content that’s typically used in cheese production, so Grassland had to reduce its milk intake.

With U.S.-Mexico relations strained from recent actions by the Trump administration over construction of a border wall and a pledge to reopen negotiations for the North American Free Trade Agreement, Brancel wants Mexico to know Wisconsin values its trade partnership. About $3 billion in Wisconsin exports went to Mexico in 2016, making it the state’s second-largest trading partner behind Canada.

“But we also are trying to identify new distributorships so we can market (Wisconsin dairy) products,” he said. A significant player and potential major customer could be the Domino’s Pizza operation in Mexico, Brancel said.

“We want to encourage them to use Wisconsin cheese on their pizza,” Brancel said. “Another aspect of this trip is to make sure our customers in Mexico are getting what they need, payments are coming to (Wisconsin) and products from Wisconsin are arriving in good quality with no problems.”

Brancel also has meetings scheduled with Mexico’s minister of agriculture and other government officials to discuss potential opportunities for Wisconsin dairy products. Wisconsin sends a lot of finished products to Mexico, including cheese, but there could be opportunities for whey protein and other milk products as well as ingredients used in food production, he said.

Mexico purchased about $247 million in dairy products from Wisconsin last year, according to state estimates.

“One of the reasons we have to focus on Mexico is that they are one of our biggest trading partners,” Stephenson said. He said other dairy producing nations, including New Zealand, also may see opportunity in Mexico, but the U.S. has the advantage of proximity.

“The strong dollar, I’d categorize that more as headwinds and shouldn’t impact sales too much, but we may have to discount prices to make our products more competitive on the global market,” Stephenson said.

The Wisconsin Department of Transportation (WisDOT) has realized let savings over the course of the state fiscal year. “Today, I am directing WisDOT to advance $65 million in projects statewide (see map) into state fiscal year 2017,” Governor Scott Walker said. “In addition, WisDOT is projecting an additional $38 million in revenues, which the Legislature can allocate into the 2017-19 biennial budget. In total, these actions free up more than $100 million in funds for additional transportation projects due to new revenues and savings.”

“Savings on the highway projects we planned for this year allows us to do more projects with existing funds. This June, WisDOT will fund 21 additional projects around the state,” noted Wisconsin Department of Transportation Secretary Dave Ross.

Lower fuel prices and more competitive bids on projects have resulted in increased savings on road projects. Using these savings now means WisDOT will accomplish more road work in the current fiscal year and provide additional resources to the Legislature in planning the next budget. Improving more roadways and bridges now, before inflation reduces purchasing power, and taking advantage of the savings will help preserve our assets and maintain infrastructure.

“We are also generating more revenue for transportation without raising the gas tax or registration fees,” noted Secretary Ross.

WisDOT just completed an updated revenue forecast and is projecting an additional $38 million in available revenues. This amount will be added to the Transportation Fund’s FY18 opening balance:

“The redirected let savings and increased revenue forecasts are great news for the state,” said Governor Walker. “We’ll do more projects and bond $44.8 million less than planned. We are working and winning for Wisconsin.”

President Donald Trump has scrapped the tax plan he campaigned on and is going back to the drawing board in a search for Republican consensus behind legislation to overhaul the U.S. tax system. Administration officials say it’s now unlikely that a tax overhaul will meet the August deadline set by Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin.

White House aides say the goal is to cut tax rates sharply enough to improve the economic picture in depressed rural and industrial pockets of the country where many Trump voters live. But the administration so far has swatted down alternative ways for raising revenues, such as a carbon tax, to offset lower rates.

Trump, who brands himself as a deal-maker, has not said which trade-offs he might accept and he has remained noncommittal on the leading blueprint, from Rep. Kevin Brady, chairman of the Ways and Means Committee. Brady, R-Texas, has proposed a border adjustment system, which would eliminate corporate deductions on imports, to raise $1 trillion over 10 years that could fund lower corporate tax rates.

But that possibility has rankled retailers who say it would lead to higher prices and threaten millions of jobs, while some lawmakers have worried that the system would violate World Trade Organization rules. Brady has said he intends to amend the blueprint but has not spelled out how he would do so.

Other options are being shopped on Capitol Hill. One circulating this past week would change the House Republican plan to eliminate much of the payroll tax and cut corporate tax rates. This would require a new dedicated funding source for Social Security.

Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, a member of the Senate Finance Committee, said that all of the trial balloons surfacing in public don’t represent the work that’s being done behind the scenes. “It’s not really what’s going on,” Portman said. “What’s going on is they’re working with on various ideas.”